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By Tristan
McConnell
Nairobi, Kenya, December 26, 2009 – Pass beyond what is described as
government territory in the Somali capital — a few blocks between the
airport, the harbor and the presidential palace — and you are at the
mercy of al-Shabaab, the extremist Islamic group that holds sway across
southern and central Somalia. Where it rules, it has implemented laws
and punishments reminiscent of Afghanistan under Taleban rule.
It has banned bras, football, dancing and musical ringtones. This
weekend al-Shabaab decreed that men must grow beards and shave their
moustaches. Its fighters have destroyed Sufi tombs and disinterred
colonial-era Italian corpses. Its Sharia courts have ordered public
floggings, the chopping off of hands and feet of thieves, the stoning to
death of adulterers and beheadings of apostates and spies.
Suicide attacks and roadside bombs have grown in number, leading Western
intelligence agencies to conclude that there are growing links between
al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. The agencies warn that the country is becoming
a haven for international terrorists.
At the start of this year, Somalia was hoping for a new beginning.
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was installed as President
with the backing of the United Nations as well as Western and regional
governments. Ethiopian troops who had invaded in 2006 to oust an
Islamist regime — in which Sheikh Ahmed had been a leading figure —
withdrew and an African Union peacekeeping mission (Amisom) promised to
protect the new Government.
Today the Transitional Federal Government cowers behind 5,000 AU
protectors in the piece of Mogadishu that it controls — although
recently a suicide bomber struck within the supposed safe zone. In other
attacks this month dozens of medical students were killed with three
government ministers in a suicide attack. At the weekend 14 people died
as Government and insurgent forces traded mortar fire. Every week fresh
reports of death and horror cement Mogadishu’s reputation as the worst
place on earth.
Harakat al-Shabaab — meaning “Youth Movement” — emerged in 2005 as a
cross-clan Islamist militia designed to support the Islamic Courts
Union, which aimed to defeat the clan warlords that had devastated the
country since the collapse of the last functioning administration in
1991. In their brief reign in Mogadishu in 2006 the Courts brought peace
to the city for the first time in years. When they were forced out by
US-backed Ethiopian forces, al-Shabaab attracted popular support by
fighting a guerrilla war against the invaders.
Many of al-Shabaab’s leaders are radical Somali veterans of the
Afghanistan wars. Last year Ahmed Abdi Godane, known as Abu Zubeyr,
became its top commander. He is believed to have fought in Afghanistan
in the 1980s and is described by one observer as “a hardcore jihadi”.
Three months before he assumed his command, the US had designated
al-Shabaab as a terrorist organisation. His predecessor, Aden Hashi Ayro,
was killed by a US airstrike in May 2008.
Other senior commanders, all of whom enjoy a large degree of autonomy,
include Mukhtar Ali Robow, also known as Abu Mansoor, an experienced
fighter who ran the training camp from which al-Shabaab emerged, and
Ibrahim Haji Jaama who won his nom de guerre “al-Afghani” thanks to
years of fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
Because of the growing military pressure in Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Iraq, hundreds of foreign fighters have flocked to Somalia to fight
Sheikh Ahmed’s UN and US-backed administration. They have brought with
them a radical ideology of global jihad and some — including a white US
citizen known as “al-Amriki” — have taken leading field commander roles.
Their influence is changing al-Shabaab from a local insurgent group into
a player in the wider battle between Islamic extremism and the West.
“There is increasing control exercised by the foreign leadership of
al-Shabaab,” said Peter Pham, associate professor at James Madison
University. “It is not just control of resources, foreign fighters and
trainers, but of the actual decision-making.”
This foreign influx has strengthened al-Shabaab as a fighting force, but
the creeping international agenda has also caused rifts within the
group. “There is a serious struggle within al-Shabaab between
nationalists and the foreign jihadis who want to take the fight to
another level,” said Abdi Rashid, a Somalia analyst at the International
Crisis Group.
In recent months this has led to conflict and even some defections. At
the same time, al-Shabaab has fallen out with its former ally, Hizb
ul-Islam, with whom it launched a joint offensive to oust Sheikh Ahmed
in May. This staunchly nationalist group of Islamists is led by Sheikh
Hassan Dahir Aweys, who helped to train the first al-Shabaab fighters
and is wanted as a terrorist by the US.
This year fighting erupted between al-Shabaab and Hizb ul-Islam over
control of revenues from the southern port of Kismayo. This has since
turned into a deeper split. “Hizb ul-Islam’s orientation is domestic but
al-Shabaab’s focus is on a broader ideological Islam,” said Dr Pham.
Sheikh Ahmed’s enfeebled administration is in no position to take
advantage of such divisions. In Mogadishu, a tense and deadly stalemate
exists, with al-Shabaab unwilling to take on the peacekeepers’ tanks and
artillery and government forces incapable of winning. Sheikh Ahmed’s
besieged government barely exists: it does not control the country’s
territory, cannot provide security and lacks a popular mandate. “It will
continue as long as the Amisom troops are there to guard it. If they
were withdrawn it would collapse within hours,” said Dr Pham.
Source: Times Online, December 21, 2009
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