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A senior commander of Somalia’s insurgency has vowed to avenge the death of a top al-Qaeda suspect killed during a US raid. The World’s Jason Margolis has details.
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman, and this is The World. Two senior members of an Islamist insurgent group in Somalia today vowed revenge against the United States. They used the U.S. will, and we quote, “taste the bitterness of our response.” They were reacting to yesterday’s raid that reportedly killed one of Africa’s most wanted fugitives. He is 30-year-old Ali Saleh Nabhan. The attack took place mid concerns that Al Qaeda is gaining a foothold in Somalia. The World’s Jason Margolis has details.
JASON MARGOLIS: The U.S. Military has targeted enemies in Somalia in recent years, but until now it has sent long-range missiles and predator drones to do the dirty work. This time, commandos flew in on four helicopters and attacked a convoy from the air. They then reportedly landed and took away the bodies. Tom Donnelly is with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He says deploying elite troops, rather than remote control weapons, was the way to go.
TOM DONNELLY: The critical job of distinguishing the right target at the right time and the right place is still most effectively done with actual human beings. When you had a guy you wanted to be sure to get him. You also have to try to, as the news reports indicated, they recovered the body as well because you want to make sure that you got him.
MARGOLIS: The commandoes may have also come back with intelligence such as computers, cell phones, or documents. Karen Von Hippel is with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. She says military commanders sent in troops to carry out this mission for a good reason.
KARIN VON HIPPEL: Now they did this I think to reduce civilian casualties which is a good move because I think that a number of the predator strikes were not hitting their targets and were killing civilians. And just like in Pakistan, I don’t think that this does anything to support a policy of reducing terrorism in these countries. If anything, it just angers the public population and often gives, you know, they end up with more tacit support to the terrorists.
MARGOLIS: But, of course, there are down sides to commando strikes, namely they put U.S. troops at greater risk. Also, Von Hippel asks whether it’s the right thing to do.
VON HIPPEL: What I find interesting about what’s happening in Somalia and including what’s happening in Pakistan with the predator strikes is that there’s very little debate in the United States about the fact that we are involved in summary executions of people without trial.
MARGOLIS: By International Law, a military strike like the one yesterday is defensible under the rules of war, but this leads to the question: Who is the United States at war with? The trucks in Somalia were carrying fighters with a Jhadist group called the Shabab.
VON HIPPEL: It’s a very violent group of youth militias who have some affiliation to al-Qaida. I think they were really delighted to be listed on the designated terrorists lists by the United Nations and the United States because it really elevated them to playing with the big boys.
MARGOLIS: The Shabab poses a threat because its presence in Somalia offers a potential staging ground for attacks into nearby Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Kenya. That’s why Andre le Sage at the national Defense University in Washington says the reported killing of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was significant.
LE SAGE: He was one of the members of the Al Qaeda East Africa cell. He was a leader of their attacks in 2002, targeting the Paradise Hotel near Mobassa, Kenya, also targeting an Israel jetliner. So he had showed the intention and capability of attacking western targets in East Africa.
MARGOLIS: Le Sage says the killing of Nabhan weakens the Al Qaeda network.
LE SAGE: He’s probably one of the individuals in that network that maintained overall operation command of Al Qaeda activities in East Africa, possibly even connections out to Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in the Pakistan/Afghanistan area. So if he was removed from Al Qaeda East Africa, it would certainly degrade the capabilities of that network and their ability to conduct future attacks.
MARGOLIS: But that victory may be temporary says Tom Donnelly at AEI. He says the hierarch of a terrorist network like Al Qaeda is not as clear cut as that of a conventional enemy state.
DONNELLY: Arguably, even killing Osama Bin Laden at this stage would not have the same sort of decisive act or effect that say killing Stalin or Adolph Hitler would have had. These organizations are more amoeba-like and while it’s of real value to try to attack their leaders to try to kill them, the effect tends to be more temporary and transitory.
MARGOLIS: Critics of U.S. policy in Somalia say the U.S. should offer more support for Somali civil organizations and local police. On the other hand, Somalia used to be dubbed the “graveyard of foreign aid.” Africa experts say what’s needed is a complete overhaul of U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa. For starters, that means making the region a higher priority. For The World, I’m Jason Margolis.
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