The international offensive against the Islamist al-Shabaab organization in Somalia appeared to take a new turn last week as hundreds of Ethiopian troops accompanied by armored personnel carriers reportedly crossed the border into the famine- and war-torn nation.
The U.S. had already expanded its drone war into Somalia over the summer, and Kenyan troops have been fighting al-Shabaab in southern Somalia since last month. A significant incursion now by Ethiopia could shift the dynamics of the already chaotic war.
But according to Bronwyn E. Bruton, deputy director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, it would be wrong to assume Ethiopia ever fully left Somalia after its violent and failed occupation of Mogadishu two years ago.