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A new scramble for Africa? US military intervention on Continent increases
Ugandan and Burundian troops fighting al-Shabaab militants in Mogadishu as part of an African Union force (ANISOM) have pushed back the insurgents in recent months and now control almost all the capital. The Kenyan incursion has forced al-Shabab to fight on its southern flank as well.
Though the Kenyan invasion appears to further the U.S. goal of pressuring al-Shabaab, U.S. officials say the American military is not providing assistance to Kenya in its incursion.
“The United States has supported Kenyan efforts to improve its ability to monitor and control often porous land and maritime borders and territory exploited by terrorists and illicit traffickers, particularly along its border with Somalia,” said Katya Thomas, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.
But, she added: “The United States did not encourage the Kenyan government to act nor did Kenya seek our views. We note that Kenya has a right to defend itself against threats to its security and its citizens.”
Some aspects of Kenya’s military adventure appear poorly thought out. The troops moved in just as seasonal rains began. Kenyan forces are now bogged down in the mud, a literal reminder of the potential quagmire for countries that try to intervene in Somalia, whose last nationwide leader was overthrown in 1991.
A paper published by the U.S. Army examining the ill-fated Operation Restore Hope of the early 1990s concluded that “the chaotic political situation of that unhappy land bogged down U.S. and allied forces in what became, in effect, a poorly organized United Nations nation-building operation.”
An invasion by Ethiopia in 2006 was extremely unpopular and gave rise to the militants now known as al-Shabaab.
“That’s the problem with Somalia, there is just no easy answer,” said Cooke, the analyst. “The problem is so huge and multi- faceted that tackling one aspect of it, i.e., beating back al-Shabaab, just can’t fix it. Part of the problem is that the government we have invested in as our key partner in Somalia is a fiction of a government, and so Kenya can try to create some space but there is nothing to fill that.”
The chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, told the House Armed Services Committee this month that the U.S. must remain active in Africa because terrorists are networked globally.
“One of the places they sit is Pakistan. One of the places they sit or sat is Afghanistan. One of the places they sit is the African continent,” Dempsey said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
