Ethiopia Bombs Mogadishu:

[BlackCat]

No doubt, what Ethiopia is doing is good and what UN should do but is too weak to do (just as in Darfur). Problem is that the spot is probably just as hot as Gaza politically.

Ethiopia is the big brother with power but is disliked by it's neighbours. No matter what good reasons, it's probable that Erithrea will oppose Ethiopias actions most probably by weapons and "volounteers".

Worst of all is if they choose to take the political way and waste energy on somaliland. That area is probably a big thorn in both Etiopia and the "official" government of the rest of somalia.

My weak hope is that the current campaign is to get rid of the religious based dictatorship that until now has ruled in the area.

No question, those religious fanatics will cause a long fight close to civil war, but they can't stand unopposed.

[Saras]

some nice tidbits of info on the Ethiopian military I found on another forum:

The capabilities of the Ethiopian Army.

They use primarily 50's vintage Soviet equipment, except for a small cadre of fairly modern jet fighters which were acquired during the border war with Eritrea. They have this equipment, however, in copious numbers.

Generally speaking the Ethiopian mobilization system has been constantly improved since the war with Eritrea with an eye toward a second conflict with that nation; accordingly, it's probably likely that the Ethiopians can call well more than a million men to the colours with extensive efforts at mobilization but because of garrison duties in various areas of the country and the need to send on the order of 400,000 + men to the border with Eritrea if conflict resumes there, in no case should one expect a commitment of more than 200,000 men to Somalia, and that only after on the order of six - eight months of mobilization.

At the moment it seems that around 35 - 40,000 Ethiopian troops are either in Somalia or along the Ethiopian-Somali border and entering Somalia. They are well-equipped with tanks, but mostly T-55s and so on. Technicals form motorized units for the most part rather than dedicated IFVs. They do have a single elite paratroop regiment. They are well-equipped with artillery; it is entirely towed.

In general, Ethiopian tactics are based around using their immense manpower and mass to their advantage. They are capable of highly sophisticated strategic encirclement operations after achieving breakthrough, which was brought the Border War to a close (and caused them great resentment and hatred toward the UN, which promptly ignored the result of the fighting and awarded the disputed territory to Eritrea).

In terms of breakthrough, however, their tactics are exceptionally primitive. They are best described as the mass tactics of General Brusilov in the First World War. The essential Ethiopian plan for the final Battle of Badme (There were three over the course of the war) was to launch attacks on every point of the front, as thanks to massive attrition they outnumbered the Eritreans by at least 2.5:1 (For instance it's claimed that between 23 February to 26 March 1999, the Eritreans suffered 45,000 casualties, though this is not confirmed); by the final victorious offensives in May of 2000 the Ethiopians had around 700,000 men on the Front; the Eritreans, 250 - 300,000.

With all sectors engaged in massed offensives, the vast Ethiopian reserves were then committed at Badme, supported by concentrated tanks and a paradrop operation behind enemy lines, with Ukrainian-piloted Sukhois providing air cover and engaging in desultory bombing. In three days of fighting at least 15,000 and possibly 25,000 Ethiopian troops were killed or wounded but the Ethiopians broke through and were able to decisively exploit their successes. Had the UN not intervened, they would have quite possibly overrun the whole country of Eritrea.

Their actual field tactics are strictly human waves, and best approximate the sort of tactics employed by the British in 1917. Tanks advance at the front in line after a preparatory barrage, with the infantry following in tight columns, tens of thousands of men being employed in a single attack. Attacks are pressed with utter disregard to casualties. Eritrean soldiers from the battle of Tsorona, for instance, reported firing their AK-47s on full automatic "until they were to hot to hold", lines of Ethiopian troops toppling the whole time, until they were at last beaten back.

The Ethiopians admit to 70,000 combat fatalities and probably on the order of 210,000 wounded in the Border War; the Eritreans admit to 100,000 killed and wounded in total. Both are probably underestimations; the conflict was accurately described as "1950s technology, WW1 tactics, 19th century medicine."

The main Ethiopian hindrance toward operating in Somalia with large forces is logistics. The Ogaden is a vicious wasteland with few roads and to my knowledge no railroads. Conversely, however, the Somalians have no ability to develop vast and sophisticated entrenchments like the Eritreans could, and the Ethiopians have complete air dominance, the same as we do over Iraq, though they can use it to far less effect. Their forces in Somalia or near the border are armour heavy, and they have certainly learned lessons and applied them from the conflict with Eritrea, particularly post-breakthrough manoeuvre after the final Battle of Badme.

The support of the population is largely irrelevant in this case; the government, though democratic in a vague sense, rules over people culturally inured to death and suffering, and they are fully capable of sustaining mass casualties at impressive ratios; if Ethiopia had the same size population as the USA, they would have had 300,000+ dead soldiers. As many as one out of every 500 males in the country died in the conflict.

In terms of their ability to fight the Somalians, as long as they remain in formation and have artillery and prepared machine-gun emplacement support, their positions are essentially unassailable. They have a preponderence of armour, and they do not break in action but their units hold together under even murderous fire, as Tsorona demonstrated. They are the sophisticated army of an organized, Christian civilization, with a long tradition of vigorous combat against the forces of Islam, during which they were always victorious and retained their independence. Primitive by our standards, I nonetheless expect them to perform against the Somalians as well as a colonial army against a tribalist force.

I would not be surprised if they end up not only reaching but rather brutally sacking Mogadishu; one thing is clear, they will not adhere to the laws of war save in a more perfunctory manner, and those mostly traditional rather than Geneva. That said, the conflict will not be a short one, unless negotiations cause a halt in it; nor will their progress be swift. The Ethiopians, perhaps fittingly as they're also an Orthodox and Oriental civilization, will operate methodically in the Russian style to shove the enemy back on every front, and willingly engage in butchery if necessary to suppress partisan resistance. The Somalians don't have the terrain of the Afghanis to resist that, nor a modern benefactor (Only Eritrea and the Arab gulf states). Their main hope is in getting Eritrea to act against Ethiopia, creating a broader conflict.

If this happens, the Horn of Africa could quickly be embroiled in a conflict as devastating as the First World War: The Sudan and Kenya might get involved on the Moorish and Ethiopian sides respectively

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Last reports is that as the islamist were leaving, the capital desceneded into the kind of anarchy that was there before the islamist quieted the place down.

--


Anarchy, welcome back.

There was looting in the interval between the departure of the Islamists, and the arrival of the TNG forces. The TNG has entered Mogadishu for the first time since its formation, so there is definitely something new going on. Whether the TNG will prove to have the capacity to maintain order is not clear, and skepticism is warranted.

However the ICU was also going beyond its original concept of restoring order, and was establishing a hardline sharia state, and brining in AQ and foreign fighters. Apparently the TNG forces have been welcomed by at least some sections of the mogadishu populace.


"
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia's prime minister entered the capital Mogadishu on Friday in a visit meant to symbolize the government's victory over Islamic rivals, a day after the militias abandoned the battle-scarred city.


Greeted by cheering residents, Mohamed Ali Gedi drove into northern Mogadishu in a heavily armed convoy of 22 vehicles.

Trucks fitted with loudspeakers roamed the city, blaring patriotic music to welcome the prime minister. Mogadishu has been controlled for the last six months by Islamic militias trying to establish a government based on the Quran, but the fighters abandoned the city on Thursday.

Several thousand demonstrators took to the streets to protest the presence of Ethiopian troops, throwing stones, burning tires and using cars to block a main road.

Earlier, Ethiopian troops aboard tanks fired warning shots into the air after dozens of young men threw stones at Gedi's convoy. The men had been trying to block the convoy of about 300 soldiers traveling though a former Islamic stronghold, 17-year-old student Najiib Aden Muse said, adding that the youths were chanting, "Ethiopian invaders go home."

Gedi drove through the international airport past Ethiopian tanks guarding the runway. Even before the rise of the Islamists, Gedi's government was kept out of Mogadishu by clan violence. There was an attempt on his life during a rare trip to the city in November 2005."

Looks like the Islamists in the population will oppose the Gedi govt and attempt an insurgency or intifadah against it. He will have to use the clans to rule, and those warlords who are willing to accept a place in a state based on order.

[Pekka]

Saras, doesn't sound good, but still better than Somalia's capabilities, a lot better.

When ever you have 'trust in numbers', you have to kind of think 'so these guys are still in the early 1900s'. It's not supposed to be overpower with the mass of troops, but overpower with the _firepower_. THere's a huge fundamental difference

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove

Do the Islamicists have a particular ethnic/tribal base? If not they may not be able to survive. Sudan is a long way away from them. Didn't they basically liquidate then replace the local tribal warlords of southern Somalia? There may be a significant degree of local hostility against them, so they may literally be up a creek without a paddle now that they're on the run. There may be very little "assymetric warfare".

They are literally up the creek?

[Dinner]

Ethiopia remains a poor isolated and relatively undeveloped Afrian nation. Basically, they can't make or buy the latest weapons, thus they can't even use mobile warfar doctrines, nor modern roads, or even a port. The only things they have are lots more old tanks & artillery then their neighbors, a larger population, and the political will to put up with mass casualties. Still, it seems that is often enough. It's what the Chinese used against the Americans in the Korean war and the Chinese got a draw because they didn't mind 50:1 kill ratios.

[Sprayber]

What I'm interested in is if the Islamic militias will settle for the occasional bombing of Mogadishu or attempt to actually carry out some inside Ethiopia. Also im thinking that surely Eritrea will stick to supporting the militias from behind the scene and not risk another war with Ethiopia over a few Islamic fighters.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



There was looting in the interval between the departure of the Islamists, and the arrival of the TNG forces. The TNG has entered Mogadishu for the first time since its formation, so there is definitely something new going on. Whether the TNG will prove to have the capacity to maintain order is not clear, and skepticism is warranted.

However the ICU was also going beyond its original concept of restoring order, and was establishing a hardline sharia state, and brining in AQ and foreign fighters. Apparently the TNG forces have been welcomed by at least some sections of the mogadishu populace.

That some part of the populace did not want a hard line Islamic state is obvious. The question that matters, and the reason that the transitional government failed once already is, can it stop feuding clans from fighting each other? What resources does it have to bring stability?

Ethiopia is hardly capable of helping in that regard, and they won;'t stay to quell any return of warlordism, since that does not affect them. The international community promised peacekeepers, but will they get involved in keeping the warlords down? Will aid increase?

I am not optimistic. It would be nice to see the world step in, give the transitional government the resources it needs to create some actual governance, but I doubt it highly.

[SlowwHand]

Yeah, sure. We just did that with Iraq AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED.

[GePap]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Yeah, sure. We just did that with Iraq AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED.

We did **** in Iraq, and that is the problem. The administration should have assembled 200,000 to 250,000 men BEFORE even invading, and made plans for direct control for a few months, then transition. But doing that would have exposed the lie of Iraq being a war of necessity because of some threat and shown it to be a grand experiment in controlled chaos and upending the regional balance, and then people like you who were cheerleading for the Iraq war from day one would have had to realize what it actually would cost and entail, and then you would probably have pulled your support.

Ethiopia went in simply to get rid of a threat to its territorial integrity. I doubt the Islamist nature of the regime was a big issue if not for its call for a greater Somalia, which would take a chunk out of Ethiopia, and that is certainly not something Ethiopia would allow.

Once the Islamist threat is gone or minimized, they won't waste time trying to create a new Somalia. That is not what they went in to do anyways. UNLIKE the US in Iraq.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


That some part of the populace did not want a hard line Islamic state is obvious. The question that matters, and the reason that the transitional government failed once already is, can it stop feuding clans from fighting each other? What resources does it have to bring stability?

Ethiopia is hardly capable of helping in that regard, and they won;'t stay to quell any return of warlordism, since that does not affect them. The international community promised peacekeepers, but will they get involved in keeping the warlords down? Will aid increase?

I am not optimistic. It would be nice to see the world step in, give the transitional government the resources it needs to create some actual governance, but I doubt it highly.

You seem to keep talking about the "warlords" as if they were all a nasty bunch of evil men who deliberately destroyed Somalia, and the way to solve Somalia is a huge campaign to build a new Somali army from scratch to put them down (much like our attempt to build an Iraqi army from scratch) In fact, from what I can gather, many warlords were simply clan leaders or businessmen who attempted to defend their interests in the wake of the collapse of central authority. It seems like a wise decision might be for the TNG to work WITH the clans - and to use their existing force to establish order.

It seem unlikely that the Ethiopian troops will stay a long time, or even enter Mogadishu. A wise decision, i think. But they can still, by giving the TNG a dominant position in rural areas, give it a leg up, and thus give clans an incentive to get on the TNG bandwagon as the best tactical course. A limited amount of international aid could add to this snowballing effect, and would also be wise. But a Bremer-like attempt to use international aid to bypass the clans and substitute a new govt force might well be a tragic mistake.

Note - NPR reports calm in Mogadishu this morning.

[DanS]

The commentary quoted by Saras is positively christian Iberia versus the Moors.

[DanS]

As for the Ethiopians, have at it boys. Don't want those Islamist ********ers in charge. The Ethiopians have the cause for war, the army, and are fighting a band of glorified pirates.

We'll have to see the aftermath with Ethiopian administration. Could hardly be worse than what Somalia had prior. Right now, this seems to be a good outcome for the US and is worthy of our support at this time.

http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=13266

[SlowwHand]

They're not through yet.

Ethiopia Advances on Somali Islamists’ Last City

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: December 30, 2006

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Dec. 30 – A phalanx of Ethiopian tanks and armored personnel carriers chugged toward the last city occupied by Somalia’s diminished Islamist movement, witnesses said today, setting the stage for one final major battle.

According to residents along Somalia’s coast, the Ethiopian troops, along with soldiers from Somalia’s transitional government, were preparing to seize Kismayo, a port city near the Kenyan border where the Islamist leaders have holed up.

Sheilk Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a high-ranking cleric, vowed not to go down without a fight.

"I want to tell you that the Islamic courts are still alive and ready to fight against the enemy of Allah," Mr. Ahmed told residents of Kismayo in a speech today. "We left Mogadishu in order to prevent bloodshed in the capital, but that does not mean we lost the holy war against our enemy.”

Mr. Ahmed called on Somalis to begin an anti-Ethiopian insurgency, and already several masked gunmen have surfaced on Mogadishu’s streets.

Diplomats in Kenya, though, said that they were talking to moderate representatives of the Islamic movement today, trying to persuade them to back down.

In Mogadishu, the presence of Ethiopian troops continued to spark violence, with supporters of the Ethiopians battling street by street against the remaining Islamist partisans. Gunshots rang out, men and women battled with sticks and rocks and the thick black smoke of burning barricades lifted into the air.

Just two days ago, in a stunning reversal of fortune, Somalia’s transitional government, with the muscle of the Ethiopian military, reclaimed Mogadishu, driving out the Islamist movement which had ruled large swaths of Somalia. More than a thousand people have been killed in the fighting and Somalia’s leaders now face the daunting task of trying to piece together a country that has not had a central government for 15 years.

Sheikhdon Salad Elmi, the director of a large hospital in Mogadishu’s Medina neighborhood, said the prospects of stability depend on how long the Ethiopian troops stay.

“I think it’s naïve for them to go right now,” Dr. Elmi said. “We need them for security. But they are very visible and most people don’t like them. The longer they stay, the more resentment that will come.”

Somalia has fought -- and lost – two wars with Ethiopia but never before have Ethiopian troops occupied the capital.

“It’s very humiliating,” Dr. Elmi said.

Ethiopian officials have said that they plan to withdraw troops in a matter of weeks but not before neutralizing the Islamists, who declared a holy war against Ethiopia, Somalia’s larger, more powerful and Christian-dominated neighbor.

One week ago, the Ethiopian military, with tacit American approval, unleashed a fierce counterattack against the Islamists, bombarding their positions with jet fighters and pushing tanks deep into Somali territory.

Since then, the Islamists have been steadily on the run, their teenage troops no match for a well-equipped modern army.

Mohammed Ibrahim and Yuusuf Maxamuud contributed to this report from Mogadishu.

[kittenOFchaos]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Ethiopia remains a poor isolated and relatively undeveloped Afrian nation. Basically, they can't make or buy the latest weapons, thus they can't even use mobile warfar doctrines, nor modern roads, or even a port. The only things they have are lots more old tanks & artillery then their neighbors, a larger population, and the political will to put up with mass casualties. Still, it seems that is often enough. It's what the Chinese used against the Americans in the Korean war and the Chinese got a draw because they didn't mind 50:1 kill ratios.

50:1 kill ratios? Do us a lemon. 5:1 be far more realistic.

Interestingly Ethiopia had troops fighting in Korea too