(Updated: Originally posted January 10, 2007)
I love the in-article teaser:
"A dozen or more were killed. Were they terrorists or civilians?"
"Airstrike Rekindles Somalis’ Anger at the U.S." by JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and MARK MAZZETTI
MOGADISHU, Somalia, Jan. 9 — Somali officials said Tuesday that dozens of people were killed in an American airstrike on Sunday, most of them Islamist fighters fleeing in armed pickup trucks across a remote, muddy stretch of the KenyaSomalia border.
American officials... acknowledged that the identities of the victims were still unknown. Several residents of the area, in the southern part of the country, said dozens of civilians had been killed, and news of the attack immediately set off new waves of anti-American anger in Mogadishu...
The country’s Islamist movement swiftly seized much of Somalia last year and ruled with mixed success, bringing a much desired semblance of peace but also a harsh brand of Islam.
LIE!
The last remnants of the Islamist forces fled to Ras Kamboni, an isolated fishing village on the Kenyan border that residents said had been used as a terrorist sanctuary before. Starting in the mid-1990s, they said, the Islamists built trenches, hospitals and special terrorist classrooms in the village and taxed local fisherman to pay the costs. On Sunday, an American AC-130 gunship pounded the area around Ras Kamboni.
Yes, in the 90s the 'terrorists" did this. So that justifies THIS MURDER?
Abdul Rashid Hidig, a member of Somalia’s transitional parliament who represents the border area, the American airstrike on Sunday wiped out a long convoy of Islamist leaders trying to flee deeper into the bush:
“Their trucks got stuck in the mud and they were easy targets.”
Mr. Hidig said two civilians had been killed by the airstrike, but representatives of the Islamist forces said it had killed many more.
Their "trucks got stuck in the mud and they were easy targets?"
Oh, LORD, FORGIVE US!
The Islamists’ health director said dozens of nomadic herdsmen and their families were grazing their animals in the same wet valley that the Islamists were trying to drive across:
“Their donkeys, their camels, their cows — they’ve all been destroyed. And many children were killed.”
Holy shit! "Donkeys, camels, cows, CHILDREN?!"
Oh, LORD, I BEG FOR YOUR FORGIVENESS FOR WHAT IS BEING CARRIED OUT IN MY NAME!
Please!
Mustef Yunis Culusow, a former Islamist leader who abandoned the movement days ago, said the once-powerful Islamist movement’s top leaders were now trapped in a small village with Ethiopian soldiers in front of them, the Indian Ocean behind them and now American gunships circling above them.
Mr. Culusow said in a telephone interview from Kismayo, a large town north of Ras Kamboni:
“The leaders know they’re finished. They’ve basically told the young fighters they can go, it’s over, and that anyone who stays behind should be resigned to die.”
Oh, what honor! WHAT HONOR!
Telling the young men they can leave if they want.
That sounds so unlike an "Islamofascists!"
Better than US!
For several days, Ethiopian fighter jets and helicopter gunships have been laying down a blanket of fire over the area, and attacks continued on Tuesday.
American military and intelligence officials expressed confidence that at least one senior Qaeda leader in Somalia had been killed in the American attack... the ringleader of Al Qaeda’s East African cell — might have been killed.
All this DEATH and DESTRUCTION to "maybe" get ONE "Al-CIA-Duh?"
Is it WORTH IT, American citizen?
Are you HAPPY with what we have done, 'Murns?
Still wonder why they hate us?
Do you?
American military and intelligence officials said that they expected further military strikes but that the terrorism suspects were probably traveling separately and trying to blend into the civilian population.
And we will bomb them, too!
All justified in the name of hunting "Al-CIA-Duh!"
One American counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity:
“When you disrupt things and people move around, they become easier to target. They have to make arrangements on the fly, and they become easier to find.”
Suddenly, all the shit in the world makes sense!
Know who is behind the CHAOS and DISORDER now, readers?
PEACE!
If I ever hear that word coming from the SHIT-SPEWING, RECTUM-HOLE-FOR-A-MOUTH, ANTI-CHRIST PRESIDENT, I am going to puke!
And check out this history they give you in the back:
Washington’s decision to wade back into Somalia was, in a way, a culmination of America’s seesaw policy toward the country in the last five years.
With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan consuming the attention of national security planners in Washington, the Bush administration’s interest in Somalia was driven primarily by fact that a handful of Qaeda operatives responsible for attacks in the Horn of Africa were thought to be hiding there.
America’s recent forays into Somalia have tended to backfire. President Clinton abruptly curtailed a large American-led aid mission in the 1990s after the 18 soldiers were killed, leaving the country in a swirl of chaos and bloodshed, where much of it remains.
Then, last summer, American efforts to finance a band of Mogadishu warlords as a bulwark against the growing Islamist movement stumbled when many Somalis learned of the hidden American hand and threw their support behind the Islamists.
With the Pentagon still snakebitten by its experience in Somalia — rendering a ground offensive in the lawless country unpalatable — there was little the thousands of American soldiers and marines stationed in neighboring Djibouti could do to track down the Qaeda suspects.
Until this week, Washington was content to remain behind the scenes and use the Ethiopian invasion as the public face of the effort against the Islamists and their allies."
Also see: Prop 102: Iraq and Government Lies
Now some recent history:
"US uses Somalia events to press Qaeda; Aims to exploit the downfall of Islamic extremists" by John Donnelly, Globe Staff | January 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The US military is... deploying Special Forces troops on the ground... near the Kenya border... opening a new front in the battle against Al Qaeda.
The substantial US military presence became evident Monday when a US AC-130 gunship attacked suspected extremists in Hayi , in southern Somalia. A local tribal leader told Reuters the attack killed between 22 and 27 people. And yesterday, helicopter gun ships fired on suspected Islamic fighters in another location in the south. It was not clear whether the helicopters were American or Ethiopian. Officials in Washington declined to comment.
The US operation was much broader than a hunt for those three people... US troops also were after several other radical Somali Islamist leaders, and... is now closely monitoring maritime channels, with three US warships joining the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, which normally travels with three destroyers, a submarine, and 60 warplanes.
A US military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that US Special Forces accompanied Ethiopian troops into Somalia roughly two weeks ago. US forces were seeking to take advantage of a windfall opportunity.
A windfall, like it just happened, events converged, and you unexpectedly benefited.
This is a PLANNED EVENT, A-hole!
J. Stephen Morrison , head of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a centrist Washington think tank:
"By tightening the surveillance and interdiction efforts along the coast, it would have had the effect of channeling those people in the direction of Kenya. There's a little bit of Bonnie and Clyde to this, or the Sundance Kid. Where could they go next? There aren't too many options."
This AIN'T A MOVIE, dammit!!!
INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE BEING KILLED BY US!!!
Somalia has been the scene of stepped-up US intelligence operations in recent weeks.... American Special Forces stationed at a former French Air Force base in nearby Djibouti have worked in close coordination with the Ethiopian military since it launched an offensive last month in Somalia.
The use of an AC-130 gunship -- a short-range aircraft operated largely by Special Forces -- signaled that US forces had moved a detachment into nearby Ethiopia or Somalia itself.
Somali residents also strongly oppose the presence of Ethiopian troops. US troops also are greeted with deep suspicion, in part because of the failed intervention by the Clinton administration that led to the disastrous 1993 firefight in Mogadishu that killed many hundreds of Somalis.
In the years following the Sept. 11 attacks, CIA officers quietly entered Somalia and gave cash payments to several warlord leaders.
In Djibouti in 2002, the Defense Department set up at Camp Lemonier an operation called the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa with 1,600 US troops. Its stated mission was to complete goodwill projects such as digging wells in villages around the region, except in Somalia.
But US intelligence officials... said the Special Forces component of the Djibouti-based troops was solely focused on anti terror activities, especially in Somalia.
So fuck the "hearts and minds" projects!
We got innocent, dark-skinned people to kill!
Robert I. Rotberg , director of Harvard University's Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution:
"They have seven days to clean up Al Qaeda, and another week after that to stabilize Somalia militarily. The alternative is regression back into semi-warlordism."
Whatta DIP!
We have already put warlordism BACK IN PLACE!!
"Assault presses ahead in Somalia; Helicopters hit Al Qaeda targets" by Salad Duhul, Associated Press | January 10, 2007
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A US intelligence official said American forces killed five to 10 people in an attack on one target in southern Somalia. A Somali lawmaker said 31 civilians, including a newlywed couple, died in yesterday's assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in a forested area close to the Kenyan border.
Add more to the toll! Rocketing a "forested area!"
Whatta threat! They RAN INTO THE WOODS!
Are you not happy, 'Murkns? Your missiles killed a "newlywed couple!"
That's PRO-FAMILY, huh? As an American, I am ASHAMED!!!!
A Somali Defense Ministry official described the helicopters as American, but witnesses said they could not make out identification markings on the craft. Washington officials had no comment on the helicopter strike....
Somali officials said they had reports of many deaths. Witnesses said more US air strikes were launched against Islamic extremists in Hayi, 30 miles from Afmadow... attacks continued yesterday.
Colonel Shino Moalin Nur, a Somali military commander, said by telephone late yesterday that at least one US AC-130 gunship attacked a suspected Al Qaeda training camp Sunday on a remote island at the southern tip of Somalia next to Kenya:
"Nobody can exactly explain what is going on inside these forested areas; however, we are receiving reports that most of the Islamist fighters have died and the rest would be captured soon."
Or more likely killed, right, Colonel?!
You proud, 'Murkns?
Are you?
And one year later, that insurgency seems to be going pretty strong, liars, even though my shitty MSM press won't cover it!
