by Abjata Abdi

Created on: May 09, 2008

ISLAMIC RADICALISM FIND ITS WAY IN HORN OF AFRICA

Many ideas and beliefs are implanted in the young minds of children who go through Madrassa schools in northern Kenya. Islamic influence blended with Arab culture is accepted without question by communities in Northern Kenya. The Middle East and Palestine in particular, has a special place in the hearts of Kenyan Muslims.

The entrance of the America into war in Iraq for the second time in 20 years has not only convinced but also helped shape the minds of Muslims around the world, more so in the Horn of Africa that the western policy is in the process of strengthening the wrong side by making Islam appear to be in the way of western attempts to get a foot-hold in the Middle East.

America, they say, has never had any record in making or taking part in peacekeeping missions in any part of the world. However, it is known more for their John Wayne policy and has refused to contemplate permanent peace despite the Secretary of State weekly diplomatic shuttle between Washington and the Arab capitals and Israeli.

With Iraq in flames, Afghanistan in aftershocks and Hezbollah well entreached in Lebanon and Israel no longer invincible, a growing sympathy has now shifted towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, strengthened by the high casualty of America's GI but still surrounded by forces allied to America. The assumption of many Muslims is that several governments and leaders in the region are propped by or are pro-America as in the case of Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's Prime Minister, Presidents Musharaf and Karzai of Pakistan and Afghanistan respectively and Ehud Olmert of Israel, are traitors' to the cause of Islam and the influence of such cause extends far beyond the borders of the Middle East trickling more frequently than before into the Horn of Africa and to the curious mind of the young boy in Madrassa school courtesy of satellite dishes that dot the remote country side.

With the glittering Middle East mutating rapidly from developing Bedouin emirates to an economic world centre, the allure of making good money, better education that has affinity to their thinking has attracted many youths from northern Kenya who would seek opportunities to work in the Middle East to escape from grinding poverty that has beset them for years. But the conflict problem in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa has a long and lingering history and with an equally interesting chronology of events.

The first incident in recent times was the attack

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