Bin Laden and Eritrea's Isayas Afewerki in Somalia

GHEBREHIWET IS ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL ERITREAN WRITERS TODAY. IN THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE, HE UNDERSCORES THE MAIN REASONS WHY OSAMA BIN LADEN AND ERITREA´S ISAYAS AFEWERKI ARE BOTH OPPOSED TO THE UN BACKED SOMALI GOVERNMENT UNDER PRESIDENT SHEIKH AHMED. Osama Bin Laden last month bombarded the world with one more of his incendiary web messages, but this time around it was entirely focused on Somalia, which tells us the extent to which he seems to have invested his hopes on that region to carry out his Islamic revolution. An analyst makes a similar point:"´I think people who were skeptical that al-Qaida has ambition in Somalia will now have to think twice´, Rashid Abdi, an analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank in Nairobi told The Associated Press." ("Bin Laden exhorts militants on web message", AP, march 19) In this message Bin Laden makes it clear that he is unhappy with the current leader of Somalia, the moderate Islamist President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and urges the radical Islamists, like Al Shebab, and the people of Somalia to overthrow him because he "changed to partner up with the infidel".Sheikh Ahmed has no partnership with the West, so that cannot be the reason why he has drawn this much ire from Bin Laden. There are two other reasons – one minor and one major – why Bin Laden is so much worried by the turn of events in Somalia. First, understandably, he would be unhappy if the kind of Taliban-like, fundamentalist Islam he champions doesn´t take roots in Somalia – a hope that could only materialize under the leadership of Al Shebab. But his major worry is that, if Sheikh Ahmed succeeds in uniting and stabilizing Somalia, the Islamist revolution will remain confined to that nation´s borders only, and that there will be no further interest or incentive for the Islamist revolution to spread outside that country. One of the main reasons why Islamic fundamentalism is inimical to the very concept of nationhood is because once a nation is built, it naturally works for its own self-interest and avoids any overt confrontation that might in turn destabilize it in a significant way. That is to say, once a nation is built, the interest of the state trumps the interest of the religion. That is why radical Islamists like Bin Laden pine for a return to a Caliphate, where the borders will be determined by the aspirations of the religion...more..http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/100147