Last week’s US air raids in the Lower Juba region of southern Somalia near the Kenyan border, caused heavy civilian casualties, according to local reports. Some of the attacks apparently hit groups of nomadic herdsmen on their way to watering… Read moreSomalia: US raids wiped out nomads; Kenya next domino?
Ethiopian and US forces are still in pursuit of three supposed al-Qaida militants originally said to have been killed in the US airstrike of Jan. 8, with an anonymous “senior US official” in Kenya telling AP that they all survived… Read moreSomalia: facts of US air-strike disputed; exiles deported for opposing intervention
Unknown Somali fighters opened fire with automatic weapons and launched rockets at Ethiopian and allied Somalian troops in Mogadishu Jan. 9. The attack came as the troops had established themselves in a building formerly used by the police force. No… Read moreSomalia: US airstrikes, anti-Ethiopia resistance
Another sign of Nigeria’s social breakdown—and similar tensions are reported from Ghana. From Xinhua, Jan. 9: Six persons were killed at the weekend in a bloody clash between herdsmen and farmers in Korenganuwa village in Nigeria’s northwestern state of Zamfara,… Read moreNigeria: Fulani herders in bloody clash with farmers
A pretty astounding figure. But as we noted the last time it happened, in May: when resource hyper-exploitation co-exists with dire poverty, such incidents are absolutely inevitable. From IRIN, Dec. 28: LAGOS – The Nigerian Red Cross has taken the… Read moreNigeria: 2,000 dead in ten years of pipeline blasts
Fighting exploded between Islamic Courts Union (ICU) forces and the “official” Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia Dec. 20, just as the ICU’s deadline for Ethiopian troops to quit the country or face a declaration of “jihad” expired. Rocket, mortar… Read moreSomalia: “jihad” against Ethiopian forces opens
From The Independent, Dec. 15: France yesterday defended recent fighter jet raids on towns bordering Sudan’s Darfur region by claiming the aggressive action was aimed at preventing regional chaos. In the past two weeks, with minimal publicity, Mirage F1 jets… Read moreFrench air-strikes in Central African Republic; Darfur crisis spreads
A press release from the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard, Dec. 13: Retaliatory Attacks Also Kill Highlanders in Gambella Region Cambridge, MA – Soldiers in the Ethiopian military have killed, raped, and otherwise abused hundreds of Anuak civilians… Read moreEthiopia: military atrocities against Anuak civilians
The US and Ethiopia appear to be grooming the northern autonomous regions of Somalia—Puntland and Somaliland—as proxies to fight the Islamic Courts Union that controls the traditional capital, Mogadishu. So: should we be supporting this as a defense of freedom… Read moreSomalia: Ethiopia grooming Puntland to fight Islamists?
From Radio HornAfrik, Mogadishu, in Somali, Dec. 8 (awkward translation as provided by BBC Monitoring): Somalia: Demonstration against deployment of foreign troops held in Mogadishu [Presenter] A demonstration condemning the UN Security Council’s decision to deploy foreign troops in Somalia… Read moreSomalia: 3,000 demonstrate against Ethiopia, US and UN
Thousands of Somalis chanted anti-US slogans at an Islamist protest against a Washington-backed plan to send foreign peacekeepers to prop up the country’s weak interim government Dec. 4. In a decrepit Mogadishu football stadium, Somalis shouted “Down with the USA!”… Read moreUS backing Ethiopia’s Somalia intervention?
Gus Selassie for Global Insight Daily Analysis via BBC Monitoring, Dec. 5: Ethiopia and Somali Islamists in Last-Ditch Talks to Avert All-Out War Despite the recent war of words and the deep-rooted animosity that appears to exist between the two… Read moreLast ditch talks to avert Ethiopian-Somali war
