In the closing days of 2006, the Ethiopian army launched a lightening quick offensive against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a Somali version of the infamous Taliban. The Ethiopians were not fighting alone but with the covert assistance of American intelligence and Special Forces. That assistance later became overt as the United States navy and air force joined the fighting. Somalia’s neighbors helped too, closing their borders to fleeing Islamist fighters. Through these combined efforts, by the second week of January, 2007, the ICU had been crushed and the internationally recognized Transitional Government (TG) restored to power.
The battle for Somalia was a small but important victory for the United States in the war against global Jihad. Since the collapse of its government in 1991, Somalia had existed in a state of anarchy to which not even the American led United Nation’s intervention of 1992-1994 could bring order. Reacting to the vacuum left by the U.N. pullout, in the late 1990’s Islamic Sharia courts rose up in an attempt to establish the rule of law. These courts had gradually united to become the Islamic Courts Union. Resenting the ICU’s encroachment on their power, a group of Somali warlords based in Mogadishu formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism to counter the Islamist threat. The Alliance was independent of the Somali Transitional Government (which had existed in some form since 2000) and received financial help from the United States.
By the beginning of 2006, these two power blocks were in open conflict with one another. The ICU received help from all over the Islamist world. Al Qaeda produced propaganda videos for the ICU, sent terrorists to fight alongside their troops, and trained much of its top leadership. Money from the Gulf States funded ICU operations. Iran funneled weapons to the ICU and sent Hezbollah advisors to help train their troops. The Government of Eritrea sent over 2,000 men to the ICU, seeing it as an opportunity to fight a proxy war against the Ethiopians. Thousands of foreign fighters flocked to Somalia as well.
Coinciding with the ascendancy of the ICU was the rise of Hassan Dahir Aweys, an ex Somali army colonel who had been working with al-Qaeda since the mid 90’s and had been designated a terrorist by President Bush in November of 2001. In June of 2006, after the ICU took control of Mogadishu, Aweys forced out the Court’s previous head and took control of the organizations governing shura council. Also rising to power was Awey’s protégé, Aden Hashi Ayro, a top military commander who had trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Other prominent al Qaeda linked terrorists were Abu Taha al-Sudan and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, both of whom were involved with the financing and planning of the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The ICU spent the summer of 2006 consolidating their hold on Somalia’s capital and expanding their control down to Kismayo near the Kenyan border. At the end of October, the ICU pushed towards the Transitional Government’s stronghold in the western city of Baidoa. This drive saw heavy, seesaw fighting in the town of Burhakaba, about 60 miles to Baidoa’s southeast which fell to the ICU on 9 October. Flush with victory, Aweys called for the formation of ‘Greater Somalia’ and in a radio interview proclaimed, ‘We will launch a jihad war against any foreign forces deployed in Somalia regardless of which country they are from.’ This was a direct challenge to Ethiopia.
Led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia possessed the most powerful army in the Horn of Africa. After the 1974 coup which overthrew the ancient dynasty of Emperor Highle Salasse, Ethiopia was a close Soviet ally, receiving billions in military aid and training. In 2006, the Ethiopian army boasted 150,000 soldiers armed with Soviet era equipment. This included an inventory of 170 T-55 tanks, 50 T-62s, and 50 T-72’s. The army could count on air support in the form of two dozen Mig-25’s and a dozen Mig-23’s. There was also a force of 12 Mi-17 helicopters. These were no mere parade ground soldiers, but a battle-hardened army that had seen action in countless counter-insurgency operations since the 1960’s as well as the 1978 war against Somalia, and a border war against Eritrea from 1998-2000.
While the ICU threatened to export Jihad, Ethiopia did not remain idle. By the autumn of 2006, 5,000 Ethiopian troops were either on the border or in Somalia proper. 300-400 troops garrisoned Baidoa, while several hundred more maintained a corridor between the TG capital and the border over which large Ethiopian convoys traveled. One such convoy of 80 vehicles was attacked by ICU forces in late November. There were further skirmishes between Ethiopian forces and ICU fighters, one on 28 November near Galkayo, and the other on 8 December around Baidoa. In light of these events, the Ethiopians prudently increased their presence in Somalia to about 10,000 men. Several hundred troops reinforced Baidoa, bringing the number of Ethiopians there to perhaps a thousand, while 300 Ethiopians were at Galkayo.
As Ethiopian troops massed in the battle area, the ICU recruited thousands of fighters and slowly deployed them around Baidoa taking Sakow, about 120 miles to the southwest on 1 December. The ICU then advanced northwest against and took Dinsor, a mere 60 miles south of Baidoa and took the town. Meanwhile, in Central Somalia, ICU fighters engaged TG and Ethiopian forces in the border town of Bandiradley. During the next week, the ICU slowly tightened their grip around Baidoa, closing to within 10 miles of the town’s northeastern fringe.
Finally, on 20 December, realizing that the TG could not hang on, Ethiopian forces moved into Idaale, between Dinsor and Baidoa, defending the town against a heavy assault by several thousand ICU troops. As the fight for Idaale raged, an Ethiopian column of at least 50 armored vehicles crossed the border and entered Baidoa. During the next two days, the ICU pressed its assault on two, outside of Dinsor in the south, Idaale in the center and Daynuunay in the north, losing hundreds of fighters in the process. In the ferocious battle that followed, on 22 December the ICU took Idaale, killing 200 Ethiopian troops and wounded 200 more. But around Daynuunay, an Ethiopian force of 20 tanks prevented ICU troops from turning the left flank. Hundreds more ICU fighters were dead while Somali hospitals in the rear filled up with wounded. The ICU offensive had run its course.
With the ICU offensive ground down, Ethiopian and TG forces counterattacked. First, the Ethiopian air force bombed key targets in Somalia, including ICU positions on the front, as well as airports. After the air force softened up the ICU, an Ethiopian armored column spearheaded an attack in the center against Burhakaba, taking the city in heavy fighting. Meanwhile, 500 Ethiopian troops and eight tanks crossed the central border and hit the ICU held town of Beledweyne, taking it on 25 December. The northern column then drove south, towards Mogadishu. With TG and Ethiopian forces advancing, ICU troops pulled out of Dinsor and joined the retreat on Mogadishu.
As the Ethiopian air force bombed ICU troop concentrations and defensive positions ahead of them, Ethiopia’s two armored columns advanced on Mogadishu. On 27 December the western column took Balad, 20 miles outside of the capital, while the northern column engaged ICU forces in heavy fighting in Johwar, about 50 miles to the northwest. Seeing Ethiopian and TG forces closing in, the ICU pulled out of town without a fight. TG troops entered on the 28th.
ICU forces retreated to their strongholds in the south, the Indian Ocean towns of Kismayo, where about 3,000 fighters dug in, and beyond that on the Kenyan Border, Ras Kambooni. Ethiopian forces did not linger in Mogadishu, but instead pursued the ICU down the coast. A force of 200 tanks and 500 other vehicles followed the retreating ICU, making contact with Islamist troops on 31 December in the town of Jilib about 100 miles north of Ksimayo. Fighting lasted into the night, with ICU forces being pushed out of town in the early morning hours. Over the next few days, Ethiopian troops engaged in several fierce firefights against ICU troops in the forests south of town, clearing them out by 2 January. Further north, at the border town of Doble, Ethiopian jets and helicopters attacked an ICU convoy. The last ICU stronghold in the south was the port city of Ras Kambooni, an Al Qaeda training camp and planning ground for the terrorist bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
With the end near, the ICU was feeling pressure from international forces as well. Kenyan police and helicopters patrolled the border, expelled Somali refugees, and detained the families of al-Qaeda operatives. More help came from Yemen, Somalia’s neighbor across the Gulf of Aden, which sealed its ports to ICU and foreign troops fleeing the fighting, going so far as to fire on boats carrying refugees. Ethiopia also received massive amounts of assistance from the United Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (UCJTF-HOA). Based in the Red Sea nation of Djibouti, UCJTF-HOA was established in 2002 to help combat al Qaeda’s influence in the region. American advisors from the 16th Regiment, First Infantry Division and the 294th infantry regiment (part of Guam’s National Guard) helped train Ethiopian troops. There was also a contingent of communications experts from the United States Air Force, keeping radio, phone, and internet lines open between Ethiopia and USJTF-HOA. In Kenya, Marines helped Kenyan police patrol the border. At the same time, the U.S.S. Ramage, an ArleighBurke class destroyer, and the U.S.S. Bunker Hill, a Ticonderoga class missile cruiser, closed the sea lanes to fleeing terrorists. The Nimitz class carrier, U.S.S. Eisenhower moved south from the Persian Gulf to provide support.
U.S. troops were involved in the fighting as well. When Ethiopian columns spilled across the border in late December, CIA paramilitaries were in the van, playing a crucial role coordinating air strikes and relaying American gathered intelligence to Ethiopian commanders. A CIA paramilitary team fell under the command of the Counter Terrorism Center, which itself answered to the Special Activities Division. CIA paramilitary teams usually operated in squad sized units of 6-12 men. They were highly trained and had logged many years in the military, usually in the Special Forces. Paramilitary troops wore no uniforms and nothing to identify them as CIA agents. They carried a hodgepodge of combat equipment, often relying on Russian products as these were the weapons preferred by Jihadist forces around the world. Interestingly, in his book about leading a CIA paramilitary team into Afghanistan, First In, agent Gary Schroen describes sending men on several trips to the local camping store before deploying overseas, purchasing boots, clothes, canteens, portable diesel powered generators, and the like. One other unusual item probably brought into Somalia by CIA paramilitaries was a briefcase of cash. Money was used to bribe Afghan warlords in 2001 and, given that several Somali warlords switched sides after the Ethiopians invaded in force, it is highly likely CIA agents bribed them as well.
CIA paramilitary teams deployed with massive amounts of electronic gear. These included High Frequency Radios for secure communications between members, satellite transmitters and receivers for communication with Langley, Global Position Systems, and laptop computers. Perhaps the most important piece of equipment used by CIA paramilitaries in Ethiopia was the Special Operations Force Laser Acquisition Marker (SOFLAM). The SOFLAM is a laser that when placed on a target, guides air launched ordinance to their targets. It is highly portable, the latest model, the AN/PEQ-1, being the size of a large set of binoculars and weighing twelve pounds and has a range of between 200 and 10,000 meters. The SOFLAMs were so effective in Afghanistan that one Northern Alliance commander referred to it as the ‘death ray’. Given that we know American advisors and technicians have been working with the Ethiopian military for some time, it is likely Soviet made Migs were outfitted with equipment compatible with the SOFLAM. Either that or U.S. involvement in Somalia was greater than publicly acknowledged, with American air power carrying out strikes against ICU positions on the front lines.
Most spectacularly, on 8 January, an American Spectre gunship, flying out of Djibouti, conducted an air strike around Ras Kamboni, the targets were the above mentioned Abu Taha al Sudan and Fazul Abdullah Muhammad. While as many as 10 al Qaeda operatives were killed, a marine reconnaissance team confirmed that al Sudan and Muhammad were not among the dead.
The gunship attack was just one incident in the fierce battle for Ras Kamboni, where 600 ICU fighters were believed to have taken up positions. Ethiopian and TG forces began their final assault on 5 January and after a week of heavy fighting, cleared the ICU out of Ras Kamboni and the forests to the south. In the aftermath of their defeat, the ICU leadership either fled the country or went into hiding while several thousand of their gunmen began a law level terrorist insurgency. In late January of 2007, Ethiopian forces began pulling out of Somalia, to be replaced by a body of peacekeepers from the African Union.