“Extremists”—Somalia

More than 11 years after UN peacekeepers fled from the country, and more than 12 years after the incidents that gave rise to the book and movie Black Hawk Down, Somalia is aflame in violence, and the results seem to be far from desired for the United States. “Islamic militias declared [yesterday] that they [have] taken control of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, defeating the warlords widely believed to be backed by the United States and raising questions about whether the country would head down an extremist path.”^[1] Those cries of victory, however, may be a little premature as “thousands of people allied with one of the country’s largest clans held a rally to protest” a plan by “the Islamic militants who seized control of Mogadishu” to “set up a religious state.”^[2]

The battle over control of Somalia “has been a proxy war, of sorts, in the Bush administration’s campaign against terrorism, with the warlords echoing Washington’s goal of rooting out radical Islam and the presence of Al Qaeda in the region.”^[3] The warlords have ruled Somalia in a state of anarchy since the peacekeepers fled, and the Islamic militias are organized around “the Islamic courts that have grown in influence” since then; the courts are composed “of a loose coalition of religious leaders who have put forward Islam, the predominant religion in Somalia, as the way out of the country’s long into anarchy.”^[4] In many ways, it is strikingly similar to what happened when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

The United States role in the conflict is rumored to be one of support of the warlords, allegedly secretly financing the very people with whom the United States fought against in the early 1990s; the warlords have “fashioned themselves into a counterterrorism alliance to track down and apprehend Al Qaeda elements in Mogadishu.”^[5]

A specialist on Africa for the Congressional Research Service, Ted Dagne, downplays the role of Islam in the country. “Somalis are secular Muslims,” he says, “and the presence of the so-called Islamists is not an introduction of new ideology or religion.”^[6] A US official, however, has said that “Islamic leaders in Mogadishu are sheltering three [Al Qaeda] leaders indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The same [Al Qaeda] cell is believed responsible for the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya, which killed 15 people, and a simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner over Kenya.”^[7] That attempt led to the passage of MANPADS legislation in the United States.

The chairman of the Islamic Courts Alliance, one of the groups that has declared victory in Somalia, “categorically den[ies] and reject[s] any accusation that [they] are harboring any terrorists or supporters of terrorism in the areas where the courts operate.”^[8]

The warlords, for their part, have vowed not to give up control of the country.^[9] In four months of fighting, at least 347 people have been killed, and more than 1,500 have been wounded, and the violence may continue for some time.^[10]

Prior to this violence, Somalia was in the news primarily for that country’s pirates.

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[1] Marc Lacey, Somali Islamists Declare Victory; Warlords on Run, NY Times, Jun. 6, 2006.
[2] Marc Lacey, Tensions High in Somalia as Thousand Protest, NY Times, Jun. 6, 2006.
[3] Lacey, supra note 1.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Chris Tomlinson, Somalia’s Islamic Extremists Set U.S. Back, AP (via Yahoo!), Jun. 6, 2006.
[8] Lacey, supra note 2.
[9] Id.
[10] Ali Musa Abdi, Standoff as Warlords Resist Islamist Seizure of Capital, Agence France-Presse, Jun. 6, 2006.