Somalia, the Union of Islamic Courts, and al-Shabaab
Somalia has become a by-word for failed state. Since 1991, it has had no effective central government. Where once Mogadishu was called "the White Pearl on the Indian Ocean," the city is now a crumbling, bullet-ridden ruin. Where once tourism drove the Somali economy, today piracy is one of the few economic activities available. It is hard to adequately describe just how truly devastated Somalia is. There aren't parts of Somalia that are war-torn; the entire country is ragged and destitute. [NOTE: The northern arm of what is internationally recognized as Somalia is a peaceful, stable land called Somaliland, which has made great strides in stability and rule of law. It has its own constitution, mints its own money, polices its own streets, and schools its own children, while Somalia does not. Somaliland deserves international recognition as its own country. To this day, however, no country formally recognizes it.]
[Mogadishu 1980]
[Mogadishu today]
After the government fell in 1991, administrative government in Somalia was imposed by a stratum of warlords who fought for control of city, town, and countryside. However, over time, another form of governance grew organically out of ruins in this near-universally Muslim society. In the absence of reliable government services, Islamic sharia courts began to take on responsibility for adjudicating disputes between individuals and between clans. Business owners and farmers began paying the courts to enforce general criminal laws, as well. The courts developed militias of their own, which policed the streets in areas under court jurisdiction.
By 1999, these courts were cooperating extensively with each other. They formed a joint militia and began annexing territory to their jurisdiction. By the latter part of 2005, the Union of Islamic Courts, or Islamic Courts Union (ICU), was knocking at the gates of Mogadishu. The various warlords who controlled the city saw the writting on the wall and united in the face of the ICU threat. They formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), a name the hypocrisy of which would have been funny if it weren't so shamefully tragic. One reason these warlords may have named themselves this way was to court US military aid in their fight against the ICU, which they received [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10385312] and [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/africa/08intel.html?ei=5088&en=7b3e5a78230b7e10&ex=1307419200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all].
The 2006 Battle of Mogadishu, fought between May and June of that year, resulted in the Islamic Courts Union taking control of Somalia's main city. The routed ARPCT militias fled to surrounding villages, where the ICU hunted them down. By the end of the year, most of southern Somalia had been united under the ICU.
Their victory, in the face of Western opposition and financing, and against a united axis of warlords, could be attributable to several things. First, the ICU, like other successful Islamist groups, was extremely disciplined. Their militias were highly trained and saw themselves as a sort of morality police, thus reducing looting and rape and preserving local support - or at least acquiescence - for their power. Second, by their very nature, the Islamic Courts were clan-blind, and thus more resistant to the squabbling that haunted Somalia's warlord groups, despite their uneasy alliance against the ICU. Thirdly, the ICU has said that the government of Eritrea provided them with aid, though Eritrea denied any direct involvement. Eritrea had long-standing animosity to Somalia's neighbor Ethiopia, and seemed to be courting a regional ally.
The ICU's enemies had outside allies of their own, however. On July 20th, 2006, Ethiopian tanks crossed the border into southern Somalia, allied with the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), a parliamentary group of Somali ex-pats in Kenya representing various factions in Somalia. Christian Ethiopia was loath to abide an Islamic Republic on its borders, and with TFG allies and the approval of the United States, they took the initiative. Soon afterward, the ICU's President of Somalia, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, declared a jihad, or holy war, against the invading Ethiopians. This declaration would have lasting implications, as we will see.
Ethiopia itself denied that it had even invaded Somalia for almost 6 months, finally admitting on December 24th (generally a slow news day) that it was engaged in a "self-defensive" war in Somalia. US forces aided the Ethiopian-TFG forces from the air, the first known intervention by the United States in Somalia since the famed "Black Hawk Down" incident in 1993. By January 2007, the Islamic Courts Union had been routed from the country, and African Union troops flooded into the country on a peacekeeping mission. The Somali Transitional Federal Government, formed in Kenya in 2004, entered the country for the first time and took residence in Mogadishu.
But the secular victory was fragile indeed. In 2008, as Ethiopia withdrew from Somalia, TFG troops were simply unable to hold ground against a new force in Somalia - al-Shabaab.
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, or al-Shabaab (Ar. "the Youth") was originally the youth militia of the Islamic Courts Union. When the ICU was overthrown by Ethiopia, moderates within the Islamist movement lost credibility to radicals, who took control of the militia. Reinforced by foreign jihadis answering the ICU's call for jihad against the invading Ethiopian army, al-Shabaab quickly became radicalized and even more militant. Unlike the more traditionalist, Sufi rule of the ICU, al-Shabaab imposed a very harsh interpretation of sharia law in areas it controlled, and has been compared in style and tactics to the Taliban of Afghanistan. As of mid-2010, al-Shabaab controlled most of central and southern Somalia, leaving just a few blocks in Mogadishu under control of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government.
The differences between the Union of Islamic Courts and al-Shabaab were underscored by the election on February 1, 2009 of the ex-ICU President of Somalia, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, to the post of TFG's President of Somalia. The man who led the group that prompted the international community's invasion was now the head of the internationally-installed government. al-Shabaab branded him a traitor and declared war against him [http://www.garoweonline.com/artman2/publish/Somalia_27/Al_Shabaab_declare_war_on_Somalia_s_new_President_Sheikh_Sharif.shtml].
I am no fan of Islamic rule, or any religious rule. However, I am also not Somali. I'm American. And so it really isn't up to me how Somalia governs itself. The American government is so afraid of anything "Islamic" that it backed the murderous warlords that have turned Somalia into the worst place in the world, simply because the other side in that conflict had "Islamic" in its title. The US government equates anything "Islamic" with al-Qaeda.
But guess what - the Union of Islamic Courts was no al-Qaeda. They repeatedly stated that they were open to relations with the United States, as long as those relations were based on mutual recognition and not threats [http://current.com/shows/vanguard/76377322_mogadishu-madness.htm]. The ICU was Somalia's first chance at a functioning central government in 15 years. When they took Mogadishu, the city was safe enough for the first time since 1991 for families to go to the beach and for a few (admittedly foolhardy) foreign reporters to tour the streets. They had no credible ties to al-Qaeda or the international jihadi community, and their form of sharia was based in more tolerant sufi traditions, compared to the Wahabi fundamentalism practiced in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Their stated goal was not to scare off foreign investers, who they knew would be the key to Somali recovery after a decade and a half of civil war.
By not recognizing the difference between moderate Islamists like the ICU and radical Islamists like al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab, the international community took Somalia's last hope for stability and crushed it. Ethiopia, the US, and the African Union plunged Somalia back into civil war for the foreseeable future. Not only that, but they vastly strengthened the hand of radical Islamists in Somalia, people who do have ties to al-Qaeda, who practice not the moderate sharia of the ICU but the brutal Wahabi law of the Taliban. And while the moderate Islamists were fairly easy for the international community to defeat, the radical genie is much harder to put back into the lamp. The rise of al-Shabaab is a travesty upon the people of Somalia, and the worst thing that could have happened from the United States' point of view. And it is the blames lies with the US, Ethiopia, and the African Union.
[Mogadishu 1980]
[Mogadishu today]
After the government fell in 1991, administrative government in Somalia was imposed by a stratum of warlords who fought for control of city, town, and countryside. However, over time, another form of governance grew organically out of ruins in this near-universally Muslim society. In the absence of reliable government services, Islamic sharia courts began to take on responsibility for adjudicating disputes between individuals and between clans. Business owners and farmers began paying the courts to enforce general criminal laws, as well. The courts developed militias of their own, which policed the streets in areas under court jurisdiction.
By 1999, these courts were cooperating extensively with each other. They formed a joint militia and began annexing territory to their jurisdiction. By the latter part of 2005, the Union of Islamic Courts, or Islamic Courts Union (ICU), was knocking at the gates of Mogadishu. The various warlords who controlled the city saw the writting on the wall and united in the face of the ICU threat. They formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), a name the hypocrisy of which would have been funny if it weren't so shamefully tragic. One reason these warlords may have named themselves this way was to court US military aid in their fight against the ICU, which they received [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10385312] and [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/africa/08intel.html?ei=5088&en=7b3e5a78230b7e10&ex=1307419200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all].
The 2006 Battle of Mogadishu, fought between May and June of that year, resulted in the Islamic Courts Union taking control of Somalia's main city. The routed ARPCT militias fled to surrounding villages, where the ICU hunted them down. By the end of the year, most of southern Somalia had been united under the ICU.
Their victory, in the face of Western opposition and financing, and against a united axis of warlords, could be attributable to several things. First, the ICU, like other successful Islamist groups, was extremely disciplined. Their militias were highly trained and saw themselves as a sort of morality police, thus reducing looting and rape and preserving local support - or at least acquiescence - for their power. Second, by their very nature, the Islamic Courts were clan-blind, and thus more resistant to the squabbling that haunted Somalia's warlord groups, despite their uneasy alliance against the ICU. Thirdly, the ICU has said that the government of Eritrea provided them with aid, though Eritrea denied any direct involvement. Eritrea had long-standing animosity to Somalia's neighbor Ethiopia, and seemed to be courting a regional ally.
The ICU's enemies had outside allies of their own, however. On July 20th, 2006, Ethiopian tanks crossed the border into southern Somalia, allied with the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), a parliamentary group of Somali ex-pats in Kenya representing various factions in Somalia. Christian Ethiopia was loath to abide an Islamic Republic on its borders, and with TFG allies and the approval of the United States, they took the initiative. Soon afterward, the ICU's President of Somalia, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, declared a jihad, or holy war, against the invading Ethiopians. This declaration would have lasting implications, as we will see.
Ethiopia itself denied that it had even invaded Somalia for almost 6 months, finally admitting on December 24th (generally a slow news day) that it was engaged in a "self-defensive" war in Somalia. US forces aided the Ethiopian-TFG forces from the air, the first known intervention by the United States in Somalia since the famed "Black Hawk Down" incident in 1993. By January 2007, the Islamic Courts Union had been routed from the country, and African Union troops flooded into the country on a peacekeeping mission. The Somali Transitional Federal Government, formed in Kenya in 2004, entered the country for the first time and took residence in Mogadishu.
But the secular victory was fragile indeed. In 2008, as Ethiopia withdrew from Somalia, TFG troops were simply unable to hold ground against a new force in Somalia - al-Shabaab.
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, or al-Shabaab (Ar. "the Youth") was originally the youth militia of the Islamic Courts Union. When the ICU was overthrown by Ethiopia, moderates within the Islamist movement lost credibility to radicals, who took control of the militia. Reinforced by foreign jihadis answering the ICU's call for jihad against the invading Ethiopian army, al-Shabaab quickly became radicalized and even more militant. Unlike the more traditionalist, Sufi rule of the ICU, al-Shabaab imposed a very harsh interpretation of sharia law in areas it controlled, and has been compared in style and tactics to the Taliban of Afghanistan. As of mid-2010, al-Shabaab controlled most of central and southern Somalia, leaving just a few blocks in Mogadishu under control of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government.
The differences between the Union of Islamic Courts and al-Shabaab were underscored by the election on February 1, 2009 of the ex-ICU President of Somalia, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, to the post of TFG's President of Somalia. The man who led the group that prompted the international community's invasion was now the head of the internationally-installed government. al-Shabaab branded him a traitor and declared war against him [http://www.garoweonline.com/artman2/publish/Somalia_27/Al_Shabaab_declare_war_on_Somalia_s_new_President_Sheikh_Sharif.shtml].
I am no fan of Islamic rule, or any religious rule. However, I am also not Somali. I'm American. And so it really isn't up to me how Somalia governs itself. The American government is so afraid of anything "Islamic" that it backed the murderous warlords that have turned Somalia into the worst place in the world, simply because the other side in that conflict had "Islamic" in its title. The US government equates anything "Islamic" with al-Qaeda.
But guess what - the Union of Islamic Courts was no al-Qaeda. They repeatedly stated that they were open to relations with the United States, as long as those relations were based on mutual recognition and not threats [http://current.com/shows/vanguard/76377322_mogadishu-madness.htm]. The ICU was Somalia's first chance at a functioning central government in 15 years. When they took Mogadishu, the city was safe enough for the first time since 1991 for families to go to the beach and for a few (admittedly foolhardy) foreign reporters to tour the streets. They had no credible ties to al-Qaeda or the international jihadi community, and their form of sharia was based in more tolerant sufi traditions, compared to the Wahabi fundamentalism practiced in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Their stated goal was not to scare off foreign investers, who they knew would be the key to Somali recovery after a decade and a half of civil war.
By not recognizing the difference between moderate Islamists like the ICU and radical Islamists like al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab, the international community took Somalia's last hope for stability and crushed it. Ethiopia, the US, and the African Union plunged Somalia back into civil war for the foreseeable future. Not only that, but they vastly strengthened the hand of radical Islamists in Somalia, people who do have ties to al-Qaeda, who practice not the moderate sharia of the ICU but the brutal Wahabi law of the Taliban. And while the moderate Islamists were fairly easy for the international community to defeat, the radical genie is much harder to put back into the lamp. The rise of al-Shabaab is a travesty upon the people of Somalia, and the worst thing that could have happened from the United States' point of view. And it is the blames lies with the US, Ethiopia, and the African Union.