Somalia: Bombings continue but real progress towards normality in Mogadishu……
Despite this week’s suicide bomber at the recently reopened National Theatre in Mogadishu, and occasional mortar attacks apparently aimed at the Presidential Palace, as well as other incidents, Mogadishu is "making a remarkable comeback". Construction is going on everywhere, with new hospitals, schools, houses, shops and other buildings rising out of the rubble of twenty years of conflict. In the past few months, over 250,000 people have returned to their former homes; the city administration is beginning to repair streets and put up street lights. Restaurants are opening, businesses restarting. Soccer and basketball have been revived. Games, watched by men and women together, are common. Jobs are becoming available and the growing international interest, symbolised by Turkish airlines twice weekly flights to Mogadishu, offer real hope of progress. Turkey which has opened an embassy in Mogadishu, is also investing in infrastructure in the city, renovating and rehabilitating the airport, repairing the National Assembly building and putting up a conference center. It has rebuilt one hospital and is rebuilding two others. It will be hosting a follow-up conference to the February conference on Somalia in London in Istanbul in June. The TFG hopes that other countries will follow Turkey’s example and start to invest in the city.
As Ambassador Mahiga, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, has noted this is the first time for twenty years that Mogadishu has been under one single authority, and security is now expanding outside the city. Last weekend, AMISOM and TFG forces seized control of Daynile airport and several Al-Shabaab bases in the area on the edge of Mogadishu’s north west, clearing the district of Al-Shabaab terrorists after heavy fighting. This was the last major base area of Al-Shabaab in Mogadishu and its outskirts and AMISOM’s Deputy Force Commander, Brigadier Audace Nduwumunsi, said this success would allow AMISOM to consolidate security in the district and then "focus on expanding operations beyond Mogadishu". Control of the Daynile district also opens the road for an advance towards the towns of Afgoye, Elasha and Lafole still controlled by Al-Shabaab on the road towards Baidoa, from which TFG forces, allied militias and Ethiopian troops recently expelled Al-Shabaab .
Elsewhere, there were other successes last week when Ethiopian and Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’a allied forces seized the main base of Al-Shabaab in central Somalia, capturing the town of El Buur as well as the strategic center of Maxaas. These control links between some of the most important towns and cities in Galgudud region. The TFG Minister of Information, Abdiqadir Husayn Mohammad, described it as a "big victory for the Somali government and its people, especially for the residents of the two towns and other localities freed from the terrorists." The Minister stressed that the government now had the responsibility for stability in the area. It would not allow anybody to carry out acts of revenge based on self-interest and suspicion but it would bring justice. He urged residents to remain calm and stay in the towns. He also called on "the misled youth fighting alongside Al-Shabaab"to take advantage of the anmesty offered by the government under which a considerable number have surrendered.
……While Al-Shabaab’s leadership disputes continue
At the weekend, Sheikh Hassan Dahir ‘Aweys’, now Al-Shabaab’s military commander in southern Somalia publicly disagreed with comments by Al-Shabaab’s leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane ‘Abu Zubayr’ that that only Al-Shabaab could wage a jihad inside Somalia. Sheikh ‘Aweys’ responded that membership in a jihad was open to all. He said that it was better to have many Islamic groups and then unite them later on – "this is how we have been carrying on for the last two decades", he added. Sheikh ‘Aweys’, a former military leader of Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya in the early 1990s, later went to Eritrea where he set up the Alliance for the Rehabilitation of Somalia after the defeat of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006,and later headed Hizbul Islam until it was forced to merge with Al-Shabaab in 2010. He was also quoted as saying that where the operations of Al-Shabaab are wrong "we should correct it." Sheikh ‘Aweys’ also said Ahmed Godane’s statement was "not credible", and went on to criticise the way Al-Shabaab had made the killing of civilians lawful by making up its own laws. "Al-Shabaab was not formed to spill the blood of civilians", he said. According to Somali sources, Ahmed Godane as leader of Al-Shabaab opposed Sheikh ‘Aweys’ rise in Al-Shabaab and was against him getting any official position in the organization despite the uniting of Hizbul Islam with Al-Shabaab. Sheikh ‘Aweys’ however has the support of other influential Al-Shabaab leaders including Sheikh Muktar Robow and Fuad Mohamed Shongole.
Sheikh ‘Aweys’ in fact has openly challenged the decision of Al-Shabaab in February to amalgamate with Al Qaeda when Al-Shabaab pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. This union with Al Qaeda was seen by some as an attempt to foil the plan to establish an "Islamic Emirate" in Somalia, announced in December at Baidoa at a conference organized by ex Al-Itihaad members including Sheikh ‘Aweys’, Sheikh Muktar Robow and others. The meeting was boycotted by Ahmed Abdi Godane and the foreign jihadist elements in Al-Shabaab. Sheikh ‘Aweys’ told local journalists that the union with Al Qaeda was shameful and people should not "wear something alien". Even if all Islamic rebels joined Al Qaeda, he said, this did not mean they replaced the jihadist agenda and it did not mean Al Qaeda could replace the "Islamic Caliphate".
As we have noted previously, there have been other indications of strains within Al-Shabaab’ leadership following its series of military defeats and withdrawals, whether tactical or enforced. It was only last month that Abu-Mansoor Al-Amrike put out a video airing his fears of being assassinated by other elements within Al-Shabaab. There were subsequent reports that Al-Amrike had been arrested.
The comments of Sheikh ‘Aweys’ immediately gave rise to fresh suggestions that it might signal the possibility of including the so-called nationalist elements in Al-Shabaab in the peace process. This is something that has also been raised by Sheikh Muktar Robow who told Somalia Report last month that he would be willing to negotiate with the TFG if the TFG first agreed to various conditions of which the most important included the withdrawal of all foreign troops, the building of a coalition government and the establishment of a constitution that must be based on Sharia law. The reports of divisions within Al-Shabaab’s leadership have encouraged this sort of speculation but as others quickly pointed out it would need rather more than these comments to accept Sheikh ‘Aweys’ as a "reformed" person.One editorial stressed that "acceptance of his reform must come with the condition that he quit Somali politics altogether, seek national forgiveness and withdraw himself into seclusion. The blood of innocents killed by organizations for which Colonel Aweys sat at the top as leader is still fresh in the minds of many." It goes on "[He] must be willing to surrender weapons,must allow loyal fighters to undergo national rehabilitation programs and he must withdraw from Somali politics".
Meanwhile, last weekend Al-Shabaab again warned Kenya that it would suffer retribution and revenge for Kenyan military operations against Al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia. "The Kenyan public must be aware that the more Kenyan troops continue to persecute innocent Muslims of Somalia , the less secure Kenyan cities will be; and the more oppression the Muslims of Somalia feel, the more constricted Kenyan Life will be. Such is the law of retribution." There have already been a number of hit and run grenade attacks on innocent civilians in Nairobi including an attack in early March which killed four and injured another 40 though Al-Shabaab has denied involvement in these. Nor has it admitted responsibility for two grenade attacks last weekend in Mombassa where two Kenyans were injured and another in the nearby small town of Mtwapa where a woman was ikilled and 20 injured. This was the first such attack in Mombasa, a major toursit destination, and Prime Minister Raila Odinga emphasized that Kenya remained a safe destination for tourists: "Kenya is safe. Tourists should continue to come to Kenya and tyhe government will protect them." Internal Security Minister, George Saitoti, said the authorities would not tire of hunting for Al-Shabaab. They had runied their own country, he said, and now they were trying to ruin Kenya’s economy.
Source: A Week in the Horn – April 06, 2012 issue
*****************
Check the Somalia archive for previous and forthcoming posts.
