Al-Qaadisya (in Somali) – Excerpt from report by Somali Islamic Courts Union affiliated website

[Translated by BBC Monitoring] One of the Kenyan soldiers who fought alongside the US forces in Somalia near the Kenyan border, spoke out of what happened to him and the other forces that participated in the operation. [Passage omitted] The soldier who sought anonymity for security reasons said that they crossed the Kenya- Somalia border with US ground forces. He said upon entering Somalia we encountered some Ethiopian forces who had suffered heavy casualties in their war with the Mujahidin [fighters].

“The US forces asked the Ethiopians to accompany us but the Ethiopians refused knowing of what lay ahead. We left them and after a while we entered into a frightening forest land and carefully entered the forest and reached a place that looked like it was inhabited. We then reached an area with many [bullet] magazines and I thought it was the battleground between the UIC and the Ethiopian forces.”

“We went ahead to a place that looked like a man-made entrance, which we entered and as we continued walking inside we were fired at from the direction we had entered from.”

“The situation was out of hand and every one opened fire to the direction he was facing, every one was running. After two days of running we reached the Kenya-Somali border. The funny thing was, none of the US soldiers accompanying us was found again, some were lost in the forest, others were killed and some were feasted on by the wild animals in the bush.”

^{(back to 2000s general archives)}