Ethiopia Routs Islamic Courts Union in Somalia

This may seem like good news at first glance. But it's important to remember that there aren't any good guys in Somalia. The Islamic Courts Union is actually a stabilizing force, but stabilizing because it's repressive and authoritarian. The somali government is corrupt as all hell and far too dependent on war lords who are pretty much just bandits. Ethopia doesn't really care about Somalia for Somalia's sake -- they're pretty much into this just to set back Eritrea and to keep the fight from its own borders.

Agence France-Presse:

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said more than 1,000 people have died in fighting since his troops backing Somalia's government forces took the offensive against powerful Islamists.

"We got reports of more than 3,000 wounded in a Mogadishu hospital. Those who died are well over 1,000," Meles told a press conference in Addis Ababa, two days after Ethiopia acknowledged military intervention in the neighbouring and lawless Horn of Africa nation.

The Islamists said they had been forced to withdraw from many front-line positions in seven days of heavy fighting, but vowed to dig in for a long war with Ethiopia, which denies planning to take Somalia's capital Mogadishu or other Islamist stronghold towns.

Meles said his force had "broken the back" of the foreign-backed Islamists and forced them into "full retreat" in the wake of air strikes and artillery battles on several fronts.

I took this with a degree of skepticism. Ethiopia would have no reason to do anything but declare victory. But the BBC is telling pretty much the same story.

One thing's for certain, Somalia's officially a regional war.

Tags: news | politics | war | Military | Africa | Somalia | Ethiopia