Global jihad's new front in Africa

A new front in the global struggle for Islamist rule is emerging in Africa. And there are worrisome signs that battles between Somalia's rising Union of Islamic Courts (IUC) and the country's foundering Western-backed government might soon engulf the entire Horn of Africa in a regional war.

Last week, the UN Security Council voted to send peacekeeping forces to Somalia, a move the Islamists say would be met with holy war. But neighboring Ethiopia isn't waiting for the UN. As the Islamists continue to take town after town away from Somalia's transitional government, and to march closer to its border, Ethiopia is gearing up for all-out war. Meanwhile, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Sudan are eyeing the conflict and taking sides.

"The fact that the UN resolution was backed by the US suggests that it puts Somalia into the global war on terror, and that has the potential to mobilize a lot of countries and groups that have been divorced from Somalia thus far," says Matt Bryden a consultant with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

Ethiopia has been sending troops across the border for months and its parliament last week approved a resolution of self-defense against Somalia in the event of war.

"We have said, OK, the Islamic Courts are a fact in Somalia, so let's sit down and negotiate," says a senior Ethiopian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But the UIC is not interested in solving this matter peacefully. Whenever we negotiate with them, before the ink is dry, they are taking more territory."

"We are not in a hurry to engage in fighting in Somalia, but if we are forced, we will defend ourselves," he says.

This weekend, Somalia saw the fiercest fighting yet between forces of the UIC and the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government.

A senior military official of the transitional government confirmed the fighting, without giving numbers for casualties, but UIC vice chairman Sheikh Sharif immediately claimed that his nation was under attack by foreign forces, and reaffirmed the UIC's call for a jihad, or religious struggle, to remove them. "We have inflicted harm on Ethiopian troops. Let us fight against the Ethiopians."

As a country with no central government for more than 15 years, Somalia has become a dangerous playground for other people's wars. Neighboring countries, such as Eritrea and Ethiopia, use Somalia as a proxy war to fight each other, placing their own troops in Somalia supporting opposing sides of the internal civil war. Ethiopian separatist groups such as the Ogaden National Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front use Somalia as a base to fight for independence from Ethiopia. Most worrisome to the Western world, however, is that the lack of central control has allowed extremist groups to bring their pro-Al Qaeda agenda into Africa.

Page: 1 | 2