HIGHLIGHTS OF NIF ROLE IN THE GREATER HORN OF AFRICA

Sudan , Al Qaeda and the Greater Horn of Africa
Overview


In the early 1990's, the National Islamic Front (NIF) government of Sudan sought political hegemony in the Greater Horn of Africa region by promoting armed opposition against neighboring countries and by harboring and abetting Islamic terrorists who backed Sudan's strategy of Islamic expansionism. From 1991 to 1996 the linchpin terrorist organization operating from within Sudan was Osama bin Laden's nascent Al Qaeda organization, which worked hand in glove with the Sudanese government in supporting terrorists and armed insurgents in an effort to undermine the governments of neighboring states. What follows is an examination of Sudanese and Al Qaeda aggression against Ethiopia , Eritrea , Kenya , Uganda and their combined efforts both to drive the United States out of Somalia and to bring about an Islamist state in Somalia . During the 1990's both the Khartoum government and Al Qaeda fueled Islamist ambitions in the region and helped set into motion most, if not all, of the radical Islamic movements operating in the Greater Horn of Africa.
Sudan's aggression toward its neighbors stemmed in part from its bid to cut off support for the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and other Sudanese armed rebel factions. In1983, civil war broke out in Sudan , following the attempt by the northern Islamic political elite in the country to control the oil wealth located in the south. Sudan 's government based in the largely Muslim northern region has been pitted against rebel forces based in the southern part of the country inhabited predominately by people practicing Christian and traditional African faiths.
Of the estimated Sudanese population of more than 35 million, Sunni Muslims comprise 70%; traditional African religions 25%; and Christians 5%. The NIF government in Khartoum views itself as the protector of Islam in Sudan . Political opponents are viewed as anti-Islam and the civil war in southern Sudan is considered a Jihad, or Holy War. For the SPLM/A, the war is to free southerners from political domination and religious persecution. In mid-2004, at which time the present study was undertaken, the two sides appeared near to achieving a breakthrough peace accord.
Muslim groups based in the north have launched two other sets of rebellions. In 1997, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-a coalition of northern Sudanese parties in a loose alliance with the SPLM/A -- carried out intermittent military offenses in eastern Sudan from bases inside Eritrea . In 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement created a third rebel front in the Muslim Darfur region of western Sudan .
The Sudanese state organized several wars by proxy in its strategic quest to gain regional dominance and to undermine regional support for the Sudanese opposition based in the southern Sudan and later Eritrea . It preferred supporting armed Islamist groups in Eritrea , Ethiopia , Somalia and Uganda , when possible, but also backed non-Muslim insurgencies, when necessary, as it did in Ethiopia and Uganda . Additionally, Sudan sponsored terrorist activities and armed rebel forces in Algeria , Chad , Egypt , Libya , Tunisia and Yemen . These countries lie outside the scope of the present discussion.
An ideology of expansionist Islamic fundamentalism, which sought to "Arabize" all of Sudan and the region and to impose strict adherence to Sharia, underpinned Sudan 's regional aggression. The Sudanese state became Islamist when a 1989 military coup d'etat brought Colonel (now Lieutenant General) Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir to power. The ideological driving force behind the regime's effort to propel political Islam as the dominant regional force was Dr. Hassan al-Turabi and his

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