Saturday, February 9, 2008

Somalia: The World's forgotten catastrophe


According to the UN, the worst catastrophe in Africa is not taking place in Kenya, or even Darfur. Fifteen years after the disastrous Black Hawk Down incident, Somalia has more refugees than any country in the world

A special report by Steve Bloomfield
Saturday, 9 February 2008
The Independent

"......There are no Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu today. No UN tanks patrolling the streets. But 15 years on, the United States is back in Somalia. CIA agents are operating in Mogadishu. Unmanned Predator drones circle above the city gathering intelligence. US forces have carried out at least four attacks inside the country in the past 12 months. Civilians in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya have been "extraordinarily rendered" to prisons in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, where they have been interrogated by US officials.

Last time the US arrived in Somalia in dramatic fashion: hundreds of marines swarmed on to the Mogadishu beach in the full glare of television news crews. This time there hasn't even been a press release. Officially, the US has no involvement in Somalia. It is a secret war, a third front in America's global war on terror. It is also a war that the US and its allies are losing......"

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