After Afghanistan — Who is Next?

With all of Afghanistan's major cities controlled by anti-Taliban forces, the Bush administration has noticeably begun to shift to the next phase of the war against terror — going after other countries that harbor or support terrorists.

Comments by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and operations deputy Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem point most directly toward Somalia, a failed state struggling to regain some semblance of national government. Wolfowitz said of Somalia: "It's a country virtually without a government, a country that has a certain al Qaeda presence already."

Pentagon briefings are backed by media reports of visits by unidentified Americans to Somali warlords opposed to the fledgling central administration of Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, elected in August 2001 to head a "transitional government." Some of Hassan's supporters are "not well-meaning," according to Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state for African Affairs. Ethiopian military personnel reportedly participated in the U.S.-Somali conclave in Baidoa, in southwestern Somalia. Ethiopia, which fought a long-running war for control of the Ogaden region with Somalia in the 1970s and 1980s, "triumphed" when, in 1991, the Somali dictator Gen. Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled. While this removed Somalia as a threat to Ethiopia, the resulting chaos opened the door to chronic warlordism and to terrorists. Ethiopia has had to fight some of these groups and factions but has also supported others, chiefly the Rahanwein Resistance Army.

Two Somali based groups, the Islamist al-Itihaad al-Islamiya and the banking institution al Barakaat, are on the Bush administration's list of proscribed organizations. Al Itihaad, originally a fund-raising organization linked to Osama bin Laden, is suspected of complicity in the deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers in 1993 by providing training and advice to Mogadishu militias. They are known to have conducted terrorist attacks within Ethiopia. They also established training camps for terrorists in Somalia. Al Barakaat is a hawala, an informal, paperless financial exchange system employing money brokers worldwide. Its primary legitimate uses are to pay debts and send remittances from country to country. (See "The Financial War Against Terrorism" at www.cdi.org/terrorism/financial.cfm)

Finally, Third U.S. Army is reportedly preparing to move from its base at Fort McPherson, Ga., to facilities in Kuwait. Third Army is the component headquarters for army troops in Central Command. This move would place two senior military component commands — the other is 5th Fleet in Bahrain — directly in Central Command's area of operations. In Kuwait, Third Army planners are centrally located to command ground forces that might go into one or more of the four countries often mentioned as the next targets of the anti-terrorist campaign: Iraq to the northwest, Sudan to the southwest, and Yemen and Somalia to the south.

It is worth noting that Sudan's president, Omar el-Bashir, was quick to condemn the Sept.11 attacks on the United States and expressed a willingness to cooperate to counter terrorism. Similarly, Yemen's foreign minister, Abubakr al-Qirbi, committed his country to participation in the international coalition opposing terror, but only under the auspices of the United Nations. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan cautioned the United States not to take additional military action against Iraq without proof of complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. While these declarations of support/warning may not be enough to eliminate these countries from U.S. consideration for future action, they do increase the profile of Somalia as the next country on Washington's "to do" list.

 
Abbreviated Country Profiles:

Iraq:

Location: Middle East, on the Persian Gulf, west of Iran, south of Turkey, east of Syria and Jordan, northeast of Saudi Arabia, north of Kuwait.

Total borders: 3,31 km; total coastline: 58 km.

Government: Military dictatorship under Saddam Hussein since July 1979; under UN economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions for failing to abide by post-Desert Storm UN Security Council resolutions. Formal political activity must be approved by the regime. Chief opposition lies with the Kurds in the north and Shi'as in the south.

Population: 23.3 million; 41.6 percent under 15 years of age; growth rate 2.84 percent Ethnicity: 75-80 percent Arab; 15-20 Kurdish; 5 percent Turkoman, Assyrian, other.

Religion: Shi'a Muslim 60-65 percent; Sunni Muslim 32-37 percent; Christian and other 3 percent.

Chief civilian occupation: not available

Armed Forces: Baghdad maintains a regular army, elite Republican Guard units, a navy, air force, a separate air defense force, a border guard force, and the "Fedayeen Saddam" militia.

Somalia:

Location: Eastern Africa, on the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, south of Djibouti, east and south of Ethiopia, and east of Kenya.

Total borders: 2,366 km; total coastline: 3, 025 km.

Government: A Transitional National Government was proclaimed in October 2000 by a broad cross section of Somali clans meeting in Djibouti. The transitional government has three years to create a permanent government. Its task is compounded by the lack of authority even in the capital, Mogadishu. Moreover, there are two self-proclaimed, functioning political entities in the northeast of the country, the Republic of Somaliland and the Republic of Puntland.

Population: 7.5 million (estimate); 44 percent under 15 years of age; growth rate 3.48 percent.

Ethnicity: 85 percent Somali; Bantu, Arabs.

Religion: Sunni Muslim.

Chief civilian occupation: agriculture 71percent.

Armed Forces: Mogadishu is trying to reconstitute a national army, but warlords maintain their own militias, and Somaliland and Puntland have armed security forces.

Sudan:

Location: Northeast Africa, on the Red Sea between Egypt and Djibouti, also contiguous with Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, and Uganda.

Total borders: 7,687 km; total coastline: 853 km.

Government: The Khartoum-based Islamic dictatorship that has been fighting a civil war for more than 20 years against animists and Christians in the southern part of the country. More than 1.5 million have died in the fighting or from famine.

Population: 36.1 million; 44.6 percent under 15 years of age; growth rate 2.79 percent.

Ethnicity: 52 percent Black; 39 percent Arab; Beja 6 percent.

Religion: Sunni Muslim 70 percent; animist/indigenous 25 percent; Christian percent.

Chief civilian occupation: agriculture 80 percent.

Armed Forces: Khartoum maintains an army, navy, air force, and a "popular militia."

Yemen:

Location: Southern Arabian Peninsula, west of Oman and south of Saudi Arabia with a coastline on the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea.

Total borders: 1,766 km; total coastline: 1,906 km.

Government: President and vice-president are military officers whose party won overwhelming (96 percent) in the 1997 national legislative elections, which the main opposition party boycotted. Local elections were held in February 2001 in a move to diffuse some power from the center as part of government reform.

Population: 18.1 million; 47 percent under 15 years of age; growth rate 3.38 percent.

Ethnicity: predominantly Arab.

Religion: Muslim, both Sunni and Shi'a, plus small numbers of Jews, Christians, and Hindus.

Chief civilian occupation: agriculture and herding.

Armed Forces: Sana'a maintains an army, navy, air force, coast guard, a separate air defense force, a presidential guard, and a paramilitary force.
 

Source for country information: CIA World Fact Book 2001

 

Compiled by Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) CDI Chief of Research dsmith@cdi.org

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