Al-Shabab has trained several thousand fighters for its Ethiopian “command,” mainly ethnic Somalis and Oromos inside Ethiopia, Bryden asserted. Al-Shabab has long regarded Ethiopia an enemy for its long military presence inside Somalia countering the fighters. On Tuesday, the country’s Somali regional president, Mustefa Omer, told a regional assembly that more than 600 al-Shabab fighters have been killed. And a resident of Somalia’s Bakool region, Isak Yarow, said Ethiopian military planes have carried out airstrikes in Garasweyne village in an area where Ethiopian and al-Shabab fighters have clashed. ADVERTISEMENTWhile Al-Shabab’s ultimate aims inside Ethiopia are yet to be determined, its new actions signal its “growing ambition, regional capabilities, and opportunism to exploit regional geopolitics, especially as the Abiy Ahmed government struggles to contain the various insurgencies inside Ethiopia,” security analysts Caleb Weiss and Ryan O’Farrell wrote late last month.

Source: Ethiopian News August 05, 2022 07:58 UTC