[Debate] Black Hawk or the Phoenix Outsourced - Blast follows Kenyan air raid in Somalia

[Riaz K Tayob]

[While famine stalks the land, American interest reign supreme... are 
political solutions not possible as alternatives to this violence`?]

Africa
Blast follows Kenyan air raid in Somalia
One soldier dead and four others injured as bomb hits army vehicle, 
shortly after attacks on al-Shabab bases.
Last Modified: 24 Nov 2011 21:25
Children have been among those injured during recent attacks in Kenya's 
northern town of Garissa [Reuters]

Kenya says its fighter jets have destroyed two suspected al-Shabab bases 
in neighbouring Somalia, but a bomb back on home soil has killed a 
soldier and wounded four others.

The exchanges came six weeks after Kenya sent troops and tanks into 
Somalia to fight the anti-government Islamist group, accused of a series 
of attacks in Kenya including the abduction of four foreign women.

"KDF (Kenya Defence Force) air strikes successfully destroyed two 
al-Shabaab camps," Major Emmanuel Chirchir, the Kenyan army spokesman, 
said on Thursday, a day after the attacks near Badade, about 30km from 
the Kenyan border.

However, just inside Kenya, a bomb exploded under a military vehicle on 
patrol on Thursday.

“Five KDF soldiers were seriously injured and have been airlifted to 
Garissa for treatment," he said. One later "succumbed to his injuries," 
Chirchir said.

Attackers opened fire on the soldiers after the blast, which happened 
near the Kenyan border town of Mandera, according to a senior police 
officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

Kenyan officials have blamed al-Shabaab or their sympathisers for a 
spate of recent shootings and bombings, although armed bandits also 
operate in the border areas.

Growing pressure

The group faces growing pressure as regional armies slowly encircle 
them, with Kenyan forces in the south, Ugandan and Burundian African 
Union forces in Mogadishu and Ethiopian troops in the west.

The conflict, however, comes at a cost for civilians caught up in the 
skirmishes.

The UN said on Thursday that Ethiopia's reported deployment of troops 
into Somalia could worsen what is already the world's most severe 
humanitarian crisis.

"Local sources report that hundreds of Ethiopian troops entered Somalia 
on November 20 opening a new front against al-Shabaab," the UN Office 
for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.

"The humanitarian community is deeply concerned about the consequences 
that this intervention could have on the already fragile humanitarian 
situation due to access to the population.

"The intensification of the conflict in Somalia threatens to increase 
internal displacement."

UN warning

It is for the first time the UN has warned of the potentially dangerous 
consequences of Ethiopia's move.

Nearly 250,000 people in south and central Somalia face imminent 
starvation, the UN report said, despite massive international efforts to 
get emergency aid out to critically affected regions of the war-torn 
country.

Witnesses told the AFP news agency on November 19 that convoys of 
lorries and hundreds of Ethiopian troops crossed into south and central 
Somalia. Ethiopia has denied the reports.

Ethiopia pulled out its soldiers from Somalia in 2009 after a two-year 
invasion that defeated the Islamist rulers, but their military wing, 
al-Shabaab, regrouped and has waged a bloody war against a provisional 
government backed by the UN.