Floundering Somali Govt. Nears Collapse

There is little news about what the US is up to these days in Somalia. The US backed the Ethiopian invasion to prop up the transitional national government but that group has never really controlled much territory. There are more or less "independent"areas in Puntland and Somaliland. The radical Islamic groups seem to be retaking areas that they lost during the invasion so it will probably not be long before they establish their own rule again. It will be interesting to see what is the US reaction to that. Will Obama be any less eager to defeat any Islamic group than Bush? This is from antiwar.com.



Floundering Somali Govt Nears Collapse
Thousands Desert Somali Forces as Ethiopia Prepares Pullout
Posted December 12, 2008
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared “mission accomplished” in their two-year military effort to prop up the self-appointed transitional national government of Somalia, and told parliament that Ethiopian forces would withdraw from the nation within weeks. Zenawi claimed the mission was meant to “defuse the plan orchestrated by Eritrea,” but conceded that it was not possible to bring lasting peace to Somalia.
As Ethiopia is poised to leave, the Islamist forces that fought their invasion so vigorously are seizing more and more Somali territory, leaving the possibility of an outright collapse of the government seemingly only a matter of time.
The military and police forces working for the Somali government apparently see the writing on the walls too, with a UN report claiming that 80 percent of them, 15,000 people in all, have deserted from the forces, many of them taking their weapons and vehicles with them.
The current government has been the longest-lived of Somalia’s numerous would-be rulers, surviving over three years since the government of neighboring Kenya booted them from their upscale hotels and left them to actually try to assert their authority. That survival has in large measure been facilitated by the US-backed Ethiopian invasion. With them gone, the government will have to rely on a few thousand African Union “peacekeepers” and what little remains of their own forces to hold on as long as they can.