Somalia: Ethiopian Soldiers Killed in Bomb Attack Near Kismayo

At least three Ethiopian soldiers serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have been killed in a bomb attack occurred near Kismayo city in southern Somalia on Saturday.

According to local sources, the AMISOM soldiers were killed after their military convoy came under a remotely detonated land mine attack at Bulu-Gadud village, some 35Km northeast of Kismayo city.

After the IED bomb attack, the AU troops retreated back to their bases in Kismayo, sources added. There was no immediate confirmation from the AMISOM about Today's attack

On Friday, AMISOM force spokesperson Joe Kibet said Au forces alongside the Somali National Army (SNA), killed six Al-Shabaab militants in the same area in Lower Jubba region.

Mr Kibet said that there were no casualties on their side in Friday's operation.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201611190120.html

3,000-strong Ethiopian force crosses into Somalia

A large contingent of Ethiopian troops has crossed into Somalia, reports from Gedo region in southern Somalia indicated Wednesday.           

According to eyewitnesses in Dolo town, 450km southwest of Mogadishu, the military force proceeded to Luq town, 350km southwest of the Somali capital.

“A force about 3,000-strong armed with heavy weaponry crossed the border into Somalia and proceeded to Luq town,” said one eyewitness.

People in the area speculated that the Ethiopian forces may be heading towards Bardere town, which is controlled by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militia.

Bardere is the only district in Gedo region controlled by the jihadist group, having lost the other four towns of Dolo, Luq, Beled Hawo and Garbaharrey to Amisom and Somali government forces.

READ: Kenya bombs two Shabaab camps in Somalia

During the holy month of Ramadhan, Al-Shabaab militants have multiplied their attacks on government and Amisom positions, even spilling their violent campaign into neighbouring Kenya.

Ethiopian Paramilitary Militia Genocide

Between  May 24, 2015 and June 5, 2015, The Ethiopian paramilitary militia known as the Liyu Police crossed the border between the Galgaduud Region of Somalia and the Somali Eastern region in Ethiopia. During that period, hundreds of the Liyu Police guerrillas raided 18 villages at the border and demanded unconditional levy, bribery money and vehicles.
The villagers refused to comply with the unlawful demands and resisted the forceful means of the invaders. The Liyu Police militia then launched retaliatory operations in those villages, where they indiscriminately massacred hundreds of innocent civilians.
During those operations the Liyu Police militia committed genocide against civilians including children, women, disabled elders, and seniors. Hundreds of inhabitants of those villages were killed, their properties were looted, and their homes were burned down.
Those who survived the reprisal operations have been uprooted and now have to seek refuge inside the Galgaduud region of Somalia.
There is undeniable evidence of mass killings in those operations in which about 50 people who were in the custody of the Liyu Police militia were ferociously slaughtered and beheaded. Besides that, many people in those villages were abducted and supposedly imprisoned in the notorious prison known as Jail Ogaden in Jigjiga, the capital region of Eastern Somali territory in Ethiopia. This brutal prison is a corpse jail that the Liyu Police militia control. There, they commit physical tortures, and mental cruelties before they execute inmates. The refusal of the inhabitants of those villages to pay unlawful levies doesn’t justify the brutal retaliation of the Liyu Police militia. Please note the link below, from Aljazeera news, regarding the massacre committed by the Liyu Police militia in one village during their reprisal operations in remote villages of the Galgaduud region of Somalia: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qho4_oMZgm0
The Ethiopian regime uses the Liyu Police militia as repressive guerrillas against oppositional Somali ethnic insurgents, who are seeking independence from Ethiopian annexation. The word Liyu means "special” in Amharic language and they are an authorized, Ethiopian-backed paramilitary militia who are accredited to do the dirty jobs of murders, executions, massacres, and all kinds of human rights violations in the region. In addition, they are also authorized to imprison people without charges or trial, and keep inmates in jails for long unlawful detention. The Ethiopian government-backed paramilitary militia receives training, uniforms, arms, and salaries from the Ethiopian regime and the Ethiopian regime provides directions via the manipulation of what it calls autonomous Somali regional authority. The Liyu Police militia is recruited and led by the brutal, notorious regional chief, Abdi Mohamed Omar, best known as Abdi Iley. Abdi Iley is a notorious war criminal known for his records of heinously committing crimes against humanity, such as indiscriminate extrajudicial massacres.
On behalf of the Somali People’s Party, we strongly condemn those atrocities committed by the Liyu Police militia and we are convinced that the Ethiopian regime is fully accountable for those crimes against humanity. We call the international community led by the UN and human rights organizations to send a fact-finding mission to the remote villages of the Galgaduud region of Somalia. We are asking the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Genocide Watch, and war Crimes Commission to investigate those heinous human rights violations committed against the civilian population in the remote rural villages of the Galgaduud region of Somalia. In particular, we request the War Crimes Commission to launch an extraordinary, scrupulous investigation against the brutal, notorious Abdi Mohamed Omar and his militia commander, Abdirahman Laba Go'le, for their committed genocide against the innocent civilian population in the Galgaduud region of Somalia. There is no mistake that the Ethiopian regime is behaving unfriendly towards  the independent human right organizations and investigative media that challenge Ethiopia through analytical reports, and it does all possible to impose access restrictions to reporters and monitors who are doing further detailed investigation of those events.
The Somali People’s Party denounce the Somali government’s and the international community’s silence about the massacres committed by the Liyu Police militia against the innocent civilian population in the remote villages of the Galgaduud region at the border of Ethiopia. The party strongly believes that the Ethiopian regime approves all kinds of conspiracy against Somali populations in Ethiopia, through manipulations of notorious, brutal chiefs of the so-called Somali regional authority in Ethiopia. We are appealing to the civic world to react strongly against those unconventional malpractices deployed by the Ethiopian paramilitary militia before it is too late and they begin similar operations of massacring Somali nomadic inhabitants in different regions alongside the border line of Ethiopia and Somalia. The Somali People’s Party is demanding from the African Union and the United Nations Security Council to ask the Ethiopian regime to stop hostile policies against non-allied Somali clans living along the border regions of Somalia, to inquire about the relevance of its active participation in the Somali’s political processes, and finally to instigate the complete withdrawal of all Ethiopian military force present on the Somali soil.
Dr. Said Issa Mohamud

Source: http://waagacusub.net/articles/915/Ethiopian-Paramilitary-Militia-Genocide

Death toll rises as fighting continues near Somalia-Ethiopia borderDeath toll rises as fighting continues near Somalia-Ethiopia border

(Horseed Media) — Despite calls for ceasefire, fighting has continued for a second week in villages close to the border that separates Somalia and Ethiopia, residents have said.

According to local sources, there were two clashes in three villages from Wednesday to Thursday morning, killing at least 19 people and unknown numbers injured.

A journalist in Galgadud region has told Horseed Media that the conflict has forced many families to flee from their homes and seek for refuge in remote areas.

Regional Somali government officers have described the death toll of the conflict since it started last week more than 70.

The reasons that led to the conflict it’s yet unclear, but multiple sources have told Horseed Media it’s linked to tribal disputes and pasture. Others have said the conflict erupted last week after forces from the Somali region state of Ethiopia invaded two villages close to the border.

Somalia and Ethiopian government have not officially spoken of this conflict.

In recent years, several conflicts have occurred in the Somalia-Ethiopia border mostly related to tribal and pasture disputes.

Source: ayyaantuu

A week of clashes in villages near Somalia’s border with Ethiopia has killed at least 35 people, mostly civilians, officials and traditional elders say.

The sources added on Sunday that the clashes erupted between Somali clan militia and members of the Liyu police, an Ethiopian paramilitary unit operating in Ethiopia's ethnic Somali region.

Fighting reportedly started a week ago and intensified on Friday

"The Liyu Police Unit launched an attack on innocent civilians. They are attacking villagers and killing people who keep livestock," said Hussein Weheliye Irfo, the governor of the Galgadud region in central Somalia.

"It is effecting a vast area and the casualties are very high, 35 dead bodies have been counted so far," said Mohamed Garane, a traditional elder in Guricel district where the wounded are hospitalized.

Another elder in the region, Daud Moalim Ise, said the Liyu force had resorted to "excessive force", adding, "We have received around 29 wounded, most of them civilians.”

According to Ali Omar, director of the main hospital in Guricel district, “Many others are unable to reach here. Among them are women and children with severe gunshot wounds."

It was not yet clear what had triggered the clashes, which are not connected to the ongoing battles between African Union troops and al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militants operating in southern Somalia.

Some sources said the fighting may have stemmed from allegations that a Liyu police member had raped a local woman.

MFB/KA/SS

Source:http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/05/31/413726/Africa-Somalia-Ethiopia-Liyu-Galgadud-

we trained mandela to help his people and this is how they are paying us back

 Xenophobia is where every  foreigner suffer in many countries  but when it comes it comes from black people who have been through colonialism, its different. It gives you a sense that, something is wrong with us Africans.  It answer you the question that, why we couldn't walk miles in the post colonial area, south Africans owe Ethiopians much, we help them train their freedom fighter, Mandela. when they are suppose to thank us for that, they have opted to burn us.

Omar is from Ethiopia his Durban shop was looted last night "I have nothing left, I cannot go home, I have no home" pic.twitter.com/FNfUoJGNRm
— Justine Lang (@justteaplease) April 14, 2015

Looted Somali shop in Kwamashu. "It's jealousy" the locals tell us. "His shop was cheap and had many customers" pic.twitter.com/odwYHW0YG9
— Justine Lang (@justteaplease) April 14, 2015

A refugee camp in South Africa. Quite shocking. pic.twitter.com/TsezR395GC
— Justine Lang (@justteaplease) April 13, 2015

kenyans started blaming Ethiopia for the latest attack

Source: ogadennet

A Pentagon report blames Ethiopian regime’s atrocities for the creation of Al Shabab

The following analysis is published by U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University.

Lessons Learned from the African Union Mission in Somalia

Ethiopian soldiers were accused of committing a wide range of atrocities, including firing mortars on civilian hospitals, press institutions, and houses, and rape, theft, kidnapping, and murder of Somali civilians.15 Among many Somalis, these strikes established the U.S. as an instigator of the Ethiopian invasion, which provided a propaganda opening for alQaeda and precipitated a flood of foreign jihadi fighters into Mogadishu. By early 2008, confidential Somali sources16 estimate that some 2,000 foreign fighters had entered Somalia, approximately 40 percent of them from the Somali diaspora. While the moderate members of the SCIC fled into Eritrea and Djibouti—where they established allied political movements called the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia—the hardline elements of the SCIC regrouped, and more were trained by the new foreign fighters in the use of remote-controlled detonations. Suicide bombings and other un-Somali tactics became increasingly common.

On 21 March 2007, a Somali mob dragged the bodies of Ethiopian and TFG soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu and set them on fire. Over the next two years, outrage over Ethiopian atrocities—particularly the systemic use of rape—prompted more than 20 members of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora to return to Mogadishu to fight the Ethiopian and TFG forces. Their possession of U.S. passports raised the specter of home-grown terrorism and heightened concerns about Somalia’s conflict in Washington.18 Even members of AMISOM began to hear the name of al-Shabaab, which emerged in the midst of the public anger as a popular resistance movement.

By the end of 2007, Ethiopian casualties escalated to an unsustainable level: Somali sources living throughout Mogadishu at that time estimate that Ethiopian forces suffered approximately 200 casualties (wounded and fatalities) each week.19 The TFG remained hopelessly swamped in political infighting—Prime Minister Gedi was fired and in his place came a parade of four prime ministers over the next five years. Ethiopia, losing patience with the TFG and increasingly doubtful that the African Union would succeed in deploying an adequate peacekeeping mission to relieve Ethiopian forces, began to look for an exit strategy. By the end of March 2008, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) claimed to have drawn down to approximately 2,500 troops, mostly based in Mogadishu and Baidoa (although Somali sources dispute this figure).20 Nevertheless, the operation was still a financial drain for Ethiopia, which prompted the government in Addis Ababa to call for international assistance to reimburse its costs. Ethiopia was also thought to have concluded by early 2008, in the face of rising public support for al-Shabaab, that a military solution in Somalia would not be possible.

Read the full analysis here: http://jsou.socom.mil/JSOU%20Publicatio … _FINAL.pdf

Source:: ethiopianreview