Regular members of Joshua's Army know that I've been predicting a a new jihad front in East Africa to heat up for some time, especially since the jihadi Islamic Courts took over most of Somalia and imposed sharia rule on the country.
It's come to pass even quicker than I thought it would, perhaps as a reaction to the UN's failure to do anything meaningful to stop the jihad in Darfur in the Sudan.
al-Reuters reports today that the al Qaeda linked jihadis in Somalia have formally declared a jihad, a holy war against Ethiopia.
"Starting from today, we have declared jihad against Ethiopia," Somali leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed told a news conference, wearing combat fatigues and brandishing an AK-47.
"It is an obligation on every Somali individual to take part in the martyrdom [holy war]..Somalis in and outside the country are obliged to defend their country and their religion. You should be ready for an order and execute it as you will be told."
The kickoff for all this came when about 200 combined Ethiopian and Somali government troops marched into the Burhakaba district just south of Baidoa, where the interim Somali `government' (which controls all of about two towns) is based. The Ethiopians are assisting the secular Somali interim government as a balance against the jihadist Islamic Courts, which controls the rest of the country.
As I predicted, Christian Ethiopia is now faced with the prospect of jihad on two fronts, from Somalia and from the Sudan, once the mopping up of what's left of Darfur is completed by the Sudan's Islamist government.
If Darfur is conquered and Ethiopia is attacked, all East Africa is in jeopardy. As I've mentioned before, Kenya has a large Islamic population and a significant jihadi network in place, and elements in Islamic Zanzibar, which is 95% Muslim are already agitating for dissolution of the union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika, which created Tanzania in 1964.
This is important for a number of reasons:
1) With a foothold in East Africa, the jihadis can put additional pressure on the rest of Africa, which also has a strong Muslim contingent...and on Egypt, which has a barely suppressed jihadi movement of its own with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' parent organization.
2) East Africa is an immensely strategic location, fairly close to the oil rich Arabian Peninsula and situated near several major waterways.
3) East Africa has a number of strategic and highly important resources that play a major role in modern defense industries and space industries.
4) Islamist theocracies are havens for terrorism and provide diplomatic, logistical and financial cover for people like al Qaeda..not to mention having the capability to become threats in their own right. Iran is a good example of how this works.
This situation bears watching. From acorns, mighty oaks grow...
however, the acorns must first hold their ground.
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