US fails to break Somali Islamists

1 ANSWERS

1. Saba
   

   The Ethiopian army is preparing to leave Somalia almost two years after it invaded to oust Islamists who had taken control of large areas of the country.
   
   The Ethiopians are withdrawing without having broken the power of what Prime Minister Meles Zenawi described in 2006 as the leaders of the jihadist movement, responsible for "terrorist outrages".
   
   But the Ethiopian departure also marks a reverse for US President George W Bush's policy in the Horn of Africa.
   
   It was the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by al-Qaeda in 1998 - attacks that left hundreds dead and thousands wounded - that transformed Washington's approach towards the Horn of Africa.
   
   America was convinced that Somalia, having been without a government since 1991, was an ideal conduit through which al-Qaeda could advance into the region from the Arabian peninsular.
   
   
   At first, the US response was cautious, with memories of its previous intervention in Somalia in 1993, when the dead bodies of its troops were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in an incident made famous by the film Black Hawk Down.
   
   But after President Bush came to power in January 2001, all this changed.
   
   In 2002, Washington established what was called the Combined Task-Force, Horn of Africa. Based in Djibouti, its 1,700 troops were there to fight terrorism in the region.
   
   A year later, Washington allocated $100m (£70m) to an East African Counter-Terrorism initiative, described as an inter-agency task force working across the region.
   
   But it was after 2005 that the United States really became directly involved in Somalia.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 8 month(s) ago