The week central government in the north is propped up by Ethiopian troops. Eritrea, who has it's own conflict over borders with Ethiopia, has sent special forces to training and equip The Council of Islamic Courts.
Naturally, the Bush Administration has few options. So far they have alienated The Council by supporting the very warlords that shot up US troops 10 years ago. The Courts have threatened Ethiopian troops with attack. Ethiopia has said, "bring it on."
The "clash of civilizations" advocates are smiling today. From Robert D. Novak column today, he quotes the Iraq Study Group report:
"The United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts."
Then he quotes Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel scathing warning to world:
"Until the United States helps lead a renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace process, there will be no prospect for broader Middle East peace and stability." He went further by warning of a "Judeo-Christian/Muslim split" that "would inflame the world."
washingtonpost.com
Among administration officials, Congress, U.S. allies and other interested and fearful parties, there is a rising sense that Somalia is spinning rapidly out of control. But even as events there have focused Washington's attention, they have led to a wave of finger-pointing and a feeling that there are few good ideas and little time for turning the situation around.
A wide range of interviews and commentary last week provided assessments that differed only in their degree of bleakness and apportionment of blame.
"The Council of Islamic Courts is now controlled by . . . East Africa al-Qaeda cell individuals," Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer said of Mogadishu's new rulers.
Early hopes of a power-sharing deal with secular politicians have dissipated as Courts Chairman Hassan Dahir Aweys -- put on the U.S. terrorist list in 2001 as the head of a militant group accused of having links to al-Qaeda in the 1990s -- and Aden Ayrow, who heads the Courts' military arm, have increased their power.
Moderates remain within the Courts, a coalition of local Islamist groups and militias that drove CIA-supported warlords out of Mogadishu, Frazer said. But "they are not emerging as they could get their heads taken off, literally."
The Islamists have ignored U.S. insistence that they turn over three al-Qaeda operatives -- the core of what is called the East African cell -- who the administration says took refuge in Somalia after terrorist attacks in Africa, including the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
In a taped statement released in July, bin Laden called on Somalis to begin preparing for regional war. He recalled the 1994 withdrawal of U.S. military forces after a warlord attack killed 18 U.S. troops, saying, "This time, victory will be far easier."
U.S. intelligence officials described the statement at the time as part of bin Laden's failing claim to the leadership of a worldwide Islamic movement, despite the dispersion of the al-Qaeda network by the U.S. terrorism fight. Now they are not so certain.
[...]Ethiopia, a Christian-dominated nation, also fought a war with Somalia in the 1970s, over the ethnic Somali and largely Muslim Ethiopian province of Ogaden.
Last week, Somali Islamists threatened a "major attack" if the Ethiopians do not withdraw by Tuesday. Ethiopia has said, in essence, bring it on.
[...]"By making a bad bet on the warlords to do our bidding," incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) charged last week, "the administration has managed to strengthen the Courts, weaken our position and leave no good options. This is one of the least-known but most dangerous developments in the world, and the administration lacks a credible strategy to deal with it."
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