International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant For Mumar Khadafi

The International Criminal Court has handed down an arrest warrant for Libyan dictator Mumar Khadafi for crimes against humanity based on his brutal crackdown and ongoing fight against opposition groups in Libya. Also, warrants were issued for his son and another high ranking security official:

Judges at the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Monday for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and two of his most trusted lieutenants on war crimes charges.

The decision came after ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had asked for arrest warrants for Mr. Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi.

Moreno-Ocampo says Gadhafi and his government carried out attacks against demonstrators, and ordered snipers to fire on civilians leaving mosques during the crackdown against rebels seeking Gadhafi's ouster.

Meanwhile, witnesses in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, say they have heard two loud explosions and could see smoke rising from the area near Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound Monday.

What's interesting is that the arrest warrants against Khadafi and his minions could easily be duplicated and issued against Syria's Bashar al Assad and his top thugs since they too are engaging in essentially the same exact crimes against humanity in Assad's ongoing brutal crackdown against protesters. The key difference is that NATO and the UN have not acted to thwart Assad, while the UN and NATO have launched military operations to prevent Khadafi from reasserting power across all of Libya.

African Union members continue expressing concern over the situation in Libya and that Khadafi has no role in the future of the country; the AU calls on both Khadafi and the transitional government to agree to an immediate cessation of military operations:

Death Toll Mounts In Ivory Coast As UN Comes Under Attack From Gbagbo's Loyalists

The death toll continues rising in the Ivory Coast as a result of the political unrest and demands that Laurent Gbagbo leave office.



French peacekeepers took control over a key airport and are bolstering UN peacekeepers elsewhere in the country. Various reports indicate that anywhere from several hundred to more than a thousand people were killed in one town near the heart of the cocoa producing region. There is some dispute over who engaged in the killings, but there were retaliatory attacks between Gbagbo's loyalists and the rebel groups backing the winner of November's election, Alassane Dramane Ouattara.

United Nations helicopters patrolled the skies over the city as a tense calm reigned Sunday morning, a local resident told CNN.

The man, whom CNN is not naming to protect his safety, said he had been to church as usual, where another parishioner said he had seen dead bodies by the road on his way to the congregation.

The uneasy peace came in the wake of claims of a massacre as fighters backing internationally recognized President Alassane Ouattara battle forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to leave office.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded Sunday that Gbagbo step aside immediately.

"Gbagbo is pushing Cote d'Ivoire into lawlessness," she said, using the French name for the country. "He must leave now so the conflict may end."

She also called "on the forces of President Ouattara to respect the rules of war and stop attacks on civilians."

The International Committee of the Red Cross said 800 people were shot to death in the western cocoa-producing town of Duekoue. A United Nations official put the death toll so far at 330.

The massacre occurred between Monday and Wednesday as Ouattara's Republican Forces led an offensive through the country to Abidjan, said Guillaume Ngefa, the deputy human rights director at the U.N. mission in Ivory Coast.

He blamed 220 deaths on forces loyal to Ouattara. Ngefa said pro-Gbagbo forces killed 100 people.

"We have evidence, we have pictures. This was retaliation," he said, referring to Ouattara's forces.

The Ouattara camp said it "firmly rejects such accusations and denies any involvement by the Republican Forces of Cote d'Ivoire in possible abuses."

The UN is withdrawing some of its personnel after their headquarters building has come under repeated attack by Gbagbo's loyalists.

Ivory Coast's Gbagbo's Regime Is At End, Except for the Shooting

The situation in the Ivory Coast remains in flux as rebel groups continue gaining ground against former President Laurent Gbagbo. Fighting continues in the country's commercial capital, and the state television station has gone off the air. The fighting is now focusing on the presidential compound, and Gbagbo's regime may be nearing an end.

U.N. peacekeepers moved to secure the Abidjan airport by sending armed elements and additional personnel there, according to a U.N. peacekeeping official in New York who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Patrick Achi, a spokesman for Ouattara, said the fighters — largely drawn from a northern rebel group that launched a 2002 rebellion against Gbagbo — had breached the city limit overnight.

It was unclear whether Gbagbo was inside the presidential mansion. The defiant leader has not been seen in public since the offensive began five days ago.

"We don't know where he is," a senior diplomat told The Associated Press. He asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

A Swedish woman working for the United Nations was killed by a stray bullet during fighting in Abidjan on Thursday night, the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm confirmed. Some 500 foreigners sought refuge at a French military base, Col. Thierry Burkhard told the AP.

The chairperson of the commission of the African Union, Jean Ping, urged Gbagbo to immediately hand over power to Ouattara "in order to shorten the suffering of the Ivorians," the AU said in a statement from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Gbagbo lost last November's presidential election according to his country's election commission and international observers, but has stubbornly refused to step down. Sanctions imposed on him and his inner circle failed to dislodge him.

The armed offensive is the most severe threat that he has faced, and analysts say they expect Gbagbo's regime to fall within days. "It's over — except for the shooting," said the diplomat.

Gbagbo was defeated in elections this past November by Alassane Dramane Ouattara, but Gbagbo refused to step down, setting up the current conflict.

Niger Coup Leads To New Government and Opportunity for Elections?

This is a fluid and developing situation, but reports yesterday indicated that the Niger military engaged in a coup to depose the sitting President. That sounds pretty bad for the President,  Mamadou Tandja, except that the Tandja may have seriously overstepped his authority and essentially became a dictator-in-chief by changing term limits and other laws limiting his authority.

Tandja, who drew criticism and sanctions for his constitutional reform that allowed him to stay in power beyond the end of his second term which expired in December, was in detention and in "very good condition", the junta said.

Most of the members of Tandja's cabinet were released by Friday afternoon, according to military sources, though their work was being done by their secretary generals.

Junta leader Djibo is an officer trained in Ivory Coast, Morocco and China who has served in U.N. peacekeeping missions. Other leaders include Colonel Djibril Hamidou, a key player in Niger's last coup in 1999 that paved the way for the vote that brought Tandja to power.

Despite the international condemnation, diplomats and analysts said the overthrow of Tandja could create an opportunity to hold the elections that were postponed by his unpopular constitutional reform.

"The junta will likely defer to international and domestic pressure for a return to democracy, and organise elections in the medium term," said Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, Africa analyst for Eurasia Group.

A  platoon leader, Salou Djibo, was named head of the junta, which calls itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy. Djibo has had experience on peacekeeping missions with the United Nations and African Union missions.

The French and African Union were quick to condemn the coup and wanted to know the whereabouts of the former leader Mamadou Tandja. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon also condemned the coup.

The situation in Niger has serious repercussions for the rest of the world since it is a major source of uranium and securing the supply of uranium is a priority. It's the third biggest supplier, and it was hoping to double its production by 2012. It's not clear how the coup will affect the uranium production and who the country does business with.

Sudanese Genocide Continues In Darfur

The Sudanese military continues its campaign in Darfur, bombing civilian homes perilously close to a UN/African Union peacekeeping force.

SUDANESE government planes bombed a key town in south Darfur today, a week after it was seized by Darfuri JEM rebels.

Bombs landed close to a base run by the joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force, UNAMID, in the town of Muhajiriya and destroyed houses, a UN official said.

The attack marked an escalation in recent clashes between government troops and forces from Darfur's Justice And Equality Movement (JEM).

JEM has seized control of Muhajiriya from forces led by Minni Arcua Minnawi, the only Darfur rebel leader to have signed a peace deal with the government in 2006.

Tensions have been rising in Darfur as all sides of a nearly six-year-old conflict are waiting for the International Criminal Court to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes.

The UN official, who asked not to be named, said government planes had bombed Muhajiriya today.

"Some bombs landed near the UNAMID compound and some houses have been burned," he said.

UN Fails Zimbabwe Again

Once again, the UN fails Zimbabwe. UN peacekeepers are supposed to be protecting refugees from Mugabe's thugs, and yet they were no where to be found as those thugs raided a refugee camp.

The 400-strong group at Ruwa rehabilitation center sought refuge at the South African Embassy in Harare three weeks ago, and moved to the site 15 miles southeast of the city after assurances for their safety were given.

But around a dozen uniformed men, some in balaclavas, walked past a lone policeman on duty at the gate and attacked sleeping refugees.

One man who escaped said he believed scores had been hurt, and many, including women and children, had been kidnapped.

South Africa has been playing a key role for Mugabe in running interference at the UN, the African Union, and at the G8 conference. The South Africans are also trying to keep the West from imposing sanctions against Mugabe, which is the most that the West has been able to agree upon. South Africa's President Mbeki thinks that sanctions could lead to civil war, though one has to wonder what calls a situation where Mugabe has ran the opposition out of the country, displaced hundreds of thousands, killed an untold number of people, and destroyed the democracy there, if not a civil war?

The latest from those entities calls on Mugabe and the opposition to enter into a power-sharing arrangement, but we've seen time and time again that Mugabe has no interest in sharing power with anyone, least of all Tsvangirai. Why would anyone in Mugabe's government listen to Tsvangirai, including the military and the militias operating at Mugabe's behest to intimidate and threaten the opposition to the point where they've sought refuge in foreign embassies.

What Pressure?

MSNBC headlines that Robert Mugabe is bucking international pressure after stealing the election this past Friday. What pressure? The UN can barely scrape together a consensus to write a weakly worded statement. Sanctions are being blocked by China and South Africa, and the African Union's members are busy calling Mugabe a hero. For that matter, MSNBC reported that Mugabe was lauded as a hero. Do they not read their own copy?

Meanwhile, today's MSNBC report leads with the fact that Mugabe dismisses out of hand the idea of a power sharing agreement, which is the proposal put forth by the African Union.

Zimbabwe on Tuesday dismissed calls for a Kenya-style grand coalition government to resolve its election crisis, saying the way out would be decided the "Zimbabwean way".

President Robert Mugabe, 84, was sworn in for a new five-year term on Sunday after election authorities announced he had won a landslide victory in a one-candidate presidential run-off ballot that was boycotted by the opposition.

"Kenya is Kenya. Zimbabwe is Zimbabwe. We have our own history of evolving dialogue and resolving political impasses the Zimbabwean way. The Zimbabwean way, not the Kenyan way. Not at all," Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba told journalists at an African Union summit in Egypt.

I noted yesterday that Mugabe had no reason to even consider such a thing since he's the one in charge.

Why would a dictator give up power when he maintains absolute control over his failed state (of his own creation no less)?

As for the Zimbabwean way, Mugabe must be referring to the 80+% unemployment rate, crushing poverty and endless hunger because of his economic policies that have utterly ruined the country. Or, Mugabe is referring to his intimidation and oppressive tactics to destroy the opposition political party led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Either way, Mugabe will not be held accountable for any of his destructive policies by the international community until someone actually deposes him - a very unlikely scenario.

UPDATE:
Via Instapundit, this opinion piece eviscerates the left for supporting Mugabe all these years and only now coming around to the idea of deposing Mugabe. Had they taken this tact years ago, the misery endured by millions of Zimbabweans might have been avoided.

Mugabe Lauded As Hero By African Union

Hero.

“We have even received Mugabe as a hero,” he told reporters. “We understand the attacks (by the international community) but this is not the way they should react. What they’ve done is, in our opinion, a little clumsy, and we think they could have consulted us (the AU) first.”

Those were words uttered by Omar Bongo, President of Gabon, and a member of the African Union, which hailed the news of Mugabe's "election win."

Let that sink in folks.

Mugabe, who is nothing more than a dictator having stolen democracy from Zimbabweans, is a hero to these tools at the AU. And we're supposed to think that the AU will force Mugabe from office because Mugabe stole the election?

Isn't it amazing how Mugabe could declare victory hours after the runoff votes were cast, but he never provided results of the original election? He stole the election, and the AU is putting its rubber stamp on the process.

Of course, it helps when you terrorize the opposition and force them into hiding and into the Dutch Embassy.

The AU and South Africa in particular have done nothing but enable Mugabe in his totalitarian power grab.

Another Day at the Office

Yet again, we find that Darfur is still the locus of violence and genocide, and yet no one at the UN seems to think it serious enough to warrant calling it genocide or that the Sudanese government was once again responsible for the carnage:

According to several residents of Muhagiriya, a small town in southern Darfur, two columns of uniformed government troops, along with dozens of militiamen not in uniform, surrounded the town around noon on Oct. 8 and stormed the market. Muhagiriya was a stronghold of one of Darfur’s many rebel factions, but witnesses said there were few rebels there at the time and that government forces turned their guns — and knives — on civilians.

Ayoub Jalal, a mechanic, said his father was praying at a mosque when soldiers burst in. “They dragged my father and the others out of the mosque and slashed their throats,” said Mr. Jalal, who was interviewed by telephone.

Both the United Nations and the African Union confirmed that dozens of civilians had been killed and that witnesses consistently identified the attackers as government soldiers and allied gunmen. However, neither entity said it could independently verify who was responsible.

The Sudanese government denied any involvement, but witnesses said uniformed troops methodically mowed down anyone who tried to escape, including a group of fleeing children.

“The youngest child, a 5-year-old boy, I knew well,” said Sultan Marko Niaw, a tribal elder, who also spoke by phone. He said the boy’s name was Guran Avium: “A soldier had shot him in the back.”

Locals are loath to trust the UN because they see it siding with the Sudanese government and its passive/inactive approach just gets more Darfurians killed. The UN thinks that even that approach is far too much, and stonewalled until Darfur was pretty much ethnically cleansed of all opposition.

Those that are left are still under threat of continuing violence, and the UN will take its time in determining who was responsible even as all fingers point towards the Sudanese government.

All the witnesses seem to corroborate each other and the report that the Sudanese militias were involved in the slaughter.

I guess we'll get a shrug and a nod.

Had this been in Iraq and US forces alleged to have been involved, this would be splashed all over the front pages of all papers and media outlets, investigations would be demanded, and heads would roll. The media would have gone out of its way to portray this as a savage slaughter by US forces against hapless and defenseless civilians.

Here? Not so much. After all, it's only Darfurians, and the US can't be directly blamed for the ongoing bloodshed. The UN stands in the way of greater action, especially because Sudan and its foreign backers prevent more strenuous actions against those responsible for the genocide (which the UN continues to refuse to call as such) and ethnic cleansing.

Darfur Peacekeeper Base Attacked; 12+ Killed, Dozens Missing

The African Union has been trying to restore peace to the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese government in Khartoum continues to provide support to militias, and opposition groups aren't taking too kindly to the AU presence either, believing that the AU is supporting the government position.

It's a no-win situation for the AU, which now finds itself in the middle of a conflict on the heels of the Darfur genocide.

More than 50 AU peacekeepers and support personnel are missing in action since the attack on the base in northern Darfur just after sunset on Saturday.

"This is the heaviest loss of life and the biggest attack on the African Union mission," said AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni, who could not confirm the casualty figures because the fighting was ongoing.

Officers in the AU force said that a force of 1,000 rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army stormed the AU base in the town of Haskanita just after the sunset fastbreaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"There is a war going on between the rebels and the government, and the AU is crunched in the middle," said a senior AU officer who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Darfur rebels have grown increasingly hostile to the AU peacekeepers saying the force is not neutral and is favoring the government side. There have been several ambushes of AU forces in the past year on AU force blamed on rebels.

U.N. approves up to 26,000 troops, police for Darfur

This is a story that Lawhawk has been all over the past year or even more. However, he probably missed this as it came out while was probably on his way home. I am sure you will see a whole article from him on this shortly. So here is the teaser article:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council authorized on Tuesday up to 26,000 troops and police for Darfur and approved the use of force to protect civilians in Sudan's arid western region.

Expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, the combined "hybrid" U.N.-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million people have been driven into camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the past four years.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who conducted months of talks with Khartoum, described the resolution as "historic and unprecedented" and said the mission would "make a clear and positive difference."

The resolution, number 1769, invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, under which the United Nations can authorize force. The measure allows the use of force for self-defense, to ensure the free movement of humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack, but acknowledges Sudan's sovereignty.

But the resolution, which has been watered down several times, no longer allows the new force to seize and dispose of illegal arms. Now it can only monitor such weapons.

I am not sure that this is anything more than symbolism over substance. The U.N. is not sending a peace keeping force, it is sending a baby sitting squad with power to observe. They can't seize and dispose of illegal weapons, only monitor them? Monitor them doing what...shooting and killing innocent civilians. "Yup, that was an illegal weapon that killed that baby over there...good monitoring troops!"

I am tired of this. The U.N. is a useless agency that is mired in its own mediocrity and irrelevance. U.N. peace keeping forces have failed to keep peace since its founding. U.N. peace keepers themselves have been almost as bad as the forces they are supposed to protecting civilians from.

Its about time the United Nations authorizes a peace keeping force with authority to actually keep the peace. Who will actually make a difference rather than "monitor" illegal weapons. Take the illegal weapons! They don't want to give them up, use force. Monitoring the situation is only going to allow the status quo to continue. All we will be left with is another acronym, UNAMID or the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, and another failed peace initiative, more innocent lives lost and a bad situation made worse by inaction and failed action.

24 Hours For Darfur

24 Hours for Darfur is a grassroots video advocacy campaign dedicated to ending the conflict in Darfur and promoting peace and security for the people living there. I received the following via email and thought it worth sharing. The Darfur genocide is far from over, and people living in the region continue to be hounded by the Janjaweed and Sudanese government forces. The African Union has been stretched to the limit and the UN has been ineffectual at stopping the violence.

Our primary initiative is to collect thousands of personal video appeals from people all over the world. All appeals will be displayed on our website and sent directly to participant's political representatives. On September 16, 2007 we will screen 24 hours of rolling footage at a rally in front of the UN headquarters and at smaller events at halls of power throughout the world - all connected through a real-time online broadcast.

US Presidential candidate John Edwards, Author Samantha Power, Actress Mia Farrow, two former United Nations Deputy Secretaries-General, two former United States Deputy Secretaries of State, and hundreds of private citizens from around the world have already submitted videos. Please join us in speaking out against genocide by submitting a video appeal of your own. Use a webcam to record a video right in your web browser, or upload a video you've recorded offline.

We have also been working with scholars, practitioners, journalists and Darfuris to compile an online video library of educational material related to the conflict. Nicholas Kristof, John Prendergast, several Human Rights Watch researchers, and many others have already contributed educational videos. You can check it out by visiting our website's education section: http://www.24hoursfordarfur.org/education.php.

For this campaign to make a significant contribution to Darfur advocacy, it needs to be truly global in scope. We hope you'll lend your voice to the effort.

Somalia in Crisis

The New York Times reports that Somalia is heading towards its worst crisis yet. That's a curious position to take considering that the country has seen no functional central government in decades and the lawlessness has been a way of life for a generation.

Hundreds of thousands have sought sanctuary in squalid refugee camps.

Fatality figures vary widely, but the most conservative estimates put the toll from the past month near 1,000, with 200 people killed in the past week.

Most of the victims are civilians caught in a cross-fire of shelling between insurgents and government troops. Entire city blocks and countless homes have been leveled.

The shelling in some of Mogadishu’s neighborhoods was so intense on Sunday that many residents were unable to get to hospitals — or cemeteries. Some people buried their relatives in makeshift graves, along streets under mounds of gravel.

“They are pounding us,” said Fadumo Ali Hussein, a mother of eight children.

Ms. Hussein said her sister bled to death on Sunday after she was hit by a piece of shrapnel.

“We couldn’t get her to a doctor,” she said.

Diplomatically, things look grim, too. On Saturday, Eritrea, a neighbor widely suspected by Ethiopian intelligence agents of supporting Islamists in Somalia, pulled out of a regional organization that had been acting as a counterweight to rising tensions in the region.

The organization, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which included Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, was trying to broker peace in Somalia and address the combustible rivalry between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The two countries recently fought a costly border war, and many diplomats fear that Somalia could turn into a proxy battle, with Ethiopia supporting Somalia’s weak transitional government and Eritrea backing the insurgents.

The Foreign Ministry of Eritrea issued a short statement saying that it had “suspended membership” in the regional organization because of “a number of repeated and irresponsible resolutions.”

The African Union has also tried to intervene in Somalia and earlier this year promised to quickly dispatch 8,000 peacekeepers. But so far, only about 1,500 Ugandan soldiers have arrived, and they are mostly hunkered down at the airport in Mogadishu.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations said in a report released Friday that more drastic steps might need to be taken, including forming a “coalition of the willing” to step into Somalia to restore order.

But Somalia’s government seems to be in no mood to stop the fighting. Ali Mohamed Gedi, the transitional prime minister, warned Mogadishu’s residents, thought to number around two million before the recent clashes, to clear out of the city because there was no cease-fire in sight.

“Until the terrorists are wiped out from Somalia, the fighting will go on,” Mr. Gedi said in a radio interview broadcast this weekend. “The battle is clearly between terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and the government supported by Ethiopian and A.U. troops.”

Ah, another coalition of the willing. Who will step up? Count on the US being asked to do the heavy lifting once again? Somalia's government recognizes the ongoing threat posed by the Islamists who seek to reimpose their dominion. They're engaged in an insurgency designed to maximize casualties and have no interest in peaceful coexistence.

Sudanese President Claims US Exaggerating Darfur Violence

Sudan's president told attendees of the Nation of Islam's national conference via satellite Friday that the United States is exaggerating troubles in his country's volatile Darfur region so it can control the country as it has in Iraq.

President Omar al-Bashir was invited to speak at the three-day convention by representatives of longtime Nation leader Louis Farrakhan. Al-Bashir said he was using the address, which also was said to be broadcast live on Sudanese television, to call on the mass media and American public to learn the truth about his country.

"A number of governments, including the U.S., are putting pressure (on Sudan)," he said. "They're imposing solutions that don't respect the dignity of our nation."

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million been chased from their homes in Darfur since 2003, when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central Arab-led government.

Al-Bashir denied reports of ethnic cleansing among tribes and said Darfur is "quite calm." He said its problems are limited to a small section in the region's north.

Things may be calm now because there is no one left living in those areas. The indigenous population has been forced to flee - many into neighboring countries. The janjaweed, with the blessing of the Sudanese government in Khartoum has slaughtered hundreds of thousands.

But don't take the word of the US or Europeans. The human rights groups also have found this situation intolerable as does the UN. The problem is that no one wants to take decisive action to put the situation to an end. Khartoum has repeatedly blocked UN peacekeeping operations and recently settled on a peacekeeping plan with the African Union.

Passing Shots

Mugabe in Zimbabwe is continuing to act like dictators always do: he basically tells Zimbabweans to eat cake while he and his minions party like it's 1999. Oh, and did I mention that he's taking a cut from everyone's wages to pay for his party?

Police in Zimbabwe imposed a three-month ban on political rallies and demonstrations across large parts of Harare today as Robert Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, celebrated his 83rd birthday.

The blanket ban, announced in state-controlled newspapers, came as supporters of the hardline President prepared a lavish cake-and-fizzy-drinks birthday party in the central city of Gweru, to be held on Saturday to mark…

The party has been deducting money from civil servants’ wages and bullying near-bankrupt businesses for donations to raise the 300 million Zimbabwean dollars (about £30,000 at real exchange rates) to pay for the celebration on Saturday. In attendance will be the 21st of February Movement, an organisation of children established with the sole purpose of gathering on this day each year to pay homage.

Iraqi insurgents detonated the third bomb attached to a chlorine gas canister in recent weeks. They're trying to cause a mass casualty incident with a chemical weapon. The insurgents are trying to escalate the violence to a level beyond the carnage that they already have been able to inflict with conventional weapons alone. Where are the Muslims calling for an end to this carnage? After all, the insurgents are targeting other Muslims. The silence is deafening.

Somalia will get a contingent of African Union troops, which will be followed by UN peacekeepers in the near future. All the same, the threat posed by the Islamists remains.

Don Surber thinks that the Brits may show the way to win in Iraq. The handover of Basra means that the British task in Southern Iraq may be coming to a close. This means that they've accomplished what they set out to do. Considering that the level of violence there was never anywhere close to the violence in the Baghdad/Anbar region, the Brits were able to focus on other aspects of rebuilding besides security. The situation facing US forces in and around Baghdad and Anbar is far more complicated than what the Brits have dealt with. This isn't to minimize what the Brits did, but puts it into context.

Tom Maguire has more on the Libby trial now that the case has gone to the jury to deliberate.

This is just horrific - an honor killing in the UK.

Sudan Denied AU Seat Over Darfur

There is some justice in the world (just a wee bit - these are international organizations with little actual power after all). Sudan was denied the chairmanship of the African Union, mostly because the Sudanese government continues to flaunt international organizations seeking to bring the Darfur genocide/ethnic cleansing to an end. The post went to a Ghanaian instead.

Sudan lost its bid to assume the rotating leadership of the African Union to Ghana on Monday after regional leaders snubbed Khartoum for a second time because of international outrage over bloodshed in Darfur.

Alpha Oumar Konare, the AU's top diplomat, told reporters Ghanaian President John Kufuor would take the post of AU chairman. "By consensus it is President Kufuor."

He said Sudan had supported the decision, which avoided a damaging dispute that would have eclipsed the main summit agenda, including raising peacekeeping troops for Somalia.

There's still the not insignificant task of dealing with the peacekeeping situation in Darfur. The AU has been trying to shift the peacekeeping to the UN, but Sudan has been blocking nearly all efforts to interpose peacekeepers in the region. That's on top of the fact that the Sudanese government has been in cahoots with the janjaweed who have perpetrated much of the violence in the region.

Sudan Seeking To Coopt African Union

Sudan would love to be the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse. Sudan wants to lead the African Union.

Are you kidding me?!

Sudan has opposed peacekeeping operations and would be the equivalent of putting Iran in charge of the IAEA or the Saudis in charge of religious tolerance, etc.

The 53-member AU meets this week in Ethiopia to choose its new chairman among African heads of states. The spiraling violence in Sudan's western Darfur region, where the AU has 7,000 peacekeepers, is expected to top the agenda.

Many observers say al-Bashir is a party to the conflict and should not chair the organization.

Khartoum says AU leaders already agreed to select al-Bashir during last year's summit.

"African heads of states will have to stick to their word, otherwise what is the point for the AU to hold meetings and reach agreements?" said Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq.

But several African countries — backed by Western nations — oppose al-Bashir's bid to become chairman despite the agreement reported last year, diplomats in Khartoum said.

Here's what it means for Sadiq. Your country is a massive violator of human rights, including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and have done absolutely nothing to stop the carnage for years on end. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in the Darfur genocide, and more than 2 million have been displaced. The Sudanese government in Khartoum has effectively aligned with the Janjaweed, the Arab fighters who have conducted much of the carnage and terror in Darfur, and as such cannot and should not hold any position of any authority until that changes. Sudan does not get the opportunity to co-opt international organizations that are struggling to deal with the messes you've created.

The AU has peacekeepers in Sudan because of the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by the Sudanese government. It is the height of hypocrisy to even consider allowing Sudan the right to head up an organization that is attempting to restore peace to Darfur. Sudan has opposed peacekeeping operations in Darfur and has turned a blind eye to all the violence in the region.

What exactly would anyone expect if Sudan assumed the leadership position in the AU? Does anyone expect the AU to continue its peacekeeping operations or would it be sent home by Khartoum. How many more will die to find out?

Second Strike

US forces launched another attack against what are likely Somali Islamists and al Qaeda located in Somalia. Here's hoping that they got their intended targets.

The United States launched an air strike about two weeks ago against what officials then said were al Qaeda operatives.

The target of the second strike was unclear, but some officials indicated it was likely an al Qaeda operative. They would not say which day the strike occurred but it was this week.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.

The US also refuses to confirm or deny that they have ground forces inside Somalia tracking down the Islamists and al Qaeda.

UPDATE:
Still no word on who or what was the target of the US airstrike, but mortar shells hit the Mogadishu airport, killing two Somalis. The Islamists will take credit.

At the same time, Ethiopian forces have laid out a plan to withdraw their forces in three phases.

Meles said he expected the deployment of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) before the end of the third phase withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces.

He told a press conference that the Ethiopian forces began withdrawing from Somalia as of Tuesday.

Meles said the victory of the Ethiopian defense forces over the extremist group in Somalia without casualties on civilians showed the military capability and heroism of the defense forces.

He said the withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces from the capital Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia would successfully be completed in the coming few weeks.

Ethiopia started withdrawing its troops as the TFG forces began stabilizing the country, Meles said.

Meles said warlords and their militias have become part of the army of the TFG through peaceful ways after handing over their armaments.

(TFG is the transitional government.) While the possibility exists that the Ethiopians smashed the Islamists in Somalia to eliminate a rival and have no interest in what happens in Somalia going forward, we do.

A Somalia without a functioning government that wields the force to eliminate militias and maintain territorial integrity is one mighty fine looking piece of real estate for al Qaeda to call home. No functioning government means a breeding ground for Islamists. Ethiopia might not find that situation worrisome now, but it will be like whack-a-mole. They'll have to keep going back, instead of the more difficult and long term job of trying to make a government work there.

Nigeria, meanwhile, says that it is willing to send troops to Somalia.

A battalion of Nigerian soldiers is expected to leave for Somalia in the next two weeks to join a planned African peacekeeping force in that country, Nigeria's defence minister told Reuters on Wednesday.

The African Union has proposed sending about 8 000 peacekeepers to Somalia to bolster the interim government after Ethiopian troops complete their pull out from the chaotic country.

Defence Minister Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi said the Nigerian battalion, which normally contains between 770 and 1 000 troops, is already undergoing training and waiting for supplies and logistics to move into Somalia.

Jihadis Flocking to Somalia Like Moths to Flames

As we've seen over the past few weeks, the jihadis who have been heeding the calls of al Qaeda's Zawahiri and others seeking to go to war against the West have been flocking to Somalia to assist the Islamic Courts Union in their fight against the transitional government backed by the Ethiopian government and the West.

And many of those jihadis have ended up quite dead. Australians. Persons carrying American passports along with Somalis, Sudanese, Ethiopian, and Saudis have all made their way to Somalia and fought and died in jihad.

The African Union is looking at a way to fund peacekeeping operations in Somalia to take over when the Ethiopians finish their operations in assistance of the transitional government.

A leading Somali politician who has ties to the Islamists has called for the various sides to put down their weapons as he himself has dropped opposition to a peacekeeping operation to bring stability to the country. However, not everyone is happy with the ongoing Ethiopian presence. Somalia is still a violent place, and a move to disarm the various militias erupted in violence. People who haven't seen a functional government in nearly two decades aren't going to give up their weapons willingly or lightly.

Technorati: somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, council of islamic courts, genocide, crimes against humanity, jihad, failure, and united nations

Al Qaeda Cheerleading Somali Islamists

Osama bin Laden’s deputy has called on Somalia’s Islamic militants to carry out suicide attacks on Ethiopian troops fighting in their country, according to a taped message posted on the Internet Friday.

Al-Qaida’s No. 2 also implores Muslims worldwide to support Somalia’s Islamists with fighters, money and expertise.

“I speak to you today as the crusader invader forces of Ethiopia violate the soil of the beloved Muslim Somalia,” Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri said in the recording.

Considering that the Ethiopians have routed the Somali Islamists and have cornered roughly 600 of them in the far South of the country near the Kenyan border, I'd say that Zawahiri's exhortations to fight are an attempt to salvage a deteriorating situation.

The specter of an insurgency remains a definite possibility throughout Somalia, and it's one that Zawahiri is clearly hoping to ignite.

UPDATE:
Well some foreign jihadis have made their way into Somalia to fight the Ethiopians and stir up trouble. ABC News' Blotter reports that American passports were found among were among the bodies of jihadis killed in the battles with Somali and Ethiopian forces.

According to the same source, most of the foreign passports were Sudanese, Pakistani and Yemeni, but several American, British and Australian passports were also recovered.

The senior Somali government official told ABC News that the American passports found on the dead bodies near Baidoa, in Somalia, would be turned over to the American government.

Others commenting on this aspect of the story: Blue Crab Boulevard notes that the Ethiopian offensive has put the kibosh on the al Qaeda plans. Astute Blogger finds that this confirms the Bush vision of fighting the jihadis overseas so that we don't have to deal with them over here. I'm not sure I completely agree, but it has worked out that way so far. The key to keeping the fight overseas is to vigorously protect the rear - ensuring that the jihadis aren't able to operate inside the US and extend that to Europe as well. Europe is the battleground that has yet to play out since it is far too easy for the jihadis to enter overland. Jawa Report also comments.

Technorati: somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, council of islamic courts, genocide, crimes against humanity, jihad, failure, and united nations