The Horn and its challenges in fighting terrorism
Gemechu Tussa
Despite the desire of the people, there are a lot of challenges that could complicate life. Terrorism, one of those challenges, has remained being one of the worst challenges to the world. It has been claiming the lives of a significant number of innocent people.
Terrorism has been claiming the lives of so many innocent citizens. One of the recent attacks in Egypt has resulted to the death of 305 people at a packed mosque on Friday in a stunning assault.
Just a month ago, there was a terrorist attacks in Somalia that claimed the lives of a large number of innocent citizens.
Despite such challenges, some countries have continued training and supporting terrorist groups. The terrorist group in the Horn of Africa al-Shabab has been executing various terrorist activities in the region. It has a strong relation with the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and ISIS.
Egypt is supporting Eritrea the country that is supporting the terrorist groups targeting Ethiopia. Hose However, there is a misunderstanding that terrorist have one aim that is creating havoc. They never choose people or country though they targeted at some specific people that is a cover.
It is possible to learn from what is happening nowadays and what happened in the past. The case of Osama Bin Laden could be the right witness. He was trained by the United States of America but later he attacked that country. What is happening nowadays in Egypt is also the same.
The sole sponsor of Al-Shaba is the Eritrean government that was in turn supported by Egypt. In this case, Al-Shaba has been in Somalia for more than almost a decade. It has been using that country as a safe haven to train and recruit a number of youngsters in line with its destructive ideology. Besides, it established a strong link with Ginbot 7, Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Muslim Brotherhood, IS and al-Qaeda.
It is evident that Islamic State and Al-Shabab has been working in poising peace in the Horn Region and around the world. Egypt has been serving as a safe place to the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood. This terrorist group even once managed to come to power, established an Islamic State and led the Egyptians for about a couple of years.
Previously, the Muslim Brotherhood had been committing a number of terrorist attacks in Egypt and anywhere else. It had also a strong link with the aforementioned terrorist groups.
Many political analysts argue that Egypt is one of the targets of the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood, which has a strong link with al-Shabab, al-Qaeda, OLF and Ginbot 7. Despite its liability to such terrorist attacks mainly targeting civilians particularly Christians in that country, Egypt has been continuing working in collaboration with the terrorist groups Ginbot 7 and OLF aiming to destabilize Ethiopia. This is one of the serious challenges in fighting terrorism in the Horn Region.
While the overall terrorist activities at international, continental, regional and country levels require consolidated efforts, some countries have become not only adamant but also partners of terrorist activities.
There are ample evidence witnessing Egypt’s has support to the terrorist groups OLF, Ginbot 7 and the State in Eritrea in a bid to destabilize Ethiopia and jeopardize its forward movement. However, Egypt put its head in a deep water a terrorist groups it has been supporting for years have a strong link with al-Quaida, Muslim Brotherhood.
The Egyptian government has been backing these terrorist groups but eventually it will be liable to the terrorist attacks of these groups
Therefore, Egypt should learn from the United States of America that was trained and supported Osama Bin Laden when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Available historical document witnessed that Osama joined the Afghan resistance using aid from the United States under the CIA program Operation.
After the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989, Osama returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero, and the United States referred to him and his soldiers as “Freedom Fighters.”
But Osama turned his enmity to the United States of America and plotted the September 11/2001 attack on New York City. It is therefore a big lesson to all countries backing terrorist groups. In other words, training and supporting terrorist groups with the aim of destabilizing other countries will eventually devastate their trainer countries.
Many political analysts argue that such irresponsible measures on poising other countries’ peace and stability could be one of the significant retarding factors in frightening against terrorism.
It is now high time for all citizens in all walks of life and any corner of the world to come together and denounce ill-activities of some irresponsible states sponsoring groups creating terrorist activities in countries other than themselves. This kinds of ill-activities should be terminated so as to enhance world lasting peace.
It is time for all peace loving countries, concerned individuals and groups to stand together for lasting peace. At present the United Nations Security Council has also considered the issue seriously and it recently underlined the need for stronger judicial cooperation to combat terrorism.
“Condemning acts of terrorism and their impact on innocent civilians and on peace and stability, the United Nations Security Council emphasized the need for establishing willful violation of prohibition on financing of terrorist organizations or individual terrorists as serious criminal offenses in national laws and regulations.
It further called on UN member states to share, where appropriate, information about foreign terrorist fighters, individual terrorists and terrorist organizations, bilateral, regional and global law enforcement agencies, in compliance with international and domestic national law and policy.” UNSEC said.
According to the source, the adoption of this resolution comes following the three severe attacks – in Turkey, Egypt and Somalia, last week which targeted innocent civilians.
However, there are still countries with hidden agendas connecting terrorist groups. For instance, Egypt has established a strong link with terrorist the rogue state in Eritrea and backing terrorist groups like al-Shabab, OLF and Ginbot 7. These countries will put themselves in a tiger’s cage as those terrorists they have been supporting could turn their attention to Egypt and Eritrea.
If the world is to fight terrorism meaningfully, there should be a strong cooperation among all countries in the world. As the same time there is need to have a binding issue that could forbid those countries supporting terrorist groups targeting other countries other than themselves.
These countries will be losers like what we learnt from the support and return of the United States of America to Bin Laden. Egypt has also become a loser of the its honest relations with Ethiopia and other Nile Basin countries if it doesn’t pull itself out of such problems.