The new jihad front...East Africa

I've avoided commenting on the recent battles in Somalia and East Africa until the dust settled and I obtained some sources on the ground.

It's plain to see at this point that the jihadis have won a significant victory in Somalia and that this could have profound implications for East Africa as a whole.

After four months of fierce fighting, jihadi militias controlled by the Islamic Courts Union, led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, have succeeded in defeating the forces of the various warlords who have at one time or the other controlled the Somali capital, Mogadishu, since 1991.

Islamist fighters are now working on defeating Abdi Awale Qeydiid, the last of the major warlords left in the country.

By the end of June, the Islamic Courts had settled in and were controlling Mogadishu and most of Somalia as the new rulers of the country. Significantly, this victory reportedly took place in spite of the best efforts by the US, which reportedly backed the warlords with aid, has Special Forces watching Somalia, a French airbase in neighbouring Djibouti, and the German navy patrolling the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden because of previous incidents with pirates.

Somalia has always been an extremely fundamentalist Muslim country. During the MoToons riots last February, some of the most violent street demonstrations were staged in Mogadishu.

If anything, the new Islamist government has veered even further toward Islamism and al Qaeda. Militia leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has now taken over for Sheik Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who was thought to be slightly more `moderate'.

While Aweys denies being controlled by bin-Laden and al Qaeda he also said that bin-Laden's latest message showed no ill will toward the Islamic militia. "No one can dictate (to) us what we are to do," he said in a radio address. "but Osama's message would not harm the Somali people who stood up to restore law and order in their country and who are committed to defend their religion and dignity."

I guess we can make of that whatever we want.

Here's where the danger comes in for other parts of East Africa.

Right next door to Somalia is Djibouti, a strategic country located to the north of Somalia. The people of Djibouti are predominantly ethnic Somalis, and Muslims. If Islamists can seize Mogadishu why not Djibouti? Could it ever survive a similar Islamist onslaught? Probably not.

Kenya, to the south also has a significant Muslim population and has already been the scene of several al-Qaeda assaults like the bombing of hotels and consulates in the recent past. The roots of a jihadi organization are almost certainly already present.

In the Sudan, an Islamist government is already in place, and has been since Islamists backed the 1989 coup d'etat that brought Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir to power in Khartoum. At present, they're occupied with the genocide in Darfur, but that won't last forever.

This would leave Christian Ethiopia facing jihadis on two sides.

The government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is divided and weak and at its most vulnerable since it seized power in May 1991. Several Ethiopian rebel groups are waging armed conflicts against its government.

There is a long history of conflict between the Christian civilization of Ethiopia and the Muslim nations in surrounding areas. In 1977, Somalia invaded Ethiopia's desert Somali-dominated Ogaden region in an attempt to take it and make it into a part of a greater Somalia.

The last thing that the Zenawi government needs is for Somali Ethiopians, stirred up by the Islamists in Mogadishu, to foment a rebellion and create an armed seperatist movement demanding to break away from Ethiopia and merge with Somalia...a prelude to perhaps overunning the country.

Further down the eastern coastline of Africa, unnoticed by the international news media, is increasing tension on the Indian Ocean island archipelago of Zanzibar, which has a semi-autonomous status as part of the union with Tanganyika that created Tanzania in 1964. Zanzibar is 95 percent Muslim.

Many Zanzibari believe that the 2000 and 2005 elections were rigged in favour of the pro-union ruling Chaama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party.

As protests and disenchantment have grown,there are increasing calls for the dissolution of the union with Tanganyika altogether and turning Zanzibar into a fully independent Islamist state.

I see the eastern part of Africa witnessing a sudden upsurge in jihadi Islamic activity that will destabilize the area. I predict that we will see increasing news headlines from this front in the war against jihad in a year or two.

Keep watching the Horn of Africa and the eastern coast down to Zanzibar.