Puntland official says 35 fighters in Bargal

[Lacageylacag]

The attack from a U.S. destroyer took place late Friday, said Muse Gelle, the regional governor. The extremists had arrived Wednesday by speedboat at the port town of Bargal.

Gelle said the area is a dense thicket, making it difficult for security forces from the semiautonomous republic of Puntland to intervene on their own.

A local radio station quoted Puntland's leader, Ade Muse, as saying that his forces had battled with the extremists for hours before U.S. ships arrived and used their cannons. Muse said five of his troops were wounded, but that he had no information about casualties among the extremists.

"They had their own small boats and guns. We do not know exactly where they came from — maybe from Ras Kamboni, where they were cornered in January," he said.

Local fishermen, contacted by telephone, said about a dozen fighters arrived Wednesday, but Puntland officials said the number could be as high as 35.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070602/ap_ ... somalia_us

[highclass]

What were they doing in Bargal??


Why not go to Xamar?

[eyes-only]

they are most likely reer bari running away from being used to fight their Somali brothers in the south and the ogaden

there have been many reports of reer Puntland and Ethiopian fighters selling their weapons to flee xamar. They were probably trying to get to Yemen and couldn't make it.

[Ican]

Why would puntland government care about a bunch of fleeing deserters, these people are obviously foreign or it wouldn't be making headlines?

[Hiiraan boy]

[quote="highclass"]What were they doing in Bargal??


Why not go to Xamar?[/quote]

highclass what if thyre hungry or they tired or its mistake they get there

[eyes-only]

[quote="Ican"]Why would puntland government care about a bunch of fleeing deserters, these people are obviously foreign or it wouldn't be making headlines?[/quote]

it is all politics.... the world found out there were thousands of Eritrean fighters, there were no thousands of Jihadists from all over the world.... and after bombarding nomads in the south, bombarding clan militias in the capital resulting in the murder of thousands of civilians, these latest attacks are nothing but the same.

They want the world to think there are al-qaeda in Somalia....just like they were claiming when they were shelling nomads in afmadow and ras kambooni. The contact group is meeting in a few days, the warlords have brought nothing but destruction and insecurity, the world hasn't seen any of the high profile al-qaeda the Americans claimed were there...... this is just designed to distract the world from what is really going on in Somalia.

why did they need to shell them from land, sea and air? why no let the Puntland militias capture them? This is nothing but a big fuss to cover up and excuse the crisis in the rest of Somalia.

[Ican]

[quote="eyes-only"][quote="Ican"]Why would puntland government care about a bunch of fleeing deserters, these people are obviously foreign or it wouldn't be making headlines?[/quote]

it is all politics.... the world found out there were thousands of Eritrean fighters, there were no thousands of Jihadists from all over the world.... and after bombarding nomads in the south, bombarding clan militias in the capital resulting in the murder of thousands of civilians, these latest attacks are nothing but the same.

They want the world to think there are al-qaeda in Somalia....just like they were claiming when they were shelling nomads in afmadow and ras kambooni. The contact group is meeting in a few days, the warlords have brought nothing but destruction and insecurity, the world hasn't seen any of the high profile al-qaeda the Americans claimed were there...... this is just designed to distract the world from what is really going on in Somalia.

why did they need to shell them from land, sea and air? why no let the Puntland militias capture them? This is nothing but a big fuss to cover up and excuse the crisis in the rest of Somalia.[/quote]


These attacks from what I've read were not in the same scale as what happned in the capital, it was just naval attack with minimal damage. It doesn't make sense that the Americans would go after an insignificant group of deserters, it's either eriterian or arab fighters.

I never agreed with the TFG involving ethiapions in the capital, but clearly ethiopia was gonna be involved as soon as the the UIC starting threatning to go liberate ogaden region and other parts of Somalia. At this point, do you not agree that rebellion and insurgency will not help anyone and it's time to start thinking about long term strategy of how to fix the country?