The final organized base of the Union of Islamic Courts
fell to Ethiopian and Somali forces last night, completing the lightning rout of what had been an ascendant radical Islamist force. Ras Kamboni had been the last organized redoubt for the UIC, and now they have fled into to forests on the Kenyan border:
Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers have captured the last stronghold of the Union of Islamic Courts, the defence minister says.
Col Barre Aden Shire said the town of Ras Kamboni, in south-eastern Somalia, fell after several days of fighting. Remnants of the militia are now reported to be hiding in dense forest along Somalia's border with Kenya.
Ethiopia has led a military campaign against the Islamists, who controlled much of Somalia for six months.
For those six months, people pointed to their tightening grip on power and determined that nothing could stop the wave of radical Islam from recapturing the old ummah, stretching from Southwest Asia all the way across North Africa. The terrorists' willingness to die as martyrs made them invincible, or nearly so, and military force simply couldn't match up to the asymmetrical threat.
Ethiopia didn't believe it. They showed what happens when a nation commits to actual war against asymmetrical threats: they destroy them. Military forces go after the terrorists where they organize, and then surround them and destroy them. They don't wait for the terrorists to come to them. And when the terrorists are on the run, you don't get squeamish about stamping them out while they're exposed and vulnerable.
It's the only winning strategy against Islamist terrorism. Ethiopia knows it. and the West had better remember it.