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Africa Horn
Unpaid Somali Soldiers Desert to Insurgency
2010-04-28
Long piece at ABC about one of the more idiotic things we're doing in Somalia: training 'soldiers' for the 'government' in Mog, and then not paying them so they desert, usually to the insurgents, so that they can feed their families.
Hundreds of Somali soldiers trained with U.S. tax dollars have deserted because they are not being paid their $100 monthly wage, and some have even joined the al-Qaida-linked militants they are supposed to be fighting, The Associated Press has learned.

The desertions raise fears that a new U.S.-backed effort beginning next month to build up Somalia's army may only increase the ranks of the insurgency.

Somalia's besieged U.N.-backed government holds only a few blocks of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, while Islamic insurgents control the rest of the city and most of the country. That turmoil -- and the lawless East African nation's proximity to Yemen, where al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is based -- has fed fears that Somalia could be used to launch attacks on the West.

In an effort to rebuild the tattered Somali military, the United States helped fund a training program for nearly 1,000 soldiers in neighboring Djibouti last year, Western diplomats told the AP. The French-trained troops were supposed to earn $100 a month, but about half of them deserted because they were not paid, Somali army Col. Ahmed Aden Dhayow said.

"Some gave up the army and returned to their ordinary life and others joined the rebels," he said.
Posted by:Steve White

#2  The Ethiopians have done well in the US, mainly in places like Columbus and Milwaukee. Could it be related to the fact that they're not of the same Religion of Peace as the Somalis?
Posted by: lex   2010-04-28 00:47  

#1  Hundreds of Somali soldiers trained with U.S. tax dollars have deserted because they are not being paid their $100 monthly wage is stolen by Somalis higher up.

Wonderful people. How did Minnesota ever do without them?
Posted by: ed   2010-04-28 00:42  

00:00