NAIROBI, KENYA — Ethiopia's attacks against Islamic forces in Somalia may have delivered a short-term military victory, but analysts warned that a longer offensive could present the U.S. ally with some of the same challenges facing American forces in Iraq.
Airstrikes against the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and other towns Sunday and Monday demonstrated Ethiopia's military superiority over the Islamic forces that seized most of southern Somalia during the summer.
But Ethiopia would be hard-pressed to dispatch enough troops to capture and occupy Islamic-held areas of Somalia.
"I don't understand what Ethiopia's objective is," said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and now a political science professor at George Washington University. "I can't imagine their objective is to occupy and hold Somalia. It was a very limited victory."
Most experts agree that Ethiopia's battle-tested army, numbering as many as 150,000 troops, could easily beat Somalia's ragtag Islamic fighters, which are believed to total under 10,000.
But Islamists say they would compensate for their lack of numbers and sophisticated weaponry by pursuing an unconventional war, including suicide attacks and other insurgency-style tactics that U.S. and allied troops face in Iraq.
"The Ethiopians could get bogged down into a hopeless, long-term guerrilla campaign with enormous supply lines," Shinn said. "I don't see how they 'defeat' the Islamists in the long run."
The attacks Sunday and Monday marked the first time Ethiopia has publicly acknowledged taking direct military action against Somalia's Islamists.
Ethiopian officials said they acted to preempt threats by Islamic forces to launch a "holy war" against them. Ethiopia is also moving to protect Somalia's weak transitional government, which has been battling with Islamists over who will control the Horn of Africa nation.
Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991.
Anger over the Ethiopian airstrikes reverberated Monday throughout Mogadishu. Local radio stations flooded the airwaves with nationalist songs, recalling the history of tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia, which last went to war in 1977.
Angry youths rioted in several Somali cities, urging all adult males to join the Islamic forces.
The Ethiopian attacks appeared to be bolstering support for the Islamists.
