Issue 214

LUCRATIVE TURF: A Somali gunman stands guard at a roadside checkpoint in 2003. Hundreds of such roadblocks, manned by heavily armed fighters extorting money from passing drivers, provide a major source of income for warlords. Now the warlords are joining forces to stop Al Qaeda from muscling in.

WASHINGTON, February 24, 2006 – Dismissed by the international community as a failed state prone to Islamist extremism, Somalia's warlords have joined forces to stamp out Al Qaeda-linked groups trying to gain a foothold in the lawless East African nation.

A group of powerful warlords who control the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have set aside long-standing rivalries to form a new political bloc. Their aim is to rout hardline Islamists that administer a network of courts supported by armed militias.

The Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPTC), led by militia leader Abdi Nure Siyad, christened its formation on February 18 by reportedly touching off a wave of violence that killed at least 22 people - most from stray bullets - and displaced hundreds of families, according to the BBC.

Siyad denied being the instigator and said that he was attacked by power-hungry Islamic court militias.

The UN secretary-general's special representative for Somalia, Francois Lorseny Fall, called on warring parties on Tuesday to end hostilities and respect civilians caught in the crossfire.

As of Wednesday a "tense" calm is said to have taken effect and local leaders have come together to discuss a ceasefire.

Street clashes between armed groups have plagued Somalia since the 1991 ouster of former military leader Mohammed Siyad Barre. The country's 11 million citizens have been without an effective central government for 15 years, and some Somali activists say that the Islamic courts have had a stabilizing effect on previously chaotic parts of the capital.

But members of the ARPCT charge that the makeshift judicial system has ordered extra-judicial killings of moderate Muslim clerics and abetted militias alleged to have ties with Al Qaeda.

Western intelligence analysts have warned for years that poverty and shattered government institutions have primed Somalia as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism.

The US military has just begun a seven-year, $500 million initiative to secure ungoverned swaths of North and West Africa, but has steered clear of the Horn of Africa since a backfired 1993 UN humanitarian mission in Somalia that claimed the lives of 18 US troops and ended in a full withdrawal.

The ongoing clan-based civil war there has also allowed arms smuggling and piracy to flourish. Ships carrying emergency UN food deliveries have been among the 25 vessels hijacked since last March.

Despite taking a hands-off approach, fears of Islamist militants taking over the capital have moved the US and other governments to back Somali counter-terrorism networks made up of faction leaders and former police officers. This strategy is said to have led to the capture of one key Al Qaeda figure and the arrest of more than a dozen militants.

However, a recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank, said that although militant groups with ties to Al Qaeda continue to use Somalia as a base and transit point, there is little evidence that the public is behind them.

"Somali militant movements have failed to gain broad popular support, encountering instead widespread hostility," said ICG. "The most remarkable feature is that Islamist militancy has not become more firmly rooted in what should, by most conventional assessments, be fertile ground."

The report affirmed that some courts have been "hijacked by jihadi leaders", but warned that outside efforts to crack down against the Islamist threat could actually boost the strength of militants as Somalis are wary of foreign meddling.

Observers say that the formation of the ARPTC is evidence of Somalia's fundamental rejection of militant Islam.

The warlord pact comes days before opposing factions of the Somalia Transitional Government prepare to convene for first time on home soil since it was forged in Kenya a year ago.

The parliamentary session will take place on February 26 in Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of Mogadishu.

Rival factions are led by President Abdillahi Yusuf Ahmed and parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who have been at loggerheads for months on where the new seat of government should be located and whether a peacekeeping force is needed.

International donors that have bankrolled official talks for years have threatened to cut funding unless both sides resolve their differences.

Source: UPI, Feb. 24, 2006

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