Mary Harper, #Africa Editor, #BBC World Service. Author of two books :
1) Getting #Somalia Wrong?
2) Everything You Have Told Me Is True: The Many Faces of Al Shabaab.
"Yeah, I just I just wanted to say a bit more about #Ethiopia especially what's happening with Ethiopia at the moment, because for years for for years and years, Ethiopia was considered by the US principally and other Western powers as being its kind of key ally in the war on terror in the eastern Horn of Africa, it was the kind of bulwark against the threat.
And what I'm really fascinated to see what happens. Now, you look at the way that the US is speaking to Ethiopia in terms of the war that's going on in the #Tigray region and beyond. It's like, does it still I mean, how concerned is it that it's basically lost Ethiopia as that strong man in the region? Because at the moment it you know, it's coming down pretty hard on the #Abiy (#AbiyAhmed) government in terms of human rights abuses and blockading of aid?
And is it sitting there measuring, thinking, Oh, we have to be careful, we can't be too hard on them, because we need them as our kind of frontline state, it is difficult to work it out. And then obviously, with all the chaos that's going on in Ethiopia,
I'm sure #alShabaab In fact, I spoke to Al Shabaab about this. And I said, Are you going to take advantage of that and strike your main enemy, as you've always described it, and the Al Shabaab official who I was speaking to was kind of laughing, he said, We don't need to attack them now. You know, we could attack them whenever we want. But they're destroying themselves. So we're just sitting on the sidelines, and watching Ethiopia fall apart. You know, he was kind of rubbing his hands in glee about this,"
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