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Subject: Muslims on Rise in Horn of Africa; Militant Groups Said to Thrive as Anarchy
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 04:42:03 EST
Message-ID: <4.1992Nov11.044204@AmeriCast.com>

Muslims on Rise in Horn of Africa; Militant Groups Said to Thrive
as Anarchy Spreads in Region<By Jennifer Parmelee=Special to The
Washington Post= SHEIKH, Somalia - Groups of well-armed Islamic
fundamentalists, funded generously from abroad, are thriving and
expanding across Somali-populated areas of the Horn of Africa in
an apparent bid to establish a stronghold for militant Islam in
the region, according to Somali and foreign observers.

The strongest and most visible group, the Islamic Union Party -
known as Ittihad, or union - is styled after the international
Muslim Brotherhood and has made significant inroads from northern
Somalia on the Gulf of Aden to the predominantly Somali-speaking
Ogaden region of Ethiopia and into Somali-populated areas of
northern Kenya, sources said.

Ittihad has set up military training camps across northern
Somalia and the Ogaden and runs a network supplying arms and mo-
ney to ethnic Somali populations in Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia
and Kenya, according to interviews with dozens of local leaders,
diplomats and aid workers in Somalia and Ethiopia. One of the
movement's stated goals is to unite the various Somali popula-
tions under the banner of Islam.

The moves by Ittihad coincide with fragmentary evidence gathered
by regional governments and Western intelligence agencies that
Islamic fundamentalist groups in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and
possibly Pakistan are seeking to inflame militancy among Muslims
in other parts of Ethiopia and its soon-to-be independent Red Sea
territory of Eritrea.

The fundamentalists' efforts in the region have been made easier
by the chaos that followed the fall of Somali dictator Mohamed
Siad Barre's government in 1990.  Widespread anarchy has spawned
clan warfare in the south of the country and the proclamation of
a Republic of Somaliland in the north, independent from the vir-
tually powerless government that succeeded Siad Barre in Mogad-
ishu.  "Fundamentalist Islam has failed in many countries, but
then there was a government to stop them," said Yusuf Omar
Azhari, a representative of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front
based in northeastern Somalia. "In Somalia, they are operating
freely, in a vaccuum. . . . They must not be underestimated, be-
cause if they are allowed to grow beyond their infancy, they will
be a real threat to the whole Horn of Africa."

Last February, a UNICEF doctor was assassinated while she ate at
a restaurant in the port of Boosaaso, where Azhari's group makes
its headquarters. The attack, blamed on Ittihad by both the demo-
cratic front and Western diplomats, was widely interpreted as a
warning against establishment of a Western presence in Somalia
and was preceded by anti-U.N. statements during Friday prayers at
local mosques.

In June, more than 1,000 armed followers of Ittihad swept into
Boosaaso, rounded up about 40 members of the democratic front's
leadership and declared an Islamic republic. Democratic front
militias were mobilized, and as many as 200 militiamen and 500
Ittihad fighters were killed and hundreds wounded in the battle
that ensued. The militia then chased the fundamentalists along
the coast to the port of Laasqoray.

Ittihad forces in Laasqoray have swelled to around 2,000 men and
seem to be gearing up for another attack on Boosaaso, the
northeast's key port, according to the democratic front, Western
diplomats and other sources from the area. Ittihad camps offering
military and religious training to thousands of young men also
have been set up outside the northern towns of Burao, Boorama and
Laascaanood, according to officials and relief workers.

In Hargeysa, northern Somalia's principal town and the capital of
the self-proclaimed Somaliland Republic, authorities arrested an
Ittihad operative last summer carrying an extensive list of im-
portant individuals and sites in northern Somalia, Djibouti and
eastern Ethiopia.

In the Ethiopian region of the Ogaden, meanwhile, Ittihad report-
edly has stepped up military activities, frequently cutting off
roads to such key towns as Gode, attacking relief food convoys
and engaging government troops.

Although repeated attempts to contact Ittihad representatives
were unsuccessful, Somali elders who knew them said Ittihad
leaders claimed the group was only arming itself in self-defense
in a chaotic country full of armed groups.

The source of Ittihad's funding cannot be independently deter-
mined. While some sources say wealthy, conservative Somalis liv-
ing abroad support the group, many Somalis, as well as Western
intelligence sources, said they suspect considerable financial
and military backing was coming from hard-line Islamic groups in
countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Sudan.
Western diplomats said arms shipments destined for Somalia have
been spotted leaving the Saudi port of Jizan.

Officials from Ethiopia, the provisional government of Eritrea
and Somali groups have repeatedly petitioned the U.S. government
to press Saudi Arabia to stop what they allege is Saudi support
for fundamentalist activities.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
Washington had raised the subject with the Saudi government,
which denied any "official" backing of Ittihad or similar groups.
But the official said the Saudi government also acknowledged that
it could not speak for private Saudi citizens.<

Ittihad's military activities, in the absence of any effective
government structure to combat them, have sent a chill through
the Somali community. But fundamentalism is a sensitive subject,
since Somalis generally consider themselves good - if moderate -
Muslims and  appear reluctant to criticize anyone espousing
Islam.

A common Muslim heritage unified the different subclans in the
Somali National Movement, a northern alliance that fought in the
civil war that toppled Siad Barre.  The northern Muslims con-
sidered the campaign a jihad, or Islamic holy war, against Siad
Barre's secular, authoritarian regime, and veterans of the move-
ment are still referred to as mujaheddin. Somalis' historical
commercial and cultural ties with the Arab countries of the Per-
sian Gulf region also are rooted in a shared faith.

So some Somalis, even as they voice concern over Ittihad-inspired
violence, express sympathy for the group's religious aims. Ab-
durahman Ahmed Ali, leader of the Somaliland area, said the
failures of socialism, Arab nationalism and Western culture had
opened the door to a resurgence of Islamic values.

"To be fair to the fundamentalists, there is some sort of rebel-
lion against Western values among Islamic intellectuals today,"
he said. ". . .  Take my own schooling. As a child I learned
about Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and other Western explorers - but
I learned nothing about Islam until I went to Sudan to study."

When hundreds of elders gathered recently here in the mountain
village of Sheikh to debate the future of  Somaliland, the topic
of fundamentalism was excluded from the agenda - but was vi-
gorously debated along the corridors of the meeting halls.

Ibrahim Yusuf Madar, head of the national council of elders,
weighed his words carefully: "We don't agree with this fundamen-
talism, but we hope our future constitution will be based on
Islam. . . . We don't agree with an organization financed from
the outside to cause disturbances and use guns in our nation, but
we are not afraid of it." But Yasin Hajji Mohammed, a regional
governor,, said, "They seem to have lots of money and guns, and
are preying on young people who have lost everything during the
war and have no alternatives."

Another elder added: "At present, we are helpless to stop
them."<02:04 11-11C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)