As if the Horn of Africa didn't already have enough problems, now Eritrea, which had relatively friendly relations with the United States when it first gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, is looking ever more like a state sponsor of terrorism. No state has been officially labeled with that designation since the Sudan--which shares a border with Eritrea--back in 1993, not long after that country sponsored a conference that boasted representatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Saddam's Baath party, and the Islamic Republic of Iran among other distinguished guests (not to imply that Saddam's secular Iraq had any connection with terrorism). But Eritrea has become increasingly hostile to American interests in East Africa and it has done so most recently by supporting Somalia's al Qaeda affiliated Islamic Courts Union.

Eritrea has strained relations with nearly all its neighbors, including Sudan, but a border dispute with Ethiopia led to full-scale war in 1998, with more than 20,000 Eritreans killed over two years. That Eritrea would prefer Somalia's ICU in its struggle against the Ethiopian-backed interim government is hardly surprising then; however, the extent of the cooperation between Eritrea and the ICU is only now coming to light. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted a story on Pajamas Media this weekend on the alliance between the two:

Ethiopia’s longtime rival, Eritrea, had troops in the country for about four months prior to [the Ethiopian invasion]. A confidential UN report drafted by the Monitoring Group on Somalia in late 2006 says that “2000 fully equipped combat troops from Eritrea” arrived to the north of Mogadishu in late August, and redeployed to different areas held by the ICU. According to high-level sources in Somalia’s transitional government and U.S. intelligence, these Eritrean troops never left the country--a development unknown to American policymakers until today.

It seems reasonable to conclude then that the ICU's rise can best be explained by Eritrea's support for it, rather than as the result of an indigenous yearning for Islamic order. That the ICU is closely linked to al Qaeda is beyond doubt, but this fact seems not to have concerned the Eritreans in the least. Now, in addition to collaborating with terrorist organizations, Eritrea is making direct threats in an attempt to deter further American involvement in Somalia. According to Reuters:

Eritrea warned the United States yesterday that its involvement in Somalia would “incur dangerous consequences” following a US air strike in the Horn of Africa nation targeting Al Qaeda suspects.

The Eritreans kicked USAID out of the country in the summer of 2005. But we still provide Eritrea with a small amount of aid and military training. If the Bush administration does not want to brand Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, it could at least cut off that funding as a symbolic gesture. The threat of sanctions and increased military support for Ethiopia would have an effect as well. Still, it will be difficult to rally international support for any move against Eritrea--like every other rogue state, Eritrea is forging ever closer ties with China.