#5 From PJ Media
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How could the Ethiopians roll up the jihadists so quickly? Pajamas Media has learned that one significant factor is that U.S. air and ground forces covertly aided the Ethiopian military since its intervention began on Christmas day.
U.S. ground forces have been active in Somalia from the start, a senior military intelligence officer confirmed. âIn fact,â he said, âthey were part of the first group in.â
These ground forces include CIA paramilitary officers who are based out of Galkayo, in Somaliaâs semiautonomous region of Puntland; Special Operations forces; and Marine units operating out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.
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The presence of U.S. airpower in Somalia became public knowledge yesterday when CBS News reported that an AC-130 fixed-wing gunship carried out a strike against suspected al-Qaeda members in southern Somalia. Unmanned aerial drones kept the targets under surveillance while a gunship operated by the U.S. Special Operations Command flew from its base in Djibouti to the southern tip of Somalia.
Pajamas Media previously reported that Ethiopia's use of helicopter gunships capable of targeting the Islamic Courts Union's ground forces was a decisive factor in the army-to-army fighting against the ICU. A senior military intelligence source says that some of the gunships earlier described as Ethiopian were in fact U.S. aircraft. This has been confirmed by Dahir Jibreel, the transitional government's permanent secretary in charge of international cooperation, who said that U.S. planes and helicopters with their markings obscured have been striking targets since December 25.
Given late breaking developments, SOCOM spokesman Ken McGraw was unavailable for comment at press time.
Jibreel said that the U.S. and Ethiopia planned this military incursion for several months. He said that he saw U.S. military planes and soldiers at Wajer, a strategic airstrip in Kenya, in October 2006.
Asked about the revelations of early U.S. support for the Ethiopian intervention, Jibreel said, "We believe that the United States was very helpful in defeating the al-Qaeda-guided and al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Courts Union, and the foreign fighters who were essentially Eritreans, global jihadists, and Ethiopian opposition groups."
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