Radical Islamist's War on the UN

Well, a suicide bomb attack in Sinai targeted the Multi National Observer Force:

The strike on the multinational force in Sinai was the second in less than a year. In August, a crude roadside bomb blasted a vehicle belonging to peacekeepers, slightly wounding two Canadians.

The 1,800 peacekeepers monitor the 1979 Egypt-Israeli peace deal. Ten countries make up the force — the United States, Canada, Australia, Colombia, Fiji, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand and Uruguay. Norway provides three officers.

The peacekeepers’ mandate is to ensure enforcement of the provisions of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which led to Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai. In practice, it serves mostly as a buffer between the countries.

Combine this with Bin Laden’s recent “strategic redeployment” strategy for Al Qaeda to the Sudan:

AL QAEDA is seeking to exploit Western plans for a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur to open up a new battleground in its holy war, analysts said Monday after Osama bin Laden called for preparations for a prolonged conflict in the restive Sudanese region.

“Bin Laden did not discuss the question of Darfur in the past, but the current situation imposes such an intervention as the problem is deteriorating rapidly,” said the director of the London-based Islamic Observatory, Yasser al-Serri.

It looks like the wahhabist movement is aligning against… the UN, not the US. Attacking the mission in the Sinai seems to be very counter-productive. Egypt’s security concerns have shifted from deterring an Israeli threat to internal regime security, counter-terrorism, and securing the Gaza border to the north. Getting rid of the observer force would (from an Arab point of view) only invite more Israeli intervention in the area. The UN MFO mission is a Cold War hangover, but it certainly doesn’t deserve to be targeted by Wahhabists as a symbol of Western Imperialism. The targeting of the Mission could only be to instill fear and encourage the withdrawal of the MFO Mission and other Western influence in the region as a whole.

The UN, which is ostensibly an organization that is against genocide, seems to be in a quandary nowadays, when an actual genocide is occurring in Darfur. A peacekeeping mission seems to be necessary to stem the conflict, and Al Qaeda seems to be against further Western interventionism into the Sudanese Islamist government’s violent jihad against non-Arabs. Therefore, AQ has chosen the “weaker horse” to attack.

I suppose from the perspective of an international terrorist, targeting the UN (or the EU, or any other “power” that can’t project military influence into the shadowy areas of the world) is a fairly obvious strategy. Kofi Annan isn’t exactly an imposing figure on the international scene, commanding legions from behind the marbled oak desks of Turtle Bay.

Plus, the UN isn’t exactly on the side of the US, who has taken the lead on eradicating the terrorists world-wide. Also, the UN probably would not immediately consider going to the US for help if one of their missions went south.

Obviously, the UN is the repository of many latent allies of international terrorists, and attacking the UN interests may be counter-productive, but it may also be the best way to intimidate people and win power without suffering any real consequences (such as SF raids on your house at 0300).

The UN may soon have to deal with the cold fact that they have alienated their muscle on the world scene, and without American power, the UN can only issue sternly-worded letters.