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For a few weeks now, Sheikh Sharif and his associates have been making
one pronouncement after the other saying that they will unleash a
military offensive against al-Shabaab and Hizb al-Islam and “clear them
out of the country.” These strident announcements have led many
civilians to flee Mogadishu in fear thus adding to the influx of
refugees into already bursting refugee camps in Somalia and in
neighboring countries. But until now, the much promised offensive has
not materialized. Instead, what actually happened is that al-Shabaab
took several aggressive acts against Sheikh Sharif’s militias and almost
succeeded in assassinating his Minister of State for defense, the
notorious warlord turned religious sheikh, Yusuf Muhammad Siyad (Indha
Adde).
Sheikh Sharif’s problem is not lack of military personnel or shortage of
funds. For he has received substantial amounts of money, thousands of
his militia were trained in neighboring countries, and over five
thousand Ugandan and Burundian troops are assisting him. What he lacks
are people who are willing to fight and die for him. And the reason for
this is simple: he is seen by many Somalis as a dubious character who
used to say one thing when he was the head of the Islamic Courts and is
now saying the opposite. Al-Shabaab have a very effective technique of
highlighting this fact in their websites: they simply play taped
snippets from his speeches when he was the head of the Islamic Courts,
then play tapes of him addressing the same topics these days, and after
that, they ask if Sheikh Sharif was telling the truth then or now. The
contrast between Sheikh Sharif’s statements is so huge the listener can
only conclude that either he was lying when he was the head of the
Islamic Courts or is lying now. It is not all a matter of speeches
either. Sheikh Sharif is responsible for sending thousands of young
Somalis to certain death in fighting Ethiopian troops then slipped out
of the country and surrendered to the Kenyan government and the US
intelligence (his current minister of state for defense, Yusuf Indha
Adde, first provoked Ethiopia to invade the country, then flew away to
Saudi Arabia while the fighting was raging). Therefore, it should be no
surprise that Sheikh Sharif is finding it hard these days to find
Somalis who are willing to fight and die for him. A good illustration of
this point is the fact that his hometown of Jawhar which should be his
stronghold is in hands of al-Shabaab.
To sum up, Sheikh Sharif’s problem is not lack of financial and military
resources as he would like others to believe, it is his lack of both
character and credibility.
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