in Ethiopia to receive advanced training in weapons, tactics, and intelligence gathering.
None of this would have been possible but for the shield provided by some five thousand African peacekeeping troops from Uganda and Burundi who were stationed in Mogadishu protecting Sheikh Ahmedâs Somali Transitional Government, although few people knew that the African peacekeepers were secretly being paid for by the U.S. government. The CIAâs Nairobi station also coordinated intelligence and logistical support for the African peacekeepers in Mogadishu, including providing near-realtime intelligence in sanitized form about al Shabaab military activities derived from SIGINT intercepts and imagery from Predator unmanned drone flights flown from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.
By the spring of 2010, the secret retraining and resupply effort to aid the army of the Somali Transitional Government was complete. In March 2010, the Somali interim government announced its intention to launch a large-scale offensive against the al Shabaab militia forces, which were estimated at about five thousand men. Ugandan peacekeeping troops in Mogadishu knew something big was coming because they suddenly began hearing the near-constant buzz of American unmanned drones flying overhead reconnoitering al Shabaab military positions around the city. But the much-anticipated offensive never materialized, for reasons that remain unclear today.
Today, the security situation in Somalia has largely degenerated into a standoff. Sheikh Ahmedâs Somali Transitional Government continues to hold Mogadishu and the surrounding area, but only because of the almost seven thousand African peacekeepers (up from five thousand troops just the year before) who protect him and the huge bribes paid out to rapacious local Somali warlords in return for their support in keeping al Shabaab at bay.
U.S. intelligence officials interviewed in 2010 admit that there is little that the United States can do directly to affect the trajectory of the war in Somalia. On September 14, 2009, attack helicopters flying from a U.S. Navy assault landing ship off the coast of Somalia blew up a car with Hellfire missiles carrying Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the leader of al Qaeda in East Africa, who was wanted by the U.S. government in connection with the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings and the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned resort in Kenya. The decision was made in Washington to kill Nabhan as a matter of practical expediency. The New York Times quoted an American defense official as saying, âWe may have been able to capture the guy but the decision was made to kill him.â
But Nabhanâs death changed nothing. According to U.S. intelligence officials, the al Shabaab militants are still lurking just outside the Mogadishu city gates. Over the past two years al Shabaab has increased the size of its militia to over five thousand men who are better armed in most respects than the Somali government troops they face. It is actively recruiting more foreign militants over the Internet to come to Somalia and join their jihad. Al Shabaab also provides safe havens in the western part of the country for two Ethiopian terrorist organizations, the Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
On July 11, 2010, the final day of the World Cup soccer tournament being held in South Africa, al Shabaab militants executed two simultaneous bombings in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, killing seventy-four men who were watching the final soccer match between Spain and the Netherlands on huge outdoor televisions. The Kampala bombings were the militiaâs first attack outside of Somalia, with an al Shabaab spokesman confirming that the bombings were in retaliation for the presence of several thousand Ugandan troops in Somalia who were protecting the transitional government in Mogadishu.
The next day, one of the National Counterterrorism Center analysts responsible for covering
None of this would have been possible but for the shield provided by some five thousand African peacekeeping troops from Uganda and Burundi who were stationed in Mogadishu protecting Sheikh Ahmedâs Somali Transitional Government, although few people knew that the African peacekeepers were secretly being paid for by the U.S. government. The CIAâs Nairobi station also coordinated intelligence and logistical support for the African peacekeepers in Mogadishu, including providing near-realtime intelligence in sanitized form about al Shabaab military activities derived from SIGINT intercepts and imagery from Predator unmanned drone flights flown from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.
By the spring of 2010, the secret retraining and resupply effort to aid the army of the Somali Transitional Government was complete. In March 2010, the Somali interim government announced its intention to launch a large-scale offensive against the al Shabaab militia forces, which were estimated at about five thousand men. Ugandan peacekeeping troops in Mogadishu knew something big was coming because they suddenly began hearing the near-constant buzz of American unmanned drones flying overhead reconnoitering al Shabaab military positions around the city. But the much-anticipated offensive never materialized, for reasons that remain unclear today.
Today, the security situation in Somalia has largely degenerated into a standoff. Sheikh Ahmedâs Somali Transitional Government continues to hold Mogadishu and the surrounding area, but only because of the almost seven thousand African peacekeepers (up from five thousand troops just the year before) who protect him and the huge bribes paid out to rapacious local Somali warlords in return for their support in keeping al Shabaab at bay.
U.S. intelligence officials interviewed in 2010 admit that there is little that the United States can do directly to affect the trajectory of the war in Somalia. On September 14, 2009, attack helicopters flying from a U.S. Navy assault landing ship off the coast of Somalia blew up a car with Hellfire missiles carrying Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the leader of al Qaeda in East Africa, who was wanted by the U.S. government in connection with the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings and the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned resort in Kenya. The decision was made in Washington to kill Nabhan as a matter of practical expediency. The New York Times quoted an American defense official as saying, âWe may have been able to capture the guy but the decision was made to kill him.â
But Nabhanâs death changed nothing. According to U.S. intelligence officials, the al Shabaab militants are still lurking just outside the Mogadishu city gates. Over the past two years al Shabaab has increased the size of its militia to over five thousand men who are better armed in most respects than the Somali government troops they face. It is actively recruiting more foreign militants over the Internet to come to Somalia and join their jihad. Al Shabaab also provides safe havens in the western part of the country for two Ethiopian terrorist organizations, the Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
On July 11, 2010, the final day of the World Cup soccer tournament being held in South Africa, al Shabaab militants executed two simultaneous bombings in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, killing seventy-four men who were watching the final soccer match between Spain and the Netherlands on huge outdoor televisions. The Kampala bombings were the militiaâs first attack outside of Somalia, with an al Shabaab spokesman confirming that the bombings were in retaliation for the presence of several thousand Ugandan troops in Somalia who were protecting the transitional government in Mogadishu.
The next day, one of the National Counterterrorism Center analysts responsible for covering
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