May 6, 2008

Nigerian Terrorists Toast Obama

A group of murdering terrorists in Nigeria hold Barack Obama "in high esteem," reports Reuters:

Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria's oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

"The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem," the militant group said in an e-mailed statement.

So... who is MEND?

In 2006, a counterrorism expert warned that the MEND's goal of expelling Western oil companies from Nigeria, along with an upsurge of Islamic extremism in Nigeria's northern an central regions beginning in 1999 - involving much murder and arson targeted at Christians and Christian churches - could lead to a temporary "objective-oriented alignment" between the MEND and Islamic radicals.

In 2007, by Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance at James Madison University, wrote a long article for World Defense Review warning that "outside terrorist networks" like al Qaeda and other Islamist radical groups could "exploit" the grievances and terrorism efforts of groupes like the MEND.

While the proximate issues affecting the security Nigeria's oil infrastructure - and, in fact, the stability and even viability of the Nigerian state itself - are generally local, this does not preclude outside terrorist networks exploiting those local grievances and militant groups. Dr. James S. Robbins, a professor at the National Defense University, published a report two years ago about a document entitled "Map of Future al-Qaeda Operations" posted on the al-Qaeda-lined al-Qalah ("The Fortress") website. The terrorist document argued that priority should be given to attacking oil facilities in the Middle East since this would damage the American economy, embarrass the U.S. and embolden other countries seeking to secure their own energy supplies, and force the U.S. to deploy more troops to the region to stabilize the situation. According to Dr. Robbins, the terrorists reason that "the U.S. will reach a stage of madness after the targeting of its oil interests" thus "facilitate[ing] the creation of a new front and the drowning of the U.S. in a new quagmire that will be worse than the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan." The counterterrorism expert went on to argue that "terrorists understand that they can influence oil markets through directed violence, and thus exploit a U.S. critical vulnerability."

Although Dr. Robbins focused on the Middle East, as I argued in a column last year, there is no reason why outside groups like al-Qaeda cannot do the same in Africa.

The most threatening effect posed by this increased violence in the River Delta against government facilities and foreign oil companies is the potential for a goal-oriented alignment between MEND and the radical Islamists abroad. This is not to say that radical Muslim groups will recruit members from MEND or vice versa. Instead, MEND may provide inspiration to radical Islamic groups who are witnessing its success, even through the jihadi forums. Damaging America's economy via targeting the oil industry has long been one of al-Qaeda's missions. If MEND continues to be successful in targeting and hurting Nigeria's oil economy, it is entirely possible that future successful attacks may give rise to other attacks conducted by terrorist organizations across the globe.