The hunt for terrorists
Remember that smashing success Ethiopian forces had encountering the jihadists in Somalia? Well, it seems that those people who reported that U.S. Special Forces were the key to the success were right.
The American military quietly waged a campaign from Ethiopia last month to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa, including the use of an airstrip in eastern Ethiopia to mount airstrikes against Islamic militants in neighboring Somalia, according to American officials.
The close and largely clandestine relationship with Ethiopia also included significant sharing of intelligence on the Islamic militants’ positions and information from American spy satellites with the Ethiopian military. Members of a secret American Special Operations unit, Task Force 88, were deployed in Ethiopia and Kenya, and ventured into Somalia, the officials said.
The counterterrorism effort was described by American officials as a qualified success that disrupted terrorist networks in Somalia, led to the death or capture of several Islamic militants and involved a collaborative relationship with Ethiopia that had been developing for years.
Put this one under the “success against Al Qaeda” column. This is what has needed to be done, and it’s great to know that the Administration is doing it. These actions are probably what the president refers to when he tells the American public that there are many operations against Al Qaeda that we don’t hear about, because to discuss them would be to tip off the terrorists.
It has been known for several weeks that American Special Operations troops have operated inside Somalia and that the United States carried out two strikes on Qaeda suspects using AC-130 gunships. But the extent of American cooperation with the recent Ethiopian invasion into Somalia and the fact that the Pentagon secretly used an airstrip in Ethiopia to carry out attacks have not been previously reported. The secret campaign in the Horn of Africa is an example of a more aggressive approach the Pentagon has taken in recent years to dispatch Special Operations troops globally to hunt high-level terrorism suspects. President Bush gave the Pentagon powers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to carry out these missions, which historically had been reserved for intelligence operatives.
When Ethiopian troops first began a large-scale military offensive in Somalia late last year, officials in Washington denied that the Bush administration had given its tacit approval to the Ethiopian government. In interviews over the past several weeks, however, officials from several American agencies with a hand in Somalia policy have described a close alliance between Washington and the Ethiopian government that was developed with a common purpose: rooting out Islamic radicalism inside Somalia.
Indeed, the Pentagon for several years has been training Ethiopian troops for counterterrorism operations in camps near the Somalia border, including Ethiopian special forces called the Agazi Commandos, which were part of the Ethiopian offensive in Somalia.
Can we have a great big shout-out of thanks to the American military here, please?
You guys rock.