Ethiopia sends thousands of troops to Somalia to fight al-Shabab

Ethiopia has deployed thousands of troops to neighboring Somalia to help a regional fight against the al-Shabab Takfiri group, the most feared terror outfit in Africa.

Villagers in western Somalia said Thursday they had witnessed Ethiopian troops passing through the border Thursday morning to enter the country.

Abdullahi Yusuf, an elder in Luq town, said tanks and armored vehicles carrying Ethiopian troops entered Somalia and made their way through southwestern territories.

Muhummed Muse, a resident of Dolow town, said he had witnessed dozens of armored vehicles passing through.

Ethiopian authorities confirmed the new deployment, saying it was a routine for the country’s military to contribute to the ongoing fight against al-Shabab in Somalia.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Meles Alem, said the deployment was in line with Ethiopia’s responsibilities as one of the troop-contributing countries of AMISOM, the African Union mission in Somalia.

“It is a routine or normal military activity of the Ethiopian contingent based in Somalia to support the fight against terrorism,” said Alem.

The deployment follows a huge bombing in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on October 14 that left over 300 people killed. Though no group claimed responsibility, officials said al-Shabab, the main militant group in Somalia which has been behind decades of havoc in the Horn of Africa country, was responsible for the bomb attack.

The group also claimed a high-profile truck bombing and a siege on a hotel in Mogadishu, which left scores of people dead last week.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a dual US-Somali citizen, has been shuttling between regional capitals since the mid-October bombing in a bid to secure more military support for his country’s fight against terrorism.

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