Friday, July 21, 2006

Is the world going insane?

Shit. Even more war in Africa?
NAIROBI, July 21 (Reuters) - Neglected by the world for years, Somalia appears on the verge of a war that could escalate into a major regional conflict and play into the hands of hardline Islamists.

Six weeks after taking Mogadishu and other southern towns, the Islamists are engaged in an increasingly bellicose standoff with a fragile, Ethiopian-backed interim government based in the provincial town of Baidoa.

With Islamist militia moving their closest yet to Baidoa this week, and witnesses saying Ethiopian soldiers have poured over the border to defend the government, the prospect of yet another major conflict in Somalia has risen sharply....

"An armed confrontation between the Islamic Courts Council and Ethiopia would be likely to generate a wave of ultra-nationalism in Somalia that would redound to the advantage of the Courts and might ignite a regional war," said Michael Weinstein, of the U.S.-based Power and Interest think-tank.
So that would make two regional wars in Africa, a civil war in Iraq, the crisis in Lebanon, and two nuclear panics (Iran and North Korea.) Did I miss anything?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's always the continuous and unrelenting civil war in Colombia that never reaches news sources.