You Will Anyway: Meanwhile in Somalia

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Meanwhile in Somalia

The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) says it has resumed air raids against the al-Shabab group in Somalia after a brief pause that followed a critical report condemning the "shroud of secrecy around civilian deaths" caused by the US military.

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The al-Qaeda affiliate was forced out of Mogadishu in 2011 and then progressively from other major cities by AU troops, but it still controls large swaths of rural territory, from which they launch frequent attacks against government and security targets, including in the capital.

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The latest operation was carried out on Tuesday near Jilib, a town in Somalia's Middle Juba region, southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, and killed one fighter, Africom said in a press release on Wednesday.

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The aerial bombardment is believed to be the first since Amnesty International said in March 18 report that 14 civilians had been killed and seven wounded in the course of five air raids between April 2017 and December 2018, all attributed to the US military.

"The civilian death toll we've uncovered in just a handful of strikes suggests the shroud of secrecy surrounding the US role in Somalia's war is actually a smokescreen for impunity," said Brian Castner, Amnesty's senior crisis adviser on arms and military operations.

Initially, AFRICOM denied that its operations had resulted in any civilian deaths, but on Friday the command acknowledged that a woman and child had been killed in an April 2018 raid.

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The Amnesty report came as the US military was stepping up its operations in Somalia, carrying out 28 air raids since the beginning of 2019, compared with 47 in the whole of 2018 and 35 in 2017.

alJazeera

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.