By Hamsa Omar and Jason McLure | Bloomberg
Somalia declared a state of emergency amid increasing violence in the war-torn country as the leader of neighboring Ethiopia's [tribal junta] threatened to invade if its security is threatened by Islamists seeking to take power.
Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s declaration came after three government officials, including Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden, died in separate incidents last week.
“I take this decision after we encountered many attacks from insurgents to remove the government,” Sharif told reporters at the presidential palace today in the capital, Mogadishu. “We decided to impose martial law in order to overcome the risky conditions that exist in the country.”
The United Nations said last month that al-Qaeda has sent as many as 300 fighters to Somalia to support Islamists and warlords seeking to topple Sharif. The foreigners are training members of the al-Shabaab rebel group and helping them mobilize funds and weapons, Nicolas Bwakira, the head of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, said on May 22.
Somalia’s government called for foreign troops to enter the country to help fight the insurgents on June 20. A day earlier, Ethiopia's Prime Minister warlord Meles Zenawi said he would reinvade Somalia if Hisbul Islam, led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, and its allies in the al-Shabaab militia pose a “serious threat” to his country.
U.S.-backed Ethiopian Woyanne troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, ousting the Islamic Courts Union government that had briefly captured southern Somalia. The army occupied the Mogadishu and the southern town of Baidoa in an effort to bolster the government, though the forces became bogged down in a guerrilla war with Islamist militias that now control most of the country’s south. They withdrew in January.
‘Existential Threat’
If Aweys is “a real threat, an existential threat to us and if he wants to be attacked then of course we will try to do what we did before,” Meles said in an interview in Addis Ababa. “If he poses a clear and present danger, then we will deal with a clear and present danger in any way we can.”
Aweys was previously based in Asmara, capital of Eritrea. Ethiopia fought a border war with the neighboring country from 1998 to 2000. Eritrea has denied it supports Aweys.
“We don’t like him, there is no pretension on our side that we like him or are comfortable with him,” said Meles. “We would like to see his back.”
Aweys said in a statement to reporters yesterday in Mogadishu that the rebels would oppose foreign troops deployed in Somalia “by any means.”
Al-Shabaab has been accused by the U.S. of providing safe-haven and logistical support to al-Qaeda, which aims to establish a caliphate, or Islamic government, in Somalia. The militia vowed to defeat any foreign troops that come to the aid of the government.
“Our cats and dogs are eager to eat the dead bodies of your boys if they will deploy to our territory,” Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, a spokesman for al-Shabaab, told reporters in Mogadishu.
Somalia has requested assistance from the United Nations, the AU, the Arab League and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in East Africa to help deal with an emerging humanitarian crisis as thousands of people flee fighting in Mogadishu.
The AU Commission said in a statement late yesterday that Somalia’s government “has the right to seek support from AU member states and the larger international community, in order to protect the Somali people.”
Somalia is in its 18th year of civil war and hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre, the former dictator, in 1991.
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- Meles Zenawi declares 'Mission Accomplished' in Somalia
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I am sure weyane was hoping for the Somali insergents to sqeeze this useless so called government, because this is a perfect oportunity to hoodwink the Obama Adminstration. By sending it's troops back to that lawless country it will say: "Look Mr. Obama, I am fighting with terrorists and I must be encouraged and helped financially and materially, and not be criticised or punished for my dismal human right record." weyane is an evil bandit that will say and do anything just to servive. It's evil design might have worked in the past, but the Obama administration is to smart to fall for weyane's desperate actions.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
what is the purpose of reinvading somalia by crime minster abebe zenawe?I think it is to please usa and the 80 millions of Ethiopin people would never support him this time.if the americans want to go to war with somalia it is fine but why on the expenses of ethiopians.it is time the Ehiopian people and army to say enough is enough.one day the crime minster of Ethiopia will go for ever but the two sisterly countries will live side by side.Time is changing, it is the time people of horn of Africa work together for unity and prosperity.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Both Meles and the AU are jokes and their responses to the situation have shown as much collective incompetence as the west in terms of issues taking place in the horn of Africa. We can't name one country that is right or just in terms of day to day realities for residents. And Meles should look in the mirror-or what is left of it when the shock of his ugliness-inside and out shatters it. WE ALL WANT TO SEE YOUR BACK!!!
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm