US increases military operations in Somalia

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

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The United States has stepped up its military operations in Somalia in recent months, after al-Shabab fighters attacked an uptown shopping mall in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, Press TV reports.
Washington has significantly increased its drone operations in Somalia since October 2013, Press TV reported.

Experts say, however, that US drone attacks violate the sovereignty of other countries and mostly leads to civilian casualties.

“The US has no respect for international law. They violate the territorial integrity of countries, and carry out their drone activities. As we have always witnessed, the drone attacks mostly kill and injure civilians,” said Abdi Noor Siad, a security expert.

The Pentagon has also funded the African Union Mission to Somalia, engaging 22,000 African forces to fight the Somali armed group.

“Now the US together with France and the UK are trying to restore their colonial policy in Africa. In Somalia, they have trained and equipped African forces to fight for them. This has been experimented before in other countries and it has proved counterproductive,” said Abdi Noor Siad, a security expert.

The increase in military strikes in Somalia follows an attack in September last year, when 70 people were killed after Somalia’s al-Shabab fighters stormed the Westgate mall, a shopping center popular with rich Kenyans and foreigners in Nairobi.

The United States uses killer drones in several countries, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, to target “militants.”

It was in 2012 when the White House eventually admitted to the crime for the first time on its black ops in the Horn of Africa.

The aerial attacks, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, have escalated under President Barack Obama, who has defended the use of the controversial drones as “self-defense.”

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