TFG pinned down in Baidoa and Mogadishu

[James Dahl]

Thanks to Mogadishu port the Ethiopian, AMISOM and TFG force in Xamar is relatively well supplied and they've really fortified themselves into their bases, but they can't even venture out of their controlled districts without being attacked.

In Baidoa though things are looking pretty bad for the TFG. Because of the attacks on the airport (which seems to have been overrun) supplies had to be flown into Baligubadle and then driven in an armored convoy all the way to Baidoa, where they were ambushed IN Baligubadle before they even left the town, and again near Wanlaweyne, and lost a good chunk of the equipment en-route.

An army lives and dies on its supply lines, and this looks really bad for the Baidoa defenders. When al-Shabab took a poke at them last night they didn't look very battle-ready to me.

So I've heard through a few insiders that the TFG/Ethiopian force wants to take pressure off Baidoa by going on the offensive in Islamist-held areas of Mogadishu. This has the major assumption that the Islamist-held areas have sent all their fighters into the countryside, something that I don't believe to be true.

Both sides look as though they're waiting for the other guy to make the first move.

[Megatron]

This is good news. Question is, how long can the enemy sustain their presence, without going on a TOTAL Mai Lai type offensive ?

[James Dahl]

Well normally Ethiopia should be able to keep going indefinitely, but the supply situation has suddenly, only in the last few weeks, become untenable.
Also Ethiopia now has three borders they need to guard, as Sudan has suddenly become a concern, in addition to Eritrea. The ONLF and al-Shabab has made the land route impossible and al-Shabab has been targeting airports and supply convoys.

I think this, more than anything else, has been responsible for the victories recently. An army needs good supply and the ability to move their forces around without ambushes. This is how the Afghans beat the Soviet Union, and a lot of the guys who fought in Afghanistan planned the UIC strategy. When the UIC lost the conventional battle in Dec. 2006, they switched to the Afghani Mujahideen strategy of pinning them down in a few built-up urban areas and then taking over the countryside, cutting off supply and basically bleeding them out.

[ultratribalism]

alshabab

[xoogSADE14]

Aren't you quite the arm-chair expert Jamacoow.

[Somaliweyn Commando]

It took the mujahideen of Afghanistan 9 years of bitter fighting to expel the Russians, after that they castrated and hung and shot the dabadhilif leader Mohammed Najibullah

Ethiopia is nothing like Russia and we'll do it in a shorter space of time bi'idnillah

Afbiijo will be Castrated aaaaaaaaahahaha

[gurey25]

This is going along with the classic guerilla warfare model.

and megatron

This is good news. Question is, how long can the enemy sustain their presence, without going on a TOTAL Mai Lai type offensive ?

the enemy is conducting dozens of mai lai massacres as we speak, there are no reporters around so only the most blatant ones will hit the newspapers, but this wont help ther stragetic position.
it will ease thier frsutration though.

[makumba59]

[quote="Megatron"]This is good news. Question is, how long can the enemy sustain their presence, without going on a TOTAL Mai Lai type offensive ?[/quote]



Mai Lai type offensive?


I thought they have already!

[Padishah]

I think the word TOTAL was the qualifier. I think he means the Ethiopians going completely ape-shit, as my brother would say.