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: