From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Jul 13 2010 - 14:36:04 EDT
Uganda Attack Marks Spread of Somali War to Region
July 13, 2010, 5:20 AM EDT
(Updates with evidence found at Kampala nightclub in sixth paragraph.)
July 13 (Bloomberg) -- The bombings in Uganda that left 74 people dead
signaled that Somali Islamists are carrying their three-year fight for power
to the rest of East Africa, said analysts including Scott Stewart at
Stratfor.
Al-Shabaab, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization with
links to al-Qaeda, yesterday claimed responsibility for the July 11 attacks
at a restaurant and a sports club in Uganda's capital, Kampala. The blasts
occurred while patrons were watching the final of the soccer World Cup.
Al-Shabaab said it targeted Uganda because of that nation's deployment of
troops to serve an African Union-led peacekeeping force in Mogadishu,
Somalia's capital. It threatened a similar attack on Burundi unless its
troops are withdrawn. Uganda has 2,700 soldiers in Somalia and Burundi has
2,550, according to the website of the Francophone Research Network on Peace
Operations.
"It looks like al-Shabaab has taken the first step toward becoming
transnational," said Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical intelligence
at Stratfor, the Austin, Texas-based intelligence group. "They've clearly
shown they have an intent to strike outside of Somalia. Now the big question
is to try and find out how far the reach is."
Islamist militias including al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam have been battling
Somalia's government since 2007 and now control most of southern and central
Somalia, as well as parts of Mogadishu. Both groups have said they want to
impose Islamic Shariah law on the Horn of Africa nation, which hasn't had a
functioning central administration since the ouster of former dictator
Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
Arrests
Ugandan police late yesterday arrested people suspected of carrying out the
attacks, Inspector-General Kale Kayihura told reporters today. Ball bearings
found in an unexploded suicide vest in a nightclub in Kampala were similar
to fragments found at the bomb sites, he said.
Last week, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, a Djibouti-based
body that groups six East African countries, called for the peacekeeping
mission in Somalia to deploy an additional 2,000 soldiers to help the
government battle "extremist groups."
IGAD, as the group is known, includes Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia,
Sudan and Uganda.
The organization "calls upon the international community and its member
states to strengthen the economic and military support" for Somalia's
government to fight terrorism," the organization said in a statement handed
to reporters in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, today.
'Sends a Message'
The attack "sends a message to those countries who are thinking of sending
troops to Somalia: 'This is the fate that awaits you,'" Rashid Abdi, a
Nairobi-based analyst at the International Crisis Group, said in a phone
interview.
The U.S. ended its two-year "Operation Restore Hope" mission in Somalia,
which involved as many as 33,000 U.S. and United Nations forces, after the
downing of two American helicopters in Mogadishu in October 1994, an
incident made famous by Mark Bowden's book "Black Hawk Down."
U.S. citizen Nate Henn, who worked as a volunteer with the charity Invisible
Children, was among those killed in the Kampala bombings, according to the
website of the group, which aims to end the recruitment of child soldiers in
northern Uganda. Another five injured Americans will receive medical
treatment in South Africa, Joann Lockard, the U.S. Embassy's spokeswoman in
Kampala, said today by phone.
Peacekeepers
Peacekeepers are in Somalia to help stabilize the country and end one of the
world's worst humanitarian crises. About 1.5 million people are displaced
within the country and more than 560,000 people are living as refugees in
neighboring countries, the UN Refugee Agency said in January. At least 3.2
million people in the country depend on humanitarian aid, according to the
World Food Programme.
Al-Shabaab has previously threatened to attack Kenya, which it accused of
recruiting ethnic Somalis living in the country to fight against the
militia. An estimated 300,000 Somali refugees are being sheltered at the
UN's Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.
One of the establishments targeted in Uganda was an Ethiopian restaurant.
That "may not be a coincidence," said Gus Selassie, an analyst at IHS Global
Insight, with Ethiopia's government being seen as a chief backer of the
Somali administration.
Consequences
"It's meant to send a signal to others in the region, mostly Ethiopia, that
meddling in Somali affairs, whether its peacekeeping or occupation, would
have consequences," said Philippe de Pontet, Africa analyst at New
York-based Eurasia Group.
U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, ousting the
Islamic Courts Union government that had captured the south of the country.
The army occupied Mogadishu and the southern town of Baidoa in an effort to
bolster the government, though the forces became bogged down in a guerrilla
war with the Islamists who now control most of the country. The Ethiopians
withdrew in January 2009.
"Al-Shabaab hates the Ethiopians because they're the people that kicked the
Islamic Courts out of power in Mogadishu," Stewart said. "They really have
an axe to grind against the Ethiopians."
--With assistance from Fred Ojambo in Kampala and Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu.
Editors: Philip Sanders, Karl Maier
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