US, Ethiopia accused over Somalia

Ethiopia is accused of killing civilians with white phosphorus bombs, the US navy of attacking suspected al-Qaida operatives in Puntland, and Eritrea of delivering surface-to-air missiles to Islamist militia, in a startling new report on Somalia by UN arms monitors. Warning that the number of weapons in Somalia now exceeds that during the early 1990s, when the failed East African state was engulfed in civil war, the UN monitoring group describes persistent instability in which anti-government Islamist forces are far from a spent force, and former warlords are reasserting themselves. From late last year to mid-June, the UN analysts–whose previous report courted significant controversy with its contested claims of weapons and personnel flows between Somalia and the Middle East–conclude that an Ethiopian invasion and African Union peacekeepers have failed to stop massive arms flows into the country. Furthermore, the latest period has witnessed a "drastic increase" in piracy off the Somali coast, and "pirate command centers" are operating "without hindrance" at many coastal landing points. "In brief, Somalia is awash with arms," the report says. "There is no clearly established authority that has the capability of exercising control over a majority [of the weapons]." Some of the most dramatic claims implicate Ethiopia and Eritrea, who are believed to be conducting a proxy war in the country, through their respective backing of the transitional government and Islamist and clan-based militia. During a battle on Apr. 13 between the Ethiopian military, which remains in the country, and the Shabaab, elite forces from the Unionof Islamic Courts, "Ethiopian military forces resorted to using white phosphorus bombs… approximately 15 Shabaab fighters and 35 civilians were killed." Ethiopia denies the claims, saying it does not possess such weapons. The monitoring group obtained pictures of the area of impact of the bombs, and a soil sample analyzed in Nairobi was consistent with their use.