Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Somalia: Amnesty International demands that a Somali/Turkish drone strike should be investigated as a war crime

(Mogadishu) On the 18th March 2024, the Somali terrorist group 'Al Shahbab' attacked the Busley military base in the Lower Shabelle of the country, using several Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) aka suicide car bombs to breach through the defences 


and briefly occupy the base until they were beaten back. How the Somalis beat them back was supporting the troops on the ground with air support by the use of Turkish supplied Bayraktar TB2
UAVs using air to ground missiles (MAM-L) in the fighting the Somali government stated it lost 7 men killing 17 terrorists. 

Well Amnesty International has become involved stating that 23 people were killed during the air strikes which included 14 children (in the middle of a attack on a military base?) I quote:

Amnesty International remotely interviewed 12 people, including four victims and eyewitnesses, and four family members of victims. Researchers also reviewed satellite imagery and medical reports, analysed photos of victims and weapons fragments, and geolocated videos from the scene of the attacks and of Turkish drone operations at Mogadishu International Airport.

Based on the photos of the munitions scrap metal, Amnesty International’s weapons investigator was able to confirm that the strike was conducted with MAM-L glide bombs, which are dropped from TB-2 drones. Both are manufactured by Türkiye. Attacks that fail to differentiate between military objectives and civilian objects are indiscriminate and may amount to war crimes.

I be honest , I'm all for NGOs such as Amnesty to hold countries to task, but I do feel that a lot of the projects they take simply embolden terrorist groups to play the victim card in which to further their own cause. Here a terrorist group attacked a military base using several car bombs and managed to get inside killing numerous soldiers , they were beaten back and Amnesty isn't bothered about the terrorist attack which started all of this, nope they are more concerned about the deaths of 23 people 14 children, 9 women whom they were informed just happened to be at the base when this all kicked off. This they came to the conclusion of by interviewing people remotely. Am I the only one to see the problem here?