Somaliland Gov linked with Islamists + Energy Security issues

[NASSIR]

Energy and Security Issues in the Red Sea

 

 

..Much of the anticipated change is developing around the flood of new discoveries and exploitation of natural gas fields in the Indian Ocean region, particularly extending through Ethiopia, Egypt, and other countries of the Red Sea region...

 

The strategic balance in the Horn of Africa, and reaching through the Red Sea to Egypt and the Mediterranean, is changing rapidly — and in many respects is becoming more unstable — as political, geopolitical, economic, and ideological issues begin to clash.

The war over the reunification of Somalia, incorporating both the old Italian Somaliland (now Somalia) and the Republic of Somaliland, has now become indisputable,

and nominally-moderate Egypt has come down firmly on the side of reunifying the area under the clear dominance of an Islamist-dominated but anomic — essentially lawless — Somalia....

 

In the process, however, the Egyptian Government has given support to the same radical jihadist groups which fundamentally oppose Egyptian secular governance, which support Iranian expansion into the Red Sea/Africa framework, and which have transformed a strategically benign Ethiopia into one which must now accept confrontation with Egypt and its regional allies.

 

This situation has been compounded by the recent Islamist/pan-Somalist success in winning power in Somaliland,

but of equal importance has been the first quiet stage of the transformation of Ethiopia into an energy exporting power. Ethiopia’s natural gas reserves which the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) in 2009 rated as zero and in early 2010 at one-trillion cubic feet (TCF), now have been demonstrated to be significant, and gas exports will begin within five years.

 

Malaysian State-owned oil and gas company Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has now proven as much as four TCF of gas in its reserves in the ****** basin region of Ethiopia. Petronas is one of about 85 companies which have oil and gas exploration licenses in Ethiopia, but the Malaysian company is the first to begin its production phase, which should see a gas treatment plant and a gas pipeline from the ****** to Djibouti (at a total cost of $1.9-billion) on-line within five years. Estimated Ethiopian gas reserves, as of 2010 (not “proven reserves”), were reported at 12.46 TCF, but this figure was likely to be expanded frequently as new discoveries are reported.

 

Significantly, although the externally-supported and -armed ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF) has continued to sustain sporadic armed contact with Ethiopian security forces into August 2010, the second week of August saw the senior ONLF leadership in Washington, DC, meeting secretly (under US sponsorship) with representatives of the Ethiopian Government. Just days before that, representatives of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) also met in Washington, DC, with senior Ethiopian Government officials. Both the OLF and the ONLF have been receiving extensive logistical support, weapons, training, and funding from Eritrea, supported directly or indirectly by both Egypt and Iran.

 

It is now apparent to both the ONLF and OLF that their foreign patrons have been waging a losing battle against the Ethiopian Government, and that, with the growing strength and wealth of the Ethiopian Government, now is the time to consider coming to terms with Addis Ababa.....

 

 

Fighting around July 12, 2010, in the el-Dibir area of the Somaliland-Ethiopian border was largely credited in the media with being an EDF attack on civilians, but in fact it involved a clash with Islamist forces that were routed by the EDF, which seized 120 of the Islamists’ trucks and took them to the Ethiopian city of Jijiga.

 

At the core of all of this has been the proxy war waged by Iranian-backed Islamists, supported by the secular governments of Eritrea and Egypt, to keep Ethiopia landlocked. When the Ethiopian Government, some two years ago, began having an inkling that it might soon be in the gas exporting business,

it started negotiations to build a pipeline to the Somaliland port of Berbera.

 

When it became clear that the UDUB Government of Somaliland was not well-prepared to contest the Presidential elections — which resulted in a pan-Somalist Islamist taking power in July 2010 — Ethiopia was forced to turn back to Djibouti as the only available seaport for the export of Ethiopian gas.

....

 

 

At present, the Petronas plans to be exporting natural gas from the Ethiopian ****** basin within five years highlight the reality that Ethiopia will soon be in a position to compete economically against Egypt and Eritrea, which have been struggling to keep Ethiopia landlocked. Egypt’s strategic motive, expressed constantly by Cairo, has been to keep Ethiopia — which is vastly more fertile than Egypt and which controls the headwaters of the Blue Nile, which provides Egypt (and Sudan) with most of its water — from posing a strategic threat to Egypt by, potentially, cutting off the flow of Blue Nile waters. In fact, the policy has only served to make the Egyptian fear a reality.

 

Moreover, in the South-Eastern part of modern Eritrea, the area around Assab, there is already great local hostility to being under control of Asmara (the Eritrean capital), and the Eritrean Government of Isayas Afewerke. This hostility takes the form of armed insurrection by ethnic Afars.

The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Union (ARDU)

has engaged in combat operations since 1993 against the Eritrean Government. They have commanded the attention of brigade-sized Eritrean Government forces, which have unsuccessfully attempted to curb the ARDU. ARDU itself is part of the Alliance of Eritrean National Forces (AENF), an umbrella for opposition groups, mostly Muslim, fighting the Isayas Government.

 

Via HorseedMedia

 

[NGONGE]

^^ Be specific with your title. It's "Islamist/pan-Somalist", if you don't mind.

[NASSIR]

Together as one you mean?

 

Ngonge, seriously what do you have to say of the widely circulated report about the diplomatic rift btw the current admin of SL and Ethiopia?

 

I personally like the fact that Silanyo is standing up to the dictates of Meles. That quality of him maintaining an independent domestic policy gains him more domestic support. It enhances his nationalist credentials though it would cost him a regional friend--vulture of Somalia's predicament in reality .

 

At this time of Somalia's collapse, I congratulate President Silanyo but that is a path fraught with a lot of risks and it resembles more like the impossible trinity theory.

[Che -Guevara]

Ain't life a b*tch. Soon, Zenawi could be using resources extracted from Somali lands to quell Somali insurgents in Ocaden and proper Somalia and essentially all Somali threats to his hegemony.

[NGONGE]

^^ You and your Ethiopian nightmares.

 

 

Doubt there is any truth to an actual rift, Nasir (war magaca badal). At best it can only be a tiff.

 

Siilaanyo has not spent all that time trying to get this job only to lose it because of some moral compulsions or crazy ideals (it's all about the chair). He'll rebuff Melez in areas that he can but he is not going to fall out with his biggest ally in the region (not unless he knows something we don't).

[NASSIR]

Ngonge, we would probably see uncle Silanyo and Meles together sipping some coffee in Addis Ababa. But so far he has my support.

 

 

Che, Gas production is soon to be start in the Somali region. Terrible scenerio for us.

[N.O.R.F]

Gas? As in bottled gas or piped?

[Che -Guevara]

^Piped I believe.

 

Nassir...If it materializes,it's definitely so long as we are busy with each other and failed to see the bigger picture.

[PasserBy]

It is a serious rift. The fact that he chose a young recruit as Somaliland's representative to Ethiopia speaks volumes about his contempt for Xabashis.

[Land_Soldier]

So what? Are you a Xabashi yourself?

 

why would you care what we think of Xabashi's?

[Jacaylbaro]

Stuff & Nonsense ............