Lagos — The growing power of the Islamic Courts in southern Somalia is a serious set back in the United States in its international war on terror and a threat to the stability of the strategically situated Horn of Africa region.

Stateless Somalia has proved an ideal setting for the emergence of a secretive and dangerous jihadist organization, Al Itihaad Al Islamiya, which lies at the heart of the Somali Islamic Courts. Al Ithihaad has actively worked with Al Qaeda since 1993 to carry out acts of aggression against the Americans, including the 1993 downing of a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in Mogadishu and the 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

In 2002, Al Ithihaad also likely provided support to Al Qaeda operatives who carried out near Mombasa, Kenya, a terrorist attack against the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel and a failed missile attack against an Israeli civilian airliner. Ossama bin Laden and some of Al Ithihaad leaders have apparently known each other from their Afghan mujahidin days, when the CIA recruited and transported a large contingent of Somalis to fight as holy warriors against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda and Al Ithihaad first forged their alliance in opposing the U.S.-led, United Nations intervention in Somalia. This alliance was part of Al Qaeda's masterplan to create a large Islamic state in the Horn of Africa that could serve as a launching pad for attacks against its ultimate prize, Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden has claimed that Al Qaeda operatives helped orchestrate the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident -- the downing of a U.S. army helicopter in Mogadishu and the subsequent loss of lives of 18 American soldiers, which has since been made famous by a Hollywood movie. There is now substantial evidence to back up Bin Laden's claim, though at the time of the incident the Al Qaeda connection escaped notice. The Black Hawk Down incident and the subsequent televised images of the bodies of dead American soldiers being paraded on the streets of Mogadishu provoked strong reaction by the U.S. public and ultimately led to the decision of then President Bill Clinton to withdraw U.S. forces from the United Nations intervention in Somalia. The success of the Al Qaeda-Al Ithihaad operation in Mogadishu undoubtedly encouraged Al Qaeda in its belief that the United States was a paper tiger and likely emboldened its tactics against U.S. targets.

Al Ithihaad forces also supported Al Qaeda in its preparation for the 1998 Al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, that resulted in 213 deaths and over 5,000 injuries - most of them Kenyan. Soon after, Bin Laden reportedly visited a joint Al Ithihaad-Al Qaeda camp at Ras Kamboni in southern Somalia near the Kenyan border to congratulate those who had provided material support for the Al Qaeda operation.

A strategic objective of Al Ithihaad is the establishment of a pan-Somali Caliphate in the Horn of Africa, that would bring Somali ethnic populations in neighbouring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya into a territorially enlarged Somalia. In the mid-1990s with Al Qaeda and Sudanese support, Al Ithihaad launched a terrorist campaign and a military invasion against Ethiopia. Bin Laden transported several hundred Arab mujahadin veterans of the anti-Soviet Afghan struggle to assist Al Ithihaad in its military ambitions inside both Somalia and Ethiopia. In response to Al Ithihaad aggression, Ethiopian forces entered Somalia and defeated Al Ithihaad forces on the battlefield.

This decisive defeat prompted Al Ithihaad to re-invent itself, and by 1999, key elements of Al Ithihaad re-emerged as the Islamic Courts in southern Mogadishu. One of Al Ithihaad top military commanders, who later was designated internationally as an Al Qaeda ally, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, became a leading figure in the Courts. Financed by Somali businessmen to provide protection, the Islamic Courts sought to enforce Sharia justice on the lawless streets of Mogadishu. In short shrift, though, Al Ithihaad cum Islamic Court started out again on a strategy of territorial conquest, first, occupying the strategic port of Merca in southern Somalia, and then launching an offensive against secular political leaders in the area of Somalia known as Puntland further to the north. Over the years, there have been many reports both of Al Ithihaad recruiting among Somalis living in Kenya and of its proselytizing its severe version of Islam in Kenya's North Western Province - home to bo th Kenya's ethnic Somalis and a large refugee population from Somalia. In 2002, the Kenya constitutional commission noted an upsurge of support in North Western Province for the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate.

The Islamic Courts have been blocking the installation in Mogadishu of a new interim government, whose formation has been supported by the international community. News reports out of Sudan suggest that recent initial talks between the interim government and the Islamic Courts may be heading to a détente between the two, but unless the Islamic Courts show a willingness to break with its Al Ithihaad antecedents and its connection with international terrorism, the incorporation of the Islamic Courts into an interim Somali government may serve to further legitimize a group that poses a threat to United States, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

The response of the Islamic Courts to the recent request by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendaye Frasier, to hand over Al Qaeda operatives responsible for the Nairobi Embassy bombing and the terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in Mombasa will be telling in this regard. But the prospects of this happening appear unlikely.

Within days of Frasier's urging, the Islamic Courts' named Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys as its new leader. Sheik Aweys is believed to be one of the masterminds of the Black Hawk Down attack and a key architect of Al Ithihaad's territorial aggression. In 2001, the United Nations named Sheik Aweys as an associate of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and asked member states to freeze his assets. However welcomed it may be, the Islamic Courts breaking with Al Qaeda is about as likely as the Taliban breaking with Bin Laden after it was confronted by post 9-11 ultimatum of the United States.

How Ethiopia is disposed toward any new political configuration inside Somalia will be key to the future of the region. With large Muslim and Christian populations, a multi-cultural Ethiopia can ill afford to have an aggressive Islamicist state on its border, and in the past, Ethiopia's enemy, Eritrea, has supported Al Ithihaad to fight against Ethiopia. To reduce the Somali threat to its sovereignty and stability, Ethiopia has built up an alliance of Somali militia leaders as a counterforce to the Islamicists, and in the past intervened militarily to crush the jihadists. Don't be surprised if Ethiopia takes pre-emptive military actions to hobble the jihadist threat along its borders.

Ultimately, it may be the success of the democratic experiments in Kenya and Ethiopia that will serve as the best antidote from a regional Islamicist threat. Kenya is a well advanced multiparty democracy, and the continued promise of political freedoms and signs of robust economic growth will likely serve to undercut Islamicist sentiment within its own Somali population, though Kenya would be well served to assure that the ethnic Somalis in the economically disadvantaged North Western Province receive their fair share of such growth.

Ethiopia, too, has made important strides in achieving a multi-party democracy, but last year, an apparent resort to armed rebellion by impatient elements of the Ethiopian opposition provoked a crackdown by the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. In the long run, a genuine commitment to participatory democracy as well as more rapid economic growth may well be Ethiopia's best defence against those like Al Ithihaad who would like to see the multi-religious Horn of Africa region under the rule of an Islamicist state.

Dr Pirio wrote in from California, USA