Issue 258

The armed conflicts that so often roil Africa rarely engage U.S. interests except in a humanitarian sense. But that cannot be said of the war that has now broken out between Ethiopia and the Islamists who seized control of much of Somalia in June. Here America's strategic interests are very much engaged, even if the actors in the fight range, morally speaking, from the unpalatable to the unacceptable.

Among the unpalatables is the increasingly autocratic Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's prime minister of 15 years, who has deployed as many as 20,000 troops in neighboring Somalia and may soon control its capital, Mogadishu. Mr. Zenawi claims to be acting on behalf of Somalia's internationally recognized but weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which was barely holding on in the regional city of Baidoa until Ethiopia's intervention.

The TFG is led by Abdillahi Yusuf Ahmed, another strongman-in-waiting whose resume includes stints as president (first elected, later self-declared) of the breakaway northern Somali province of Puntland. Also in the anti-Islamist mix is the so-called Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, a coalition of Somali warlords reportedly backed by the CIA with suitcases of cash on the theory they were more likely to keep the Islamists at bay than were the TFG.

On the opposite side are the Islamists, a.k.a. the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Since wresting control over Mogadishu from the warlords, the ICU has managed to pacify parts of the country, which some might say is a net plus for Somalis. But its methods are reminiscent of the Taliban, which also brought a sort of peace to Afghanistan. The ICU threatens to behead anyone who fails to pray five times a day.

Among the ICU's leaders is one Hassan Dahir Aweys, previously of the Saudi-funded, al Qaida-connected al-Itihaad al-Islamiya terrorist group. Mr. Aweys was named a terrorist by the U.S. as far back as 2001, and his outfit is thought to be connected to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The extent to which the Islamic Courts Union is assisting al Qaida or its offshoots is a matter of dispute. But there's no doubt it is now recruiting jihadis from around the world to its cause.

Such are the opposing sides in this conflict, and it's clear that U.S. interests would be well-served by the ICU's collapse. Less clear is how to bring that about, how to do so without sparking a wider war, and how to bring some semblance of order to the country.

Eritrea , long at war with Ethiopia, has sent its own contingent of troops to aid the ICU, Saudi Arabia has pledged support, and al Qaida bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri has called Somalia "the southern garrison of Islam." While the ICU might easily be routed by Ethiopia in a conventional test of arms, it will be much more difficult to defeat as a guerrilla or terrorist force.

No outside powers are likely to risk a repeat of the disastrous U.N. mission to Somalia of the early 1990s. So probably the best the U.S. can do is give tacit support to Ethiopia's incursion while using its leverage with Mr. Zenawi to demand that he agree to the U.N. demarcated border with Eritrea. The U.S. provides Ethiopia with economic as well as substantial military assistance.

In return, the Eritreans might be persuaded to cease their support for the ICU. The U.S. could also condition material support for a future TFG government in Mogadishu on its recognition of the autonomy of Puntland and neighboring Somaliland, which adjoins U.S.-allied Djibouti and has been relatively free of ICU interference. As with the former Yugoslavia, addressing the problem that is Somalia might ultimately mean breaking up that large country into smaller bits.

There is a material limit to what the U.S. can do for East Africa, and expectations for what the region can and will do it for itself cannot be high. Still, the Ethiopian offensive against Islamic Courts is an act of regional hygiene that we can hope is able to contain radical Islam from spreading to a far larger swath of Africa. (Dec. 28)

Don't Count Out Somalia Islamists, Military, Intelligence Officials Warn

By ELI LAKE

WASHINGTON December 29, 2006— Dispersed but not defeated, America's Islamist enemies in Somalia could yet make a comeback, according to military and intelligence officials interviewed by The New York Sun.

Reports this week from Somalia's capital suggest that the Ethiopian military has succeeded in breaking the grip of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu. But wire services yesterday also were reporting that the jihadists opted not to engage the better-armed Ethiopians, instead taking a cue from Iraq's Islamist insurgency and blending back into the population when confronted with helicopter and tank fire.

The battle for Somalia is critical to America's war on Al Qaeda. After a failed effort by America to support warlords and a transitional government in early 2006, the capital and south of the country fell to the Islamic Courts Union this summer, posing the specter of a new base for international jihad.

In particular America is worried about four people. To start, the deputy commander of the union's military wing, Aiden Hashi Ayro, is said by American intelligence and a recent report by the International Crisis Group to have been trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001. After the attacks, he returned to Afghanistan to join the fight against the Americans.

Mr. Ayro's boss and commander of the union's military, Hassan Dahir Aweys, was placed on the State Department's list of international terrorists in November 2001 and named in a presidential executive order the same month on international terrorism. American counterterrorism officials have long said Mr. Aweys was a key source of coordination for the 1998 Al Qaeda attacks on America's embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Also of interest for America are Fazil Abdullah Mohammad, or Harun, and Abu Tala al Sudani, two alleged terrorists who helped plot the 1998 bombings and are now key leaders in the courts union.

In addition to the presence of Al Qaeda operatives inside the union's military wing, the Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit has tracked money from traditional Al Qaeda financiers in Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Courts Union accounts in East Africa. Al Qaeda leaders have urged fellow jihadists in recent videos and audio recordings to support the union's fight against the transitional government and the Ethiopians.

Estimates of the strength of the Islamic Courts Union vary between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters. This week, Ethiopian commanders claimed to have killed 1,000 men. But one Western intelligence official said yesterday that it was likely that figure was inflated and that most of the terrorists fighting with the union had faded away.

"My assessment is that it is great the Ethiopians have experienced success in the army-to-army phase of the campaign," a counterterrorism analyst, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, said. "But it's clear the Islamic Courts Union is preparing for guerrilla warfare. That's why when the Ethiopians have moved into several towns, they find the ICU has already cleared out. All the while, the transitional government representatives do not think the insurgency can succeed."

Earlier this week, the head of the executive council of the Islamic Courts Union, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, told reporters in Mogadishu that his fighters were planning an insurgency. "The fighting has now entered into a new phase. Since the Ethiopians are using heavy weapons, tanks and fighter jets and bombed on several locations, we have decided to order our fighters to draw back from the towns for military techniques," he said. "Since we have no heavy weapons, we would start endless hit-and-run fighting against the Ethiopian invaders."

Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, promised yesterday that his forces would not remain in Somalia for long. He also said America, an ally of Ethiopia, "hasn't contributed a single bullet, a single soldier, or a single military equipment to this operation."

On December 4, the outgoing general in charge of America's Central Command, John Abizaid, visited Addis Ababa for security consultations, a move regional observers have interpreted as giving the Ethiopians tacit approval for the military operation. America also helped to prevent a vote on an Arab League resolution at the United Nations this week that would have condemned Ethiopia's escalation.

Source: The New York Sun

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