Kenyan army prepares for Somalia ground attack

[Bosonic]

Source: AFP

NAIROBI — Kenyan security forces have begun assembling along the border with war-torn Somalia in preparation for assaults on militia forces behind several recent kidnappings of foreigners, sources said on Sunday.

"Our forces are assembling at the border points where they are being briefed... as they prepare to enter Somalia," said an official at military headquarters, asking for anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Kenya's Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said on Saturday that troops would cross the frontier, branding Somalia's Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab rebels "the enemy" and blaming them for the abduction of four European women.

In just over the past month, a British woman and a French woman have been abducted from beach resorts in two separate incidents, dealing a major blow to Kenya's tourism industry.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jdzfJ1WyF228ap07WgVTZe533GrQ?docId=CNG.98d9e06e541009222caf4e8ecdcf07a9.4a1

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[cpwm17]

2. Things only get worse in Somalia

Al Shebab wasn't a problem before President Bush hired Ethiopia to invade in 2006: http://www.newsdire.com/news/1500-us-behind-ethiopia-invasion-in-somalia-wikileaks.html Islamic radicals help fight the Ethiopians, so they were able to gain more power.

In the last couple of decades, 2006, before Ethiopia's invasion, was the best for Somalia. Now things are far worse.

Anyone with the least bit of common sense would know that attacks such as Ethiopia's in 2006 always backfire. Plus the war was unprovoked. But that has never stopped the US from supporting any war it wants.

[Muskypundit]

3. You are so wrong it is.... actually its funny

Somalia has always been a hellhole because of militants and warlords. The only way you get rid of warlords unfortunately, is war.

[yellowcanine]

6. Hmm, so all that stuff which went on in the 80s and 90s were the good times for Somolia?

I guess the U.S. sent 28,000 troops there in December 1992 because things were going so swimmingly.

http://www.twf.org/News/Y2002/0119-Somalia.html

[Javaman]

4. And we are there too!

U.S. Relies on Contractors in Somalia Conflict
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/world/africa/11somalia.html?pagewanted=all

>snip<

Still, over the past year, the United States has quietly stepped up operations inside Somalia, American officials acknowledge. The Central Intelligence Agency, which largely finances the country’s spy agency, has covertly trained Somali intelligence operatives, helped build a large base at Mogadishu’s airport — Somalis call it “the Pink House” for the reddish hue of its buildings or “Guantánamo” for its ties to the United States — and carried out joint interrogations of suspected terrorists with their counterparts in a ramshackle Somali prison.

The Pentagon has turned to strikes by armed drone aircraft to kill Shabab militants and recently approved $45 million in arms shipments to African troops fighting in Somalia.

But this is a piecemeal approach that many American officials believe will not be enough to suppress the Shabab over the long run. In interviews, more than a dozen current and former United States officials and experts described an overall American strategy in Somalia that has been troubled by a lack of focus and internal battles over the past decade. While the United States has significantly stepped up clandestine operations in Pakistan and Yemen, American officials are deeply worried about Somalia but cannot agree on the risks versus the rewards of escalating military strikes here.

“I think that neither the international community in general nor the U.S. government in particular really knows what to do with the failure of the political process in Somalia,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at the Atlantic Council, a Washington research institution.

[yellowcanine]

5. So Kenya is going to invade to rescue two women? I am sure that will turn out well.

:banghead: