Melodious calls to prayer from scores of muezzin compete with the manic cries of Christian street preachers in a steaming Mombasa, East Africa’s busiest port where a mix of cultures melt together daily to form an alloy of religious tolerance.
As bars spill drunken men on to pavements packed with spices and tropical fruits, so holy men — no less intoxicated but by a very different spirit — pour out of Sikh temples.
As the fate of three Kenyan truck drivers held hostage by militants in Iraq remained uncertain, a heavy pall hung over the ancient city.
Thousands gathered in churches and mosques to pray for Ibrahim Hamisi Iddi, Jalal Mohammed Awadh and Faiz Khamisi Salim.
”This is a war [in Iraq] which is splitting the world along religious lines … but the human race must not allow this to happen,” said Sheikh Mohammed Idriss, the leader of Kenya’s Council of Imams, a group with influence throughout East Africa — a region home to millions of Muslims.
But while Sheikh Idriss preached tolerance, foreign intelligence agents told the Mail & Guardian that in Dar es Salaam the recent arrest in Pakistan of an alleged top member of al-Qaeda — rather than the plight of the Kenyans in Iraq — had once again focused attention on Africa’s role in the ”war on terror”.
As the United States prepared to interrogate Tanzanian national Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani about his alleged role in the 1998 blasts on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, two Kenyan al-Qaeda suspects were on trial in Mombasa for bombing the Israeli-owned Paradise hotel and attempting to shoot down an Israeli plane with missiles in 2001.
Western intelligence agencies have continued to regard East Africa as a haven for terrorists and a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalism.
Pointing to blood-red graffiti reading ”Allah’s Victory to the Mujahideen!” in an alleyway deep in the centre of Dar es Salaam, one of the agents smiled and exclaimed: ”Look, the writing is on the wall!
”We know Islamic Jihad and Hamas and other groupings have contacts throughout this region and that these groups have many African supporters … Even al-Qaeda has significant support in East Africa, but they are a more fluid grouping, harder to track. But they are here. The African cells are merely sleeping.”
As Sheikh Idriss comforted the relatives of the hostages in his Mombasa office he told the M&G: ”The terrorists are everywhere! I am sure the al-Qaeda people are here too, but they are also all over America and Europe — as was proved by the train bomb in Madrid.
”I am tired of people always pointing the finger at Africans, saying we are the supporters of terror, and the Americans still refuse to lift their travel ban to Kenya. It is wrong.”
Sheikh Idriss felt ”sure” that African Muslims were fast becoming the ”new sacrificial lambs” in Iraq. ”Hundreds of East Africans are working in Iraq because many of them are able to speak Arabic and English, so they are valuable to the Americans.
”Also, the companies that recruit them think that because they are Muslims, the militants will not harm them. But as we have found out, this is false: anyone who is seen to be propping up the US occupation will be targets in Iraq. This is the tragedy; that the American-inspired war is resulting in Muslim killing Muslim.”
The Council of Imams continued to appeal to the hostages’ employer, the Kuwait and Gulf Link (KGL) transport firm, to accede to the kidnappers’ demands that the company cease its work in Iraq and compensate the people of Fallujah for US air strikes on the town.
”We are asking all Africans to stop accepting jobs in the Gulf region, at least until things are stable there. Please, we know you need money, but it is not worth dying for,” Sheikh Idriss pleaded.
But as he made his impassioned plea, the line of men hoping for jobs in the Gulf this week grew outside the KGL recruitment office in Mombasa’s Old Town.
Yet, even though Muslims form the majority of fatalities in the conflict in Iraq, Sheikh Idris resolutely refused to condemn the war, saying instead: ”What many people forget is that Saddam [Hussein] made many Muslim women into widows as well; many of my brothers suffered because of him. Please, we must never forget that.
”Pray, yes. Christians, Muslims, Jews in Africa, let us pray for the lives of our brothers in Iraq. Let us take the words of the Qur’an, Torah and Bible and make them true: all human beings are brothers and sisters — even the kidnappers.”