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| US Lawmaker Presses Pentagon On Reports Of Civilian Massacre In Somalia |
| 2017-12-10 |
| [RADIOSHABELLE] A member of the US Congress has urged the Defence Department to launch a new investigation into reports of a civilian massacre carried out in Somalia by US Special Forces. Congressman Ted Lieu pressed a senior Defence Department official to review recent media reports that the US troops had rubbed out 10 unarmed Somalis on a farm in the town of Bariire in August. David Trachtenberg, acting under-secretary of defence for policy, responded that he would relay to his department the congressman’s call for a new investigation. Civilian Casualties Mr Trachtenberg also pointed out that the US Africa Command (Africom) had already investigated the operation and found that "the only casualties suffered were of armed combatants who fired on US Special Forces." "We in the Department of Defence take any accusation of civilian casualties very seriously and we work to avoid them at all cost," Mr Trachtenberg said. The exchange took place at a House of Representatives hearing in Washington on US "Counterterrorism Efforts in Africa." Congressman Lieu, a Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, Democrat, had called attention to a pair of news stories reporting that the Special Forces’ ground attack in Bariire was based on intelligence from local rivals of those killed on the farm. The US raid, carried out in conjunction with Somali government troops, was also reportedly conducted against the advice of Ugandan Brig Gen Kayanja Muhanga, the commander of the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... military contingent in that region of Somalia. In stories published on November 29 and December 6, news hound Christina Goldbaum relied on the accounts of several unnamed Somali National Army members and local clan elders. The reports appeared in the Daily Beast, a New York-based online news publication. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Spot on Mike. |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2017-12-10 11:59 |
| #1 ...For a second there I was concerned until I saw who was making the charges. Lieu makes Hillary look like Curtis LeMay. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2017-12-10 06:52 |