Islamists return to Somalia
MOGADISHU, Somalia – Barely two months after they were toppled by a U.S.-backed military operation, militant Islamist leaders and hundreds of fighters have returned to the country’s capital and are quietly preparing to make a comeback, according to militia members and Somali community leaders.
An Ethiopian invasion in late December drove the Council of Islamic Courts out of Mogadishu, but according to U.S. diplomats, Ethiopian forces captured few fighters and killed none of the top Islamist leaders. Since then, many of the senior leaders, who the Bush administration says have ties to al-Qaida, have returned to the city, militia members said.
Several hundred fighters are now living in Mogadishu, where they dress in plain clothes and work day jobs as cafeteria workers and traders but meet regularly with superior officers and tribal elders, according to fighters from three neighborhoods in south Mogadishu. The fighters and their tribal supporters said they maintain an underground arsenal of automatic rifles, grenades and other weapons.
In Washington, a U.S. official said that McClatchy’s reporting from Mogadishu is “basically on the mark” and that although it’s hard to affix a number to the returning fighters, the Islamists’ return is cause for concern.
“There is reason to believe that some have returned to Mogadishu and they may be trying to reconstitute themselves,” said the official, who couldn’t be identified because the reporting from Somalia is classified.
Civic leaders confirmed the accounts about the Islamist fighters. “They are reorganizing themselves, and no one can stop that,” said Abdullahi Shirwa, a prominent secular peace activist. “They have a lot of support.”
The re-emergence of the Islamists would be another setback to the Bush administration’s efforts to block the creation of an Islamist regime in the Horn of Africa. Although the majority of Somalis believe that the Islamic Courts’ political agenda is law and order – not terrorism – U.S. officials have charged that the movement’s leaders sheltered three al-Qaida members who’ve carried out terrorist attacks on American and Israeli targets in East Africa in the past decade.
Somalia’s transitional government blames the Islamists for a growing insurgency that’s led to the deaths of dozens of civilians and forced some 10,000 residents to flee Mogadishu. Islamist fighters have denied launching the attacks but strongly oppose the government, which rode into Mogadishu on the heels of the Ethiopians.
The Bush administration views the Ethiopian campaign as a success because it swiftly removed the Islamist political leadership from power. But because militia commanders ordered their men to retreat rather than fight the Ethiopians, outside analysts believe they suffered few losses.
U.S. forces launched two airstrikes on southern Somalia in January, the first of which killed eight militiamen. But neither claimed the lives of any of the al-Qaida targets or the top Courts leaders, U.S. officials have said.
Meanwhile, the factors that propelled the Islamist movement to power last summer – Mogadishu’s all-too-familiar routine of mortar attacks, scattered gunbattles and general insecurity – have returned. By imposing strict religious law during their six-month reign, the Courts provided a respite from the anarchy and clan-based violence that have shadowed the city since 1991.
“We made the city peaceful, but today you can see how everything is different,” said Ahmed Ali, a 36-year-old fighter who joined the militias after his parents were killed in a shootout at a roadblock in 1999.