US urged to cut lifeline to Somalia’s struggling TFG..... Givening Somalia To Al Shabaab Is Now On The Table!.. ..Democrats plan to cut and run

Somali government soldiers run during a drill directed by European Union and Ugandan soldiers in the western Ugandan Army base of Bihanga on May 26, 2010. Photo/AFP 

By KEVIN J KELLY  (email the author)

Posted Monday, June 28 2010 at 00:00

Opinion among American experts on Somalia appears to have turned decisively against continued US support for the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

As an alternative, some analysts are urging the Obama administration to initiate dialogue with Al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgency that controls much of Somalia.

But key US policymakers still regard such a move as anathema because of Shabaab’s links to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qa’ida network, which is blamed for the attack on the United States in 2001.

And despite their own frustrations with the TFG, the White House and the State Department do not seem ready to abandon the entity they regard as the only potentially viable US partner in Somalia.

The United States has made a considerable investment in the TFG in the form of tonnes of weaponry, millions of dollars of aid, and help in training its army and police.

Influential figures in the US Congress who have supported the TFG are meanwhile expressing dismay over reports that it has recruited thousands of child soldiers.

The lawmakers note that the United States may in effect be supporting this practice through the assistance it has provided to the TFG’s military units.

At the same time, there is little enthusiasm in Washington for Kenya’s call for the upgrading and expansion of the African Union military unit in Somalia (Amisom).

A source in the US Congress says it is unlikely that either the Obama administration or the United Nations will consent to the proposal to transform Amisom into a larger UN-administered force.

This source says the US has not been able to coax African states into supplying the 8,000 troops envisioned for Amisom, which currently consists of about 5,000 soldiers from Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti.

And countries outside the continent have shown no interest in volunteering troops for UN military deployment in Somalia.

Disdain for the TFG’s performance was sharply expressed at a recent session of the US House of Representatives’ Africa subcommittee.

Ken Menkhaus, regarded as one of the foremost Somalia scholars in the United States, told the panel that continued support for the TFG will undermine US security.

Backing for the TFG has had “the effect of prolonging political conditions within which a radical Islamist insurgency has thrived,” Prof Menkhaus said.

There is a greater danger of terrorist attacks by Somalia-based militants today than in 2004 when the TFG was formed, he added.

flashad

1 | 2 Next Page »