Kenya: War Greatly Alarming

The Nation (Nairobi)

December 27, 2006
Posted to the web December 27, 2006

Nairobi

All-out war is is about to erupt in the Horn of Africa following Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia early this week.

Thousands of people are reported to have fled their homes to escape the fighting,

The IUC, who emerged in June to capture huge swathes of southern Somalia, are an assemblage of former warlords led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys -a radical on both UN and US terrorism lists.

But support for the IUC is not in short supply, which is why a majority of Somali youths have joined it.

While it would be silly to reduce the conflict to a mere contest between the "Islamist" Somalia and "Christian" Ethiopia, this religious appendage is appealing to both sides.

What the world is witnessing is a resurrection of old tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia, now fanned by proxies.

On the face of it, Eritrea, which has some unfinished business with Ethiopia over a disputed border that climaxed with bruising battles between 1998 and 2000, have allied themselves with the IUC.

Then there are the Arab states that have expressed a wish to spread Islam in the Horn and beyond, and who have supported the IUC cause.

But the lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia places the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the African Union and the United Nations in a precarious position as the Somali crisis threatens to escalate into a regional conflict