Can a country be so unstable that even terrorists would not want to go there? Somalia may provide a testbed for such a proposition. A number of recent popular press articles and even professional analytic publications have suggested that al-Qaeda and related groups are interested in setting up networks, bases, and training camps in this country, which has lacked a central government since 1991. The territory is so unstable that even the United Nations peacekeeping mission, including US Marines, were forced to withdraw in 1995, leaving behind a proliferation of warlords vying for control of the capital city of Mogadishu as well as key ports including Kismayo. Meanwhile, provinces such as Somaliland and Puntland have secured significant autonomy if not official independence. Facing continued political uncertainty while in the midst of the worst drought in 40 years, bandits, gangs, and clans are fighting over land, cattle, and water and now even hijacking international aid ships and truck convoys and taking aid workers hostage. Surely such actions instill terror, but are they the work of internationally-linked Islamic extremists striking out against globalization and the West?
US Marine Major-General Timothy Ghormley , commander of the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa and based in Djibouti, is quoted on January 2, 2006 as claiming provocatively, “We know that al-Qaida al-Itihaad [sic] is in Somalia. They’d like to export that [jihadism]…if we weren’t there they would be.” It is not clear that a unique organization calling itself al-Qaida al-Itihaad even exists. Al Ittihad al Islami (AIAI) , Somalia?s largest militant Islamic organization, rose to power in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Siad Barre regime. Led by Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys , the group aims to establish an Islamic regime in Somalia and force the secession of the Ogeden region of Ethiopia . Given the group’s ideological bent and militancy, it was not surprising to learn that Osama bin Laden claimed credit for supporting Al Ittihad al Islami and partial responsibility for the deaths of 18 American servicemen and another 73 wounded in early October 1993, later to be described in the book by TRC associate Danny McKnight and film Blackhawk Down . Bin Laden had been driven out of Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s and, thus, had already moved to another troubled African Muslim country, Sudan , by 1993?till a couple of years before al-Qaeda was formally recognized as a group or threat following the Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in 1996 .
Currently, Aweys denies the existence of al Itihaad, claiming the group was defeated by an Ethiopian armed forces offensive in 1993 that led to the group’s dissolution. However, one year ago to the day, on March 14, 2005, a UN investigative team reported that Aweys remained in control of the organization, which had, in fact, established 17 training camps for use against the new government and international peacekeepers.
Nonetheless, there is little evidence to suggest that a significantly new, powerful alliance called al-Qaida al-Itihaad exists or that AIAI represents the vanguard of the al-Qaeda’s global strategy or next generation of militants. In previous incarnations, bin Laden sought refuge and diplomatic cover for his operations and training facilities in countries that at least had a modicum of government structure such as President Omar el-Bashir’s regime in Sudan from 1992-1995 and the Taliban government in Afghanistan from 1995-2001. If the post-9/11 al-Qaeda central command can claim direct credit for subsequent operations, they have relied on significant funding transfers and international travel from their supposed hideout(s) in Pakistan ?levels of infrastructure that Somalia just does not have. Therefore, it seems likely Major-General Ghormley was either misquoted about such an alliance or misspoke. Yet, even if such a partnership has, indeed, been forged, the implications to western interests are negligible in the short-term. Since the executive branch of the new Somali government is divided ideologically and even physically and the elected parliament remains in exile and has yet to convene, there is no ‘authority’ or political power to be of any real value to al-Qaeda leadership. Yet, the deployment of the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa remains significant as an impediment to the creation of international terrorist training camps last seen from 1998-2001 in Afghanistan should a sympathetic unified Somali government ever get established. In the meantime, the proliferation of weapons and lack of political structures combined with critical lack of resources in the midst of the worst drought in half a century, Somalia must surely be ranked among the most dangerous places on earth.
