Two men died in an explosion in Addis Ababa yesterday in what the Ethiopian government described as a failed attempt to build a suicide bomb. The government’s claim that the two men were Somali nationals raises the specter of attacks by the militant group al-Shabab within Ethiopia. According to Catherine Cheney’s report for Trend Lines in the wake of last month’s al-Shabab attack on a Kenyan mall, Ethiopia’s military intervention into Somalia has made it a potential target for terrorism. Ethiopia . . . has kept troops in Somalia near the Ethiopian border since 2006. “It’s not clear how many [...]
On Sept. 16, 2013, European and African nations reached an agreement called the New Deal Compact, pledging $2.7 billion to help Somalia build peace and consolidate its government. In an email interview, Aisha Ahmad, an assistant professor of international relations and comparative politics at the University of Toronto who also serves as chief operating officer of the Hawa Abdi Foundation, a nongovernmental relief organization in Somalia, explained the New Deal and the requirements for its success. WPR: What is new in the New Deal for Somalia? Aisha Ahmad: Representatives from across the European Union and Africa signed the New Deal [...]
Over the weekend, members of special mission units under the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command carried out raids in Somalia and Libya, capturing a senior al-Qaida operative in the latter country. While these attacks often come across as lightning strikes in the media, no detail is spared in terms of coordination and preparation. Trend Lines spoke with three experts about the disconnect between how these operations appear versus how they operate. “The events this weekend were both significant and insignificant,” David Maxwell, associate director of the Center for Security Studies and the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, told Trend [...]
