AL-QAEDA CELL ON TRIAL AS ETHIOPIA BECOMES A RELIGIOUS BATTLEGROUND

Addis Ababa by SPOT Satellite (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

June 1, 2012 05:20 PM

Ten Somalis and one Kenyan are currently under trial in Addis Ababa for their alleged involvement in an al-Qaeda bombing plot after weapons and training manuals were seized in the Bale region of southeastern Ethiopia last December. The Kenyan, Hassan Jarsoo, has admitted his role in the alleged plot, but the others, who allegedly include several members of the army of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, have denied their involvement. Six of the defendants are being tried in absentia (Walta Info Online [Addis Ababa], May 20; Africa Review [Nairobi], May 22; AFP, May 18).

Ethiopia is one of the earliest homes of both Christianity and Islam, with its 85 million people being roughly 60 percent Christian and 30 percent Muslim. These communities have traditionally lived in harmony, but in recent years Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians and Sufi-based Muslims have come under destabilizing pressure from external sources, primarily from American backed Christian evangelists and Saudi/Kuwaiti backed Salafists. Both of these trends have caused dissension in the religious communities by describing traditional Ethiopian forms of worship as deviations if not outright heresy and insisting that their adherents must convert to these new, more fundamentalist forms of worship. Ill-considered intervention by the central government has only inflamed the situation, and the result has been a growing wave of religious violence in a nation that has prided itself on religious tolerance.

Islam arrived in Ethiopia even before it had firmly established itself in Arabia, as the Prophet Muhammad urged his persecuted followers to flee Mecca in 615 and take refuge in northern Ethiopia, where he promised they would find protection from its just king and his Christian followers. While many returned when Mecca became safe for Muslims, there is some evidence that others stayed in Ethiopia, founding the first Muslim community in Africa. The first muezzin (prayer-caller) in Islam was the ethnic Ethiopian Bilal ibn Rabah (a.k.a. Bilal al-Habashi), one of the Prophet’s closest companions. The Ethiopian city of Harar is regarded in some traditions as the “fourth-holiest city in Islam,” with mosques dating back to the 10^th century and over 100 shrines.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament in April that the government was “observing tell-tale signs of [Islamic] extremism. We should nip this scourge in the bud” (Reuters, May 10). In response to fears of an incipient Salafist movement to establish an Islamic state in Ethiopia, the government is attempting to make a little-known and non-threatening Islamic sect known as al-Ahbash the dominant form of Islam in the country, a solution that has inflamed Sufis and Salafists alike.  The Ahbash movement was founded by Abdullah al-Harari (a.k.a. Abdullah al-Habashi, 1910-2008), a Harari scholar of Islam whose views were regarded locally as divisive, resulting in his being forced to leave for Lebanon in 1950. Al-Harari founded al-Ahbash, also known as the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects, in the 1980s. Ethiopian Salafists have complained the government is importing Ahbash imams from Lebanon to teach local Muslims that Salafism is a non-Muslim movement (OnIslam.com, April 29).

Failure in Chicago: No U.S.-Pakistan Deal on NATO Supply Lines

By Reza Jan May 22, 2012

President Obama speaks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari during the NATO summit in Chicago, May 21, 2012 (White House)

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Chicago concluded, the much hoped-for deal between the United States and Pakistan to reopen NATO supply routes through Pakistan did not materialize. In fact, hardened stances on display in Chicago on both sides chipped away at optimism that a deal may be in the offing anytime soon.

The elusive deal to open the Pakistani Ground Lines of Communication (GLOCs) appears in the end to have stumbled on a pricing issue, but it was likely a misreading by both parties of the other’s negotiating red lines and competing external and internal pressures that led to the showdown becoming the spectacle that took center stage in Chicago. Both sides will likely now re-gauge and approach the negotiating table afresh. Securing an agreement on the GLOCs is important enough to both Pakistan and the U.S. that the setback is unlikely to kill negotiating efforts altogether.  It is possible that negotiations can now be conducted in a more level-headed manner free of the artificial deadline and inflated international expectations that the Chicago summit imposed on them. The advantages to both sides of reopening the GLOCs are so great that a deal is likely at some point.  The experience of the closure and the negotiations, however, has laid bare the changed relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. The idea that the two states are real partners in a common struggle has been replaced by a naked process of horse-trading. The shift to an openly transactional relationship between Islamabad and Washington may be the most important outcome of this process.

The Last Minute Deal That Wasn’t

While a GLOCs deal between the U.S. and Pakistan started to flounder before the summit even began, in the days leading up to Chicago both sides broadcast optimism that a deal would be reached by, and even announced during, the NATO conference.

On May 15, following months of prevarication, haggling, and domestic politicking, Pakistan’s government announced that it had approved, in principle, the reopening of the NATO supply route.[1] Pakistan had shut the route nearly six months ago following a border clash on November 26, 2011 in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed by NATO aircraft after Pakistani and NATO soldiers ended up trading fire. The very same day as that announcement was made, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari received an invitation to attend the NATO summit in Chicago—an invitation that NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had earlier hinted might have been withheld altogether if Pakistan did not agree to open the NATO GLOCs.[2] According to U.S. officials, the invitation was extended because the U.S. and Pakistanis had more or less reached a deal on the GLOCs.[3] The Pakistanis, however, stated that receiving the invitation to the NATO summit was the key step in reaching an agreement.[4]

Asia-3 Key to Syria Crisis

By Javad Heydarian  May 10, 2012

There are many reasons why Syria isn’t another Libya and so requires an alternative model of resolution, perhaps, similar to Yemen and Egypt where a political arrangement paved the way for leadership transition. This is precisely where the role of Syria’s main Asian allies is crucial to any kind of lasting progress.

Clearly, Syria is in the midst of a protracted humanitarian crisis. With thousands killed and ongoing deadly clashes between security forces and armed opposition – including a bombing attack Thursday in Damascus that killed dozens and shaved the facade off a military intelligence building – the international community  is still struggling to effectively implement a roadmap to peace.

Ongoing shelling of opposition strongholds, especially in Homs and Idlib, has further intensified calls for some kind of international intervention, sentiments given voice at the Friends of Syria Summit at the end of March in Istanbul. Yet it’s also clear that there’s little appetite, especially among many NATO countries, for intervention, whether in the form of establishing humanitarian buffer zones or the imposition of a no-fly-zone.

On top of the mission creep associated with the Libyan intervention, Syria’s superior defensive capabilities, relatively astute and intact leadership, densely populated landscape, and lack of hydrocarbon resources has so far deterred any direct intervention. Yet what makes Syria so special is the degree to which it enjoys tremendous operational, diplomatic, and strategic support from three Asian powers: namely, Iran, China, and Russia.

This means that there only two realistic options: first, the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) plan to step up its logistical and financial support for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in order to reverse the regime’s military edge; or an international mission followed by independent monitoring and an eventual political settlement between the government and all relevant factions in the opposition, especially the Syrian National Council (SNC).

Insurgency in Xinjiang Complicates Chinese-Pakistani Relations

Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 10 Issue: 8

April 20, 2012 02:50 PM By: Jacob Zenn

Zhou Yongkang (left), member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), shakes hands with a local Uygur farmer in Kashi. (Xinhua)

China typically exercises caution when making public statements about terrorist attacks in Xinjiang. When China blames attacks on Pakistan-based terrorist organizations, such as the possibly defunct East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), it risks adding tensions to the Sino-Pakistani “all-weather” friendship. [1] However, when China blames attacks on local Uyghurs it is tantamount to an admission that its policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have not created a “harmonious society.”

In unprecedented fashion, China recently pointed the finger at Pakistan after a February 28 attack in Yecheng, a city 200 kilometers from the oasis city of Kashgar, close to the border with Tajikistan. The Chairman of the Xinjiang Regional Government decisively remarked on March 7 that the attackers had “one thousand and one links” to Pakistan (Times of India, March 8). China further implicated Pakistan on April 6, albeit indirectly, when it published on the Ministry of Public Security website profiles of six Uyghurs from China who allegedly operate in “South Asia” as members of the ETIM. [2] Despite these allegations, there is almost no evidence that the recent attack in Yecheng was plotted from Pakistan and there are only inconclusive reports that the two major attacks in Xinjiang in 2011 were planned in Pakistan. there is scant evidence that recent attacks in Xinjiang have actually been plotted from Pakistan. It is possible that China is publically citing Pakistan as the source of terrorism in Xinjiang to put pressure on Pakistan for strategic purposes or to deflect attention from the regional government’s inability to contain outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence establishing a Pakistan tie to terrorism in Xinjiang comes from a martyrdom video posted on the Shmukh al-Islam online forum in September 2011 that showed Memtieli Tiliwaldi training with the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in what appears to be the mountainous tribal regions of Pakistan (see Terrorism Monitor, January 26). [3] Tiliwaldi had been killed by Chinese security forces days after taking part in attacks on Han Chinese pedestrians and diners in Kashgar on July 30 and July 31, 2011 that left ten people dead. The video, which was allegedly created by Nurmemet Memetmin, one of the six Uyghurs profiled on the Ministry of Public Security website, seems to prove that Tiliwaldi trained in Pakistan with the TIP and then carried out attacks in Kashgar. However, one of several issues with this video is that it is unclear why the TIP would honor only Tiliwaldi and not the other dozen “martyrs” that took part in the Kashgar attacks if the TIP was indeed responsible.

The New Islamists

How the most extreme adherents of radical Islam are getting with the times.

BY OLIVIER ROY | APRIL 16, 2012

The following is an excerpt from the book The Islamists Are Coming: Who They Really Are,  which will be released on April 18 by the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The longstanding debate over whether Islam and democracy can coexist has reached a stunning turning point. Since the Arab uprisings began in late 2010, political Islam and democracy have become increasingly interdependent. The debate over whether they are compatible is now virtually obsolete. Neither can now survive without the other.

 

In Middle Eastern countries undergoing political transitions, the only way for Islamists to maintain their legitimacy is through elections. Their own political culture may still not be democratic, but they are now defined by the new political landscape and forced in turn to redefine themselves — much as the Roman Catholic Churchended up accepting democratic institutions even as its own practices remained oligarchic.

At the same time, democracy will not set down roots in Arab countries in transition without including mainstream Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, or Islah in Yemen. The so-called Arab Spring cleared the way for the Islamists. And even if many Islamists do not share the democratic culture of the demonstrators, the Islamists have to take into account the new playing field the demonstrations created.

The debate over Islam and democracy used to be a chicken-and-egg issue: Which came first?  Democracy has certainly not been at the core of Islamist ideology. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has historically been strictly centralized and obedient to a supreme guide, who rules for life. And Islam has certainly not been factored into promotion of secular democracy. Indeed, skeptics long argued that the two forces were even anathema to each other.

The age of irrational petro-exuberance

In our now half-decade-old era of regularized black swans, a few energy thinkers are cautioning against a bubble of wishful enthusiasm with regard to U.S. oil — a widely embraced paradigm shift that, if true, would disrupt geopolitics from here to the Middle East and beyond. A shift is afoot, but not a new world, says Dan Pickering, co-president of Tudor, Pickering, Holt, a Houston-based energy investment firm.

The new abundance model goes like this: Americans currently consume about 18.5 million barrels of oil a day, of which about 8.5 million barrels are imported. But in coming years, the U.S. will have access to another 10 million to 12 million barrels a day of supply collectively from U.S. shale oil, Canadian oil sands, deepwater Gulf of Mexico, and offshore Brazil. Add all that up, and account for dropping U.S. consumption, and not only do you get hemispheric self-sufficiency, but the U.S. overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia as the biggest oil producer on the planet.

Pickering calls this calculus “a pipedream” founded on the extrapolation of data. Excluding Brazil, whose numbers he finds difficult to nail down, he is forecasting a lift in North American production of around 2.5 million barrels a day — up to 1.5 million barrels a day from shale oil, and another 1 million barrels a day from Canada. In 2020 and beyond, he says, the U.S. will still be importing some 6 million barrels a day from outside North America.

Technically, that does not make Pickering an outlier: The official U.S. Energy Information Administration also says the U.S. will remain a big importer into the next decade; the EIA import number overshadows Pickering’s — 7.5 million barrels of oil a day in 2020, or 40 percent of U.S. supply (see here, page 11).

Millet, nation, community

Български: Етнографска карта на Европейска Турция на Ернст Равенщайн. English: Ernst Ravenstein’s Ethnographical Map of Turkey in Europe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Posted on April 3rd, 2012 in the category Western Balkans by TransConflict

As a signifier, Bosnjak – which is gaining traction as a national identity in Sandjak (in both Serbia and Montenegro), and among Balkan Muslims in Western Europe – is coming to connote a political identity associated with access to state power, “European” credentials and Islamic legitimacy.

By David B. Kanin

“Arab Spring” works too well as a simple slogan; the term permits various protagonists to appropriate fluid, diverse, and interacting developments to serve very different agendas.  Brussels and Washington congratulate themselves as being the indispensable models for democracy and cultural diversity.  This goes beyond government propaganda – one NGO maven was cited in the Washington Post as saying Egypt (for example) had no alternative to moving forward in cooperation with the United States.

The “Occupy” phenomenon, which exists more as twittered electrons than as an effective popular movement, embraces Arab revolts as part of its rhetoric of global revolution.  Western Occupiers, however, have yet to demonstrate anything like the efficacy of those who organized so well and sacrificed so much last year in the Middle East and North Africa.  Asserting that their lack of organization and strategic coherence are strengths rather than weaknesses will get the much less than 99 percent who take to US and European streets only so far.

In turn – outside of Tunisia, perhaps – some of the Arab heroes of 2011 are finding themselves eclipsed by savvy politicians and opportunists associated with old regimes or patronage networks (to include traditional regional and tribal configurations).  Activists in Egypt and elsewhere could suffer the fate of those who drove revolutions in 1789, 1848 and 1968.  Some eventually could follow the example of Serbia’s Otpor, which adjusted to its post-Milosevic popular rejection by translating the credit it gave itself for the events of October 2000 into an entrepreneurial credential used to advertise services to would-be revolutionaries in the Middle East and elsewhere.