Is Al-Qaeda Being Defeated in Somalia?
Al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, al-Shabab, is losing the war in Somalia and conditions in the capital, Mogadishu, are improving. African Union and Somalia Transitional Federal Government (TFG) troops forced al- Shabab fighters out of the capital last August. The African Union’s AMISOM forces now number 12,000.
For the first time in 17 years, the UN is opening its political office in Mogadishu. Embassies are also restarting operations, reflecting greater confidence in the security situation.
This month the African Union and allied Somalian forces launched a new offensive that took Mogadishu University outside the city, allowing them to control the suburbs as well as the city for the first time in years.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian forces captured Beledweyne, 30 kilometers from the Ethiopian border. The town is quite strategic since the main north-south road passes through it. Next, Ethiopian forces rapidly advanced to the central regions of Hiran and Galgadud, forcing al-Shabab fighters there to retreat. And Ethiopian troops have continued their rapid advance southward into the heart of al-Shabab territory by forging an alliance with clan militias in the Shabelle River Valley.
In the south, a formidable force of Kenyan combat troops and local clan militias, backed up by fighter jets and heavy armor, is pressing al-Shabab hard. The Kenyans have been making significant territorial gains in Gedo and Juba.
Thus, al-Shabab is being forced to fight on multiple fronts at a time when the movement is wracked by internal leadership rivalry between Mukhtar Ali Robow and Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, on one side, and Ahmed Abdi Godane on the other. In addition, al-Shabab has also lost some of its most important military commanders, notably Fazul Abdul Mohammed, killed at a government roadblock in Mogadishu. Mohammed was al-Qaeda’s military operations chief in East Africa and a key Godane ally.
At the same time, American drones continue to take out key skilled foreign jihadis in the al-Shabab ranks. This month, the Lebanese Bilaal Al-Barjawi, also known as Abu Hafsa, was killed in such a drone attack.
While al-Shabab is definitely on the ropes, it is much too early to conclude it is defeated. The movement has a history of rebounding following military defeats by shifting back to guerrilla and terrorist tactics. It used a suicide truck bomb to kill 10 Ethiopian soldiers, for example, in Beledweyne. Every day, on the average, eight improvised explosive devices are discovered or detonated in the capital.
Who cares, this isn’t America. More money? Anyone who sends money into this pesthole is unaquainted with the virtues of tough love. Somalia is not a place with unlucky people but people who have no brains. Al Queda can take over the frickin’ country for all I care. Equip all shipping with their own marines and fire at will. Problem solved. Equal people stand up and show it. Build a country, make it nice, solve your own problems if your so equal. America is not the solution to the world’s problems and when we say we are we’re arrogant racists. If you need any more info I’ll just hand you over to reality. It’s hard, uncompromising and not a charitable organization and this is true of me as well.
Your ignorance is monumental…
Really? I wish it were universal as well – maybe U.S currency wouldn’t be devalued into the ground and Europe awash in immigrants and economic disaster while doling out billions in aid. I am so tired of hearing about these pestholes I can’t stand it. They’re “equal,” “independent,” “noble” and smart people. Let ‘em show it without me holding their hand for a few decades.
Jason, being productive and living together in peace isn’t exactly the riddle of the Sphinx. We can’t micromanage morons. Do I have to sit every single Muslim radical in the world down in a chair with a dunce hat and teach them to be decent people? You have a choice: you can get some guns and rob a ship or start an innovative business and make money and then create libraries and universities. Who other than the people of Somalia themselves are preventing such an occurence. The pitiful part is that there are numerous blueprints of successful societies to draw on, something the actual successful societies of the world today made up from scratch. There is no need to recreate the Enlightenment of reinvent the bow and arrow. Just do what needs to be done or sit in a hole. This is pragmatism not a lack of compassion. Charity begins at home: be charitable to yourselves and your neighbors and live in peace and prosperity. Or kill each other. Leave me out of it.
At the end, the author points out that regular Somalis may in the future prefer centralized Islamic tyranny to decentralized warlord tyranny. That’s a good endpoint, because I’d say there’s a 99% chance that’s going to happen. I’m pretty sure this is like the umpteenth time Ethiopia’s gone in. They’re playing whackamole, which may not be so bad in their view because their main goal is to make sure that the eastern region of Ethiopia, called “Somali,” doesn’t get attacked or worse annexed by Somalia. The best way to do that is to destabilize the Islamists in Somalia itself. And we need to remember that although Ethiopia seems like it’s a cat playing with a mouse, in the view of Ethiopians, Somali govs can be an existential threat to the whole of Ethiopia itself after Ethiopia was almost destroyed in the Ethiopian-Adal War in the 16th century.
If we want to help Somalia develop, stabilize, and become peaceful, rather than play whackamole along with Ethiopia and Kenya, we’re going to have to pour resources into Somalia to the degree we did in Iraq & Afghanistan. And those weren’t terribly effective either.
Meanwhile CAIR and its affiliates, and useful idiots of the MSM, the Democrat Party and academia struggle to make sure Al Qaeda has all the moral and economic support possible.
Elis, we’ve already poured resources into Somalia. Remember when we sent a food mission to alleviate their famine? It got us dead Americans being dragged through the street by their heels. Somalia has no moral claim on us. And as you mention, we haven’t had much in the way of luck in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile Egypt, where we have given the government billions, is going down the tubes.
Trying to help Africa and the Middle East is a thankless task and a waste of money. I see no reason to take on the ‘White Man’s Burden’.
Elis, are we talking about the same Somalia?
AFAIK, the Somalis make the Afghans seem not merely civilized, but decadent.