Don't mess with the US

[Steeler [Crawler2]]

New York Times
February 23, 2007
Pg. 1

U.S. Used Bases In Ethiopia To Hunt Al Qaeda In Africa

By Michael R. Gordon and Mark Mazzetti

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - The American military quietly waged a campaign
from Ethiopia last month to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda in
the Horn of Africa, including the use of an airstrip in eastern Ethiopia
to mount airstrikes against Islamic militants in neighboring Somalia,
according to American officials.

The close and largely clandestine relationship with Ethiopia also
included significant sharing of intelligence on the Islamic militants'
positions and information from American spy satellites with the
Ethiopian military.
Members of a secret American Special Operations unit, Task Force 88,
were deployed in Ethiopia and Kenya, and ventured into Somalia, the
officials said.

The counterterrorism effort was described by American officials as a
qualified success that disrupted terrorist networks in Somalia, led to
the death or capture of several Islamic militants and involved a
collaborative relationship with Ethiopia that had been developing for
years.

But the tally of the dead and captured does not as yet include some
Qaeda leaders - including Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Fahid Mohammed
Ally Msalam - whom the United States has hunted for their suspected
roles in the attacks on American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in
1998. With Somalia still in a chaotic state, and American and African
officials struggling to cobble together a peacekeeping force for the
war-ravaged country, the long-term effects of recent American operations
remain unclear.

It has been known for several weeks that American Special Operations
troops have operated inside Somalia and that the United States carried
out two strikes on Qaeda suspects using AC-130 gunships. But the extent
of American cooperation with the recent Ethiopian invasion into Somalia
and the fact that the Pentagon secretly used an airstrip in Ethiopia to
carry out attacks have not been previously reported. The secret campaign
in the Horn of Africa is an example of a more aggressive approach the
Pentagon has taken in recent years to dispatch Special Operations troops
globally to hunt high-level terrorism suspects. President Bush gave the
Pentagon powers after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks to carry out these missions, which historically had
been reserved for intelligence operatives.

When Ethiopian troops first began a large-scale military offensive in
Somalia late last year, officials in Washington denied that the Bush
administration had given its tacit approval to the Ethiopian government.
In interviews over the past several weeks, however, officials from
several American agencies with a hand in Somalia policy have described a
close alliance between Washington and the Ethiopian government that was
developed with a common purpose: rooting out Islamic radicalism inside
Somalia.

Indeed, the Pentagon for several years has been training Ethiopian
troops for counterterrorism operations in camps near the Somalia border,
including Ethiopian special forces called the Agazi Commandos, which
were part of the Ethiopian offensive in Somalia.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to discuss details of the
American operation, but some officials agreed to provide specifics
because they saw it as a relative success story. They said that the
close relationship had included the sharing of battlefield intelligence
on the Islamists' positions - a result of an Ethiopian request to Gen.
John P.
Abizaid, then the commander of the United States Central Command. John
D.
Negroponte, the director of national intelligence at the time, then
authorized spy satellites to be diverted to provide information for
Ethiopian troops, the officials said.

The deepening American alliance with Ethiopia is the latest twist in the
United States' on-and-off intervention in Somalia, beginning with an
effort in 1992 to distribute food to starving Somalis and evolving into
deadly confrontation in 1993 between American troops and fighters loyal
to a Somali warlord, Mohammed Farah Aidid. The latest chapter began last
June when the Council of Islamic Courts, an armed fundamentalist
movement, defeated a coalition of warlords backed by the Central
Intelligence Agency and took power in Mogadishu, the capital. The
Islamists were believed to be sheltering Qaeda militants involved in the
embassy bombings, as well as in a
2002 hotel bombing in Kenya.

After a failed C.I.A. effort to arm and finance Somali warlords, the
Bush administration decided on a policy to bolster Somalia's weak
transitional government. This decision brought the American policy in
line with Ethiopia's.

As the Islamists' grip on power grew stronger, their militias began to
encircle Baidoa, where the transitional government was operating in
virtual exile. Ethiopian officials pledged that if the Islamists
attacked Baidoa, they would respond with a full-scale assault.

While Washington resisted officially endorsing an Ethiopian invasion,
American officials from several government agencies said that the Bush
administration decided last year that an incursion was the best option
to dislodge the Islamists from power.

When the Ethiopian offensive began on Dec. 24, it soon turned into a
rout, somewhat to the Americans' surprise. Armed with American
intelligence, the Ethiopians' tank columns, artillery batteries and
military jets made quick work of the poorly trained and ill-equipped
Islamist militia.

"The Ethiopians just wiped out entire grid squares; it was a
blitzkrieg,"
said one official in Washington who had helped develop the strategy
toward Somalia.

As the Islamists retreated, the Qaeda operatives and their close aides
fled south toward a swampy region. Using information provided by
Ethiopian forces in Somalia as well as American intelligence, a task
force from the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command began
planning direct strikes.

On Dec. 31, the largely impotent transitional government of Somalia
submitted a formal request to the American ambassador in Kenya asking
for the United States to take action against the militants.

General Abizaid called Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and informed
him that the Central Command was sending additional Special Operations
forces to the region. The deployment was carried out under the terms of
an earlier, classified directive that gave the military the authority to
kill or capture senior Qaeda operatives if it was determined that the
failure to act expeditiously meant the United States would lose a
"fleeting opportunity" to neutralize the enemy, American officials said.

On Jan. 6, two Air Force AC-130 gunships, aircraft with devastating
firepower, arrived at a small airport in eastern Ethiopia. American
Special Operations troops operating in Kenya, working with the Kenyan
military, also set up positions along the southern border to capture
militants trying to flee the country.

A Navy flotilla began to search for ships that might be carrying fleeing
Qaeda operatives. Support planes were deployed in Djibouti. F-15Es from
Al Udeid air base in Qatar also flew missions. Intelligence was shared
with Ethiopia and Kenya through C.I.A. operatives in each country.
American military planners also worked directly with Ethiopian and
Kenyan military officials.

On Jan. 7, one day after the AC-130s arrived in Ethiopia, the airstrike
was carried our near Ras Kamboni, an isolated fishing village on the
Kenyan border.

According to American officials, the primary target of the strike was
Aden Hashi Ayro, a young military commander trained in Afghanistan who
was one of the senior leaders of the Council of Islamic Courts.

Several hours after the strike, Ethiopian troops and one member of the
American Special Operations team arrived at the site and confirmed that
eight people had been killed and three wounded, all of whom were
described as being armed. After sifting through the debris, they found a
bloodied passport and other items that led them to believe Mr. Ayro was
injured in the strike and probably died. Several members of the Special
Operations team were also in Somalia at the time of the strike, one
official said.

The second AC-130 strike, on Jan. 23, had another of the Islamic
council's senior leaders, Sheik Ahmed Madobe, as its target. Mr. Madobe
survived and was later captured by the Ethiopians, Americans say.

American officials said that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the mastermind of
the
1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the alleged ringleader
of Al Qaeda's East African cell, remains at large. Some officials
caution that while the Ethiopians have said additional "high-priority
targets," including Abu Talha al-Sudani, a leading member of the cell,
were killed in their own airstrikes, American intelligence officials
have yet to confirm this.

In late January, American officials played a role in securing the safe
passage of Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the second-highest-ranking Islamist
leader, from southern Somalia to Nairobi, Kenya. The exact role of
American involvement is still not clear, but some American officials
consider him to be a moderate Islamist.

Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting from Nairobi, Kenya.

[Padishah]

No one messes with America.

America meddles, and makes the situation worse, as I've documented numerous times, and then is surprised when the thing goes to hell and their interests are threatened. Here's a hint; don't meddle!

[Warya_dude]

Somalia should have more ties with China and Iran to make America afraid

[Padishah]

China would sell us in a heartbeat in exchange for an American favour or whatnot. Whatever happened to self-reliance?

[Steeler [Crawler2]]

Padishah is, of course, quíte right. Somalia needs to work with America, not against it. Annoying a massive power is foolish.

[Padishah]

Don't confuse my pragmatism as endorsement for pro-American policy.

Working with America is like injecting poison straight into your vein. I'd rather be a neutral country ala Switzerland and work on development Independent of infernal American meddling.

One can dream.

[Warya_dude]

America is already loosing its power daily....

by 2040 China will be the world leading super power

EU next

India third

....then America

[eyes-only]

What now?...killing a few mujahideen here and a few nomads there makes you feel big? You guys with all your settilite technology and military might, with all your warships and warplanes could not kill a single UIC leader.... And, after several years you still can't defeat the Taliban.... Plus, you are getting an as$whipping in Iraq and you come here with your 'Don't mess with the US' rhetoric....p-l-e-a-s-e!.... maybe you need to have a few more bottles of whisky to get real.

[Padishah]

Do you seriously think China will be any better?

If America has a history of setting up or supporting Despots, then you aint seen nothing yet. The Chinese will be intolerable, and all the easier for them with their controlled population. In America, at least, public officials can be embarrassed into action by the few determined who will stop at nothing to see justice. The system sometimes works in rare cases, but it beats no system in China. Nothing to check Beijin except the pragmatism of their plans, and the ruthless force required to achieve them.

Before you delude yourself into a corner you cannot escape, consider what the tradeoff would mean to your country and your people.

[Steeler [Crawler2]]

"What now?...killing a few mujahideen here and a few nomads there makes you feel big?"

No, it doesn't make me feel big, but it sure is fun.

Padishah, you're on a roll today. I tend to agree with most of what you have said, other than you get carried away with the "America is avraicious" theme.

[Lacageylacag]

It pays to stay far away from the white infidel.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Shi'ite vice president and a cabinet minister were wounded in an apparent assassination attempt on Monday when a bomb killed six people at a ministry in Baghdad where they were attending an official ceremony.

Police sources said Public Works Minister Riad Ghareeb, also a Shi'ite, had been seriously wounded in the blast at a hall of the ministry. Aides to Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said he was suffering light wounds caused by shrapnel.

The attack was the latest in a series that defied a security crackdown in Baghdad that is seen as a final attempt to halt all-out civil war in Iraq.

[FreedomOfSpeech-]

LoooooL madmac


love the title...every one knows you got the best military, no one is saying you don't man...it's just America is the fastest nation to become an empire and as you know the faster/taller you get, the harder and painful you fall


Lets wait till the giant and future super power nation of china thumps her chest...

[Steeler [Crawler2]]

Frankly, I think everyone, including America, has a poor read on China. China is not looking to become a global military or political power. China is looking to expand its economic power and pull its population out of poverty. The vast majority of Chinese live well below the powerty line.

China and the US have developed a symbiotic, if somewhat flawed, relationship. We need them, they need us.

[FreedomOfSpeech-]

Mac, wasn't it just 50 years ago when China sent human waves of chinese soldiers and you were forced to retreat at the sheer bombardment of their men that they were throwing at you?



Sure madmac, that's why China is taking all the resources from Africa and giving better deals to them than America was offering...which is why America is planing to build a larger African base to combat their interest in africa...which all it really means in texas language is, "holy shiit, the chinks are taking our resources that we were going to take from africa"




BTW, didn't china launch a weapon at an old satilte a few weeks back?? Didn't that alarm America at the sleeping giant??


Also, China dose have a lot of poor people but even the greatest Empire has poverty too....just look at the streets and you will see it...poverty has nothing to do with sending human wave after wave of little short men with good staminia...at the end of the day, China will clash with the US...it's not if, it's when and when they do..good luck, cuz you can kill many chinks, but all they have to do is kill you before you kill 400 of them to win the war

[Steeler [Crawler2]]

Freedom
As well as the Chinese Swim Team does, I think China would be hard pressed to send human waves swimming across the pacific.

China hasn't had a serious war since Korea. China participates in no UN operations and never has. China has no force projection capability and doesn't seek it. Look at the structure of their armed forces and it is transparent they spend almost all of their defense resources on the national army which, given geograghy, is a defensive force,, Some of advanced technology defense, and what little they do spend on power projection is littoral in nature designed to be able to retake Taiwan by force - maybe someday. China has a very limited navy mostly designed for coastal operations and has very little strategic lift as well. It is also now a professional army, China no longer has mandatory conscription. If you look at how their armed forces are structured, the intent of that force becomes quickly apparent. But some just love to fear monger.