Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Paper Exposes Role of Ethiopia and Kenya in U.S. War Strategy Against Somalia

Tuesday, June 18th, 2013 at 12:10 am

SOMALIA: The case for a wrong
counterterrorism strategy

Muqdisho (RBC News) According to the writers of a new paper on Somalia, America’s counterterrorism strategy will fail if Jubaland regional administration takes off. The writers of the paper argue Somalia’s powerful neighbours–Kenya and Ethiopia– have their agenda and are backing up local warlords.

The writers of the paper believe that the Somali Federal Government is best placed as a counterterrorism partner. “If the current political crisis does devolve to violence, and Kenya and Ethiopia are not kept in check, war could re-emerge in a country too used to it,” Bass and Zimmerman argued.

Kenya and Ethiopia are America’s more resourceful and reliable counterterrorism partners. Ethiopia kicked Al Shabab out of many towns in southern Somalia whereas Kenya, with the help of Raskamboni Somali group, captured Kismayo last year. Somalia has no effective National Army but only an army made up of clan militias sometimes at war with each and dependent on AMISOM.

Bass And Zimmerman call the top Al Shabab commander Hassan Turki an “Ogadeni warlord”. Hassan Turki has never been a warlord. Had Bass and Zimmerman paid more attention to Somali political history they would have refrained from blaming Somalia’s neighbours for Somalis’ failings.

Raxanreeb.com

Related paper:
Challenges to America’s Counterterrorism Strategy in Somalia
http://www.criticalthreats.org/somalia/zimmerman-challenges-americas-counterterrorism-strategy-somalia-june-10-2013

1 comment:

The World Around Me said...

It is very often that the US uses tensions within groups to turn them against one another.