Somalia, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Algeria, Eritrea: Is Africa the next Afghanistan?

January 21, 2013 – ERITREA – Eritrean army tanks besieged the information ministry in central Asmara on Monday after some 200 mutineers seized the building to call for political reform, diplomatic and diaspora sources said Monday. No shots had been fired and the rest of the city appeared calm, the diplomats added, although very few details were immediately available. “The ministry of information is under siege,” a diplomat said. Amanuel Ghirmai, an Eritrean journalist in Paris for independent Radio Erena, said that around a 100 army mutineers stormed the hill-top ministry — which towers over the capital of the Red Sea state — early on Monday morning. They reportedly ordered news readers at the government-run television and radio station — the only source of media for the authoritarian state — to read a statement that they will implement the country’s constitution. The statement also reportedly ordered the release of prisoners of conscience. “We do not know who is leading the situation… everybody has been put into the same room (in the ministry),” Amanuel said, adding that he had spoken to sources in Asmara. “Britain’s foreign office updated its travel advice Monday to say it had received reports of “unusual military movements in and around Asmara,” without giving further details. The reports were not possible to confirm independently, and all calls to government officials were not answered. Impoverished Eritrea beats even North Korea to rank last out of 179 countries on the Press Freedom Index of the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. All independent media was shut down after Issaias launched a draconian purge in 2001, while the Horn of Africa nation expelled the last registered foreign correspondent in 2010. However, Eritrean expatriates who had spoken to compatriots in Asmara said they could confirm reports that troops had been deployed at the information ministry, and that state television Eri-TV had stopped broadcasting, they told AFP. All Eritrea’s public media are recorded and broadcast from the ministry. “The local transmission has been cut, the only satellite signal is airing some archives,” Amanuel added. “Local radio and TV appear to have been shut down; we are seeking further information,” Britain’s foreign office added. –AFP

The revolution will not be televised: The bloody resolution of the hostage crisis in Algeria has brought into focus the broader challenges the United States and its allies face in confronting terrorist cells that have taken up sanctuary across northern Africa. The United States and France have been courting Algeria for months, hoping to secure its support for an international effort to evict Islamic militants out of northern Mali. But the militants’ advance south, which set off an appeal for the French military intervention by the Mali government, and the hostage-taking at a gas-producing complex in the Sahara to the north have caught the United States by surprise and prompted fresh White House vows to combat terrorism in the region. In taking on the militants, Western nations are confronting multinational bands that are often able to move with relative freedom across porous African borders. And those cells have many inviting targets to choose from: the region is rich with oil, gas, uranium and other international ventures that clearly represent Western interests and in some cases are poorly defended. Also, with the United States and Britain determined not to send troops to Mali, and the French hoping to avoid an open-ended deployment there, Western nations must rely heavily on the forces of local nations who are not always open to outside advice. –NY Times