Uganda Suicide Bombing: Why Nigeria Should Be Vigilant

By Paul Arhewe, Online/Foreign Editor




THE HAVOC from the Somali al-Qaeda linked group al-Shabaab is not only growing; the invoking fright from the devilish group’s expansion outside the Mogadishu borders calls for concern to all African governments especially in the area of security fortification and alertness.

In its deadly fashion, this group known for possessing the penchant for killing innocent people for the sake of propagating an extreme Islamic faith, the insurgents turned a joyous ending for viewers of the last football World Cup to a lugubrious one. In twin suicide bombings last Sunday, 74 football lovers in Kampala were dispatched to the great beyond, for having a crime to be in a country that sent 3,000 troops to join the African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to help in quelling the rising level of insurgency in the North African country. The world in unison has condemned this dastardly and wanton killing over a cause to propagate a faith that is paradoxically a religion of peace. The group claimed it carried out the terror attack due to Uganda government’s snub to its request to stop sending its troop to Somalia. In its words: “We warned Uganda not to deploy troops to Somalia; they ignored us,” said Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, al-Shabaab’s spokesman. “We warned them to stop massacring our people, and they ignored that. The explosions in Kampala were only a minor message to them. ... We will target them everywhere if Uganda does not withdraw from our land.”

What is African governments doing securitywise to counter threats of more onslaughts from such group? As Ugandan government has vowed to crush their uprising by sending more troops, al-Shabaab is threatening that what happened last week is a tip of the iceberg of what the Ugandan people stand to receive if its government persisted.

Al-Qaeda group in the Middle East has strongholds in Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Their deadly suicide bombings of decades are no more weighty news or front-page banner due to their daily occurrences. In that part of the world, suicide bombings from this extremist group is now in fact a way of life and the people there have come to terms with them.

Back home, is Nigeria government stepping up security to prevent or quell any surprise move of such ‘servants of death.’ Report has it last week that the remaining fashion of the notorious Boko Haram sect group in Northern part of the country posted an Arabic message in al-Qaeda website. When translated, it was a message of solidarity and support for the cause of Iraqi al-Qaeda and commiseration with the group over the demise of its leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi who allegedly were killed during the U.S.-led troop attacks in the country. Imam Abubakar Skekau, a deputy of the Boko Haram, the sect group that killed and maimed scores during last July mayhem, has called for more attack on the Americans and hailing the dead al-Qaeda leaders as Hero of Islam.

The same sect group would definitely be in support with al-Shabaab, especially in lieu of its recent achievement in the Kampala bloodletting.

If this group should infiltrate our borders or pass the act of suicide bombing to their supposedly brotherhood in Nigeria, then the carnage of destruction to lives and property would remain unimaginable; given the poor security network we have and population mass. This indeed, is a call to plan ahead even before any fanatical group would even nurse the idea of suicide bombing in the country. Some may say at present we are not in the red alert or in danger zone, but the Uganda people were caught napping, and couldn’t tell what hit them, not until after the act.

Policing in Nigeria, without mincing word, has become an open disgrace to our society and a bane to economic growth. Checkpoints in every nook and cranny of the country have been converted to ‘toll gate’ where the bounties are not remitted to government coffers. Police stations are now houses for loot collections; after every day’s work you see members of the force go home with a fraction of what they were able to collect from hapless citizenry. In fact, the force men have coined the nomenclature ‘tapping’ for their shameful act. Kidnapping in South East and South-South parts of the country is on the increase simply because the police has lost every sense of professionalism and see their uniform as a means of milking the people they are meant to protect. They are known to abet men of the underworld in their act of criminality. How would such security force be a pillar of hope to the Nigerian society? Surely, a suicide bomber with a vast will elude our security personnel as most times they are preoccupied and distracted with the tapping toll they collect in streets and checkpoints, and lose focus over their primary area of assignment.

Nigerian government and security officers should wake up and brace up for the challenge ahead, and desist from treating with kid gloves the threats from the remnant of the Boko Haram group, especially as it commemorates one year of their leader’s death. It is no news that Boko Haram sect abhors western civilisation, what should be news is their alignment and camaraderie with al-Qaeda. The signal is clear, this group is subscribing to the devilish act of terrorism, even if it has not yet graduated to suicide bombing.

Hurdles Before Israeli-Palestinian Peace Move

Paul Arhewe, Online/Foreign Editor
(With agency reports)

A new phase in the Middle East hostility is beginning to unfold as Israel, with the support of its old ally, The United States, is pushing for peace. Israel has declared its intension through its leader Benjamin Netanyahu that it is set to embark on direct peace talks with Palestinians.
Israel in May drew the irk of many in Middle East and other parts of the world when its forces killed Nine activists in an attempt to stop a flotilla of ships with humanitarian goods meant for the suffering Palestinians whose import and export routs have been cut off by the Israeli blockade in Gaza. This act has not only made Egypt to open its blockade of its own end of the Gaza border, but invokes and heightens the call for the lifting of Gaza blockade by Israel. In another vein, the only Israeli ally in the Middle East, Turkey, threatened to completely call off its relations with Tel-Aviv. In implementing this threat, Ankara has since stopped Israeli military aircraft from flying through its airspace.
Another thorny issue is the call for Israel to freeze constructions in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements, which the Israelis maintain a stand that it wont secede any portion to its neighbours. This is a major obstacle to establishing a concrete platform for peace in the nearly 60-year conflict since the creation of Israel.
Last Tuesday in the Oval office with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu talked about his country’s readiness to commence direct talk with its warring neighbours.
Obama, like his predecessors is known to have soft spot and an unbreakable relationship with the Israelis. But playing the good world police, Obama seems to welcome this new initiated move of Netanyahu to embrace peace.

Yet, the hard-liners in Netanyahu's coalition government will probably not be won over. They have no interest in answering Palestinian demands for a freeze on settlement building in return for direct peace talks.
And that's still the critical issue between the U.S. and Israel, one neither Netanyahu nor Obama addressed after their fifth meeting since Obama took office 17 months ago.
Netanyuhu sidestepped that question again Wednesday in an interview broadcast on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"The simplest way to advance peace is to put aside all the grievances and all the preconditions," he said, asserting he's "ready to sit down" with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to discuss peace "without preconditions."
Asked what concrete steps he was willing to take to set the framework for new talks, Netanyahu said his government already had relaxed "hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints" in addition to its decision to ease the Gaza Strip blockade.
But he also told a foreign media that "we have to have very strong security arrangements so that the areas that we vacate do not turn into Iranian strongholds. We have some very clear requirements. ... The Palestinians will have very clear requirements."
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last Tuesday, both Netanyahu and Obama had ducked a question about the Israeli leader's plans for extending a limited freeze on West Bank settlements. The moratorium expires in September.
While stark differences remain, the tone was far warmer than it was when Obama and Netanyahu were last together. That was in the spring and Obama was upset over Israeli policies in disputed East Jerusalem. He had Netanyahu to the White House in the evening, out of sight of reporters.
After this meeting, however, the leaders' Oval Office remarks were expansive, but — when carefully studied — held little or nothing new.
Obama praised Israel for easing its Gaza blockade, allowing in consumer goods, after heated international criticism for the deadly interception of a Turkish aid flotilla.
The president said he believed Netanyahu "was willing to take risks for peace," and heatedly rejected the premise of a question about having given the Israeli leader the cold shoulder in recent months.

Netanyahu said he was "committed" to peace with the Palestinians and said it was "high time to begin direct talks." He praised Obama for leading the U.N. Security Council to a new round of sanctions against Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program.
He was fulsome in thanking Obama "for reaffirming to me in private and now in public as you did the long-standing U.S. commitments to Israel on matters of vital strategic importance."
"To paraphrase Mark Twain," the Israeli leader said, "reports about the demise of the special U.S.-Israel ... relationship aren't just premature, they're just flat wrong."
The two leaders had gotten off on the wrong foot right from the start when Netanyahu — in their first White House meeting soon after Obama was sworn in — publicly rebuffed the new president's call for a freeze on settlements.
The Netanyahu government compounded that negative start when it announced, during a fence-mending visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden, plans for a large settlement expansion in east Jerusalem.
Regardless of that history, Netanyahu and Obama were emphatic that relations had never gone sour. What's more, they agreed, it was time for the Palestinians to come to the table again for yet another try at face-to-face peace talks.
The challenge in this new drive for peace is how Netanyahu would convince the Israeli hard-liners to accept it, and secure positive responses from Palestinian to see reasons to let the war end. The Palestinians mission in Washington and its officials are already trying to put spanner at the wheel of progress in the new found peace, as they say there would be no response for at least a day. They are demanding the halt in activities in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements before it would embrace any direct talks.
Some analysts are of the view s that Obama and Netanyahu might have reached a private understanding that Israel would extend the construction moratorium in return for direct talks.
“This enables Israel to say it didn’t pay for direct talks, but there’s an understanding that once the expiration date rolls around, the moratorium will be extended,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Among the other “concrete steps” Israel is expected to take toward the Palestinians, analysts said, is greater cooperation with the Palestinian Authority on security matters and increased economic aid for the West Bank. Netanyahu has suggested to aides that he has other steps in mind, Israeli officials said, but he has not yet disclosed them.

Obama’s stance reflected domestic political pressures on both men. Netanyahu, who is struggling to keep his fractious right-wing coalition together, has been under pressure at home not to appear to pay an additional price to lure the Palestinians to the negotiating table.

And with Democrats facing a tough time in the midterm elections in November, Obama has reasons for softening his public stance on Israel. Republican candidates have been courting Jewish voters, who ordinarily back Democrats, by trying to portray the president as anti-Israel.

Some analysts say last week’s session reflects what Aaron David Miller, a longtime Middle East peace negotiator, calls a “false calm” in the relationship. Miller predicts fissures in the relationship, the result of a “fundamental expectations gap” in which Obama expects more from the peace talks than Netanyahu will be able to deliver.