Ethiopia sends the Islamists reeling in Somalia

http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=3611

December 26, 2006

Ethiopia sends the Islamists reeling in Somalia: is there a lesson for Israel?

I posted this article with the assistance of my young Ethiopian Orthdox Christian Zionist mentee, Laban Seyoum to elicit exactly the comments that it has recieved vis a vis the ‘faltering Olmert Kadima government.’ Go forth you sons if Gideon, be not afraid and crush the perpetrators of terror in Hamastan, meaning Gaza. End the ‘rain of terror’ from the Qassem rockets falling on and killing hapless Israelis in Sderot and hitting strategic facilities in Ashkelon. And that’s just for starters. The ‘cease fire’ or hudna is a farce. Only concerted action with the resolve of the people of Israel behind it will work. If the Ethiopians can do it in Somalia with minimal U.S. aid, Israel can do likewise without so much as a bye your leave from the Oval office in Washington. In fact there may even be some quiet applause inside and outside the White House.

By Jerry Gordon

Tonight as we write this, Ethiopia appears on the verge of ‘crushing’ the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC) militias as invading forces rapidly approach the major city of Mogadishu.

The Islamists dreams of the CIC of a ‘Greater Somalia’ under shari’a law has all but gone up in smoke in the wake of bombings of Mogadishu’s airport by aging Mig aircraft of the Ethiopian Air Force flying virtually unopposed.

Ironically, this may be payback for the failed ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident that saw 18 U.S. airmen, Delta and Ranger force soldiers killed, 73 wounded and one captured in an unsuccessful U.N. humanitarian raid against warlords in October, 1993 in Mogadishu. The U.S. State Department announced its support for the Ethiopian operation and our military in the region may be re-supplying the invading force.

According, to Reuters news reports advancing Ethiopian forces estimate that more than 1,000 Islamist fighters have been killed and thousands more captured including foreign fighters.

Clearly, the U.S. which has air, naval, marine and special force assets in the region in neighboring Djibouti gave Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi the ‘green light’ to attack the Islamist by defending the faltering secular Somalia government at the federal capital in Baidoa.

CIC leaders Sheikh Hassan Daahir Aweys and Sheikh Shariif Sheikh Ahmed. who were in Eritrea this weekend to ‘discuss’ strategy with allies there came back to Mogadishu, but with today’s developments their whereabouts are unknown,

Meanwhile the hunt goes on inside liberated Somalia for the three al Qaeda perpetrators of the 1998 Kenyan and Tanzanian U.S. Embassies bombings that killed more than 200 and injured thousands and the 2002 Kenyan Israeli owned Paradise hotel blast that killed 13 and injured more than 80. They had been given refuge in Somalia by the CIC.

But the tensions created by the Taliban-like CIC militia with its shari’a law agenda in Somalia is not over. There is still the matter of possible irredentism from the Somaliland district, the former British Somaliland protectorate, that may declare its full independence. The district has operated autonomously since the fall of the last central government in 1991.

Moreover, there is the question of whether Eritrea’s millitary support of the CIC rebels-they were alleged to have supplied 3,000 troops- might unleash a renewal of the conflict that resulted in a ceasefire reached in December,2000 with a buffer zone created 25 kilometers inside Eritrea with a 2000 person UN force that separates more than 500,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian troops straddling the border. Eritrea has been accused by the U.N. of breaching the 2000 Cease Fire agreement in October, 2006 by moving troops and equipment in the zone.

According to knowledgeable sources, Eritrea has given sanctuary to the CIC rebels. It is rumored that the CIC had received Egyptian, Libyan, Yemeni, Saudi, Syrian and Iranian intelligence and military support.

The question of Iran’s role in backing the Taliban like Islamist rebels. There were rumored deliveries of military equipment by Iran by aircraft in July to the CIC militia forces at Mogadishu.

Whether Somalia dissolves into irredentism or the resurgence of warlordism following the Ethiopian invasion in support of the beleaguered government in Baidoa, the reality is that in the war on Global Jihad, the Islamists may have been vanquished for once.

And this with a country, Ethiopia equipped with aging Soviet era Mig trainer bombers and SU-27 aircraft. Upwards of 10,000 Ethiopian troops were involved in what PM Zenawi called ‘a defensive operation.’ Call it what you may, Ethiopian deserves credit for the first punch in the Islamist nose in the Horn of Africa. The brief and successful military operation may send a stunning message to the ‘realists’ of the Baker Hamilton Commission and our State Department that appeasement doesn’t pay.

The irony is that Israel with its advanced military equipment and trained mainline and reserve forces could accomplish another similar victory in the war against Global Jihad by re-entering Gaza and rooting out the Hamas and al Qaeda cadres killing Israelis daily such as occurred in Sderot today -with the unabated rain of Qassem rockets.

What the sons of the Lion of Judah have shown in Somalia to the faltering Olmert Kadima government is that it might follow suit, if it had the resolve and the ‘green light’ from the White House. Time will tell. But it can’t come soon enough for many of us who support Israel.

Kol hakavod (all honors) to Ethiopia and PM Zenawi for this victory against the Global Jihadists.

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Laban Seyoum assisted in the preparation of this article

Posted by Jerry Gordon @ 11:47 pm |
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"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

Psalm 82-8: Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You inherit all the nations.