Bashir defies court

Sudan's President Bashir defies warrant, expels aid groups

Aid agencies warn of a humanitarian disaster as Omar al-Bashir calls the arrest warrant a "conspiracy."

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security Update
March 5, 2009

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir struck a defiant note Thursday in his first public remarks since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him Wednesday. His government ordered 13 aid agencies to leave the country.

That reaction ratchets up the confrontation between Sudan and the ICC, and has already stirred fears of a humanitarian disaster.

Mr. Bashir faces five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes for atrocities in Darfur (see a map of the region here.) He's the first sitting president to be so charged. (See a StudioBendib political cartoon on Bashir's indictment here.)

CNN and other media reported that Bashir danced and smiled Thursday in Khartoum, in an appearance before large crowds that gathered for a second day of protests against the arrest warrant.

The crowd was filled with posters and banners featuring al-Bashir's face or the flag of Sudan. The one banner written in English read, "We are all with al-Bashir."

Al-Bashir gave a fervent speech to the crowd, denouncing the United States, its Western allies and Israel. At one point, the crowd repeated in English, "Down, down, USA!"

Music before and after the speech got everyone moving, including the president, who smiled broadly and raised his walking stick in the air. A camouflaged helicopter swooped over the crowd.

Angry crowds gathered in north Darfur and Khartoum to protest the arrest warrant just hours after it was issued, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

The Associated Press reports that Bashir said the warrant was part of a conspiracy meant to destabilize Sudan and derail Darfur peace talks.

... al-Bashir told a Cabinet meeting that the court, the United Nations and international organizations operating in Sudan were "tools of the new colonialism" meant to bring Sudan and its resources under control.

"This is an attempt to get at Sudan," he said.... "We in Sudan have always been a target of the U.N. and these organizations because we have said, 'No,' " al-Bashir said. "We said the resources of Sudan should go to the people of Sudan."

Reuters reports that Sudan has ordered 13 humanitarian aid agencies expelled from the country since the ICC announced the arrest warrant, and that Sudanese authorities have already begun removing computers and other assets from the groups' offices.

The Associated Press reported that the aid agencies on Thursday began preparations for leaving the country. The groups include Oxfam, CARE, and Save the Children.

Aid workers warned that the expulsion order could spark a humanitarian crisis for up to 2 million people in Darfur who are directly served by the 10 agencies, receiving food, shelter and medical supplies.

At least 2.7 million people in the large, arid region of western Sudan have been driven from their homes in the war between Darfur rebels and the government since 2003 – and many more depend on international aid to survive.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the warrant could spark unrest in Sudan.

The indictment comes at a time of great political instability in Sudan.

Darfur rebels are expanding their operations into neighboring states as the country prepares for crucial national elections this year. And relations between the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum and the semiautonomous southern portion of Sudan are coming under increasing strain.

Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reports that the African Union (AU) had gone into an emergency meeting over the arrest warrant for Bashir, which the union says "will hurt an faltering peace process in the troubled country."

The bloc's Peace and Security Council members began the closed door meeting at its Addis Ababa headquarters a day after the International Criminal Court issued the warrants.

The meeting was aimed at "mobilizing support for the AU's position and to ensure the hard-won but fragile gains made thus far in the quest for lasting peace ... in Sudan are not reversed," a statement said.

Regional and global reaction to the warrant against Bashir continued Thursday. The United States backed the court's decision in comments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday, according to Reuters.

"President Bashir would have a chance to have his day in court if he believes that the indictment is wrongly charged. He can certainly contest it," said Clinton....

The top U.S. diplomat said the ICC had issued its indictment based on a very long investigation and the case was now in the judicial system "properly so"....

"Governments and individuals who either conduct or condone atrocities of any kind, as we have seen year after year in Sudan, have to be held accountable," she said.

China called on the ICC Thursday to halt its case against the accused war criminal "for the time being," according to Al Jazeera.

"China expresses its regret and worry over the arrest warrant for the Sudan president issued by the International Criminal Court," Qin Gang, the foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement on the ministry's website on Thursday....

China buys the majority of Sudan's oil and is one of the African nation's most important trading partners.

Agence France-Presse reported that South Africa expressed "regret" over the decision, and said the warrant would have a negative impact on peace talks. But one prominent South African disagreed.

South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu earlier this week called on the continent's leaders to support the arrest bid, saying it was "shameful" that so many had rallied around the Sudanese leader.

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AQIM claims hostages

Al Qaeda offshoot claims six Western hostages

The claim by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb that it holds hostages kidnapped more than a month ago fuels fears that the group is expanding its reach.

Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security Update
February 19, 2009

Al Qaeda's North African franchise has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of two Canadian diplomats and four European tourists in Niger. The claims have not been verified, press reports say. But if true, the news is likely to fuel concerns that the Algeria-based Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is expanding its reach in Africa and increasingly targeting Westerners.

Two Canadian diplomats, including the United Nations envoy to Niger, Robert Fowler, were abducted in mid-December. The four tourists – a Swiss couple, German woman, and British man – were abducted Jan. 22 in Niger after visiting a Tuareg cultural festival in neighboring Mali. (Click here to see a map of the region from the CIA World Factbook.)

Initial suspicion for the kidnapping of the Canadian diplomats centered on the Tuareg, a nomadic group that is fighting the Niger and Mali governments to win autonomy for their homeland. But the Tuareg had denied involvement, reported the BBC.

The BBC reported Wednesday that the Al Qaeda claim came in an audio recording.

The audio recording of the man, who identified himself as Salah Abu Mohammed, was broadcast by Arabic satellite station al-Jazeera. ...

The authenticity of the tape, in which the group said it would soon issue conditions for the hostages' release, has not been verified.

The news service quoted Maghreb analyst Mohamed Ben-Madani as saying the move fits AQIM's "usual tactics."

"It is their normal practice not to speak until they are sure that they have got good people for good money and they are in a safe place before any negotiations," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme....

Mr Ben-Madani said the group's influence is spreading and it now has small branches in places like Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria and Morocco.

"It is spreading and growing in numbers," he said.

Ennahar Online, the website of an Algerian newspaper, quoted from the audio tape.

"We are pleased to transmit to the Islamic nation the good news of the success of the Mujahidines in achieving of two operations in Niger," says on this soundtrack the spokesman of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, Salah Abou Mohammed....

Mujahidines "reserve the right to manage the case of six hostages by Islamic law (Sharia)," adds the spokesman, without further detail.

Reuters reported today that the group had published photos of four of the six hostages on the Web.

A posting on Islamist websites on Thursday showed three separate images of what it said were a Swiss couple, a German woman and a British man, surrounded by men bearing rifles.

In the photographs the women's faces have been blurred.

Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that a security summit of states in Africa's northern Sahel region – which includes Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Algeria, Libya, and Chad – had been postponed again due to scheduling problems.

Notes AFP: "The Sahel region with vast stretches of inhospitable desert, is notoriously difficult to control. Rebels and several armed groups roam largely unhindered across the region and borders between the countries."

[Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] intends to unify armed Islamist groups in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as well as emerging groups in countries bordering the Sahara including Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan.

The Daily Telegraph had more on the group's background:

Al-Qa'eda in the Islamic Maghreb grew out of an earlier Islamist organisation based in Algeria known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat [known by its French initials, GSPC].

Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy in the core al-Qaeda leadership, praised the organization's efforts to gather disparate north African militant groups together in attacks against France and the US as a "blessed union".

But there are doubts that [al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] takes direct orders from bin Laden's organization. Some analysts suspect that the African group has simply adopted the name al-Qaeda.

In a briefing on AQIM in 2007, The Christian Science Monitor reported that AQIM membership was hard to pin down but that "the Algerian government said 800 jihadists were active in GSPC [in 2006]. But the group disputed that, saying far more were involved, according to Rita Katz, director of the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute in Washington."

"What we can say for certain is that [among] the jihadists online, the support for AQIM is growing. Adopting the name Al Qaeda brought the GSPC the instant support of tens of thousands of online jihadists, many now who perceive the group as fighting on behalf of Al Qaeda," says Ms. Katz in an e-mailed response to questions.

AQIM has been blamed for a spate of attacks in Algeria – including a massive bombing at a military college that killed 43 – and a few beyond its borders.

Mauritanian officials blamed the group for an attack that killed four French nationals in that country in December 2007, and a separate attack that month on UN offices in Algiers, according to a Europol report on terrorism.

The group made threats against the Mauritanian government for hosting the off-road vehicle race the Dakar Rally – which the group called "collaboration with the Crusaders" – leading to the cancellation of that event last year, the report said.

A background report by the Council on Foreign Relations said that the group had also "funneled" North African insurgents to Iraq to become suicide bombers.

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Congo catastrophe

UN official: Botched attacks on LRA rebels in Congo 'catastrophic' for civilians

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security update
February 10, 2009

A top UN official said Tuesday that the recent US-backed military attack on Ugandan rebels had been "catastrophic" for Congolese civilians, according to media reports.

At least 900 civilians were killed in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo by small groups from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) as they fled a joint military offensive launched Dec. 14 by Uganda with help from the Congolese military. (See a BBC map of LRA bases and attacks here.)

The UN official's comments followed a New York Times report Friday breaking the news that the US had helped plan and fund the attack from its new Africa Command.

The BBC reported that John Holmes, the UN's humanitarian chief, made the comments while visiting Doruma, a city in northeast Congo near the scene of the atrocities.

But BBC and Reuters also quoted Mr. Holmes as saying that the offensive should continue against the LRA, a rebel group known for its brutal attacks against civilians and its abduction of children to use as child soldiers or sex slaves.

"I think they need to see the operation through. I don't know how long that will take ... but I think there is no point in putting a premature end to it," Holmes said. The decision lay with the Congolese and Ugandan governments, he said. "We, meanwhile, will try to pick up the pieces as best we can."

Reuters reports that some 13,000 civilians had fled their homes for Doruma, and that the UN had reported that 700 people – including 540 children – had been abducted by the LRA "to become fighters, porters, or sex slaves."

On Friday The New York Times reported that the US had paid for and helped plan the botched attack on the LRA.

Uganda and its neighbors had lost patience with the LRA for failing to sign a peace deal and were looking to wipe out or cripple the group via military means.

But the raid "went awry," the newspaper reports, and "the rebel leaders escaped, breaking their fighters into small groups that continue to ransack town after town in northeastern Congo, hacking, burning, shooting, and clubbing to death anyone in their way."

The New York Times detailed the extent of US involvement, citing US military officials.

It is the first time the United States has helped plan such a specific military offensive with Uganda, according to senior American military officials. They described a team of 17 advisers and analysts from the Pentagon's new Africa Command working closely with Ugandan officers on the mission, providing satellite phones, intelligence and $1 million in fuel.

Despite criticisms of the horrific consequences of the botched raid, a US official denied responsibility.

"We provided insights and alternatives for them to consider, but their choices were their choices," said one American military official who was briefed on the operation, referring to the African forces on the ground. "In the end, it was not our operation."

UN News reported that 40,000 civilians have also been displaced in south Sudan by LRA attacks. It said that the LRA was relatively restrained as long as peace talks were on.

The LRA has been present in the area around Duru in Haut Uele district [areas in northeast Congo where atrocities were committed] since 2005, but had mostly refrained from attacks on civilians, particularly while the peace talks continued. However, between Dec. 2007 and Aug. 2008, LRA rebels committed grave attacks on populations in DRC, Central African Republic and South Sudan, killing, pillaging, raping and abducting adults and children.

The news agency Afrol News said that 100 civilians had been massacred early this month in the most recent attack. It reported that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the LRA's leader, Joseph Kony. He has refused to sign a peace deal with the government until the warrant is withdrawn.

Uganda has negotiated with the LRA since 2006 in an effort to bring an end to a two-decade conflict in which tens of thousands of people have died and more than 1.5 million have been displaced.

The Associated Press reported that the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo has not been effective at preventing the LRA to spread terror at will.

The 17,000-strong UN mission in Congo is mandated to protect civilians, but its troops are mostly posted further south, around cities including Goma where separate fighting has taken place. Hunting the Ugandan rebels, who have split up into several groups, has been complicated by Congo's own brutal civil war and the involvement of troops from neighboring Rwanda.

Original site

Hurricane Obama

Nigerian militants scrap cease-fire, vow offensive

A conflict could reduce Nigeria's oil output, affecting global oil supply.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security Update
February 02, 2009

Militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta on Friday called off a four-month cease-fire with the government, in a move that could plunge this part of Nigeria back into chaos and further disrupt global oil supplies.

The Associated Press reported that militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) vowed to wage a new military campaign dubbed "Hurricane Obama" that would sharply curtail oil and gas shipments from the region.

The ... militants had declared a cessation of hostilities in September after the worst spate of violence in years to hit the Niger Delta, where militants fought rare open battles against the armed forces after years of nighttime sneak attacks and sabotage....

On Friday, the Movement made good on a threat to end the cease-fire if the military engaged its fighters again, saying government forces fired on a camp run by one of its members. The group said it would retaliate with attacks against Nigeria's oil industry in an operation it called "Hurricane Obama." The militants promised a "sweeping assault" that would "change the face of oil and gas exports from Nigeria."

Reuters said that one faction of MEND, the Niger Delta Vigilante, confirmed an attack on its camp by government forces in gunboats.

"The battle lasted for almost one hour 30 minutes and we were able to sink one of the double-engined boats with all the occupants," said the faction's spokesman, who uses the pseudonym Tamunokuro Ebitari. There was no independent confirmation of fighting. A military spokesman said he was making checks.

The report added that militants have been holding two British oil industry workers for more than four months, "partly in an effort to dissuade the security forces from attacking."

The BBC quoted a military official as saying government troops were fired on first.

The news service reported last week that a young girl was shot dead by delta militants when she resisted gunmen who kidnapped her brother. The same day, militants released a Catholic priest that had been kidnapped on Jan. 25.

The Guardian, a Nigerian newspaper, reported that militants accused the government of negotiating in bad faith. It quoted MEND spokesperson Jomo Gbomo as saying:

"During this ceasefire, we had hoped the Nigerian government would take advantage of the cessation of hostilities to embrace dialogue and reconciliation but instead, the government deceived individuals into fake peace parleys where they were arrested and in some cases killed."

Gbomo said the latest attack was an indication that the Nigerian government prefers to make military inroads during the ceasefire instead of efforts towards genuine peace and reconciliation.

Various sources including the BBC say that oil production has dropped by about 20 percent since 2006 due to militant attacks. (See map of delta oil installations here.) The online edition of the Nigerian publication This Day reported that output of Shell Oil, Nigeria's largest oil producer, has fallen sharply.

Nigeria's largest oil producer, Shell, which until a few years ago was producing about 1 million barrels of crude oil a day from its operations in the Niger Delta, saw its output decline drastically to some 360,000 b/d in 2008. Confirming the fall in production, a company spokesman said the Shell Petroleum Development Company's output averaged 360,000 b/d in 2008, down from 409,000 b/d a year earlier, owing to increased militancy and disruptions to its operations in the region.

The online edition of The Punch, a Nigerian newspaper, warned Saturday that the end of the cease-fire could "soon give way to an orgy of violence."

The oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta region has produced several violent militant groups and kidnapping gangs since the early 1990s.

Many protest what they say is the exploitation and pollution of the region by foreign oil companies and the central Nigerian government. Heavily armed, speedboat-borne militants prowl the region's "creeks" and launch periodic attacks on oil facilities.

A 2007 background report by the Council on Foreign Relations says MEND emerged in 2006 and quickly drew concern from the US and other governments.

Oil companies, the Nigerian government, and the United States (Nigeria is the United States' fifth largest supplier of U.S. crude imports) are concerned about MEND's ability to disrupt the global oil supply. Though skilled at leveraging international media, the group remains secretive and opinions vary on its power and ability to sustain itself.

The report detailed the group's stated goals:

Since its inception, MEND has articulated three major demands: the release of [Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, head of another delta militant group] from prison, the receipt of 50 percent of revenues from oil pumped out of the Delta, and the withdrawal of government troops from the Delta. Its broader aim is "resource control," but it has largely failed to delineate specific long-term goals.

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Trail of terror

Ugandan rebels wage vicious attacks in Democratic Republic of Congo

In a separate conflict, Congolese rebels declare a cease-fire and plan to join government forces.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security Update
January 19, 2009

Ugandan rebels have massacred hundreds of villagers in the past month, blazing a trail of terror through neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, a major human rights watchdog said in a press release Friday.

Meanwhile, officials over the weekend hailed progress toward peace in a separate conflict in Congo (formerly Zaire), after several ethnic Tutsi rebel officers agreed to a cease-fire.

Human Rights Watch reported that the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a vicious group that abducts and employs child soldiers in its long-running fight against the Ugandan government, committed atrocities against civilians while fleeing Ugandan-led military assaults last month, according to Reuters.

The LRA has hacked, beaten to death or burnt alive at least 620 villagers in Democratic Republic of Congo amid a struggling multinational offensive against the rebel group, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Uganda's army, with the backing of Congolese and South Sudanese troops, launched assaults on LRA bases in northern Congo on December 14, aiming to crush the rebels and capture their leader, self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony.

Agence France-Presse quoted one Human Rights Watch official who underscored the barbarity of the LRA's attacks.

"The LRA went in intending to kill and they left few survivors," Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at the New York-based rights group said in a statement received Sunday.

The assessment came after researchers from HRW and Congolese rights group Justice Plus conducted a two-week mission in DR Congo, collecting lists of people killed or abducted between December 24 and January 13.

A Human Rights Watch press release documents in chilling detail atrocities committed by the LRA, as described by witnesses and survivors.

According to the Center for Defense Information, a Washington-based think tank, the Lord's Resistance Army has been active in northern Uganda since the mid-1980s.

Kony uses a combination of fear and mysticism to maintain control over the LRA and sustain the conflict in northern Uganda.

The LRA is mostly made up of children between the ages of 11 and 15. Half of these are porters and sex slaves who would leave if they could, but do not for fear of being captured by the LRA and killed, or because they simply have nowhere to go.

In a separate conflict in Congo, hopes for peace were raised when officers of the main ethnic Tutsi rebel group, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, declared a cease-fire in their fight against a progovernment militia, and said the group would now join government forces.

The BBC reported that several Tutsi rebel officers had gone over to the other side, a move that will isolate the remaining Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda.

The breakaway faction of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) said its fighters would join the Congolese army.

The move is expected to increase pressure on CNDP leader Laurent Nkunda to declare a full ceasefire....

Gen Nkunda says he is fighting to protect his Tutsi community from attacks by Rwandan Hutu rebels based in DR Congo, some of whom are accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide.

Reuters reported officials praising the latest developments.

A pledge by Congolese Tutsi rebels to abandon their four-year insurgency marks a major step towards ending more than a decade of conflict in the war-ravaged east, Congo's government and foreign diplomats said on Saturday....

"For the government, this is a very good thing that renders the evolution towards peace more real. This is a significant advance," Information Minister Lambert Mende told Reuters.

Xinhua reported that the Congolese government would open a center in the eastern province of North Kivu to help Tutsi rebels reintegrate into the national army.

The agency reported that the effect of the announced cease-fire was rapid:

Barriers were being removed in an area 40 km away from the provincial capital of Goma, where Ntaganda's generals announced an end to hostilities on Friday.

Goma is relieved of pressure with the dissident CNDP fighters and a pro-government militia burying the axe. The militia, known by its French acronym PARECO, said they saw no reason for continued fighting with Ntaganda's men.

Both factions have agreed to be reincorporated into the government army FARDC.

As recently as last November, the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in an analysis that "an escalation of violence in the east has raised concerns that the Congolese government could fall, with serious repercussions possible for countries throughout central Africa."

With the latest cease-fire, that possibility now looks more remote. The Congolese military will now be able to focus its efforts on the Rwandan-backed Hutu militia, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (known by the French acronym FDLR).

According to GlobalSecurity.org, that group includes Hutu extremists from Rwanda who were involved in the 1994 genocide against minority Tutsis, and later fled Rwanda.

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Somali militias clash

Islamist militias clash in Somalia as Ethiopian troops withdraw

As 3,000 Ethiopian soldiers depart, militia groups are battling to take more control from the weak transitional government.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security update
January 12, 2009

Fierce fighting between rival Islamist militias left at least 25 dead in central Somalia on Sunday, as a struggle for the heart of this war-torn nation rages in the power vacuum left by departing Ethiopian troops.

The BBC reports that the hard line Al Shabab – regarded by the United States as a terrorist group – faced off against a "local militia," killing 30 and injuring at least 30 more. The fighting took place in Guriel, 310 miles north of the capital, Mogadishu.

Correspondents say that a power vacuum may be opening up as the 3,000-strong Ethiopian force pulls out of Somalia. Ethiopian troops arrived in Somalia in 2006 to help the interim government oust Islamists from the capital.

The Ethiopian intervention was deeply unpopular with many Somalis.... Al Shabab, which opposes a peace deal with Somalia's transitional government, is trying to take control of areas vacated by the Ethiopians - Guriel was one such town.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) put the number of wounded at more than 50. It identified Al Shabab's rivals as members of the more moderate group, the Ahlu Sunna Wal-jamaah. It said the two rival militias had already battled several times in December in a struggle for control of Guriel.

"It was the heaviest clash ever in the region between the two sides," Abdulahi Hirsi Moge, a local elder, told AFP. "We have counted at least 25 people, most of them combatants, killed in the fighting and there is still a possibility of some undisclosed dead bodies outside of the town," he added.

Garowe Online, the website of a radio station based in northern Somalia, reported that the fighting broke out around 5:30 a.m. Sunday when Al Shabab forces attacked a checkpoint manned by the moderate group. It claimed the moderates are warlords who are funded and armed by Ethiopia.

Voice of America reports that some Somalis were celebrating after Al Shabab's apparent defeat in Sunday's skirmish. It quoted a senior officer of the moderate militia, Sheik Abdulkarim Risak, as saying his group is determined to drive Al Shabab out of the country.

"Thanks to Allah, we have taught them [Al Shabab] a lesson today because they left at least 50 persons dead... and now we are moving to the capital, Mogadishu. We will continue to chase them wherever they are, and even if they are in a corner of our country, I think we would not stop our fighting," he said.

According to Mr. Risak, many of Al Shabab's men were foreign fighters, possibly from Southeast Asia.

In an interview published Saturday, Reuters quoted Somali interim president Sheikh Aden Madobe as saying Al-Shabab is the "biggest threat" to Somalia. He also said Somali troops were not ready to take over security duties from the departing Ethiopians.

Mr. Madobe said Somalia would select a new president at the end of the month in a conference in Djibouti. Meanwhile, Reuters reported, the African Union is urging member countries to fulfill promises of sending more troops to help bring stability to Somalia.

The AU has been desperately trying to beef up its existing force of some 3,500 troops from Uganda and Burundi. But despite pledges of extra battalions from those two nations and Nigeria, they have yet to deploy.

Analysts say unless the African Union force is strengthened soon there is a risk those peacekeepers will pull out as well, leaving even more of a security vacuum.

A commentary in last week's Economist called Somalia "Africa's most utterly failed state" and warned that the security situation could go from bad to worse with the departure of the 3,000 Ethiopian troops.

Ethiopia's withdrawal may simply leave a power vacuum, to be filled in short order by Islamist militias that are now even more dangerous than those crushed by the original invasion at the end of 2006.

[Former Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf's] gunmen may return north to their more or less autonomous homeland in Puntland, perhaps to profit from piracy. Various armed groups would then fight for control of Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, and of central Somalia. These include a patchwork of militias loyal to rival clan elders and warlords, along with moderate Islamists, radical Islamists, and private security groups hired by businessmen.

Last week, two World Food Program relief workers were shot dead by gunmen, according to the Associated Press.

In its latest report on Somalia, the International Crisis Group urged the international community to accept that Islamist insurgents must be given a place at the negotiating table. It said the high-profile fight against pirates in shores off Somalia had distracted the world from addressing the roots of Somalia's instability.

Over the last two years the situation has deteriorated into one of the world's worst humanitarian and security crises. The international community is preoccupied with a symptom – the piracy phenomenon – instead of concentrating on the core of the crisis, the need for a political settlement.

Original site

Somali president quits

Amid growing international pressure, Somalia's president resigns

Widely considered an obstacle to peace, Abdullahi Yusuf announced his resignation on Monday.

Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security Update
December 29, 2008

The president of Somalia resigned Monday, in a move that analysts say could help bring stability to the war-ravaged, failed state.

Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord, took office amid high hopes in 2004 as the first president of a United Nations-backed transitional government. But during his term he was unable to extend the government's writ much farther than the capital.

Somalia has been without a strong central government since former dictator President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, and the area near the capital of Mogadishu has seen fierce fighting between US-backed Ethiopian and Somali government troops, and Islamist fighters.

Mr. Yusuf's weakness was further highlighted this year by the shocking surge in pirate attacks off the Somali coast, which has stirred international outrage.

Reuters reported that Yusuf's departure could help break a "deadlock" at the top of Somalia's government.

"As I promised when you elected me on October 14, 2004, I would stand down if I failed to fulfill my duty, I have decided to return the responsibility you gave me," Yusuf said....

Yusuf had become increasingly unpopular at home and abroad and was blamed by Washington, Europe and African neighbors for stalling a U.N.-hosted peace process. He had come under intense pressure to step aside.

Reuters cited analysts as saying Yusuf's departure, combined with the scheduled withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, could help stabilize the country. Yusuf had clashed with his prime minister on several issues, including whether to include moderate Islamists in peace talks (Yusuf opposed doing so).

According to Bloomberg, Yusuf made the announcement of his resignation to the Somali parliament.

Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nor, the speaker of parliament, will assume the presidency under the country's transitional federal charter, Yusuf told lawmakers in the nation's parliament in Baidoa, 155 miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu. The address was broadcast on Capital Voice, a closely held broadcaster.

Garowe Online, the sister site of Radio Garowe, a community radio station based in northern Somalia, reported that security was "extra tight" in Baidoa. It said the president's resignation was no surprise.

Yusuf's resignation was expected, after being labeled an obstacle to peace and pressured by the U.S. and regional powers to resign....

Yusuf's resignation ends a months-long feud with interim Prime Minister Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein, who enjoys the backing of the international community.

The power struggle between the two men peaked a couple weeks ago, when the president fired his prime minister, according to a Xinhua report.

Yusuf sacked his Prime Minister Hussein on Dec. 14, accusing him of incompetence, embezzlement and mismanagement.

The Somali Parliament, one day after the sacking of the prime minister, voted to endorse Hussein and his government, overturning Yuruf's decision.

Agence France-Presse described the next steps for replacing Yusuf.

Somalia's parliament now has 30 days to elect a new president by secret ballot.

The winner must win a two-thirds majority of the votes. If not, a second and third round of voting is called. In the last round, the winner would only need a simple majority.

Somalia has been a failed state since 1991, when Mr. Barre was ousted. Warlords carved up the country, but Islamists seized control of southern and central Somalia, and took the capital in 2006. A US-backed Ethiopian offensive drove them out of Mogadishu in late 2006 and Yusuf arrived in the capital several days later.

The government controls only a "few city blocks in a country almost as big as Texas," according to The New York Times. But the Times reported that fighting has now broken out between rival Islamist militias, further complicating the picture.

On Sunday, a powerful, newly militarized Islamist group declared a "holy war" against other Islamist factions, and it seems to have the muscle to back up its intentions. Over the weekend, the group, the Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama, killed more than 10 fighters from the Shabab, a rival Islamist faction known as one of Somalia's toughest.

The group issued a statement calling on its followers to "prepare themselves for jihad against these heretic groups," referring to some of the other, more hard-line Islamist factions, and "to restore stability and harmony in Somalia and achieve a genuine government of national unity."

The US says some Shabab leaders have ties to Al Qaeda, and fears Somalia could become a haven for foreign jihadis, notes the USA Today.

In a background report on Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which Yusuf headed, the Council on Foreign Relations noted that despite widespread instability, elections are due in Somalia next year.

Because TFG members earned their posts through protracted negotiations, rather than elections, Somalia is not a democracy. That is set to change in 2009, when Somalis are scheduled to vote in the first elections in more than twenty years. Few analysts, however, anticipate the government will last until the vote. In an April 2008 report on Somalia, Africa expert John Prendergast called the TFG "feeble, faction-ridden, corrupt, and incompetent."

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Congo rebel camp raided

Joint raid sets camp of Ugandan rebel group ablaze

Uganda, Congo, and south Sudan attacked the Lord's Resistance Army camp in northern Congo on Sunday.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
Terrorism and Security update
December 15, 2008

Three African nations announced Monday they had launched military operations against the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the remote northeast forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo the previous day.

Uganda, Congo, and south Sudan said they had attacked an LRA camp and set it ablaze.

The LRA has waged a 20-year rebellion against the Ugandan government and is notorious for kidnapping children and conscripting them. Its leaders are now hiding out in the jungles of the neighboring Congo.

The Ugandan government and the LRA have been in on-and-off peace talks for more than two years, but LRA head Joseph Kony has three times this year failed to show up to sign a deal, frustrating efforts to bring peace.

The BBC reported that the three countries released a joint statement on the raid.

A statement announcing the operation was released in the Ugandan capital Kampala by the intelligence chiefs of all three armed forces.

The statement said the attack targeted the "terrorists" at their bases in the forested area of Garamba, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"The three armed forces successfully attacked the main body and destroyed the main camp of Kony, code-named camp Swahili, setting it on fire," the statement said.

Agence France-Presse reported that the three governments have lost patience with Mr. Kony. It reported that both the LRA and the Ugandan government say they are still open to negotiations, despite the obvious breakdown of the peace process.

"We are attacking the camps. So for now the peace process is off," Ugandan army spokesman Major Paddy Ankunda told AFP.

But he added: "We still think that if there is an opportunity to re-open negotiations we will do it."

The attack, in which the forces raided and set an LRA rebels' camp on fire in the Garamba region, ended a two-year ceasefire between the Ugandan army and the rebels.

LRA spokesman David Nyekorach-Matsanga condemned Sunday's attacks but said they were still committed to peace.

Bloomberg reported that the Ugandan Air Force began bombing LRA positions Sunday. Quoting a Ugandan Army official, it said there weren't yet any details on casualties. It said the stumbling block to a peace deal was International Criminal Court charges against Kony.

Rebel leader Joseph Kony refused to sign the peace agreement, demanding that the International Criminal Court first withdraw war crimes charges against him.

The Uganda government referred Kony and his commanders to the court, which indicted them in 2005, after they had fled to neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Uganda started negotiations with the rebel movement in July 2006 with the mediation of the South Sudan government in an attempt to end a war which has claimed thousands of lives and displaced more than 1.5 million people.

The Daily Monitor, a Ugandan daily, reported that peace talks had already collapsed in November, when Joseph Kony "failed to turn up for the third time this year to sign a deal earlier agreed upon by both sides."

In a separate interview, Maj. Ankunda told Daily Monitor last night that the attack was prompted by the rebel leader's failure to sign the deal. "He continues to kill and abduct, so we decided to move and rescue the women and children," Maj. Ankunda said. "This operation is also intended to implement the warrant of arrests issued by the International Criminal Court against Kony and his top commanders."

The Monitor said the attack was believed to have included infantry and special forces, in addition to the airstrikes.

In a report last week, the International Crisis Group said the peace process was "failing." It warned that the LRA could be used as a pawn in the coming years by the Sudanese government in Khartoum. That Arab government has long been accused of sponsoring the LRA in its fight against the Ugandan government, as a tit-for-tat measure against Uganda's alleged past sponsorship of southern Sudanese Christian rebels who fought Khartoum.

[The LRA] is available again as a proxy if Khartoum wants to disrupt the 2009 national elections, Southern Sudan's 2011 referendum, or restart war on the Sudan People's Liberation Army's (SPLA) southern flank.

The Associated Press wrote that the LRA's insurgency has destabilized several countries in the region.

The LRA has been waging one of Africa's longest and most brutal rebellions for the past 20 years, drawing in northern Uganda, eastern Congo and southern Sudan. The rebels were notorious for raping children and using them as soldiers.

According to the website Globalsecurity.org, the LRA has "committed numerous abuses and atrocities, including the abduction, rape, maiming, and killing of civilians, including children."

The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. They are notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to become rebel fighters or concubines. More than one-half-million people in Uganda's Gulu and Kitgum districts have been displaced by the fighting and are living in temporary camps, protected by the army.

Time magazine has called the LRA "one of the world's most terrifying rebel groups."

See video documentary from Journeyman Pictures on the LRA.

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Nigeria oil war rages

Militants step up 'oil war' in Niger Delta

Attacks on foreign oil company facilities threaten to disrupt global oil supply.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, terrorism and security roundup
September 17, 2008

Militants in southern Nigeria have sharply stepped up attacks on foreign interests after declaring an "oil war" Sunday. The campaign, which the militants have dubbed "Hurricane Barbarossa," entered its third day Tuesday with an attack on a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline after attacks on Shell and Chevron facilities in previous days.

The Nigerian government has tried to downplay the threat. But the violence looks set to further disturb oil supplies from Nigeria, the United States' fifth-largest source of oil, at a time when global supplies are already being squeezed.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday that the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said it had "blown up and destroyed" a Shell pipeline.

"A major crude oil pipeline at Bakana Front in Degema Local Government Area ... was destroyed with high explosives by MEND detonation engineers backed by heavily-armed fighters," MEND said in an email statement to the media....

MEND declared an all-out war on the oil industry at the weekend in response to what it said was an unprovoked attack by the Nigerian military on one of its positions on Saturday.

Other less prominent armed groups appear to have either joined forces with MEND or taken advantage of the confusion.

Unidentified gunmen on Monday night kidnapped a Briton in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers, Sagir told AFP, without giving further details.

According to Bloomberg, Shell confirmed the attack on Tuesday.


The militants claimed Monday they had "razed" a Shell oil complex, according to CNN. Shell confirmed that attack, which left one guard and four others dead, and said it had shut down facilities in some locations because of the violence.

A day earlier, MEND had warned all international oil workers to evacuate their staff from their facilities because it planned to "bring these structures to the ground."

"The foolhardy workers and soldiers who did not heed our warning perished inside the station," MEND said, referring to the Shell complex.

The Nigerian military has put on a brave face, saying the militants were hyping their threats to spread fear. According to the Vanguard, a Nigerian daily, one defense official has dismissed any notion of a an "oil war."

The Director of Defence Information, Brigadier-General Mohammed Yusuf, in a statement in Abuja said the military was not at war with any Nigerian or group.

"The oil war propaganda is just a gimmick by the militants to create fear in every law-abiding citizen, both local and foreign alike, and to provoke tension in the polity.

"We are not unaware of their antics and capabilities. The joint task force in place is very capable of containing the indiscretion of the militants. So there is nothing like war."

Since early 2006, MEND has waged a campaign of terror, attacking foreign-owned oil facilities and kidnapping foreign oil workers to draw attention to its political aims, according to a background report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

In that time, MEND has cut Nigeria's oil production by a quarter. One of the group's main demands is that locals receive 50 percent of revenues from the delta's oil. Most oil revenues end up lining the pockets of corrupt Nigerian officials.

The militants, like the Niger Delta's population at large, object to the environmental degradation and underdevelopment of the region and the lack of benefits the community has received from its extensive oil resources.

While there is a revenue-sharing plan in which the federal government distributes roughly half of the country's oil revenues among state governors, these funds do not trickle down to the roughly 30 million residents of the Delta. In 2003, some 70 percent of oil revenues was stolen or wasted, according to an estimate by the head of Nigeria's anticorruption agency.

Whereas many residents used to work as fishermen, oil installations and spills have decimated the fish population and now markets must import frozen fish, according to National Geographic.

The election of a new Nigerian government in mid-2007 raised hopes of a deal, with the new vice president meeting directly with Delta militants. But the militant movement has now splintered into competing factions, making it difficult for the government to find a negotiating partner, according to the International Crisis Group.

Adding to the confusion is the rise of armed thuggery, kidnappings for profit, and other criminal opportunism.

The Christian Science Monitor reported in late June that MEND had declared a cease-fire and was "prepared to give dialogue a chance." That olive branch has now proven short-lived.

A commentary in the Vanguard blames the delta's backward status on Nigerian officials who have mimicked the British colonial model of resource extraction.

Sadly, while [the British] were developing their country from resources from the Niger area, the source of their wealth was being under-developed.

More sadly, the Nigerian state under the locals has followed this same path, but in an edited form. Whereas the British developed their tiny island from the resources they stole from their colonies, their Nigerian baton-takers chose, by and large, as they still do, to concentrate on developing their pockets and appetite.

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Al Qaeda's Algerian franchise

How much of a threat is Al Qaeda in North Africa?

Despite Algerian insurgents' stated intentions to strike in Europe, some officials remain skeptical that an attack outside Africa is possible.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, July 02, 2008

A report published in The New York Times on Tuesday is likely to fuel concerns that North Africa is emerging as a major new front in the US-led global war on terror.

In the report, an elusive Algerian insurgent leader confirmed that his group had forged contacts with Al Qaeda in 2004, and that it now regards attacks on US territory as legitimate.

In a recorded response to questions from The New York Times, insurgent leader Abdelmalek Droukdal said:

"If the U.S. administration sees that its war against the Muslims is legitimate, then what makes us believe that our war on its territories is not legitimate?"...

"Everyone must know that we will not hesitate in targeting it whenever we can and wherever it is on this planet," he said.

Mr. Droukdal's group, based in the hills east of Algiers, is a terror franchise that terms itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The group is responsible for numerous attacks in North Africa, including several deadly bombings in Algiers. The goals of Algerian insurgents at the time of their resurgence under the banner of AQIM were outlined by The Christian Science Monitor.

AQIM's followers kidnapped 32 European tourists in the Algerian desert in 2003, gunned down five European tourists last year in Mauritania (killing four of them), and kidnapped two Austrian tourists on vacation in Tunisia this February.

But European officials quoted by the paper disagreed on the small group's ability to strike outside Africa. One expert was skeptical that the group could pull off an attack in the US or Europe. The group numbers only 300 to 400 fighters, with another 200 supporters scattered throughout Algeria, according to The New York Times.

So far, despite its stated intentions to strike Europe and the rest of the West, investigators say they see little evidence that the North Africa branch of Al Qaeda is exporting fighters and equipment for an attack in Europe.

"Their ambition is to attack in Europe, but I wouldn't hard-sell it," said Gilles de Kerchove, the head of counterterrorism for the European Union. "I wouldn't say AQIM is poised to attack in Europe."

Indeed, while a suicide bombing last December by two formerly convicted Algerian Islamic militants in Algiers attracted attention, it also exposed the limits of AQIM, reported The Christian Science Monitor.

[While] the bombing has shown that AQIM, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, still poses a serious threat, analysts say this new Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa is far from reaching its goal of building a potent force across the entire region or even striking Europe, as it says is part of its overall goal.

"Despite its pretensions to be a Maghreb-wide organization, it is mounting attacks only in Algeria," says Hugh Roberts, an independent analyst who specializes in North African politics.

"The notional threat to Europe is exaggerated."

Reuters reported that the group has rarely attacked US interests in Algeria, with the exception of a December 2006 bombing of a bus carrying foreign oil workers, including one American.

An explosives expert, Droukdel was appointed leader of an Islamist rebel group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in 2004, six years after it was founded with the aim of toppling the government and establishing purist Islamic state.

In October 2003, the group offered its support to the al Qaeda network and in January 2007 the group changed its name to Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.

Since then it has set off a string of deadly car bombings in and around Algiers, including bombings of United Nations and government buildings in Algiers that killed at least 41 people.

Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported two weeks ago that the Austrian government said there was "progress" in negotiations to secure the release of the two Austrian tourists kidnapped by the group in February.

The kidnappers initially demanded the release of a number of Islamic extremists imprisoned in Algeria and Tunisia. They have since demanded a five million euro ransom (7.9 million dollars) according to unconfirmed press reports.

On June 23, Algeria's president named a "pragmatist known for his tough stance against Islamic extremists" to a third term as prime minister, according to the Associated Press, amid what it called a recent "resurgence" of violence.

Most of the recent bombings have been claimed by al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, formerly known as the GSPC — a Salafist group that grew out of an insurgency that raged in the country in the 1990s.

Algeria's government canceled 1992 elections that looked set to put an Islamist party in power and then outlawed that party. An estimated 100,000 people died in the armed rebellion that followed, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

In its latest report on Algeria in 2004, the group called the persistence of armed movements in Algeria "a factor facilitating expansion of al-Qaeda's jihad."

But the ICG added that such armed groups had been dramatically marginalized, as most of Algeria's Islamists moderated their political platforms in the 1990s.

It warned that the Algerian military could use the global war on terror as a pretext for its continued domination of Algerian politics, and urged the US to be "more sophisticated in its handling of an over-played al-Qaeda factor."

... there is a danger U.S. military engagement in the region in the context of the "war on terrorism", instead of eliminating an al-Qaeda presence, may actually aggravate it by underlining the strategic weakness, dependent nature and possible legitimacy deficits of the states of the Sahel region and, especially, by providing in the U.S. military presence itself significant motives and targets for jihadi activity that were previously absent.

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Bomb targets Somali president

Somali bomb attack targets president Abdullahi Yusuf

The attack undermines a UN-mediated cease-fire signed last week between the government and opposition groups as the country's humanitarian crisis worsens.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, June 19, 2008

Somalia's president was targeted Wednesday in a bomb attack that killed two policemen, as violence continued in the capital of Mogadishu despite a peace accord inked last week. The timing of the attack highlights the concerns of United Nations officials that continuing political instability is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Somalia.

The June 9 accord aimed to put an end to fighting between the United States-backed Somali government and its Ethiopian allies, and a coalition of Islamic opposition groups. But some hard-line Islamic militants have refused to lay down their arms.

The BBC reported that the bomb blast occurred in Mogadishu moments after a convoy carrying Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf had passed by. The attack followed fierce fighting in Mogadishu on Tuesday that left at least seven dead.

Tuesday's fighting started when insurgents attacked government soldiers and Ethiopian troops who were searching for weapons in houses in the Hurwa and Karan districts of the capital.

Fourteen people were wounded in the fighting that continued until midnight. Ethiopian troops have been in Somalia for 18 months since helping the government oust the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) that ruled much of Somalia in 2006.

Reuters reported that the fighting highlighted the ineffectiveness of the peace pact signed in Djibouti last week.

Somalia's government and members of an exiled opposition group signed a U.N.-mediated ceasefire... but hardline Islamist leaders and insurgents on the ground rejected the pact.

They say they will not talk until thousands of Ethiopian troops backing President Abdullahi Yusuf's government leave the Horn of Africa nation. Somalia has been in near-perpetual conflict since the 1991 toppling of a military dictator.

A donors' meeting in Nairobi on Tuesday was held to discuss support for the new peace deal, with participants including the US, European Union, Norway, the League of Arab States, and the African Union. The deal calls for hostilities to stop within 30 days, with a 90-day cease-fire to follow.

According to the Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN representative to Somalia, said he was pleased with the level of donor support.

"I am overwhelmed by this new, widespread demonstration of goodwill, generosity and support for the agreement and for Somalia as a whole," the envoy said.

Ould-Abdallah said he was pleased by the traditional generosity and willingness of Saudi Arabia to help Somalia and the region to recover. He hoped the formal signing of the agreement will take place in the Holy City of Mecca by the end of the month.

"Today what is at stake is not only peace and stability in Somalia but the credibility of the international community in the country and in the region," he said.

Meanwhile, other UN officials warned of a looming refugee and food crisis that could rank among the world's worst current humanitarian disasters.

On Monday, a UN official told the BBC that the humanitarian crisis in Somalia was worse than in Darfur. He said that some 3.5 million people would need emergency food aid in the coming months due to a combination of the country's political instability, droughts, currency problems, and rising food prices.

Mark Bowden, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for the region, says the food crisis is dramatically worsening....

[He] says Somalia has become one of the world's most challenging humanitarian crises. He fears that there is now a sense of fatalism about what is happening to the country.

Some 20,000 Somalis have fled to refugee camps in Kenya this year to escape the violence, the Associated Press reports. Refugees described an atmosphere of terror and chaos in their homeland.

In more than a dozen interviews with The Associated Press, the newest arrivals from Mogadishu told of relentless shelling and gunfire. Several children said their friends were forcibly recruited into militias. And they all described frantic escapes, with many walking for weeks to reach Dadaab, hitching rides on donkey carts or squeezing into strangers' cars.

"I couldn't live in Mogadishu anymore, my whole family would have been killed eventually," said Osman, 25, who left Mogadishu three months ago, hours after identifying his mother's body. He begged a ride in a car with a crowd of strangers, holding up his daughters – age 2 and 4 – to persuade the driver.

Somalia was plunged into chaos in 1991 when warlords ousted dictator Siad Barre, creating a power vacuum. The United Nations helped set up a transitional government in 2004. But the weak government was unable to exert control over much of the country.

In 2006, it called on Ethiopian troops to enter Somalia to help fight Islamic militants.

The US backs the Somali government and has helped train and equip its Ethiopian allies. The US says the Islamic insurgents have ties to Al Qaeda, and has launched gunship and missile attacks on suspected terrorist leaders in Somalia.

The Christian Science Monitor reported that the latest attack in early May killed a man that US officials described as a "known Al Qaeda target and militia leader in Somalia."

According a recent report in The Guardian, some Western intelligence officials are concerned that Somalia – along with Algeria and Yemen – could become a new front in the fight against Al Qaeda, as the terror group loses ground in Iraq.

Officials talk about the appeal of an "attractive area of ungoverned space". This is Somalia, described as an increasingly popular destination for "western jihadists", though al-Qaida is playing only a small part in the violence there, western intelligence officials suggest.

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Sudan on the brink

U.N. Security Council delegation tours Darfur

Ongoing Darfur attacks and violent outbreaks in oil-rich central Abyei region are high priorities.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, June 05, 2008

A top UN official said Wednesday that Sudan was "on the brink" of war, as forces from the north and south converged near a strategic, disputed oil town.

The UN regional coordinator for South Sudan, David Gressley, told journalists that the military buildup near the town of Abyei in central Sudan was jeopardizing a shaky 2005 peace agreement, the BBC reports.

"There's a gradual escalation of forces on all sides at this point in time," Mr Gressley said.

Mr Gressley said he did not think either side wanted a war, at this point, but that the situation had to be de-escalated or it could unravel the entire peace process.

Fighting flared in mid-May between northern and southern forces in Abyei, which sits on disputed, oil-rich land. The 2005 peace agreement called for joint north-south patrols of the town but did not resolve the town's status. The Voice of America reported that the escalation in central Sudan is high on the agenda of a delegation from the UN Security Council that is now visiting the country.

The fighting, which began on May 13, resulted in widespread destruction in Abyei and the displacement of as many as 50,000 people.

[Salva Kiir, the regional president of southern Sudan] confirmed reports this week that the Khartoum government of President Omar al-Bashir is deploying more than 1,000 additional troops to the disputed region.

"I have already called upon him [President Bashir] to intervene to order his military commanders to pull out their forces from Abyei area," he said. "We are not going to fight them."

The Security Council delegation is also expected to press Sudan on ending a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur that is threatening to spill over into a Chad-Sudan border war.

The delegation arrived early Thursday in Darfur, according to the Associated Press. The UN passed a resolution almost a year ago to create an international peacekeeping force in Darfur, but Sudan's government has only allowed about one-third of the force to deploy. The delegation plans to press Sudan on allowing in the remaining force as one priority.

At the top of the list was speeding up deployment of the United Nations-Africa Union force that took over peacekeeping in January but has only gotten 9,000 of the 26,000 authorized troops on the ground, a key to helping protect civilians in the many camps for the displaced.

One stumbling block has been the Sudanese government's reluctance to allow non-African troops into the region - and on this issue the council got a piece of good news Wednesday.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador John Sawers, co-leader of the council delegation, said [Nafie Alie Nafie, a Sudanese presidential adviser], promised that Thai and Nepalese battalions could deploy after Ethiopian and Egyptian troops arrive in Darfur.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the US envoy to Sudan blasted leaders from both the north and south for a lack of sincerity.

On Tuesday, Richard Williamson, the US envoy in Sudan, postponed talks on normalising Washington's relationship with Khartoum, after years of sanctions, saying neither side was serious about maintaining peace.

"I won't be part of a sham peace that won't change the situation," he told reporters, referring to both the north-south tensions and the ongoing but separate conflict in Sudan's western Darfur provinces.

More than two decades of civil war in Sudan have left an estimated 2 million people dead and 4 million displaced, according to the International Crisis Group. The major divide is between the mostly Muslim, Arab north – which dominates the government – and the mostly Christian and animist south. Coveted oil resources in southern Sudan have raised the stakes in the conflict.

In 2003, a separate conflict intensified in the western Darfur region, where government-backed Arab janjaweed militias have attacked ethnic African civilians. That conflict has left some 300,000 dead, according to the United Nations. It's also turned into what many now see as a proxy war between Sudan and neighboring Chad to its west.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that the International Criminal Court's top prosecutor implicated top Sudanese officials in recent atrocities in Darfur, including rape and killings. Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo was expected to deliver a report to the UN Security Council Thursday and present names and evidence to the court in July.

"Women and girls are raped. Victims are as young as five or six years old. Parents are forced to watch," he said in his report. "This is not an incidental byproduct of war. It is a calculated crime, intended to do irreparable damage to communities."

The Christian Science Monitor reported last month that Sudan's ongoing turmoil was destabilizing the region. Tensions between Sudan's government and neighboring Chad mounted after a Chad-backed Darfur rebel group carried out a daring raid, the first time violence had spread near the capital.

The attack, carried out by the Justice and Equality (JEM) rebel group, left more than 200 dead.

The move by the Justice and Equality (JEM) rebel group … gives Khartoum a reason to ramp up its latest offensives in Darfur and raises the prospect of a border war between Chad and Sudan; both believe the other is using rebels as proxy fighters.

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Flare-up in Sudan oil town

Renewed Sudan violence raises fears of return to civil war

Fighting flared this week in an oil-rich flashpoint in central Sudan.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, May 16, 2008

A flare-up this week in an oil-rich flashpoint in central Sudan is jeopardizing a shaky 2005 peace accord between north and south. That's raising concerns of a return to all-out civil war, even as conflict in the western region of Darfur rages on.

The violence in Abyei broke out this week between Sudanese government troops and southern forces from the Sudan People's Liberation Army. It comes on the heels of a brazen attack by Darfur rebels on Khartoum's twin city, Omdurman, last Saturday – the first such attack on the capital area.

Four Indian oil workers were also taken hostage in Abyei, according to the Indian ambassador, reports the British Broadcasting Corp. The BBC reported that the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel group from Darfur – which has carried out similar kidnappings of Chinese oil workers and was responsible for last Saturday's attack near the capital – denied responsibility.

Trouble began in Abyei on Tuesday, when southern forces detained a northern soldier and some civilians.

The situation intensified on Wednesday, said Reuters.

A U.N. official said fighting in Abyei had worsened on Wednesday after a Sudanese government soldier was killed. "That seemed to cause the escalation," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

[A diplomatic] source said an SPLA [former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army] soldier was killed on Wednesday: "There are gunshots in town, heavy gunfire and mortars."

The United Nations announced on Thursday that it had pulled out 250 staff from the town, though 400 UN peacekeepers remain, according to the Associated Press. The AP gave the following background:

The [2005] peace agreement created a unity government led by President Omar al-Bashir and his one-time military rival, First Vice President Salva Kiir. It also set up a semiautonomous southern government, led by Kiir, and called for national elections in 2009 and a referendum on independence for South Sudan in 2011.

The Sudanese People's Liberation Movement, which Kiir heads, has accused al-Bashir of multiple breaches of the 2005 accord, including not sharing oil wealth, not pulling troops out of South Sudan, and remilitarizing contested border zones, such as Abyei.

More than two decades of civil war in Sudan have left an estimated 2 million people dead and 4 million displaced, according to the International Crisis Group. The major divide is between the mostly Muslim, Arab north – which dominates the government – and the mostly Christian and animist south. Coveted oil resources in southern Sudan have raised the stakes in the conflict.

In 2003, a separate conflict intensified in the western Darfur region, where government-backed Arab Janjaweed militias have attacked ethnic African civilians. That conflict has left some 300,000 dead, according to the United Nations. It's also turned into what many now see as a proxy war between Sudan and neighboring Chad to its west.

In the wake of last Saturday's attack on Omdurman, Sudan immediately cut ties with neighboring Chad, which it believes backs the Darfur rebels, reported The Christian Science Monitor.

The head of the African Union, Jean Ping, on Thursday urged the leaders of Sudan and Chad to calm tensions, Agence France-Presse reported. More than 200 people were killed in last week's attack and related clashes.

In Sudan, the 2005 peace accord gave the south semiautonomous status. But tension has never fully subsided, particularly in disputed, oil-rich areas along the unofficial north-south border line.

The BBC notes that the disputed status of Abyei was not resolved in the accord.

Three years after the signing of a peace deal, an administration is yet to be set up in Abyei, which is claimed by both north and south.

"This is indeed one of the most serious issues facing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between south and north," [UN spokesman Khaled] Mansour told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

He said because of the dispute the town lacked even the most basic services which made the area a "tinderbox".

The agreement stipulates that Abyei is to be guarded by joint units of soldiers from the north and south, according to Reuters.

In mid-March,the International Crisis Group said tensions had subsided when a December agreement saw southern leaders rejoining the unity government after a 2-1/2-month boycott.

But the group warned that "the risk of significant new fighting is growing in the Abyei area."

The group said that the international community was "dangerously disengaged" from the peace agreement, in part because of preoccupation with the ongoing Darfur conflict in the West. It urged the UN and other international players to form a comprehensive policy covering both Darfur and the implementation of the 2005 accord. It specifically recommended:

The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) should increase monitoring of flashpoint areas in Abyei and along the North-South border and negotiate with the parties to create demilitarised zones into which UNMIS forces could deploy and monitor movements of troops to help prevent local flare-ups from escalating.

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