The last stand of al-Shabaab
The notorious Islamist army has terrorised Somalia for years. But will the
fighters soon be wiped off the map?
<
http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/daniel-howden> Daniel Howden Author
Biography
Thursday 20 September 2012
Abdirahim Sheikh joined al-Shabaab after they visited him on his farm in
southern Somalia to tell him that "foreign invaders" were abusing the Koran.
He says the next three years of his life fighting for the radical Islamic
militia were unimaginably tough. There was frequent bloody action on the
front line and little or no care for the wounded who died in large numbers.
But his morale only started to drop when he heard that fellow jihadists had
killed worshippers at a mosque.
"If someone who is praying in a mosque can be killed then al-Shabaab are the
infidels," said the 30-year-old. Standing in Mogadishu's ruined stadium,
which the militia used as a training base during their long battle for the
Somali capital, the farmer has switched sides and joined the war against
them. He decided to defect, he said, after seeing a friend executed in front
of him. The man was accused of planning to defect and the commander slit his
throat as a warning to the others. That warning backfired. "After that the
defections became a flood," said Abdirahim.
It is just over a year since al-Shabaab abandoned the crumbling sports
ground and the rest of the city, leaving behind them the huge rusted metal
plates speckled with shrapnel where their gunners practised piercing the
armour of the African Union forces. The bowels of the stadium are now
occupied by their former foes and a handful of al-Shabaab defectors who fled
across the lines of a battle that the Islamic extremists appear to be
losing.
The retreat that began at the height of the Horn of Africa famine in August
last year has now reached the militants' once unassailable stronghold of
Kismayo. The militant fighters last week trekked out of the historic port of
Marka to the south of the capital. African Union forces have this year
seized control of strategic towns like Afgoye outside the capital and
Afmadow in the south. Now, the Islamists' commanders are reported to have
left Kismayo, with residents in the port city seeing the militants withdraw
their heavy weapons and larger trucks this week.
The series of reverses has led some observers to question whether a military
defeat of Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen is now within reach. Abdirashid
Hashi a Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG) said that
he expects Kismayo to be recaptured but that the war will continue in
another guise. "Al Shabaab has been deserting or retreating from towns and
cities since last year. But their ideology and many of their fighters are
still there," he said.
"They are wounded and their strategy will now be to bide their time in the
countryside and wait for the foreign forces to leave. They believe that time
is on their side and they can fight a guerrilla war."
It is only six years since Ethiopian forces swept into Somalia with the
political and military backing of the United States to topple the Islamic
Courts Union, an Islamist movement which had taken control much of south and
central Somalia after years of disastrous feuding between warlords.
Ethiopia's vastly better-equipped forces quickly routed the youth militias
loyal to the courts with hundreds killed or driven from the cities.
However, the Ethiopian intervention bolstered nationalist support for the
courts' military wing helping to create al-Shabaab in its current form.
Within a year the occupiers wearied of the guerrilla war and withdrew.
Now the foreign forces - comprising troops from Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti
and Sierra Leone, as well as Kenyans in the south - have some legitimacy
under the umbrella of the African Union. After costly early mistakes, the AU
force in the capital has restored some semblance of order enabling a freshly
assembled parliament to elect a new president last month. The government of
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the surprise winner among the MPs, has UN backing but
also, crucially, some support among Somalis themselves who were largely
contemptuous of his predecessors in the corrupt and squabbling Transitional
Federal Government - an administration that a UN report uncovered was
stealing 7 out of every 10 dollars it received in aid. The relative security
in Mogadishu has seen people and money pour in from the Somali diaspora.
Something of a revival is clearly underway.
But there is mounting concern that a botched operation to recapture Kismayo
could undermine support for the new government and for the African Union
Mission in Somalia (Amisom). Thousands of residents have streamed out of the
port city in recent days as Kenya's navy has rained indiscriminate shellfire
on the city.
"They are shelling everyone, everywhere," a Kismayo resident told The
Independent by telephone from the besieged city. "The people are now
understanding that the Kenyans have no plans to save the people." Kenya's
land forces, operating under the banner of Amisom, have advanced to within
40 kilometres of the city. They have so far ignored appeals to establish a
humanitarian corridor. Witnesses in nearby villages said the troops are
firing on "anything that moves in front of them".
An equal or greater threat to southern Somalia may come from an imminent
power struggle for the port city between competing clans. Similar struggles
between Somalia's complex of clans and sub-clans were largely responsible
for 20 years of civil war that followed the collapse of the last central
government in 1991.
Al-Shabaab proved adept at managing the clan system in cosmopolitan Kismayo.
In recent days they have allowed hundreds of lightly armed fighters from the
Hawiye clan to move into the city. A warlord from the rival Marihan clan,
Barre Hiiraale, is reported to be bringing his fighters to the city with the
backing of Ethiopia. Meanwhile, the Kenyan advance from the south has been
achieved with the backing of the Ras Kamboni militia from another rival
clan, the Ogadeni.
The convergence of forces could see a three-way fight between proxies of
Ethiopia, Kenya and al-Shabaab, an outcome that could restore some
nationalist support for the Islamic militants after a year at bay.
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Thu Sep 20 2012 - 18:50:21 EDT
