America’s attacks in Somalia only provide al-Qaeda with more volunteers, says matt ford |
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Mere hours before he is expected to go before the US Congress and ask for 20,000 more troops for Iraq, President Bush has just opened a brand new front in his 'War on Terror'.
Yesterday, he sent a USAF AC-130 aircraft to pummel an isolated Somali village, supposedly containing an al-Qaeda cell US forces had been tracking for some time.
Al-Qaeda could not have stage-managed a better recruitment advert for the jihad they're determined to start in the Horn of Africa.
Last Friday, a speech by Ayman al-Zawahiri (right), the man widely believed to be al-Qaeda's second in command, was broadcast across Islamist websites. He accused the West of waging a crusader war against Islam in Somalia. "Use ambushes, mines and martyrdom-seeking raids [suicide bombings] to devour them as the lions devour their prey," he said. |
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Al-Qaeda could not have stage-
managed a better recruitment advert for the jihad |
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How poignant his words must seem to millions of Muslims in the Gulf States and across the Maghreb as they wake up to news that Uncle Sam is strafing Muslims again.
Recent US involvement in the region had been covert, something analysts saw as a sign that the White House had learned the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq and was keen not to wade into yet another war with no obvious conclusion; that US military machismo had been humbled by a body count in Iraq that tipped 3,000 on New Year's Eve.
But no, it's business as usual, and while the mistakes of the past may be lost on Bush, they are not lost on al-Qaeda.
"America is weaker than before as the mujahideen dealt a fatal blow to it in Afghanistan and Iraq," said al-Zawahiri. "America and its slaves will be defeated [in Somalia] with the help of God... as God defeats them in Afghanistan and Iraq." Will the US escalate its attacks and give al-Qaeda the holy war they want? The world watches and waits. 
FIRST POSTED JANUARY 9, 2007
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