Somalia and global terrorism: A growing connection?

Abstract

The lack of internal order in Somalia has left the country vulnerable to the rise of hard-line Islamist groups, most notably al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab purports to be committed to global jihadism, has self-professed connections to al-Qaeda, and of late, has proved able to capture and control territory. Consequently, al-Shabaab and other like-minded Somali radicals are viewed as a threat to the Somali Transitional Federal Government, to Somalia's neighbours, and to the broader international community, particularly the United States and other Western countries. However, it is argued here that al-Shabaab's particular rise to prominence is partly a factor of the policy follies of regional and international players in Somalia. Morever, despite the threat the organisation poses, al-Shabaab quite likely faces implosion.

Keywords:

• Somalia
• Islam
• radical Islam
• jihad
• terrorism
• al-Shabaab
• Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed
• Ethiopian invasion of Somalia
• US foreign policy
• shari'a law
• Sufi Islam

Notes

1. A Somali poet, Farrah Nuur, had this to say about this predicament of Somalia's dismemberment:

The British, the Ethiopians, and the Italians are squabbling,

The country is snatched and divided by whosoever is stronger,

The country is sold piece by piece without our knowledge.

And for me, all this is the Teeth of the Last Days!

See Goleman (2004). See also http://www.cal.org/CO/somali/shist.html.

2. A shrewd formula designed to enable fair power-sharing among the large Somali clan-families. However, it appeared to be a controversial and discriminatory policy at the cost of smaller clan and minority groups (the 0.5) and was later seen to create more problems among the Somalis than it solved.

3. The three men accused of involvement in the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which claimed 250 lives, were: Fazul Abdullah Mohamed (from the Comoros Islands); Abu Talha al-Sudani (a Sudanese); and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan (a Kenyan). All have been linked to al-Qaeda as operatives.

4. See also: Mission Mogadishu. Africa Confidential 47, no.18: 2 (2006); International Crisis Group: loc. cit. (note 156); Prunier (2006); McGregor (2006); Tomlinson (2006).

5. McGregor: loc. cit. (note 157).

6. He was killed in a missile strike in the town of Dhusamareb on 1 May 2008.

7. Shortly after Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia in late 2006 to dislodge the ICU regime in Mogadishu, the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command quietly sent operatives and AC-130 gunships to an airstrip near the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa. From there, members of a classified unit called Task Force 88 crossed repeatedly into Somalia to hunt senior members of an al-Qaeda cell believed to be responsible for the 1998 American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

8. In 1805, the United States government refused to continue to pay off Barbary Coast pirates. When negotiations for a treaty failed, President Thomas Jefferson assembled an expeditionary force of marines to respond. Lt. Presley O'Bannon and his marines marched across 600 miles of the Libyan Desert to successfully storm the fortified Tripolitanean city of Derna and rescue the kidnapped crew of the USS Philadelphia. The marines’ victory helped Prince Hamet Bey reclaim his rightful throne as ruler of Tripoli. In gratitude, he presented his Mamluk sword to Lt. O'Bannon. This famous sword became part of the officer uniform in 1825, and remains the oldest ceremonial weapon in use by United States forces today. The Battle of Derna was the marines' first battle on foreign soil, and is notably recalled in the first verse of the marines’ hymn: ‘From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea’.