Somalia could be a quagmire for Ethiopian troops attacking the de facto ruling Islamic Courts which has vowed a years-long guerrilla war against the military juggernaut of the invaders, analysts believe.
"The Ethiopians could get bogged down into a hopeless, long-term guerrilla campaign with enormous supply lines," David Shinn, the former US ambassador to Ethiopia, told The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, December 2006.
Shinn warned a longer Ethiopian offensive in Somalia means a complete rout for Addis Ababa.
"I don't see how they 'defeat' the Islamists in the long run."
A day after Ethiopian warplanes bombarded airports in Mogadishu and another outside the capital, the Islamic Courts of Somalia (SICS) fighters retreated Tuesday from several frontline positions after withering attacks.
The SICS said retreat from Dinsoor and Burhakaba, south and east of the Somali government base of Baidoa, is a military tactic to prepare for a long-term hit-and-run war against Ethiopia, vastly superior in conventional military terms.
"We are ready to start long-lasting war with Ethiopia," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the head of the SICS Executive Committee, told a press conference.
"We are in a new stage of resistance. The enemy has started using air forces. Since we don't have heavy weapons to defend ourselves in this full-scale attack by the Meles forces, we have decided to change our tactics," he added, referring to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
"I don't understand what Ethiopia's objective is," said Shinn, a political science professor at George Washington University.
"I can't imagine their objective is to occupy and hold Somalia. It was a very limited victory."
John Prendergast, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, believes a longer offensive could plague Ethiopia, a US ally, with the same challenges facing American forces in Iraq.
"Hasn't anyone heard of Iraq?" he asked in an interview with the Washington Post, referring to non-stop resistance attacks that claimed the lives of up to 3,000 US soldiers since the invasion in April 2003.
"A military strategy of 'countering terrorism' never works and will likely blow up in their faces."
Panic-stricken people in Mogadishu voiced fear the capital may turn into a Baghdad-like hot zone of deadly urban warfare.
"I used to watch the TV, there are killings and explosions in Baghdad everyday," former military officer Yonis Gure told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"I am afraid our city could be like that if foreign forces take it."
Despite braving 15 years of lawlessness, residents were visibly shocked after Ethiopian warplanes swept low and struck Mogadishu's main airport Monday.
"I thought I was not in Somalia" when the bombs came down, said Dahir Guled Farah, a trader at Mogadishu Bakara market, a once-teeming arms bazaar cleaned dry after the SICS captured the capital in June.
Heavy fighting began on December 20 after the expiry of an ultimatum by the SICS for Ethiopian troops to leave the country, wracked by conflict since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre.
Thousands of civilians have been displaced and seven straight days of artillery duels have compounded the misery of Somalis already affected by recent flooding.
"Hasn't anyone heard of Iraq?" said Prendergast.
Pundits insist it is better for the US to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict, blasting Washington's awkward policy in the region.
"If the US joined a serious diplomatic effort aimed at finding a compromise between Ethiopia and the Courts, negotiations could have had a much better chance," Prendergast told the Post.
"Once the serious punching has started, it's going to be increasingly difficult to stop this brawl," he opined.
Premier Zenawi has said that Washington was backing his country's war against the SICS.
Experts said he convinced Washington that the SICS could turn Somalia into a haven for Al-Qaeda operatives and terrorists.
The Ethiopian opposition say Zenawi has shrewdly played up the terrorism card to win US support.
The SICS had distanced itself from comments made by Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
In a July audiotape, Bin Laden warned "countries of the world against responding to America and sending international forces to Somalia."
US officials have called on Somali groups to end their fighting, but they did not call for an Ethiopian withdrawal.
"Ethiopia has genuine security concerns," one US official told the Los Angeles Times, adding that State Department officials have urged Addis Ababa to use "maximum restraint."
Somalia has historically been of strategic importance to the US because of its proximity to the Middle East and Red Sea shipping lanes.
But US policy there has been sharply criticized over the years.
A US military intervention in 1993 ended in a humiliating hastily evacuation after the killing of 18 troops.
The US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), who were booted of power by the SICS after years of rampage, is re-gaining a foothold in the war-torn country.
"Ethiopian troops are handing over some cities they have captured to the warlords," political analyst Mohammad Tiej told IslamOnline.net Tuesday.
He said Ethiopian troops handed Monday the governorate of Hiran to warlord and former governor Yusuf Dabjid.
He expected more cities to be given back by the Ethiopians to other warlords, including the strategic city of Johar.
Somalia, home to about 10 million people, was carved up among rival warlords after the ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Siad Barre in 1991.
The alliance was ousted in July but continues to support the Ethiopian-backed interim government.
US government officials and experts have said that secret funding by Washington's CIA for the warlord alliance has backfired, empowering the same groups the Bush administration has sought to marginalize.
Source: IslamOnline
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