Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa
CTC, 1 May 07: Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa
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The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point is pleased to present the report,
Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa. Based on a collection of al-Qa’ida documents recently released from the Department of Defense’s Harmony Database, this report provides an analysis of al-Qa’ida’s early operations in the Horn of Africa. These documents, captured in the course of operations supporting the Global War on Terror, have never before been available to the academic and policy community.
Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa includes a theoretically informed analysis of al-Qa’ida’s successes and failures while operating in Somalia between 1992 and 1994. Case studies on
Somalia and
Kenya provide a historical and current analysis of al-Qa’ida’s operations in the Horn. Our theoretical analysis and case studies inform policy recommendations on how the U.S. and its coalition partners might address the threat of terrorism in failed and weak states within the Horn of Africa and globally. We have provided brief summaries of each of the released documents with full text translations in English and the original document in Arabic. We hope this report will serve as a useful resource in our collective efforts to better understand and combat al-Qa’ida and its affiliated movements.
The Americans Have Landed
"The Americans Have Landed" by Thomas Barnett http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Af...ed_Africa.html
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America is going to have an Africa Command for the same reason people buy real estate -- it's a good investment. Too many large, hostile powers surround Central Asia for the radical jihadists to expand there, but Africa? Africa's the strategic backwater of the world. Nobody cares about Africa except Western celebrities.
So as the Middle East middle-ages over the next three decades and Asia's infrastructural build-out is completed, only Africa will remain as a source for both youth-driven revolution and cheap labor and commodities. Toss in global warming and you've got a recipe for the most deprived becoming the most depraved.
The U.S., through its invasion and botched occupation of Iraq, has dramatically sped up globalization's frightening reformatting process in the Middle East, and with Africa on deck, the United States military is engaging in a highly strategic flanking maneuver.
non-kinetic effects in action...
Eritrea deployed 25,000 troops to Ethiopian border?
the Sudan Tribune is the only news source to report this. Anyone have any information to support or deny this info?
Eritrea deploying 25000 troops into Ethiopia border - opposition
Tuesday 23 October 2007.
October 22, 2007 (MEKELLE, Ethiopia) — The opposition Eritrean People Democratic Front (EPDF) today said, Eritrea recently has deployed over 25000 troops toward Ethiopia border.
“Eritrean 19 and 13 military division forces fully armed are deployed at the temporary security zone where UN peace keepers are deployed.” The opposition group said.
According to the EPDF’s statement Eritrea has break into the buffer zone, Temporary Security Zone, (TSZ) between the Eritrea and Ethiopia forces; and heavily started massing its troop
Ethiopia and Eritrea forces are now in less than 25 kms away from each other and recent tensions could break out in to a full war any time.
The group further said the government of Eritrea has imposed curfew in Senafe town and around.
’’The curfew imposed since last week and which the group said lasts from dusk to down aimed to control its fleeing citizens to Ethiopia in the cover of darkness.” The group added.
International observers say Eritrea violated the Alger agreement by sending troops to the demilitarized zone. Also the UN urged Eritrea to remove the restrictions placed by Eritrea upon UN mission forces between the two countries.
At the end of October 2005, Eritrea ordered the U.N. mission in Eritrea to "confine its land vehicle movements to the main roads" in the 25-kilometer wide demilitarized buffer zone.
The move was seen as a pressure from Eritrea intending to force the international community into taking action against Ethiopia, which has refused to accept an international ruling on the border made in 2002.
In 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea ended a 2 1/2-year border war that killed 70,000 people and cost two of the poorest countries in the world an estimated $1 million a day each.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article24373
War Brews on the New Frontier
This is an interesting article by Michela Wrong on how the deadline for the Algiers Agreement signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2000 expires at the end of November and the implications for the future.
By the way, Small Wars Forum readers might appreciate Michela Wrong's book, "I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation", about Eritrea, especially Chapter 10, titled "Blowjobs, Bugging and Beer" about U.S. Military base called Kagnew Station in Eritrea. For more info from one of her sources of that article, go to http://www.geozazz.com/wrongreview.htm
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War brews on the new frontier
Michela Wrong
Published 25 October 2007
Michela Wrong reports on the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the war brewing on the new frontier
A grim deadline expires in a few weeks' time. It will pass unnoticed by the British public, but that doesn't make it any less important, not just for the two nations involved, but for Africa as a whole. For it sets the seal on an abject failure by the west to ensure that a vital African ally respects international law. And the act of defiance our governments have chosen to ignore will undermine peacemaking on the continent for decades to come.
At the end of November, the frontier separating Eritrea from Ethiopia becomes officially demarcated, in the teeth of Ethiopian opposition. For five years, Addis Ababa has done its best to prevent cement pillars being placed along a line designated by the international Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission in April 2002, a ruling that both states originally agreed was to be final and binding. The exasperated commission chairman, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, announced last November that if the stalemate continued, the border would automatically count as legally demarcated a year hence, pillars or no.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200710250023
Also see:
Ethiopia, Eritrea Trade Blame on Boundary Dispute
and
Algiers Agreement
Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War
Report calls on the UN to enforce the border demarcation and the US to send a clear message to both sides that war will not be tolerated. I've seen nothing from either the UN or the US in the public. Anyone know if there's been any diplomatic dialogue on this subject from the US side?
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Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War
Nairobi/New York/Brussels, 5 November 2007: The international community must act urgently to prevent Ethiopia and Eritrea from resuming their war and potentially throwing the entire Horn of Africa into new turmoil.
Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, warns of the real risk of renewed conflict and calls on the international community to move fast to stop it. The UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular must give both sides the clearest message that no destabilising unilateral action will be tolerated, and that the parties must comply with their obligations under international law, disengage on the ground and restore the demilitarised Temporary Security Zone (TSZ).
“The military build-up on both sides has reached alarming proportions, and war could break out again within weeks,” says Gareth Evans, Crisis Group President. “There will be no easy military solution if that happens: we are looking at a protracted conflict on Eritrean soil, destabilisation of Ethiopia and a horrible new humanitarian crisis”.
Both sides had agreed in Algiers in 2000 to submit their border dispute to the Boundary Commission and accept its decision as final and binding. However, since its ruling in April 2002, Ethiopia has blocked physical demarcation of the border; Eritrea, with legal right on its side, then alienated many of its supporters by blocking the work of the UN peacekeepers. The issue will come to a decisive head – with a real risk of fighting breaking out – at the end of November, when the Boundary Commission has indicated it will close down unless it is allowed to proceed to demarcation.
The UN Security Council and the U.S. must urgently make it clear to both sides that no use of force will be tolerated and that a party that resorts to it will be held accountable. Specifically, the U.S. should send a firm message to Ethiopia, that it will take diplomatic and economic measures against it if it attacks Eritrea. The Security Council should pass a resolution reiterating its support for the Boundary Commission decision and requesting it to remain beyond the end of November.
The UN should also stress the requirements on Ethiopia to accept the Boundary Commission ruling and on Eritrea to withdraw its army from the TSZ. Members of the Security Council and other key international players should discuss economic incentives and disincentives that would likely be required to obtain cooperation in de-escalating the situation on the ground and implementing the Commission decision.
“In the next weeks, urgent outside assistance is needed to ensure that the shooting does not resume,” says Don Steinberg, Crisis Group Vice President for Multilateral Affairs. “International indifference or mistaken confidence could cost the people of the Horn of Africa dearly and lead to a new protracted conflict in the region”.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5136&l=1