Slaughter in Somalia
By Alasdair Biggs
The US 'covert' intervention in Somalia has degenerated into yet another horrendous bloodbath, inflicted on needlessly suffering Somalian residents.
Today the Guardian reported that a human rights organisation had recorded 381 dead and 555 wounded in bitter fighting in Mogadishu since just last Thursday. This included only those deaths they were able to confirm from hospitals, burial grounds and residents and DO NOT include Ethiopian casualties, nor do they report whether this includes Somali government or AU forces. From what little information is coming out of Mogadishu, which is seeing its worst fighting since the US debacle in 1993, it appears that the Ethiopian troops and government forces have certainly suffered a minimum of dozens killed, perhaps rather more (1), however, there are no reliable estimates available at time of writing.
So the situation appears thus, the US has backed an Ethiopian intervention in Somalia which before last week had killed at least hundreds of civilians plus low thousands more combatants(2). Scores of people have disappeared into Ethiopian detention centres where they will be tortured, and Kenya, the US and UK special forces/ops, have intercepted, and rendered to Ethiopian troops, hundreds of refugees who fled the fighting on Southern Somalia during the initial Ethiopian offensive.(3) Yet we also must not forget the US airstrikes using AC-130 Gunships in at least 3 areas, reportedly multiple times in at least 2 of the targeted areas, with eye witness accounts of upto 120 killed at one location alone, and rumours of more like 200+. In another of these areas struck by the US gunships, 70 herdsmen were murdered in one location west of Kismayo in Southern Somalia, in what was described by a local eye witness as a extended night long barrage of the area they were herding.
Al Jazeera reported on Saturday that the situation in Mogadishu is so bad that;
"There is no chance of taking the wounded and dead people because of the heavy artillery and anti-aircraft weapons," he said. Salado Yebarow, another Mogadishu resident, was reported by Reuters as saying: "I have been here 16 years and never seen anything like this. "The whole city is being shelled indiscriminately."
Multiple news agencies reported accounts of bodies littering the streets, and of Ethiopian and government soldier's corpses being paraded and mutilated, on two separate days, by enraged residents wanting revenge. What is little understood by the condemning tone of MSM reports, is that these unfortunate residents were seeking revenge after the attacking pro-government forces began using Ethiopian air power and artillery against certain residential areas of Mogadishu. The areas attacked were said to be insurgent strongholds, which to an extent may be true, however, to shell heavily populated neighbourhoods in such a way is clearly going to lead to indiscriminate bloodshed and destruction. Residents were enraged and called for war against the occupiers, yet again people are turned into active enemies by brutal usage of firepower in a city.
Direct US participation in the debacle
All the time the US has had 'advisors' embedded with Ethiopian and Somali government forces, significant presence of these special ops personnel has been confirmed beyond reasonable doubt by witnesses, US military 'off the record' leaks and second hand accounts. Indeed, with the large US Special operations base in Dijbouti, which is only a short flight away, it is easy to see how this would be so.
There is, predictably enough, no doubt that Ethiopia's dictatorial and repressive government, has also been handsomely paid to carry out this operation. Including the usual military aid and favourable credit, plus the usual hefty amount of bundles of 100 dollar bills these special ops people are so good at handing out to local warlords and oppressors of the people.
Those who think that this is just a battle which will pass are mistaken, there are many instances of attacks on pro-government military, police, intelligence personnel and those who work for them. These murders and bomb attacks by insurgents are occurring not just in Mogadishu but over large areas of Somalia which were previously controlled by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).
So this is what the US backed intervention in Somalia has so far wrought on its shelled, bombed, occupied and butchered residents. In 3 short months a newly stable and reviving country (4) has been transformed into a raging civil war, with thousands killed and more thousands of wounded. In Mogadishu, we now have the disturbing spectre of a new 21st century urban 4GW battleground, which is almost certainly being directed by those US Special Ops 'advisors' and their remote controlled, urban-warfare designed, toy sized aerial drones. (5)
Pity those poor Somalians, for they have suffered so much over the last 15 years, and now they are suffering horribly yet again. Whilst the US is involved in deciding their fate, their suffering, and the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians - the murder of urban 4th generation war will not cease. A very grave war crime has been committed here, setting the progress and human development of Somalia back by years. Let us hope that one day those who have orchestrated such chaos from the Pentagon, Langley and elsewhere (6), will pay for their crimes.
Notes
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(1) There are varying accounts here, but it does appear that there have been dozens and perhaps even a hundred or more Ethiopian or Somali government forces killed with a similar number wounded. Eye witnesses have spoken of trucks filled with wounded soldiers being trucked to a military hospital outside of Mogadishu.
(2) The death toll has been vastly underreported. In the initial week alone of the Ethiopian US-backed attack there were local accounts of over a thousand Islamic Courts Union fighters killed and at least the same again wounded. Plus civilian deaths in the hundreds and many hundreds or even over a thousand wounded. Then we also take into account Ethiopian casualties and pro-Somali government casualties, unknown and unreported by any reliable source, however, they are likely to be at least in the low hundreds killed plus similar wounded, and potentially rather higher still. Then add the 200 hundred or rather more killed by the US airstrikes, hundreds killed in various other clashes and attacks, and now hundreds more killed and many hundreds wounded. Once all these casualties are included, the death toll is certainly well above 2000, with perhaps a few thousand wounded. And both of these numbers could very easily be no more than 50% of the actual toll of killed and wounded. Now how often do you see this kind of butchery reported in the Western media? Never, because it is not something that they want people to notice. They do not want people to know that so far deaths are so far upto a few thousand killed and a few thousand wounded.
(3) reports are widespread on the internet of refugees being detained, with some Western men present, and then rendered to Ethiopian and Somali government troops. There are further indications that dozens or more people have been 'disappeared' by Ethiopia's active military in areas they control.
(4) before the attack by Ethiopian and Somali government forces, there were many accounts coming out of ICU controlled towns and cities that greater peacefulness had returned and social services were being organised, for the first time in a long time. The atmosphere was said to have been better for conducting business, and there had been a certain amount of economic revival in areas stabilised by the ICU. Businessmen were reporting a healthy trade and imports were flowing into Mogadishu.
(5) Special Forces now have available to them drones which are the sized of remote controlled toy planes, which are regularly used for operations in a given area, such as a city. Small and hence hard to shoot down, they are becoming increasingly common. There is widespread proof of this available on the web.
(6) Those who have orchestrated this barbarity will be mostly in the US military or the CIA (hence Langley) and other centres of secret US covert operations.
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