Woody wrote:
Who's gonna see a single want ad in 300 postings about nothing?
Seinfeld ran for eight years and it was all about nothing. People
cried at the end.
Who wants to pilfer 300 postings about nothing to find a sale ad?
On the Somalia thing,
Do you mean extremists/terrorists that claim to follow Islam, or just basic
Islamists?
Here's one:
""Somali Islamist gunmen undergo military training
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx...ticleid=281612
{EXCERPT} Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa Somalia's dominant
Islamic movement on Tuesday launched intensive military training for
hundreds of its gunmen under a plan to create instruments of
statehood......""
It looks like you mean the former.
Please understand that Al Qaeda is a group of terrorists/extremists, it
doesn't matter what religion they
claim to follow.
rb
Here's another:
""SOMALIA, THE BLACK HOLE OF ANARCHY
BY AHMED Q. BURSALIID
In mid July 2005 The U.S. intelligence agents, working with local
warlords, have carried out counter terrorist operations to seize
sus*pects. "Somalia remains the theatre for a shadowy
confrontation involving local Ji*hadis, foreign Al Qaeda operatives
and in*telligence services from a number of re*gional and
Western countries," says a report by the International Crisis Group
in 2005. The report says the "dirty war be*tween terrorists and
counter-terrorist oper*atives in Mogadishu appears to have
en*tered a new and more vicious stage that threatens to push the
country further towards Jihadism and extremist violence un*less its
root causes are properly addressed."
The Somali transitional federal government was formed in neighbouring
Kenya in 2004 and moved into Somalia June 2005. However, the
administration has failed to relocate to Mogadishu, the Somali capital,
because the city was considered unsafe. Due to the insecurity of
Mogadishu, the TFG relocated to Jawhar, which it later decided to move
to Baidoa.
Warlords and leaders of Islamic courts have been fighting in Mogadishu
for about five months. This led to the loss of hundreds of civilians
and
destruction of properties. Somalia, which had been in a state of
anarchy
for more than a decade, has once again gone to war; this war was
somehow
different from previous ones. The nature of this war is seen to have
some religious and political clash while previous ones were much
related
to tribal and feudal conflicts. Each one of the conflicting parties is
claiming that the other group is related to Al-Qaeda when the reality
is
somehow different from that. After months of armed conflicts within the
capital city of Somalia, Union of Islamic Courts took the lead with
enormous points by eliminating the warlords who took hostage the
country
and its people for 16 years.
United States of America, which earlier denied any allegation of
helping
or giving hand to the warlords in the fight to weed out the Islamic
Militia in Somalia shortly after the takeover admitted that it had been
supporting warlords to destabilise the Islamic militia. America has
been
an active player in the politics of Somalia, and until now its policy
towards restoring peace and stability in the war -torn Somalia is
somehow obscure.
Somalis believe that it is the right time to take advantage to restore
the lost hope of good governance in the country as Union of Islamic
Courts led by Sheikh Sharif imposed law and order on Mogadishu, which
was seen neither for 16 years. Hundreds of families from overseas
countries returned back to Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia since
the takeover took place.
At first Transitional Federal Government welcomed the political change,
which took place in Mogadishu as the Union of Islamic Courts disarmed a
pack of US-backed warlords that took the country and its people hostage
for more than a decade. But soon after the Islamic Militia started to
capture some other cities, the TFG warned the Union of Islamic Courts
of
capturing farther cities. A big gap of political misunderstanding came
in between the Transitional Federal Government and the Union of Islamic
Courts, after the president of fragile Transitional Federal Government
requested peacekeeping forces from the African Union. As the new Somali
constitution inked in Kenya says, "Peacekeeping forces should not
come from the neighbouring countries (Ethiopia, Kenya and
Djibouti)". Likewise, the parliament passed a motion, which it was
requesting peacekeeping troops to Somalia without paying attention to
the classification of peacekeeping forces from AU countries and of
front
line countries. This has created an escalation of political crisis in
Somalia. Ethiopia, which is the common enemy of Somalia has sent its
troops to Somalia in an attempt to protect the Transitional Federal
Government.
This time, Arab League took the political platform of Somalia to
mediate
the two conflicting parties. TFG and UIC were invited to attend a
mediation conference held on June 2006 in Sudan to settle their
differences. After a reconciliation conference, presided over by
Sudanese president Omar Hassan Albashir, the current chairman of Arab
League, the reconciliation process derailed with unknown reasons but it
is believed that Ethiopia was the main figure, which made the
reconciliation process fail as the outcome of the meeting could not
meet
the criteria of Ethiopia's plan to Somalia and then, President
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a well-known pro-Ethiopian warlord and his loyal
prime minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, a vet scientist started to advocate
the
legality of Ethiopian Army presence in Somalia.
The Somalis are of the opinion that the involvement of Ethiopian Army
in
the peacekeeping operations in Somalia could cause havoc and
deterioration of the political condition of the country in any case as
Ethiopia is an old aged enemy of Somalia in East Africa. While a vast
majority of the Somali public strongly opposed to deployment of
Ethiopian troop into Somalia under any pretext, president Yusuf's
political stance towards the deployment of Ethiopian troops in Somalia
is clear and also in action by denying the presence of Ethiopian troops
in Somalia just to protect his presidential seat.
Since the reconciliation conference in Sudan derailed a number of
ministers resigned due to the political misunderstanding between TFG
and
UIC. Prime minister declared that he would be nominating successors of
the resigned 24 ministers. In addition to that, the prime minister
himself survived after the Somali parliament passed a motion of no
confidence against him recently.
Moreover, Prime minister of Ethiopia Milez zanawi whose government
earlier denied any presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia told BBC
that
his government has sent troops to Somalia to protect the Transitional
Federal Government from the Union of Islamic Courts. While on the other
hand, Eritrea is also believed to be an active supporter for the Union
of Islamic Courts. Somalis believe that the support from both Ethiopia
and Eritrea respectively is much related to a proxy war in between
them.
US government warned Ethiopia and Eritrea stop the proxy war they are
playing in the Somali territory.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]""