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Somalia Jihad Update. "Somali town falls to insurgent Raid,"by Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times:
NAIROBI: Islamist insurgents overpowered Somali government troops Monday, seizing a strategic town and continuing their steady march across the war-ravaged country.
According to witnesses, several truckloads of Islamist fighters stormed Bulo Burti, a town north of the capital, Mogadishu, and killed eight government soldiers. Government troops then fled, and residents said that government offices, weapons depots and several armed trucks fell into the hands of the Islamists.
"Very quickly they took over," said Islow Ahmed, who owns a small general store in Bulo Burti, which is located along one of the major north-south trading routes in Somalia. "We all want peace. But now we're all afraid." Somalia's transitional government has been struggling to suppress an Islamist insurgency ever since it took over the capital in late 2006. Thousands of Ethiopian troops had helped install the transitional government in Mogadishu and oust an Islamist administration that had controlled the city for 6 months.
But the Islamists are fighting back, gaining ground and recruits, and the transitional government seems increasingly on it heels.
Government officials say they desperately need help to defeat the Islamists, whom the government says are getting weapons and money from Arab countries. The government has pleaded for the United Nations to send in peacekeepers, but the United Nations has so far seemed reluctant to do so.
In recent weeks, the Islamists have routed government troops in several towns, though their typical strategy is to inflict losses, snatch weapons and then melt back into the bush. At first, Bulo Burti appeared to be one of the first towns they had seized and held, but government officials later said that the insurgents had eventually withdrawn.
The Islamists seem to have a lot of local support in Bulo Burti. In the fall of 2006, the town's clerics threatened to behead anyone who did not pray five times a day.
Posted by Marisol at April 2, 2008 12:30 AM
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Lovely, idyllic Bulo Burti, the place that Sheik Hussein Barre Rage calls home. The town lends its name to the Bulo Burti Boubou (Laniarius liberatus) a medium-sized passerine bird in the bushshrike family. It remains known only from central Somalia, and (not unlike the human inhabitants of the area) is considered a critically endangered species. Here's the wiki entry.
Posted by: Lex![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 2, 2008 7:54 AM
Government officials say they desperately need help to defeat the Islamists, whom the government says are getting weapons and money from Arab countries. The government has pleaded for the United Nations to send in peacekeepers, but the United Nations has so far seemed reluctant to do so.
After what happened the last time peace keepers were sent into Somalia, I can see the reluctance to send more. Along with the usual inability to do any actual peace keeping due to rules of engagement, and the vast amount of influence the Arabs seem to have in the UN lately.
I really wish the democratic nations of the world would withdraw from the UN and fight this war to actually win. You know, like they did in WWII, less "hearts and minds" and more unconditional surrender as the objective.
Posted by: walterc at April 2, 2008 11:23 AM
I love these headlines of Robert's. With a deft touch, he points out the irony of the whole thing.
Posted by: Ernie Banks at April 3, 2008 1:00 PM
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