Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The "Make Addis Ababa like Baghdad" Plot

This voluminous report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea dated July 18, 2001 is a must-read. A portion of the 417 page report deals with the alleged plot by the Eritrean regime to "make Addis Ababa like Baghdad" during the African Union summit in January of 2011. Here is the report's conclusion on the failed plot.
Only one detainee interviewed by the Monitoring Group, team leader Omar Idriss Mohamed, appears to have been in regular contact with the OLF leadership in Asmara. All other team members were isolated from OLF structures from the moment of recruitment and received all training and orders directly from Eritrean officers. According to Omar, only Dawud Ibsa, Chairman of OLF, was aware of the existence of this special operation and its objectives, and he does not appear to have exercised any command or control over its actions. The Monitoring Group therefore concludes that this operation was effectively an Eritrean intelligence activity, falsely flagged as an OLF initiative.

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