Non-Subscriber Extract
Militants target oil-rich Nigeria
- Article Tools
| 29 June 2004 |
By Ed Blanche
Growing sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians, a conflict that shows all the signs of erupting into an all-out religious war, is ravaging Nigeria.
Western intelligence services believe that Islamic extremists are making a determined effort to penetrate West Africa, an emerging world-class oil giant, amid signs that Osama bin Laden has singled out Nigeria for jihad.
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the continent's leading oil producer. It has the largest Muslim population in Africa after Egypt. In recent years, there has been mounting Islamic militancy and growing anti-Western hostility in Nigeria that makes it fertile ground for extremist recruiters. The unrest is apparently being stoked by radical Arab Islamic preachers and agents of Al-Qaeda.
The USA is already deploying small groups of special forces throughout the impoverished Sahel region states of Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to counter infiltration by Islamic militants moving south from Algeria. With West Africa in danger of becoming the new battleground between the USA and Al-Qaeda, heavier oil-driven US intervention may become unavoidable - a path fraught with pitfalls and one that could have a dramatic impact on US policy in Africa.
Nigerian oilfields could account for as much as 25 per cent of US oil imports within a few years. Ensuring that these oilfields are secure will be a key mission for US forces in the region. Having been ignored by the USA for decades, Africa has assumed a new importance for Washington as it moves to control oil supplies in the region, centred on the Gulf of Guinea, west of Nigeria. The US military is already seeking bases in the region.
This control was first enunciated in 1998 by the neo-conservative hawks who now form the backbone of the Bush administration and some of who are intimately connected to the oil industry. In June 2003, the Pentagon announced that it was to "significantly shrink the US force of 70,000 troops in Germany, a military stronghold for half a century, and put far more US forces in Africa and the Caucasus region". It stressed that the redeployment was "driven by the increasing importance that the USA is placing on protecting key oil reserves in Africa and the Caucasus... as well as addressing concerns about combating terrorism".
Nigeria is dangerously close to major upheaval that would threaten its fragile unity. The collapse of the state would have global political, economic and security ramifications.
Nigeria's 130 million people are divided almost equally between Hausa-speaking Muslims in the north and Christians of the Igbo and Yoruba tribes in the south. On 18 May, President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a state of emergency in Plateau State, in central Nigeria, after months of ferocious fighting between Christians and Muslims had left hundreds dead. He said the violence "has become a near mutual genocide" that "constitutes a grave threat to the security and unity of Nigeria".
480 of 1,290 words