Al Qaeda-linked group wins foothold ICG
NAIROBI (Reuters) A new group of Al Qaeda-linked "jihadis" or "holy
warriors" has won a foothold in Somalia and though small may flourish
if stable rule does not return to the anarchic Horn of Africa nation,
a report said on Sunday.
The "new, ruthless independent jihadi network" is run from the
capital Mogadishu by a militia boss trained in Afghanistan and has
already killed several foreign aid workers, the International Crisis
Group (ICG) think-tank said.
"Ultimately, the threat of jihadi terrorism from Somalia can only be
addressed through the restoration of stable, legitimate and
functional government," added the ICG document, seen by Reuters in
advance of its formal release this week.
Western security services have long viewed lawless Somalia as a haven
for terrorists. Warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and
took over the country in 1991.
Somalia-based Al Qaeda operatives were thought involved in two
suicide attacks in neighbouring Kenya that killed 224 at the US
embassy in 1998 and 15 at an Israeli-owned hotel in 2002.
A 14th attempt to reestablish government since 1991 is currently
under way. But an interim administration that has just relocated to
Somalia from Kenya is riven by factional rivalry.
"If they fail... jihadis will gradually find growing purchase among
Somalia's despairing and disaffected citizenry, and it will only be a
matter of time before another group of militants succeeds in mounting
a spectacular terrorist attack against foreign interests in Somalia
or one of its neighbours," ICG said.
Though dangerous, the new group remains relatively small.
"In reality, jihadism is an unpopular, minority trend among Somali
Islamists... The new jihadi network's effective membership probably
is in the tens rather than the hundreds," ICG said.
Furthermore, contrary to some more alarming reports, "ranking Al
Qaeda operatives in Somalia probably number less than half a dozen.
Several Western countries host larger and more sophisticated jihadi
networks," ICG added.
'Shadowy' conflict
New President Abdullahi Yusuf wants foreign peacekeepers to help him
set up a government, but the influential Brussels-based think-tank
said that risked creating a cause celebre for extremists.
"The jihadis are praying for the Ethiopians to come," it quoted one
moderate Islamist in Somalia as saying. "They can easily make Somalia
like Iraq."
Many among Somalia's overwhelmingly Muslim 10 million population are
hostile to the dominant regional influence of their large, nominally
Christian-led neighbour Ethiopia.
The ICG said the new jihadi movement was one of three radical groups
in Somalia, with an Al Qaeda cell and the weakened remnants of an
Islamist and nationalist group called Al Itihaad Al Islaami.
Since its emergence in 2003 under the leadership of Aden Hashi Ayro
the Afghanistan-trained protege of a former Al Itihaad commander
the new group has been implicated in assassinations of four aid
workers and at least 10 Somali ex-military and police officers
working in counterterrorism.
"It has no known name, its membership is largely clandestine and its
aims are undeclared," the report said, adding that the group was
behind the recent desecration of an Italian colonial-era cemetery.
The group has caught the eye of the United States, which is said to
have stepped up its anti-terrorism work in Somalia through
surveillance flights and cooperation with regional and local
intelligence arms.
"In the rubble-strewn streets of the ruined capital of this state
without a government... Al Qaeda operatives, jihadi extremists,
Ethiopian security services and Western-backed counterterrorism
networks are engaged in a shadowy and complex contest waged by
intimidation, abduction and assassination."
Monday, July 11, 2005
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