The New York Times article takes sides against the CIA, initially portraying the agency as a rogue element that wages its own impulsive global battle on al-Qaeda at the expense of a more thoughtful administration-wide Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). Yet, by its conclusion, the article reveals: “The American activities in Somalia [Country Profile] have been approved by top officials in Washington and were reaffirmed during a National Security Council meeting about Somalia in March?” Thus, it is clear that specific (and possibly critical) senior Defense and State Department personnel might have been kept out of the intelligence loop or otherwise overruled. Further, it is quite likely that the gap reflects a greater split across the administration whether America’s aim should follow President Bush’s initial reaction to pursue and crush its clearly identifiable enemy?al-Qaeda?or follow the waning neo-conservative approach of building democracies in failed and failing states to drain the swamp of jihadist militancy. Within days of the US-backed Somali warlord Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT) defeat in the streets of Mogadishu, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to another tried and true paradigm of international politics?real politik?when her office announced the creation of a “Somalia Contact Group” on June 9, 2006. This diplomatic forum is designed to foster communication with the winning Islamic Courts Union militia and all others committed to a peaceful resolution and a promise foreswearing that participants would prevent Somalia from becoming a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and other Islamic militants.
Intriguingly, the Union’s leader, Sharif Shaikh Ahmed, at times sounds like he could prove to be a viable contributor to such a contact group. In the BBC, he sounds like a civil populist uncoupled from the alliance of Islamic Mogadishu warlords that scored such a rapid and comprehensive victory over the ARPCT when describing the Islamic Courts Union: “They are a kind of popular revolution by the Somali people after 16 years of anarchy and killing, plunder and kidnapping. This body is not a political one. Rather we want to give power back to the Somali people so it can make its own decisions and decide its own destiny.” Hopefully, CIA analysts will forward other more questionable proclamations by Ahmed who was quoted by the Saudi-owned pan-Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat as warning against US intervention, “If US forces intervene directly against us in Mogadishu, then we are ready to teach them a lesson they will never forget and repeat their defeat in 1993 [Terrorist Incident].”
Acknowledging that much of the official comments regarding the failed state of Somalia are filled with spin?including the contortedly named CIA-funded secular Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism?at least one question begs to be addressed: What could be the al-Qaeda threat in Somalia? Recent open source material suggests that at least three senior al-Qaeda operational leaders are thought to be protected by Muslim warlords in Mogadishu. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Zuweydan (a pseudonym for Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan) are named by press sources, and both are linked to the 1998 African Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania . Mohammed is further thought to be connected to the Kenya dual attacks in 2003 against the hotel and Israeli airliner . Of the six individuals listed on the FBI “Wanted” poster following the Embassy bombings that includes Mohammed and Swedan, three others?Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, and Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil?have been captured in October 1999, July 2004, and August 2004, respectively. That leaves Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam as the most likely Embassy bombing suspect possibly still in Somalia. The other five al-Qaeda operatives listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List (link) including Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah, Anas Al-Liby, and Saif Al-Adel are known to have fled to Karachi, Pakistan within days of the attack or to have otherwise been involved in the planning and logistics of the operation from locations outside of east Africa.
With the success this past week of the Islamic Courts Union, it is unlikely that any current or former al-Qaeda operatives still residing in Somalia will be captured by US forces or otherwise turned over to any governments anytime soon. While all the men mentioned above possess a demonstrated ability to plan and execute multiple coordinated strategic attacks against western targets across the continent of Africa, the GWOT is better served by denying the failed state of Somalia as a recruiting, planning, training, and logistical base for the global decentralized jihadist movement similar to Afghanistan in the 1990s. Thus, if the CIA is truly to blame for ARPCT’s defeat last week, it will not matter much if global diplomatic engagement either strengthens the existing transitional government holed up in Baidoa (about 150 miles outside of Mogadishu) or, rather, the Islamic Courts Union forms an alternative regime that retains a more moderate Islamic agenda. The failure to apprehend three known criminals may not be too high a price for increased regional stability provided any new government does not join the axis of evil as a rogue rather than failed state.
