US v Islam

2006-04-05 15:00

Nairobi - Somalia's worst fighting in years suggests the failed Horn of Africa state may become a new proxy battleground for Islamist militants and the United States.

Washington sees Somalia as a terrorist haven and backs the warlords in Mogadishu, which may have galvanised the Islamists against them both, analysts say.

A battle in March pitted warlords calling themselves the Anti-Terrorism Coalition against Islamic fighters backed by the influential Islamic courts. As many as 90 people were killed in the fighting.

A widely held perception that the United States backs the warlords with weapons, money and surveillance prompted Islamist hardliners to start a fight that killed 37 people in February, hours after the coalition announced its presence.

What has many worried is that these two battles were seen as a fight between the United States and Islam.

The US backing for the warlords has, in fact, strengthened the position of the Islamists and "helped extreme elements to get the Somali public behind them," an official involved with Somalia told Reuters.

While the Islamic courts are not viewed as extremists, they and their supporters are seen as sympathetic to al-Qaeda and foreign fighters who operate in Somalia, the official said.

Others say the Islamic courts, whose leaders have blamed the United States for supporting warlords, want to fight any attempt to create a government that would undermine their authority.

Fear we all have

Complicating things is what many say are some dissenting voices in the US government over what the priority in Somalia should be: Washington's counter-terrorism agenda or diplomatic efforts to help its riven interim government succeed.

Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for Africa, would not directly answer allegations of US backing for warlords. But she did say counter-terrorism in East Africa is a big concern.

"We look for allies, we look for governments that are part of that coalition that are also taking an aggressive stance against al-Qaeda and terrorist elements," Frazer told reporters in Kinshasa this week when asked about Somalia.

If counter-terrorism wins out, diplomats in Somalia's peace process say that could turn it into another Iraq-like area where militants come to fight what they see as a Western war on Islam.

"That is the fear we all have," one Western diplomat said.

Nearly everyone interviewed for this story did not want to talk on the record for fear of inflaming the situation.

Somalia is on its 14th bid in almost 15 years to establish a government. The interim administration of President Abdullahi Yusuf is just starting to heal a rift that has all but paralysed it since its formation in Kenya in late 2004.

Yusuf, an Ethiopian-backed former warlord, is a US ally against terrorism along with Addis Ababa.

But his outsider status in Mogadishu has forced Western intelligence agencies to turn to warlords in his cabinet who have been his chief political rivals.

That has created an impression that the United States is undermining him, and diplomats say Washington may be reassessing how it handles the warlords.

Supporting murderers

Mogadishu's residents largely despise the warlords, who have oppressed them at gunpoint for 15 years.

"It is the Americans who caused all these problems by supporting these murderers," Falestin Adan, a 70-year-old mother of five, told Reuters in Mogadishu.

Such a view is common in the city of one million, where the Islamic courts have created a semblance of order since an earlier alliance of warlords in 1991 ousted military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The courts, funded by wealthy businessmen, provide some basic health and education services, plus relative security and justice through Islamic sharia courts in parts of the city.

Somalis themselves do not hew toward hardline views of Islam, but are distrustful of foreigners.

Nonetheless, the anarchy has given a foothold to a handful of al-Qaeda-linked militants, the International Crisis Group think-tank said last year.

Diplomats and security experts now say those numbers are rising and more training houses have been found.

(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Mogadishu and David Lewis in Kinshasa)

- Reuters