Global jihad's new front in Africa (while we bog down in Irag).

[rodeodance]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1212/p01s02-woaf.html

Global jihad's new front in Africa

As Islamists take over Somalia, its Western-backed neighbor Ethiopia prepares for war.

By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – 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.

...........

"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."............

[Kagemusha]

1. I've brought this up before but...

I don't really see why the US would be better served being bogged down in Somalia (for a second time) again, instead of Iraq. I don't see why it's somehow more important to be in Somalia, which we can't be since the troops are bogged down in Iraq instead.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Break Up Somalia?

I've wondered if the best solution might be to encourage the political breakup of Somalia. Somalia is the artificial creation of a unified country out of what had been British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland., joined together in 1960. To the best of my knowledge, Somalia never had a unified government before then.

I remember that the northern part, the onetime British Somaliland, was beginning to pull itself into a viable political entity a couple of years ago, while the southern (ex-Italian colony) was the chaotic playground of warlords and thugs. If Northern Somaliland wants to make a go of it as an independent nation, I say let them--with US support.

[applegrove]

3. Some neocon is sitting at an church organ, wearing a long black cape, and smashing

away at the keyboard as he controls the world and starts a 'world war'. I can hear the cackling laughter from Canada.