Archive for Ethiopia

The Narrow Survival of a Thin Dream

Posted by: Ion | June 3rd, 2007 · 6:57 PM

Islamist insurgents have mounted a bold suicide bomb attack on Somali Prime Minister,Ali Mohamed Gedi’s home. Gedi, a soft-spoken veterinarian, is popular in Somalia and has thus been the target of countless assassination attempts by the insurgency and warlords. Islamist militias see him as the key enabler of the US-backed Ethiopian and African Union military presence in the country and have placed all their efforts into eliminating him.

But characteristically, in their zeal to kill Gedi, the insurgents managed only to inflict further violence on their own people, by destroying a nearby madrasah, while Gedi escaped the attack unharmed. The damage to the area looks to be extensive:

(image: CNN)

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Checkmate: Hezbollah Positioned in South America

Posted by: Jason | May 9th, 2007 · 10:48 AM

(image: uta)

What do you get when you take Islamic radicalism, an organization sworn to the West’s destruction, a nearby base in South America, a lack of will in America to fight, and a southern border without walls or troops? Answer: Checkmate.

According to militia members, U.S. officials, and police agencies across the South American continent, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, boasting a well-financed force of Islamic radicals ready to prove their hatred for the west.

From the divided borders of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, known as the Tri-border, Hezbollah is recruiting Muslims who immigrated during the 1948 and 1985 Lebanese civil wars with Israel. The operation funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East, financing training camps, propaganda operations, and bomb attacks, according to U.S. and South American officials.

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God’s Hand: Returning to a Broader Christian Message

Posted by: Jason | April 17th, 2007 · 1:45 AM

(image: source)

I try to make an effort of promoting my Christian faith whenever I can. Not for any attention or shock value, though that statement is sad but true these days, but as a signal to others in case they’re ever in need of comfort in some way. It’s amazing what the common man can do to persuade lives with a simple message of truth behind him.

Like many people I suppose, I’ve had times in my life where I’ve put my faith on the back shelf. Other activities we’d consider more entertaining often edge out faith in our lives, sending us on mini-vacations from what’s really important. After all, it’s hard work to constantly ponder faith and the meaning of life.

God is indeed interesting concerning His relationship to us. He has a knack for pulling us back into His grasp at the most unexpected time. I’ve recently given a lot of reflection to my thoughts on faith. It’s as if I can feel God pulling at me for some higher purpose. I’ve had that feeling a lot lately.

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Ethiopia (maybe) Reinforces

Posted by: Ion | April 7th, 2007 · 4:00 PM

(photo: Stars and Stripes)

Following the war in Somalia is a tricky hobby. Reports are so frequently erroneous, fragmentary, misleading or so broken by a dozen conflicting loyalties that it’s hard to ever craft a credible post on the struggle. Somalia is truly a region at the extreme edge of the world’s connectivity. Yet despite the difficulty, it’s hard to avert one’s eyes, given the gravity of the implications for Africa and the world.

For instance, today I’ve read this AFP report. Ethiopia may be using the tenuous ceasefire in the Somali capital, to strengthen their positions…or perhaps not:

On Monday Mogadishu residents said hundreds of Ethiopian forces had entered the city. Ethiopia said it was strengthening its positions, but only with existing troops.

[…]

“This is not true. There are no additional troops to Somalia,” a spokesman from the Ethiopian information ministry, Zemedkum Tekle, told AFP by telephone from Addis Ababa.“It is getting calmer and calmer and there is no need to do that. We have pulled out almost two-thirds of our troops from Somalia and there is no need for further deployments.”
(Gulf Times)

One thing that’s not in dispute, is that the residents of Mogadishu remain in exile from the city. The inability of the surrounding countryside to support them, is generating a humanitarian crisis. Allied troops are experiencing difficulties managing both the war with the insurgency, the distribution of aid, local security and reconstruction efforts. It’s a reminder of the extensive level of mayhem the salafist revolution can achieve through the use of even limited terror in societies they’ve infiltrated:

Captain Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the Ugandans, called for help in distributing aid so that the troops could carry out their peacekeeping duties.

“It will continue as long as our resources are available, but we’re calling on the humanitarian groups to come in because we cannot continue this forever. We can only provide security to these people,” he said by telephone.
(Gulf Times)

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The Transgression of Words

Posted by: Ion | March 31st, 2007 · 2:30 PM

A savage event, all too common on the bloody religious battlefront of East Africa:

An Ethiopian evangelist was beaten and killed by Wahabbi Muslim extremists while evangelizing on the streets earlier this week, reported a Christian persecution watchdog group.

The Christian man, identified as Tedase, was on the streets with two young females evangelizing Monday afternoon on Merkato Street in Jimma, southern Ethiopia, when he was attacked by Muslim militants, according to International Christian Concern’s sources in Jimma.
(Christian Post via PomoTheo)

The purpose of the murder was evidently to dissuade through terror, the Christian community’s evangelism in the area. That the Wahabbi has no response to a peaceful Christian message short of violent coercion, is demonstrative of the enormous fundamental weakness of the ideology. Terror may quiet the street, but it persuades no adherents.

Thus Tedase becomes a modern martyr…and unlike the antipathetic Wahabbi notion of martyrdom, he died for the transgression of merely speaking openly about his faith.

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Western Hostages Freed

Posted by: Ion | March 13th, 2007 · 4:59 PM

The five Westerners held ransom by the ARDUF, have been released via negotiated intervention between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Reports suggested that the ARDUF had entered into negotiations for their sale to Al Qaeda, to take part in a show trial. So it’s good news to instead see their release. However, eight Ethiopians remain in bondage:

Five Europeans kidnapped in Ethiopia almost two weeks ago have been released but the whereabouts of eight locals seized with them remain unclear, British and Ethiopian officials said on Tuesday. British foreign minister Margaret Beckett said the three British men, an Italian-British woman and a Frenchwoman, all linked to the British diplomatic community in the Ethiopian capital, had been freed with the help of Ethiopia’s neighbour Eritrea.

[…]

A government spokesman said Britain had not paid a ransom to secure the Europeans’ release, which came as a “result of a process of dialogue.”
(Epoch)

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The Value of Western Flesh

Posted by: Ion | March 11th, 2007 · 12:38 PM

Troubling news today of Al Qaeda’s efforts to buy three British men, an Anglo-Italian and a French woman. The five were abducted from diplomatic vehicles in the Afar region of Ethiopia, by Afar Revolutionary Democratic Union Front (ARDUF) militants. The hostages were then smuggled across the Ethiopian border into rural Eritrea, subsequent to which Al Qaeda began making entreaties.

Al Qaeda is unlikely to have played a part in the initial abduction, as the ARDUF are ethnic nationalists, who seek the abolition of the Eritrean state to create a unified autonomous Afar region, loosely associated with Ethiopia and based on sectarian racial identity. ARDUF has a history of kidnapping ransoms, using the funds to finance their separatist war.

Reports suggest that Al Qaeda wishes to put the Westerners on show trial, in an pseudo-Islamic court. This would presumably be followed by their beheading, as AQ has done in the past. British intelligence is trying to avert that outcome, but it may come down to who is willing to offer the highest bounty…and evidence suggests Osama remains extraordinarily well financed:

MI6 is involved in a race against time to prevent British diplomats kidnapped in Ethiopia being sold on to Al Qaeda terrorists.

Diplomatic and intelligence sources believe Osama Bin Laden’s terror network had nothing to do with the abduction but is now attempting to get its hands on the five hostages.

A senior source told The Mail on Sunday Al Qaeda was prepared to offer a bounty to persuade the group behind the seizure to sell the prisoners.

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Ethiopia reacts to NYTimes claims

Posted by: Ion | February 23rd, 2007 · 7:52 PM

Today’s fascinating NYTimes scoop on covert US operations allegedly launched from Ethiopia into Southern Somalia, has garnered a fierce (if particular) denial by Ethiopian officials. The US had previously acknowledged launching airstrikes from the Republic of Djibouti. special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Bereket Simon said:

“The U.S. has not used any airfields in Ethiopia to mount the air strikes. This seems to be a pure and simple fabrication,” he said. “If any of the U.S. officials has said this, it must be a person, who has no knowledge of the reality on the ground.” (source)

US relations with regionally predominant Ethiopia are warm and intimate, representing the strategic keystone of US plans for preventing Al Qaeda infiltration into the Horn of Africa and ultimately thereby, into the perilous religious fault line of the central interior. Toward this end, Ethiopia is presently waging a bloody ground war against recalcitrant Islamist radicals in Somalia.

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