I had a diary up earlier on Turkey but have deleted it because this is much more important.
I cannot believe that this is a story not being covered in a single American or western media organization. I guess that’s why I’m forced to read 150 g-d RSS feeds every f-k morning.
If you remember, in January on at least two occasions, the United States military conducted bombing campaigns supposedly against “Al-Qaeda” members living in southern Somalia. This was concomitant with an Ethiopian invasion of the country to push out the de facto Somali government known as the “Islamic Courts Union” (ICU).
Well I was reading the news when I found out that the ICU’s leader, Sheikh Ahmed, has just arrived in the capital of Yemen. This is exceedingly interesting because he had previously surrendered to authorities in Kenya and was in custody there. So how in the world did he get to Yemen?
This is how:
Recently, the Arabic language satellite television channel Al Arabiya reported that 15 American soldiers had been captured by Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts in the area of Raskamboni on 24 January, following the American air strike in the south of Somalia.
The same sources say that during the capture, four of these US soldiers were killed. According to the al-Neda report, the Americans agreed to free Sharif so that once he reaches Yemen he can intervene for the release of the US soldiers. It is therefore expected that there will be negotiations in the coming days.
15 American soldiers captured by enemy forces allegedly allied with Al-Qaeda and four of them killed and not a single mention in the American media?
Somali media has also covered the story:
Somalia’s routed Islamist leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, have come to bidding over the release of 11 US servicemen reportedly captured by the defeated Islamists in southern Somalia.
According to Al-Khaleej, sheik Sharif stipulated the release of the soldiers with several conditions. He said, “Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia should be withdrawn immediately, America should halt the military action in south the country, I should be transferred from Kenya to another safe country (probably Yemen) and the United States should tell the world that 11 of its marine soldiers were seized in Somalia.”
Wow.
One more story with basically the same information here. Meanwhile even the BBC only covers Sheikh Ahmed’s journey to Yemen without explaining why Kenya would let him do that.
If these reports are true they would make sense. Raksamboni is one of the cities that the United States dropped bombs on. It’s in the southernmost part of Somalia right near the Kenyan border.
What makes this so incredibly ironic is that it if it’s true, it’s almost exactly a repeat of the Black Hawk Down incident which led to widespread public pressure to get out of Somalia. Nobody thought a bunch of Somalis with low-level weaponry could ever take out a modern armed helicopter and fight off Rangers but they did. And now it looks like the same Somalis just captured at least 15 American Special Forces.
Even more ironic is that the U.S. is apparently negotiating with the “bad guys” that are allegedly either pro-Al-Qaeda or working hand in hand with Al-Qaeda.
Somebody needs to start asking the Pentagon if this is true and do it double-time quick. Either this is a complete mistake by Somali and Arab media or else the United States is covering this story up big-time.
Pax
