The Somali jihad resurgent. "Somalia: Hundreds of Islamist militants advance on Baidoa," from AKI (thanks to Sr. Soph):
Jarail, 31 Dec. (AKI) - Several hundred Islamist militants belonging to the al-Qaeda linked 'Young Mujahadeen' group have gathered at a disused miliatary base 40 kilometres from the southern city of Baidoa, where Somalia's transitional government is based, pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reports, quoting unnamed government sources.The 'Young Mujahadeen' are being led by the Islamic Courts movement's former miltary commander, Mukhtar Rabow, whose battlename is Abu Mansur.
The group's objective is to launch intermittent attacks against Baidoa. To fend off such attacks, the Somali authorities have deployed an 'extraordinary defence plan' for the city, al-Sharq al-Awsat said.
Islamist militants in recent days have taken the village of Jarail, in the central part of the country, and over the weekend waged fierce firefights with Ethiopian troops in the capital, Mogadishu.
The militants are reported to have launched rocket attacks against government offices and the stadium in Mogadishu, which has become the Ethiopian troops' base.
Ethiopian troops came to the rescue of the embattled Somali government a year ago and swiftly ousted the Islamic Courts, which had briefly controlled large areas of south and central Somalia.
Remnants of the fundamentalist movement have since reverted to guerrilla tactics, waging a deadly insurgency, mainly on the streets of Mogadishu.
Hundreds of people, mainly civilians, have died in clashes between Ethiopian-backed government forces and insurgents over the past six months. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis have been forced to flee Mogadishu, sparking what the United Nations has described as Africa's worst humanitarian crisis.
Several hundred Islamist militants belonging to the al-Qaeda linked 'Young Mujahadeen' group have gathered at a disused miliatary base 40 kilometres from the southern city of Baidoa
And we can't loan them the use of a couple of B52's for an hour or so? what about a couple of armed Predators? Sounds like a target rich environment and another opportunity to cause some headway gone to waste.
Predator drones + Hellfires missiles = no jihadis.
Rinse and repeat.
"Hundreds of thousands of Somalis have been forced to flee Mogadishu, sparking what the United Nations has described as Africa's worst humanitarian crisis.'
...crisis....that is what you get when the misunderstanding Muslims show up.....always a bad crisis...a violent crisis...yep ...crisis....
"Somalia: Hundreds of jihadists advance on Baidoa"
Start loading the cluster bombs.
"Somalia: Hundreds of jihadists advance on Baidoa"
Or the AC-130 Gunship. A single pass should do the job.
"Somalia: Hundreds of jihadists advance on Baidoa"
Or a small team of special forces with a a GPS laser and whatever is handy up above.
One hopes that Kenya and Ethiopia can resolutely squash any Jihad incursions across their borders from Somalia, and that those in authority in both countries, and those responsible for public education, and the Christian church leaders, will quickly be given access to the best of the modern critique of Islam as provided by Robert Spencer, Bat Yeor, Andrew Bostom, et al.
By the way - I gather that Mr Odinga - the politician in Kenya who was, seemingly, making secret deals with the Muslims to let them impose sharia law in 'their' areas [see dhimmi watch for mid-December] did NOT get in, in the recent elections there.
Riots have now broken out - including in Mombasa, which has a large population of Muslims. See the link, from Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The report doesn't mention Muslims at all, but I'll bet some of the trouble is coming from *them*.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/01/2129638.htm
People were are off target here let us discuss some facts in 2008:
Fact 1: The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, Ethiopian Regime, US and Britain are still looking for more foreign Armies to participate the massacres of Somali clans so that Somalis can have a government while bleeding.
Fact 2: TFG desperately need more bullets and Money from Europe and US in their next drive to empty Mogadishu Neighbourhoods.
Fact 3: United Nations is busy collecting money for starving Somalis inside Somalia, while UN was the first body to encourage this whole Genocide (Remember that UN report in 2006 which linked the Hawiye Clan Courts to Al-Qaeda).
Fact 4: The so called humanitarian agencies will create more jobs for more European and African Christian school leavers and More Somalis will either die fat with donation food by Ethiopian bullets or die for Ethiopian imposed starvations (Remember Somalis don’t need food stamps, they need someone to stop Ethiopian death squads in Mogadishu).
Fact 5: Many Academics believe birth control and some of them believe to control populations before and after birth. However, Some US politicians believe population control via cluster bombs and bullets. The Somali Genocide is an example of a new way to control the Islamic populations around the globe.
Fact 6: Non-Muslim academics argued a birth control among Somali clans in east Africa back in 2005 in the New Scientist Journal. They also claimed Somali women were fertile and if fast growing Somali population were not intervened; conflicts (between Somalis & other African tribes) for resources will engulf the entire region.
Fact 7: HIV did not reduce the Somali population as it did in other African countries. However, US, European corporations and Ethiopian Government sponsored Clan rivalries threatened to reduce the population for 16 years and this processes was halted by the Hawiye Clan Courts or as they call it ICU in 2006.
This irritated US and the US government sponsored Ethiopian knife to quickly reduce the Somali populations in the Central and Southern regions so that the target reduction can be reached before this US government term ends.
Fact 8: Ethiopian troops cannot stay in Mogadishu without European Money handouts (Mainly from Britain & Sweden) to the Tigray Regime in Addis Ababa. If Europe is serious about stopping this continuing genocide against Somali People then they should stop these hand-out to the Tigray Regime and give it to the NGOs in Ethiopia that are helping people on the ground.
Fact 9: The genocide in Mogadishu is a symbol of how some US & European ThinkTanks will deal with any non-white fast growing populations around the world if they don’t embrace democracy.
Fact 10: Conspiracy against Somalis. TFG government, needs the protection of a foreign force against its own citizens !!!
I hope some of you will understand that some Academics, Governments and Corporations are acting like GOD and sponsoring culling of human beings in order to satisfy their theories.
Ladies and gentlemen
what a classic, clinical example of what Hugh calls 'nonsense and lies', has just been provided for us, by 'baqle''s posting.
It is so bizarre and so utterly false in every way that I do not think it should be dignified with any detailed reply.
Those here who have not yet read "Infidel" should do so. They will find Ayaan Hirsi Ali's diagnosis of the ultimate and proximate causes of the violence and disorder in Somalia (many of those causes being home-grown) much more convincing than 'baqle's' conspiracy theories.
Waris Dirie's "Desert Flower" may also be of interest.
This is interesting, because if the exact same thing had happened in Kenya, Jihad Watch would be mum. Why? Kenya's Christian.
When Christians fight civil wars, it's just some internal squabbles. When Muslims fighti civil wars in precisely the same manner, it's evidence of a depraved religion.
Go figure.
Jacques Ellul, sociologist, on Jihad as Institution, in his preface to Bat Ye'or, "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam":
"But a major, twofold fact transforms the JIHAD into something quite different from traditional wars, waged for ambition and self-interest, with limited objectives, where the 'normal' situation is peace between peoples; war, in itself, consttutes a dramatic event which must end in a return to peace.
"This twofold factor is first, the religious nature [of JIHAD], then the fact that war has become an institution (and no longer an 'event').
"JIHAD is generally translated as 'holy war' (this term is not satisfactory): this suggests both that this war is provoked by strong religious feelings, and then that its first object is not so much to conquer land, as to Islamise the populations.
"This war is a religious duty. It will probably be said that every religion in its expanding phase carries the risks of war; that history records hundreds of religious wars and it is now a commonplace to make this connection.
"Hence, religious passion is sometimes expressed in this manner. But it is, in fact, 'passion' - it concerns mainly a fact that it would be easy to demonstrate does not correspond to the fundamental message of the religion. This disjuncture is obvious for Christianity.
"In Islam, however, JIHAD is a religious obligation. It forms part of the duties that the believer must fulfil; it is Islam's *normal* path to expansion. And this is found repeatedly dozens of times in the Koran.
"Therefore the [Muslim] believer [in making war] is not denying the religious message. Quite the reverse - *jihad* is the way he best obeys it. And the facts which are recorded meticulously and analysed [by Bat Yeor] clearly show that the *jihad* is not a 'spiritual war' but a real military war of conquest. It expresses the agreement between the foundation text and the believers' practical strivings.
"But Bat Ye'or shows that things are not so simple. SINCE THE JIHAD IS NOT SOLELY AN EXTERNAL WAR, IT CAN BREAK OUT WITHIN THE MUSLIM WORLD ITSELF - AND WARS AMONG MUSLIMS HAVE BEEN NUMEROUS, BUT ALWAYS WITH THE SAME FEATURES" [nota bene].
Hence, the second important specific characteristic is that the *jihad* is an *institution* and not an event, that is to say, *it is part of the normal functioning of the Muslim world*." [pp. 18-19].
Ellul, the sociologist, who severely critiqued the sins of the Christian world and of the wider non-Muslim world (he speaks very severely of the world's refusal to protest what the Chinese did in Tibet, or the what was done to the people of Katanga), nevertheless distinguishes between war as thought and as practised in the world of Islam, and war as thought and practised by others.
I think he was perfectly correct to do so.
'shlomo' -
I will also add, really, resorting to those old tu quoque and moral equivalence arguments again?
Yes, 'christianised' countries can descend into the abyss, of civil war or of war with one another, and have done so, often enough, to their shame, since in so doing they contravene the teachings of Jesus.
But christianised countries possess, in their theology, their philosophy, their basic assumptions, the grammar of community: the wherewithal to pick themselves up, forgive each other, and rebuild.
Read Corrie ten Boom, "The Hiding Place", especially the final chapters. Watch the Russian film, "Repentance", or the South African documentary, "Long Night's Journey into Day". Look up the Bible Society website and find out what is happening in Ethiopia, in the Congo basin, and in Rwanda, today. Explore also the lead-up to the Good Friday Accords in Ireland, and listen to U2, "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Or, for a profoundly christian meditation on violence, justice and peace, Peter Weir's "Witness" - note the renunciation of vengeance, at the end, and the shaming and repentance of the chief criminal. Or visit Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by bombing in World War II, and look around.
It is no accident that at the end of the apostle's creed Christians recite: "I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting". Neither the temporal congregation nor community can survive without the forgiveness of sins, and such forgiveness is also the stuff of eternity. A Christian poet once wrote: "And so through all eternity/ I forgive you, you forgive me/ ...This the wine and this the bread". Christians and christianised societies are thus programmed to try to find 'win-win' outcomes, to "seek peace and pursue it".
By contrast, the implacable 'slay or be slain', all or nothing mindset of Islamic teachings seems to me to push Muslims, and Islamised societies, in a different direction, and to severely inhibit their capacity for creative resolution of conflict - to incline them to prefer 'winner-take-all', 'I only win if you are destroyed' outcomes, and to prefer grudges, treachery and vengeance, rather than forgiveness. Islamised societies appear to me, in the sweep of history, to alternate almost randomly between total disorder and violently imposed top-down dictatorships.
The lack of a strongly stated positive teaching of the Golden Rule, in Islam, seems to me to be incredibly destructive. Theoretically, Muslims are supposed to be merciful toward one another but harsh toward Infidels: a double standard. However: suppose a Muslim makes a habit of being casually cruel toward those despised Unbelievers, deceiving them, hurting them, without feeling the least twinge of pity or empathy? - I cannot see how that bad habit, of cruelty and arrogance, would not in fact infect the whole of the person's life.
And since allah may have no partner and must not be questioned, everything is top-down, so too his 'slaves' in their relations with one another seem to have only the option of being 'master' or 'slave' - there can be no concept of a freely unfolding, self-balancing partnership of equals; in musical terms, there is neither polyphony nor counterpoint, and there can be no res publica.
What people believe, their assumptions about the way the world works, matters - they will conduct their 'peace' *or* their 'war' in different ways.
Civil war in 'christian' Rwanda was not in fact the same as civil war in Muslim Somalia, nor will the aftermath in Somalia be what it was in Rwanda.