Yet Another Terrorist Threat Against Civilians Who Have Nothing to Do With Israel

The events in Somalia recently have been interesting. The Somalian government joined by the Ethiopians have had some measure of success in forcing Islamic fighters to retreat. I am not familiar enough to comment in detail on the situation. The thing that jumped out at me is a comment at the end of a Washington Times article on the subject (emphasis mine):

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose military openly joined the war Sunday after weeks of quietly aiding the Somali government, said his forces had completed about half their mission.
"As soon as we have accomplished our mission -- and about half of our mission is done, and the rest shouldn't take long -- we'll be out," Mr. Meles told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
He also claimed Islamist militiamen had suffered heavy casualties, citing internal reports from Ethiopia's military.
"I hear reports of close to 3,000 injured in Mogadishu's hospitals ... and well over 1,000 might have died," Mr. Meles said.
Both sides have claimed to have killed hundreds of their enemy, but independent observers have not been given access to the battlefields to check on the reports.
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, leader of the Council of Islamic Courts' executive body, said the group had told its troops to withdraw from some areas.
"The war is entering a new phase," he said. "We will fight Ethiopia for a long, long time and we expect the war to go everyplace."
Sheik Ahmed declined to explain his comments in greater detail, but some Islamist leaders had threatened a guerrilla war to include suicide bombings in Ethiopia's capital.

First, we had the suicide bombings in Israel. These were highly criticized and in my opinion dealt a public relations body blow to the Palestinian cause. Suicide bombers were (and continue to be) glorified and their families provided with sums of money after the deed. Even Saddam Hussein was paying out to these families. We saw references in blogs and news reports that seemed quite sympathetic to these bombers. When challenged about these sentiments, they denied supporting the suicide bombers but understood them. These were people oppressed by Israel. They were desperate and had no other options but to take such drastic measures.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq we saw another wave of terror against civilians. Roadside bombs, car bombs, suicide bombs. Then the excuse was that Iraq was under "occupation". Again, no support for these drastic measures but they understood them.

Now in the Somalia conflict when the going gets a little tough for a group of Islamic radicals who want to impose their law by force on a legitimately recognized government the answer is--suicide bombings. This has nothing to do with Israel. Nothing to do with "American Imperialism".

Islamic radicals continue to make targeting civilians their weapon of choice to bend the world to their will. I have written on this topic many times. I have predicted that soon the excuse of the day for a civilian attack will become as trivial as not liking the look on somebody's face. Civilian targeting is the most dangerous thing threatening civilization at this time, yet the world yawns and sleeps or misplaces their concern in other areas. If the world body does not wake up, suicide bombing will come to the hometowns of many.