Somalia: Battle for Baidoa Begins, Islamic Courts Employing Feint Tactics

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

I have been covering the situation in Somalia since early June, when Mogadishu fell to the radical Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU has steadily gained control of strategic cities throughout the country since then, confining its secular rival, the transitional federal government (TFG), to the south-central Somali city of Baidoa. This morning I have a major piece of breaking news over at Pajamas Media, where I reveal that the ICU has begun its final push to take Baidoa. An excerpt:

Baidoa is heavily fortified and protected by a large contingent of Ethiopian troops but its defenses will not hold, intelligence sources tell Pajamas Media. Ethiopia has allied itself with Somalia's embattled transitional federal government.

Reached by Pajamas Media, Dahir Jibreel, the transitional government's permanent secretary in charge of international cooperation, confirmed that a massive offensive is underway. Jibreel said that the ICU launched an "offensive on the seat of the government from three directions: Burkhakabo, Idale and Dinsor."

Jibreel is guardedly optimistic, noting that the Islamic radicals "sustained heavy losses."

"They will overrun Baidoa," a military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media. "It's only a question of when."

It's worth noting that the military intelligence source with whom I spoke believes that the ICU's early attacks on Baidoa -- which got beaten back -- were not intended to take the city, but instead were feint operations designed to make the transitional government and its Ethiopian allies overconfident, and perhaps cause them to advance from their fortified positions. If he is correct that these were feint operations (and this source has been extremely reliable in the past), then the ICU succeeded in driving up the the TFG's confidence. I spoke to a number of sources close to the TFG's leadership this morning, and they were convinced that the TFG is winning.

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