For long, the Horn of Africa has remained a notorious region. A considerable fraction of the region is desert, but that hardly repels today’s modernized terrorists. On the contrary, its isolation and the internal problems that nations in the region are confronting attract al Qaeda and its supporters to hatch their plans here.
Along with the Middle East, the Horn of Africa is now considered as the most lethal area from where terrorism can sprout at any time. At the heart of the region’s instability and lack of any proper governance is the miserable situation in Somalia, the poorest country in the world.
Al Qaeda operatives are believed to conceive their plans and carry on their trainings here in this very nation but the lack of law and order there implies that nothing concrete can be accomplished at the moment.
There have been reported threats by militants at kidnapping Western tourists in Somalia. Smuggling of arms and ammunitions from the Muslim world go almost unchecked in the nation and holding Western holidaymakers at ransom would be a good way to earn some decent money. Not only Somalia but Eritrea, who is locked in a bitter dispute with Ethiopia, too flares up the dismal situation in the region.
Ethiopia is the largest country in the Horn of Africa and it does supply the US with air base and troops for containing the surge of insurgency in its neighboring countries. In fact, last December it was responsible for toppling down Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) who had captured Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and has constantly contributed to the containment of violence in Somalia.
Yet the violence goes on. The sad part of the story is that the international community is unable to take control of the situation in spite of knowing all about the situation. Thus the making of terrorists goes on unabated in Somalia and until the world superpowers start plotting new methods to change the situation in Somalia, the Horn of Africa could easily become another middle East.
Image Source: IRW
Source: The Telegraph, UK
