Somalia's Islamists prepare for war with Ethiopia

[Shammu]

Somalia's Islamists prepare for war with Ethiopia
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Mark Mazzetti
Published: 2006-12-13 16:12:20

MOGADISHU, Somalia: The stadium was packed, the guns were cocked and even the drenching rain could not douse the jihadist fire.

Thousands of Somalis, from fully veiled, machine-gun toting women to little boys in baggy fatigues, were gathered to rally against what they called foreign aggression. As a squall blew in, they punched wet fists into the air and yelled, "Allah Akbar," God is great.

"I am ready to die," said Osama Abdi Rahim, dressed head-to-toe in camouflage and marching around with a loaded Kalashnikov. He is 7 years old.

The inevitability of war hangs over Mogadishu, Somalia's bullet-pocked seaside capital. Unlike the internal anarchy that has consumed the country for 15 years, the looming battle is now with Ethiopia, threatening to further destabilize an already troubled region.

In the past week, the militant Islamists in control of Mogadishu and much of the rest of the country have initiated a food drive, a money drive and an AK- 47 assault rifle drive, sending doctors and nurses, along with countless young soldiers, to the front lines.

For its part, Ethiopia, with tacit approval from the United States, has been steadily slipping soldiers across the border, trying to hold off the Islamists and shore up Somalia's weak, unpopular and divided transitional government. Though it has been recognized by the United Nations as the legitimate authority in Somalia, the transitional government's power barely extends to the city limits of Baidoa, the inland city where it has taken refuge.

The Islamist forces, on the other hand, seem to be very popular here, having defeated Mogadishu's thuggish warlords this year to pacify one of the world's most murderous cities.

Their troops, which United Nations officials have said are secretly getting weapons from several Arab states and Eritrea, have encircled Baidoa and are vowing to attack the Ethiopian forces unless they leave.

Ethiopian convoys already have been attacked, and on Friday and Saturday the Islamists skirmished with soldiers from Baidoa, with dozens reportedly killed. That taste of war seems only to have whetted the appetite for more.

"We wait for the Ethiopians like dry land waits for rain," said Mustafa Ali Mohammed, an Islamic leader in Burhakaba, a town near the dividing line between the Islamists and the Baidoa.

Analysts are unanimous that a full scale conflict between the Ethiopians and the Islamists would be disastrous for Somalia, which is already suffering from severe flooding and years of crisis, and for the region as a whole, because many neighboring countries may jump in.

General John Abizaid of the U.S. Central Command, which has military authority for the Horn of Africa, flew to Ethiopia recently to meet with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has told American officials that he could cripple the Islamists "in one to two weeks."

Walking a careful line, Abizaid made it clear that a military invasion of Somalia could create a humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa.

But Abizaid did not tell Ethiopian officials to pull their troops out, Centcom officials said.

Indeed, some American officials said the United States supported Ethiopia's military buildup because they felt it was the only way to protect the weak Baidoa government from being overrun, to force the Islamists to the negotiating table and to contain what they called a growing regional threat.

Officials in Washington have accused the Islamists of sheltering Al Qaeda terrorists, but whether or not that is true, the presence of Ethiopian troops seems to have increased the potential for terrorist activity.

Suicide bombers, unknown in Somalia until a few months ago, have attacked Baidoa twice recently, and last month the first Iraq-style roadside bombs were detonated against Ethiopian convoys.

Intelligence experts said that fighters from other Muslim countries have been streaming across Somalia's notoriously loose borders, drawn by the Islamists' blaring call for a holy war against Ethiopia, a country with a strong Christian identity, and against America, which is especially despised here.

Memories are still fresh of the botched American-led United Nations relief operation in the early 1990s, and more recently of the covert American effort to bolster Mogadishu's warlords in an 11th-hour bid to prevent an Islamist takeover.

That strategy backfired and only drove more people into the arms of the Islamists.

"I'll be honest," said Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur, the deputy security chief for the Islamists. "America is the best friend of Islam. It wakes up the sleeping Muslim."

U.S. officials helped pushed through a United Nations resolution authorizing peacekeepers from other African countries to back up the Baidoa politicians. The resolution also allowed the Baidoa government, not the Islamists, to bring in more weapons, despite a long-standing arms embargo.

The problem with that strategy, many analysts said, is that it misreads the Islamists' power, which is rooted not so much in their military strength — limited to a few hundred armed pick-up trucks and a few thousand fighters — but in their popular support.

Ethiopia may have the strongest military in the region, trained by American advisers and complete with jet fighters, but attacking Islamist forces may only drive them into a guerrilla insurgency.

U.S. officials have said they were hoping that the moderates within the Islamic administration would prevail over the hard-line, war-mongering elements. But if there ever were such a struggle, it is over.

Three months ago, Ibrahim Hassan Addou, the foreign minister for the Islamists and an American citizen of Somali descent, talked of sharing power and holding elections.

Now, like the others, Addou is talking war, and his positions are nearly indistinguishable from the most militant Islamic leaders.

Cont'd next post

[Shammu]

He said that moderates had been backed into a corner by an American- led campaign to label the Islamic administration terrorists.

"Everybody was against us from the beginning, and now we have no choice but to fight," Addou said. "What I don't understand is why the whole world is trying to throw its weight behind a government that has been totally rejected by its own people."

UN officials said they supported the government in Baidoa because it was the most representative of all the various clans in Somalia.

But one side effect of the multiclan approach has been ceaseless disputes between clan elders. All the while, the Islamists have aggressively expanded their territory.

Many politicians in Baidoa vehemently opposed calling upon Ethiopian muscle, fearing the backlash it would provoke. In the past, some Somali clans have teamed up with Ethiopian forces to dominate other clans, ending in even more bloodshed. So, when the idea to bring Ethiopian soldiers to Baidoa was first proposed last year it proved so divisive that it set off a brawl among the politicians, and failed to pass.

"The problem with having Ethiopians defend us is that they make us look like the puppets that the Islamists accuse us of being," said Sheriff Hassan Sheik Aden, speaker of the Parliament in Baidoa.

Ethiopian officials insisted they have dispatched only a few hundred military advisers to Baidoa, but UN monitors and witnesses on the ground say several thousand Ethiopian infantry troops are digging in near Baidoa.

Sporadic peace talks between the Baidoa politicians and the Islamists have produced little but broken promises. The only thing that seems to be delaying all-out war is the mutual recognition that a decisive victory was unlikely. The Islamists are reluctant to march on Baidoa and trigger a crushing Ethiopian response, while the Ethiopians seem fearful of trying to storm Mogadishu, the same city that claimed the lives of 18 U.S. Army Rangers in the infamous Black Hawk Down battle in 1993.

A growing number of Democrats in Congress are urging the Bush administration to change course and deal with the Islamists for what they are: the power on the ground.

"The Islamists aren't going away, so the sooner we talk to them, the better," said Donald Payne, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey who is expected to be the chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa when the Democrats take control of Congress in January.

In Mogadishu, the Islamists are continuing their hearts-and-minds campaign, organizing neighborhood cleanups, delivering food to the needy and resuscitating old national institutions, like the supreme court, which was given a fresh coat of paint and reopened in October.

Streets that were clogged with years of debris are now clear and bureaucracy is budding, with more rules and more paperwork, including forms at the airport that ask name, age, nationality and religion — Muslim or non-Muslim being the only two choices.

All the talk of slaughtering Ethiopian invaders and their American sponsors, though, seems to have brought out a harsher side of the Islamic administration.

Nearly every day, rings of people gather on Mogadishu's streets to watch lashings, and the crowds cheer as leather whips cut canals into flesh. One Islamic leader in a town north of Mogadishu recently passed an edict threatening that anyone who does not pray five times a day will be beheaded.

"It's black and white," said the leader, Hussein Barre Rage. "The Koran says people must pray."

Not so long ago, Somalia was a place where women wore skirts and men drank beer, and even today there is a large chunk of the population that is quietly concerned about the absolutist direction the Islamists seem to be heading.

But the prospects of war with Ethiopia appear to have pushed many of these people solidly into the Islamic camp.

"I'm not into thought control," said Dahir Abdullahi Hirsi, a pharmacist in Mogadishu. "But I hate Ethiopians even more."

Somalia's Islamists prepare for war with Ethiopia

[Shammu]

Uh huh, islam sure is a peaceful religion......................... NOT