Tiny minority of extremists on the move. An interesting assessment from Major General Douglas Lute, who thinks the jihadists will ultimately be driven from Iraq. On what he bases this, I do not know, but it can't be on the current headlines. From the Guardian, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
A senior US military officer yesterday predicted that al-Qaida fighters in Iraq will move to the "vast ungoverned spaces" of the Horn of Africa once conditions in the country get too tough for them.The warning came from Major General Douglas Lute, director of operations at the US' central command. "There will come a time when Zarqawi will face too much resistance in Iraq and will move on," he predicted, referring to the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Islamist who has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks, kidnappings and beheadings.
Looking ahead to a time when he said Iraq would be "stabilised", Gen Lute predicted that Zarqawi would take the "path of least resistance" and leave for such countries as Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.
But before that, he suggested, Zarqawi would make a show of force in the run-up to the Iraqi constitutional referendum and subsequent elections. "He has to go down fighting," he said.
Gen Lute said 90% of what he called the "enemy" in Iraq was domestic. There was only a "slither" of foreign fighters "sponsored from outside".
He declined to put a figure on his estimate. Earlier this year, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said there were between 12,000 and 20,000 hardcore insurgents in Iraq.
I'm hopeful that these jihadis will be marginalized to the Horn. I am also encouraged by something I remember reading at length about in 2001 and early 2002. Very early on, the US Military took great pains to establish tactical outposts in the Djibouti area -- and at the time this was perplexing and hard to make sense of -- but perhaps this was part of a strategy to place a catcher's mit in the area the jihadis were likely to be flushed into? On the other hand, perhaps these are just assertions and wishful thinking posing as facts and predictions.... Time will tell --
One can only hope that we've got some extremely intelligent strategists working out the contours of some possible end games for the first chapter of this fascist Muslim jihad.... I see no evidence that Muslims are capable or willing to moderate themselves to prevent their wholesale destruction -- So this is the only thing that might prevent the necessity of the large scale slaughter of the Islamic enemy --
If these strategies don't prove successful, and especially if the fascist Muslims continue to have success in bleeding us mercilessly while they conduct their jihad (including on our own soil) then I don't think the West can afford the staggering costs or be willing to shoulder the staggering stresses associated with salvaging their horrid failed cultures and societies.
I don't believe this. They have friends all around Iraq - Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, to shelter them.
Me neither. To retreat into the African horn, they have to leave the entire Middle East first. Considering the greenhouse conditions that the terrorist regimes of Iran and Saudi Arabia have created for them, I doubt that will ever happen.
-----------------------------
dolphin, CAGE co-founder.
http://www.acage.org
Whether or not it is intended as a redoubt (=last area of resistance), Al Quaeda are already widely rumoured to be setting up in Greater Somalia (Somalia, Somaliland, Djbouti, Ethiopian Ogaden and north-east Kenya) on a large scale. This is traditional bandit country, an enormous area of sterile scrub and desert, very hard to control by any government - let alone the impoverished Ethiopians and the nonexistent Somali Parliament - and strategically very near the world's main sea routes and the heart of the Muslim world.
I believe this totally.
The Saudi's have been building lots of Mosques in Africa for quite a while now - most stand empty, waiting for the rush of converts in the coming years.
I note that the benevolence of the Saudi's does not stretch to investing in infrastructure that Africans actually need, just Mosque after Mosque after Mosque.
Then again, why should they bother with stuff like hospitals, schools, water wells, solar power?
Let the West, its legion of pop stars & the myriad of Western Government Departments to take care of that via "Development Inc".
We'll do the infrastructure - & leave the hearts & minds to Allah.......