Strategic Datalink #138
August, 2006Introduction
What began as a series of skirmishes between Islamist militias
and Somali warlords who styled themselves as the ‘Anti-
Terrorist Alliance’ (ATA)1 for control of Mogadishu’s
neighbourhoods earlier this year has escalated into a conflict
that now threatens to engulf the strategically-located Horn of
Africa. The defeat of the warlords has allowed the Islamists to
spill out of Mogadishu into central and southern Somalia,
where they are consolidating their control. The latest political
upheaval in the ‘failed state’ of Somalia is based on a volatile
combination of Islam and ethnic-based irredentism that is pulling
in its mutually hostile neighbours of Eritrea and Ethiopia.
The United States is concerned that the moderate Muslim leadership
has been replaced by veterans of al-Ittihad al-Islami
(AIAI), a militant group found on the US and UN lists of designated
terrorist organizations.
Somalia’s Islamist revolution bears some resemblance to the
situation in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, when the Islamist
Taliban movement arose to challenge the dominance of warlords
who had carved the nation into a variety of mutually hostile
feifdoms. The Taliban’s popularity was the result of its
ability to restore law and order in a post-civil war wasteland
through the application of Islamic law. Somalia’s ‘Islamic
Courts’ arose in 1992, providing a semblance of order in lawless
Mogadishu. A reputation for honesty and a willingness to
restore law and order through the application of Shari’a
(Islamic) law in areas under their control gave the movement a
following. Unification of the courts and their attendant militias
through the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) gave the Islamists the
strength to defeat the warlords who have laid waste to Somalia
for the last 15 years and move out of Mogadishu to spread
their movement into central and southern Somalia.
The Islamists’ unification project seeks to succeed with homemade
solutions where no less than fourteen separate international
efforts to restore order in the nation have failed since
1991. The ICU offers the first real alternative to the clan-based
politics that have foiled every attempt to restore governance in
Somalia. Neighbours of the turbulent country fear, with good
reason, that at least some of the Islamists seek to realize the
concept of ‘Greater Somalia’, an expanded Somali homeland
that would include the whole or parts of four nations and one
pseudo-state (Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somaliland).
Battlefield Mogadishu
Many of the ATA warlords were ministers in Somalia’s new
government, which formed in Kenya in 2004 and moved into
the southern city of Baidoa last year. The warlords effectively
abandoned their cabinet posts in the Transitional Federal Government
(TFG) to take on the Islamists in Mogadishu. The
creation of the ATA in February 2006 was a rather transparent
attempt by the Somali warlords to adopt the rhetoric of the
‘War on Terrorism’ and harness the support of the United
States against their Islamist challengers. It quickly became the
practice for Somali warlords and politicians to label all their
opponents as members of al-Qaeda. Nonetheless, the strategy
was successful in the short-term, with the US abandoning the
long and difficult process of building the TFG in favour of
supporting rapacious militia leaders with a long record of vi-
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A militiaman from the Islamic Courts Union keeps an eye on the crowd in Mogodishu
during a protest against proposed foreign peacekeeping missions. Picture courtesy of
Eritrea Daily.
2
cious criminal activity. In the process, the US has lost much of
its influence in the area.
The city of Baidoa, where the transitional government established
itself until it could occupy Mogadishu, has been subjected
to growing insecurity since the TFG arrived. The government
hired 1,000 militiamen to provide security, but their
failure to provide shelter or provisions for the militia members
left them to forage on their own, even robbing MPs of the new
government.2 As ICU fighters approached Baidoa, 130 TFG
militiamen defected to the Islamists, complaining of neglect
from the government.3 In mid-July as many as 5,000 Ethiopian
troops moved into Baidoa and surrounding towns to protect
the Ethiopian-backed TFG. The ICU leader described the TFG
as a tool of Addis Ababa, and called for a ‘holy war’ by Somalis
against the Ethiopian troops in Baidoa.4 As tensions rose,
Ethiopia responded with a vow to ‘crush’ the Somali Islamists
if they crossed into Ethiopian territory. 5
Islam itself is not necessarily the driving force behind the
revolution. As Somali journalist Bashir Goth puts it:
..the Somali people have found the idea of finding safety
in their own neighbourhoods, setting up their own bakeries
and groceries, sending their children to school, albeit
Islamic madrasas, and building their lives and peace in
small steps to be more practical and attainable goals than
building hopes on the return of a central government and
restoration of peace and stability to a country that has
been fragmentized beyond reparation.6
The Islamists
Since the Islamist victory in Mogadishu, ICU leadership has
passed to a controversial figure, Shaykh Hassan Dahir Aweys,
61, who is wanted on terrorism charges by US and Ethiopian
authorities. Shaykh Aweys, a former colonel in the prison service
and later vice-chairman of al-Ittihad al-Islami, asserts that
American claims of an al-Qaeda presence in Somalia are nothing
more than ‘a figment of their imagination’, citing Somalia
’s complicated social structure, which is not easily penetrated
by outsiders.7 At Shaykh Aweys’ right hand is Adan
Hashi Ayro, a violent extremist believed responsible for ordering
the murder of four expatriate aid workers, a BBC reporter
and a number of Somali politicians. A veteran of the jihadist
campaign against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Ayro’s
most notorious action was to order the disinterment of 700
bodies from an Italian colonial cemetery in Mogadishu, tossing
the remains into a nearby garbage tip.
Al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI) is an Islamic organization that (like
Hizbullah) has militant and charitable wings. The group carried
out attacks in Ethiopia in the mid-1990s until a crossborder
military response devastated the group. Ethiopia’s concern
over the revival of the AIAI is natural; Prime Minister
Meles warns that ‘Any movement which is led by this organization
is a threat to our country’. In language familiar from
another conflict, he adds ‘We have all the rights to take all the
necessary action in a bid to prevent any threat to our country’.8
Bin Laden has encouraged the ICU to complete their control
over Somalia, but the arch-terrorist is unlikely to have influence
over any but a small number of Somalia’s Islamists. As
in Darfur, Bin Laden’s interest in Somalia is largely unappreciated
by the locals. TFG Prime Minister ‘Ali Muhammad
Gedi angrily reminded the al-Qaeda leader that Somalis were
practicing Islam long before Bin Laden’s birth and that he was
mistaken to pose as a leader of international Islam.’9 Shaykh
Aweys was more reticent in commenting on Bin Laden’s
praise of the ICU with an American newsmagazine;
‘Everybody in the world has a right to say whatever they want
or to comment how they want. That is not our responsibility.’10
Shaykh Aweys denies any personal ties to al-Qaeda and suggests
that President George Bush should be indicted for war
crimes related to his alleged support for Somalia’s warlords.
‘Bush filled suitcases with cash for the warlords so that they
could kill people. He must be brought to justice’.11 President
Bush has also been sharply criticized by representatives of the
TFG for supporting the ATA, a move seen as undermining the
transitional government. Shaykh Aweys favours the establishment
of an Islamic state in Somalia and says that al-Ittihad al-
Islamiya is no longer active in the country.
The US accuses Somalia’s Islamists of harbouring three suspects
wanted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania. The three suspects, none of whom are
Somali, are Abu Taha al-Sudani (Sudanese), Salah ‘Ali Salah
(Kenyan), and Qasim ‘Abdullah Muhammad (Comoran). Having
failed to obtain them through support for the ‘anti-terrorist’
warlords, the US State Department was placed in the embarrassing
position of then having to ask the ICU to turn them
over. Not surprisingly, the ICU has disclaimed all knowledge
of the three men. Shaykh Aweys has his own view on al-
Qaeda’s terrorism; ‘When there is fighting, it is a fight
whether you fire a gun or whether you send a plane into the
World Trade Center.. Since Osama was fighting against his
enemy, he could use any tactic he had available to him.’12
Somali Islamists by no means share a common agenda. Some
have political ambitions while others have a spiritual focus. At
the ‘moderate’ end of the movement the Sufi lodges
(represented by the umbrella group Ahl Sunna wa’l-Jama’a)
are dedicated to refuting the views of radical groups like al-
Ittihad al-Islami. Even the Salafists (conservative reformers)
are divided between those who espouse violence and those
who oppose it. One major Islamist group, Harakat al-Islah,
favours democracy and condemns political violence, putting
them at odds with AIAI. Beyond a general belief among the
factions that Islam should assume a core role in any new government,
there is little agreement on the details.13
Nevertheless, religious extremists have great influence in the
Islamist movement. ICU leader Shaykh ‘Abdallah ‘Ali, for
example, has threatened to execute any Somali who fails to
pray every day. While the majority of the ICU may be termed
moderate in its interpretation of Islamic law, the extremists
have taken control of the direction of the Islamist revolution.
The excesses of their followers, including breaking up wedding
parties, smashing musical instruments, shooting theatre
owners, flogging young people in public and banning the
viewing of World Cup soccer matches, have quickly discredited
the ICU and threaten their acceptance by Somalis who are
otherwise eager to support anyone who can bring an end to the
constant fratricidal warfare. Shaykh Aweys, a populist at heart,
appears to understand the danger and has promised to bring to
trial the ICU gunmen who killed two Somalis watching a
World Cup match in Dhuusa Marreeb.14
3
The ICU, like the warlord coalition, receives funding from Somalia
’s business community, but there are questions about
other sources of financial support. Aweys refutes US charges
that his movement is being armed and funded by Saudi Arabia
and Yemen (both alleged US allies in the ‘War on Terrorism
’).15 Eritrea has responded to similar US charges of arming
the ICU by challenging the State Department to make its evidence
public. The Eritrean government contends that such
‘subtle disinformation campaigns’ are ‘aimed at denting its
impeccable record in combating international terrorism’.16
The Horn on the Brink of War
In the morning of 26 July a massive Ilyushin-76 cargo plane
carrying Kazakh markings made a landing at the rarely used
Mogadishu airport. It was reported that the aircraft was leased
by Eritrea to supply the ICU with a vast quantity of arms.17
The TFG claims that Eritrean troops are present in Mogadishu
and the Lower Shabelle region, but has provided no evidence.
18 By the end of July, TFG Premier Muhammad ‘Ali
Gedi was also accusing the unlikely trio of Iran, Egypt and
Libya of arming the ICU.
From 1998 to 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea engaged in a bloody
and incomprehensible (at least to outsiders) border war, fought
with First World War-style tactics in a lifeless and useless
strip of contested territory. The war’s inconclusive end left
both sides spoiling for another go. Ethiopia characterizes Eritrean
backing for Shaykh Aweys as support for international
terrorism. Ethiopia also appears to have violated the arms embargo
with convoys of arms and ammunition destined for the
ATA.19 At a recent African Union summit Ethiopia accused
Eritrea of subverting neighbouring countries and practicing
terrorism.20 Prime Minister Meles Zenawi blames recent unsolved
bombings in Addis Ababa on an ‘unholy alliance’ between
Eritrea and Somalia’s Islamists.21 Ethiopia claims that
the ICU has been penetrated by elements of al-Qaeda, but still
states its willingness to negotiate with ‘moderate’ groups
within the Islamist coalition.
Eritrea questions the aims of US policy in the region, which it
describes as ‘military adventurism’. A statement from the Eritrean
Ministry of Information suggests that; ‘the goal of these
interventions is not to uproot terrorism as it is said, but
rather… to assure domination and plunder and thereby guarantee
the advent of [a] new colonialism.’ The agent of this policy
is the Ethiopian TPLF regime,22 described as ‘a decrepit and
decayed regime administered entirely by none other than the
Central Intelligence Agency of the United States’.23 Eritrea is
believed to be supplying armed Somali separatist movements
in both southeastern Ethiopia (The Ogaden National Liberation
Front – ONLF) and northern Kenya (the Oromo Liberation
Front – OLF) as part of an aggressive regional foreign
policy that has also brought condemnation from Khartoum for
Eritrea’s support of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM) in Darfur.
Ethiopia fears that a revived Islamist Somalia might provide
support for the ONLF, a Somali guerrilla force engaged in a
low-intensity separatist conflict with Addis Ababa. There are
four million ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia’s Ogaden desert region,
occupying about a quarter of the nation’s territory. One
of the ICU’s most active commanders is Hassan Abdullah
Hersi al-Turki, a long-time Ogaden separatist, member of al-
Ittihad al-Islamiya, and a US-designated al-Qaeda suspect. Al-
Turki is certain to see the ICU as a vehicle for intensifying the
Ogaden conflict, particularly with the support of Shaykh
Aweys, who refers to the region as ‘part of Somalia’.
Only months after the 1991 fall of longtime President Mohamed
Siad Barre, the northern province of Somalia seceded
and formed the state of Somaliland, still unrecognized anywhere
in the international community despite a solid record of
stability and development compared to the shattered remains
of central and southern Somalia. The state was a former British
colony, part of the tripartite imperial division of Somali
territory that included Italian and French colonies. Somaliland
continues to stand aloof from the revolution, but the Islamists
may have an appeal that the warlords never had in the region.
In the meantime it appears that Aweys already has designs on
Somaliland’s independence. Fifteen men, including Aweys,
have been charged with participating in a failed terrorist attack
in the Somaliland city of Hargeysa in September 2005. The
attack was apparently designed to disrupt elections in the same
month. Eight men are currently on trial under charges that
carry the death penalty, while seven others, including Aweys,
are being tried in absentia. Hargeysa prosecutors claim to have
videotapes in which Aweys and his lieutenant Adan Hashi
Ayro advise the men to carry out terrorist strikes to eliminate
the influence of ‘infidels’.24
Somaliland has useful experience in conflict resolution in a
local context that should be called upon to help settle the conflict.
In the past Somali leaders have shunned such input, preferring
instead to plot the re-absorption of Somaliland into a
non-existent Somali state. A number of leading members of
the TFG have origins in Somaliland and would like to reassert
their authority there.
To the northwest of Somaliland, Djibouti (former French
Somaliland) hosts the US Combined Joint Task Force – Horn
of Africa, a combined military unit of over 1,000 men stationed
in a major French military base. The unit is designed to
react rapidly to terrorist threats in the region. Djibouti’s foreign
minister announced in mid-July that US forces would not
be allowed to use the territory as a base for counter-terrorist
attacks on Somalia.25
Gunmen from the Islamic Courts Union protect leaders of the new Islamic Court in the
town of Balad as they instal a new court in the area captured in early June 2006. Picture
courtesy of Eritea Daily.
4
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily
represent those of the CISS or its members.
Copyright 2006
This document may be reproduced in
whole or in part. Kindly credit the CISS.
About the CISS
The Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies meets a need for a body of information on Canadian security issues and promotes public
awareness of the significance of national and international developments. The CISS provides a forum for discussion of strategic
matters, and through its educational and informational activities seeks to improve the basis for informed choice by the Canadian public
and its leaders.
Security Implications and International Intervention
Piracy continues to plague the Somali coastline with no navy
or coast-guard to enforce maritime law. The TFG has engaged
two private firms, Northbridge Services Group (NSG) and the
African Institute for Maritime Research (AIMR) to provide
security along the coast, eliminate the dumping of toxic waste
(another chronic problem), and organize a Somali coastal defence
force. In return, NSG and AIMR have been given the
right to ‘negotiate and authorize’ the licensing of oil concessions
and exploration.
The UN arms embargo on Somalia has been a failure, with the
UN Security Council citing ‘continuous violations’. The TFG
president has urged that the embargo be lifted (presumably to
rearm his own forces), but has had difficulty finding anyone on
the Security Council who (at least officially) thinks that Somalia
’s greatest need is for more arms. Nevertheless, President
‘Abdullahi has found supporters for rearmament in the African
Union seven nation Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), an East African regional assembly. The ICU has
urged that the embargo should continue.26
The United States is opposed to IGAD and African Union
plans to deploy African peacekeepers (possibly Ugandans and
Sudanese) in Somalia. Shaykh Aweys is also opposed, and has
warned that any peacekeeping mission will be met with resistance,
saying: ‘The neighbouring countries have geo-political
interests in Somalia and to consider them peacemakers is a recipe
for violence and renewed clashes, which could affect the
whole region.’27
Conclusion
Factionalism is likely to resurface within the ICU under
Aweys’ radical leadership. The temptations of traditional clan
politics are a constant challenge to the religious unity of the
ICU and the movement risks losing popular support by dragging
Somalia into an unpromising and costly campaign to establish
‘Greater Somalia’. Even an attempt to bring the autonomous
Somali region of Puntland or quasi-independent Somaliland
under ICU control will spark another round of civil conflict
in a war-weary population. Puntland native ‘Abdullahi
Yusuf Ahmad is TFG President and played a large part in destroying
al-Ittihad al-Islami in 1997.
Arab League-sponsored talks in Khartoum between the ICU
and the TFG have largely broken down amidst mutual accusations
of ceasefire violations. The ATA has collapsed and the
transitional government is falling apart through assassinations
and resignations while losing most of its legitimacy as Ethiopian
troops protect it from the citizens it purports to rule.
Still in the wings is Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad, former
chairman of the ICU and leader of the Sufist Ahl Sunna wa’l-
Jama’a organization. The US and the TFG have indicated they
are willing to hold talks with the Sufi master and his group, but
not with ICU chairman Shaykh Aweys, which TFG Prime
Minister ‘Ali Muhammad Gedi likens to having face-to-face
talks with Osama Bin Laden.28
Interest in foreign adventures or the international jihad is low in
the rank-and-file of the Somali Islamist movement, but military
intervention by Ethiopia will give the factions common cause
and bring an inevitable and unified response. Eritrea, northern
Kenya and Ethiopia’s Ogaden region could quickly be drawn
into any Somali/Ethiopian conflict. The bellicosity, posturing
and inflexibility of all parties in the region has the potential to
unleash yet another vast crisis throughout the long-suffering
Horn of Africa.
Notes:
1 The full name of the organization is ‘The Alliance for the Restoration of
Peace and Counter-Terrorism’.
2 IRIN, April 3, 2006
3 SomaliNet, July 20, 2006
4 Radio Shabelle, July 21, 2006
5 Shabelle Media Network, July 22, 2006
6 Somaliland Times, June 24, 2006
7 Al-Sharq al-Awsat (Cairo), April 12, 2006
8 Radio Ethiopia, June 27, 2006
9 Shabelle Media Network, July 2, 2006
10 Rod Nordland, ‘Heroes, Terrorists and Osama’, Newsweek, July 22, 2006
11 Somali Broadcasting Corporation (Puntland), July 10, 2006
12 Rod Nordland, ‘Heroes, Terrorists and Osama’, Newsweek, July 22, 2006
13 Anouar Boukhars, ‘Understanding Somali Islamism’, Jamestown Foundation
Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 4, No. 10, May 18, 2006
14 HornAfrik Radio, July 5, 2006
15 Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (Cairo), July 2, 2006
16 Eritrean Ministry of Information, Shabait, July 1, 2006
17 Shabeele Media Network, July 26, 2006
18 Shabelle Media Network, July 26, 2006
19 Shabelle Media Network, May 24, 2006
20 Walta Information Centre, July 4, 2006
21 Ethiopian TV, July 4, 2006
22 TPLF = Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front, the leading party in the Ethiopian
ruling coalition
23 Eritrean Ministry of Information Shabait website, July 1, 2006; Shabait, June
28, 2006
24 Somaliland Times, July 1, 2006
25 Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (Cairo) July 12, 2006
26 HornAfrik Radio, July 10, 2006
27 Shabelle Media Network, July 17, 2006
28 HornAfrik Radio, July 10, 2006
Dr. Andrew McGregor is director of Aberfoyle International
Security in Toronto, ON. He is also the author of A
History of Darfur.
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