re: massive news comming soon, page-3

re: massive news comming soon its still not stable enough for majors to commit at the minute, the ICU wants total power but will be at total war if they invade the peaceful state of Puntland which has issued a 11pm curfew
hopefully the peace keepers do get deployed and Puntland gets international recognition. If not Range could be phucked



Tension rises between Kenya and Somali Islamists forces

Djibouti (HAN) August 19, 2006 -The first two weeks of August saw the major players in Somalia's revolutionary conflict come under duress as the main antagonists the Islamist council forces and Ethiopian massive deployment forces drew close to armed confrontation.

By virtue of its impressive successes in administrative consolidation and territorial expansion, the Islamist forces reached the point at which further advances would likely meet with serious resistance, whether from Puntland, Arab governments specially Egypt, Saudi Arabia who are not happy the way they exercise Islam and the local alliance of Puntland forces and Ethiopian army inside Somalia.


The leader of Islamic forces in Mogadishu on Friday criticized plans by a regional African group to send a peacekeeping mission to Somalia, calling on their supporters to reject such a force.

The leader of the Islamic courts that have taken over most of southern Somalia, Shaikh Sharif, said any peacekeeping mission in Somalia would fail specially frontline states led by Kenya and Ethiopia; The enemy of Somalia and Somali people. The Somali Islamist leader cited previous peacekeeping missions, indirectly referring to the United States and UN missions in Somalia in the mid-1990s.

At Friday prayers in the capital, Mogadishu, Shaikh Omer Eman Abu Kar, another top leader of the Islamic courts, urged thousands to reject any peacekeeping mission sent to Somalia.

Their statements followed a Thursday meeting of top African military officials in neighboring Kenya to work out details of a possible peacekeeping mission.

Such a force would be sent under the auspices of the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which mediated the peace talks that led to the formation of Somalia's transitional government two years ago.

For the last two weeks, conflict in Somalia continued its drift toward armed confrontation between the two major antagonists -- the Islamic Courts Council, which aims at establishing an Islamic regime in the stateless country, and Ethiopia, which is determined to prevent that outcome.
The persistent surge of the Islamist council forces and Ethiopia's counter-measures have produced a stand-off between the adversaries that is fraught with the potential for violent conflict as they move closer to one another's military positions and trade threats.

Were Ethiopian offensive strategic inside Somalia to proceed aggressively, it would lack regional allies and would risk a costly conflict against a hostile population with uncertain success, an intensification of the Islamic insurgency inside Ethiopia and the possibility of further defections from its military to the other side." Sources: GeeskaAfrika Magazine & HAN.