Syria is feeling the great strain of absorbing tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees:

Syria, the last Arab country welcoming large numbers of Iraqi refugees, is now all but closing the gates and leaving 40,000 Iraqis who flee their country each month with almost no place to go.

…

Syria kept its doors open even after others, including Jordan and Egypt with 700,000 and 130,000 Iraqi refugees respectively, said they could take no more. But the strain on its small, state-controlled economy apparently has become too great.

Despite the administration’s line to the contrary, Syria truly does not gain anything by stoking the flames of war in its neighbor to the east. Certainly, lax border patrol most likely exists — the Syria-Iraq border is expansive. Syria also undoubtedly views its position on Iraq vis-a-vis the border issue as a sort of bargaining tactic, a way to force the United States into negotiations over other outstanding issues such as the status of the Golan Heights. However, even in the case of a concentrated effort to stop cross-border raids, Syria has little control over the chaos in Iraq. In fact, as this refugee crisis suggests, it is being harmed in numerous ways by the Iraqi civil war. Not only can the Syrian economy not support the massive influx of Iraqi refugees, the country is being filled with Iraqis that have a very good chance of becoming radicalized. It is the slow al-Qaedaification of Syria, the strengthening of radicalized Islamic ideology. To the ignorant it all seems as if this is a boon for Syria, a part of the overall plan. It most certainly is not.

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Unfortunately, this isn’t overly surprising:

Iraqi special forces and British troops stormed the offices of an Iraqi government intelligence agency in the southern city of Basra on Sunday, and British officials said they discovered about 30 prisoners, some showing signs of torture.

What is surprising is exactly how enfeebled Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki is: he cannot even criticize his Shi’a rivals in government for torturing Iraqis:

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite, condemned the raid in Basra, but he publicly said nothing about the evidence of torture.

“The prime minister has ordered an immediate investigation into the incident of breaking into the security compound in Basra and stressed the need to punish those who have carried out this illegal and irresponsible act,” said the full text of a statement issued late Sunday by his office.

It remained unclear why he sought to pursue the raiding force aggressively rather than the accusations of prisoner abuse. Efforts to reach officials in his office were unsuccessful.

Could Maliki be so frightened for his position and, perhaps, his life that he refuses to publicly condemn what may have been the work of the SCIRI’s Badr Organization disguised as Iraqi intelligence officials? Perhaps Maliki believes it unwise to take on both the Mahdi Army and the SCIRI at the same time, but, regardless, this is a testament to how far al-Da’wa and Maliki himself have slid since his appointment as PM. (more…)

A quick note to announce that comments can only be posted after one creates a user account. Apologies for this, but after deleting 1,500 spam comments from the moderation queue today I’m left with no other option.

The latest on Iyad Allawi’s plan to re-take Iraq via Prof. Cole:

Al-Hayat reports that Iyad Allawi, a secular ex-Baathist Shiite who leads the Iraqi National List (25 seats in parliament), visited Kurdistan on Saturday. He is attempting to convince the Kurdistan Alliance to join his new coalition in parliament. Allawi has said that his list will leave the ‘national unity government’ headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Allawi’s list is small and he is deeply disliked by most of the religious Shiites that dominate parliament. I can’t imagine that he can actually form a government given the present distribution of seats. But al-Hayat reports that Allawi was accompanied on his trip to Kurdistan by none other than US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, which the daily read as a sign of US support for dumping al-Maliki and trying to install Allawi as Prime Minister. (Allawi served as interim prime minister in 2004, having been appointed by the US and UN for this purpose. He is an old CIA asset.)

Read the rest.

Simply nothing will come from this; it’s mostly a non-story. What is worthy of note, however, is that Amb. Khalizad is joining Allawi on this ill-begotten souljourn, which highlights the Bush administration’s inability to give up on installing a secular government in Iraq. But, also, it suggests that the administration is no longer interested in working with the religious Shi’a parties. (more…)

The situation in Somalia, where the Islamic Courts Union has overtaken the majority of the country, is set to worsen with the introduction of Ethopian troops. The troops have made Baidoa, the only town still controlled by the transitional government, their base of operations:

The standoff is between the transitional federal government, which has U.N. recognition but little authority on the ground, and the Council of Islamic Courts, which controls most of southern Somalia.

Residents as far away as Bur Hakaba _ 40 miles east of Baidoa _ were evacuating.

“We are seeing strong military movements from both sides,” said Mohamud Ahmed, a father of six. “We don’t believe we will be able to continue living in our town peacefully.”

Ethiopia fears millitant Islam surrounding it, threatening its traditionally Christian culture and government. With an unstable Sudan to the west — a country that glady housed Osama bin Laden in the 1990s — and now Islamic Courts Union-ruled Somalia to the east, Ethiopia is certainly in a precarious position. The question is how much support will Ethiopia receive in its operations against the Courts Union in Somalia; will the US provide military aid?

As scrutiny on extremist elements increases in the Middle East, there is a greater chance that they will view Africa as the central and southern Asia of the 21st century; a relative backwater where extremist elements can operate with little scrutiny. The United States and its allies cannot sit idly by and watch such an outcome occur. Bin Laden chose Sudan and then Afghanistan since it was clear no one paid attention to either Africa or Central Asia. Perhaps attention should be paid this time.