Ethiopian soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia, guard a cache of ammunitions they said were used by insurgents during two days of heavy fighting. Photograph: Mustafa Abdi/AFP/GettyFrom Bloomberg:
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Ethiopia declared its two-year occupation of Somalia a success as its forces began the last stage of withdrawal, leaving behind one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and a government close to collapse.
“Mission accomplished,” the Foreign Ministry said in an e-mailed statement today in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. “Our defense forces have carried out a successful mission to eliminate the clear and present danger that our country had faced two years ago.”
U.S.-backed Ethiopian soldiers invaded Somalia in December 2006, ousting the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist alliance that had briefly controlled much of the country. Its attempt to reinstall the United Nations-backed transitional government in the capital, Mogadishu, was met with an Iraq-style insurgency by Islamist and clan-based militias.
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