Intel Wars by Matthew M. Aid

press forward toward Mogadishu, having declared the newly elected Somali government un-Islamic. By the summer of 2009, the Somali Transitional Government was on the verge of collapse. The area around Mogadishu was under relentless attack by al Shabaab militia forces , and the militants even made deep inroads into the few areas in the country that previously were government strongholds, as demonstrated by the June 18, 2009, suicide bombing in the pro-government town of Beledweyne that killed the Somali government’s minister of national security, Omar Hashi.
    U.S. intelligence analysts in Washington believe that a significant part of the reason for al Shabaab’s success on the battlefield was thanks to the substantial supplies of weapons and money that it was getting from a number of Arab states who were determined to counter Ethiopia’s influence in Somalia. At the top of the list of countries covertly supporting al Shabaab was tiny Eritrea, Ethiopia’s Muslim neighbor to the north, which has secretly provided political and military support for the Somali militant organization for almost a decade. This has brought Eritrea into conflict with the U.S. government. In October 2008, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer publicly labeled Eritrea a “state sponsor of terrorism,” leading to a near break in relations between the two countries.
    Leaked State Department cables show that since 2006 , Kenyan-based operatives of the Eritrean intelligence service have been covertly providing al Shabaab with weapons, money, and other forms of logistical support to counter the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia. According to intelligence sources, the Eritrean intelligence service has continued to equip and fund al Shabaab even after Ethiopian troops left Somalia in early 2009, with Ethiopian intelligence officials alleging that the Eritrean support of al Shabaab is being directed by the chief of the Eritrean intelligence service, Abraha Kassa.
    The State Department repeatedly warned the Eritrean military-led government in early 2009 that its covert support for al Shabaab was perilous and would have diplomatic repercussions if it continued; a leaked February 2009 State Department cable shows that the U.S. ambassador to Eritrea warned government officials that unless the support for al Shabaab ceased, it would “ hurt closer ties ” with the United States.
    At about the same time that the State Department was trying to get the Eritrean government to cease its support of al Shabaab, the U.S. government secretly began flying millions of dollars’ worth of weapons and other military equipment into Dire Dawa Airfield in southern Ethiopia bound for the Somali Transitional Government in Mogadishu. The Ethiopian National Intelligence and Security Service then shipped the weapons across the border to the Somali military. The rapid influx of weapons stopped the hemorrhaging, but it was only a temporary respite. While Sheilk Ahmed’s transitional government continued to control Mogadishu, al Shabaab and its allies pretty much controlled the rest of the country except for northern Somalia, which had become essentially an independent country with its own government.
    Thanks to the covert supplies of weapons and material received from the CIA and the Ethiopian and Kenyan intelligence services, the Somali Transitional Government was able to stabilize the situation on the ground during the fall of 2009 and begin the painful process of rebuilding its military forces. The CIA station in Nairobi, Kenya, quickly became the secret command center for the U.S. government’s effort to bolster the Somali Transitional Government. The CIA and U.S. military secretly helped train and equip six thousand newly recruited troops for the transitional government, arranged shipments of much-needed ammunition and fuel for the Somali military forces, and arranged for a select group of Somali officers to be sent to Camp Hurso