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Avoiding jihad

This article is more than 17 years old
Leader

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's fire-breathing number two, should not necessarily be taken too seriously: threats are a standard element of jihadist propaganda and presumably designed as much to inspire believers as to alarm enemies. But it was still ominous to hear his angry denunciation of Ethiopia's military intervention in Somalia as another "crusade" by "slaves of America" that must be resisted by "martyrdom campaigns" on a new Muslim frontline.

Zawahiri's battle cry dovetails with overblown talk from the US about the "war on terror" and al-Qaida's part in Somalia's chaos. The incursion by powerful Ethiopian forces quickly tipped the balance in favour of the country's weak transitional government against the Union of Islamic Courts, which had controlled Mogadishu since last summer. It is an open secret that Addis Ababa was quietly backed by the US in much the same way as Israel in its onslaught against Hizbullah in Lebanon. Ethiopia's move has been more successful than Israel's - so far. The transitional government has regained control of most of the country. But there are problems ahead. Its warlord supporters, some of them bankrolled by the CIA, are no more popular now than before: soon after the recapture of the capital militiamen reappeared at checkpoints where they used to rob, rape and murder civilians with impunity, a reminder of just how easily this quintessentially failed state in the Horn of Africa could return to anarchy.

Ethiopia is a traditional enemy of Somalia. Its involvement could well generate wide Somalian patriotic resistance to foreign forces in the same way the invasion of Iraq created an apparently unstoppable insurgency. No wonder some Muslims fit these events - with coordinated activity by Ethiopia, Kenya and US warships stopping Islamic Courts leaders escaping by dhow - into a crude narrative of clashing civilisations. Somalia's hardline Islamists do have links with al-Qaida operatives who are implicated in the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But their importance has probably been exaggerated. It would be disastrous if the country now became a magnet for hardcore jihadists seeking to replicate the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, again pledged yesterday that he would withdraw his troops in two weeks. That will require the rapid deployment of some kind of international force, most likely provided by the African Union under UN authority, though neither have performed well in the crisis in Darfur. That must indeed happen. Any delay risks turning al-Zawahiri's words into a self-fulfilling prophecy in which a new holy war in Somalia is added to the hateful litany of global confrontation.

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