Ogaden Online: The official homepage of Ogaden on the Internet

Editors Note: This is the first part of a three part series examining the hreat, real or perceived, posed by Al Shabaab, its beneficiaries, and how est to talk this threat.

Lately, perusing the news events from many Western countries such as the United States of America (USA), Canada, Great Britain, and Australia, for example, one would be forgiven to assume that these countries are under an ‘imminent’ attack from a group known as Al Shabaab. Al Shabaab is an Arabic term referring to youth in general. It is also a group with a ragtag army consisting of ‘religious’ vagabonds from many parts of the globe and some confused local Somali youth.

Authorities in the USA have, and continue to have, investigated the sudden disappearance of some American and Somali American youth who were believed to have been ‘recruited’ by Al Shabaab. Al Shabaab, through what later turned out to be a Somali Canadian ‘inter-clan rivalry’, even succeeded in being investigated as being a potent threat to the historic swearing in ceremony of President Obama in January 2009.

The Canadians have, and continue to have, dealt with cases regarding the disappearance of some Somali Canadian youth. The way the head of the Canadian national police force known as the RCMP discussed publicly the threat posed by Al Shabaab to Canada recently, one would have thought that Al Shabaab fighters were now roaming the streets in many Canadian cities.

It is believed that the Australians have a task force dealing with the potential threat posed by Al Shabaab or what the Western intelligence community may term as local Al Shabaab sympathizers. There have even been arrests in Australia of armed individuals who were reported to have been planning to attack a major Australian military installation.

The way Al Shabaab had lately grabbed the attention of the Western intelligence community, politicians and policy analysts alike, one might think that this face-covering ‘religious’ zealots and confused local Somali youth from southern Somalia have the means to launch attacks with devastating effects against the West.

Yet, many political and military analysts in the Horn of Africa (HOA) believe that even though the group may boast with preposterous propaganda threatening future attacks in far-flung Western countries, in the near term, Al Shabaab has neither the military means nor the logistical capability to launch attacks beyond Southern Somalia.

Although the news from the West may sound as if the West is a victim of Al Shabaab, both military and political experts in the HOA interviewed by the Ogaden Online Staff (OOS) as part of the research for this writing agree that Al Shabaab’s REAL victims are the Somali Nation, Somalis in Somalia and those in the Western Diaspora, and the just cause of the Ethnic Somalis in Ogaden respectively.

The Somali Nation

There is no argument that Al Shabaab has victimized the Somali nation in general. It has destroyed many national monuments. It dug the graves of the long dead, both Somalis and foreigners. It has banned the use of the blue Somali national flag with the white star. In all throughout southern Somalia, it has mandated the use of its own black flag with an Arabic inscription.

In essence, what Al Shabaab has succeeded in doing in the short time it has been in control of Southern Somalia is to destroy anything of substance to the Somalis as a nation. An individual with immense knowledge of the Somali nation termed Al Shabaab’s victimization of the Somali
nation as nothing short of a national ‘calamity.’ The individual concluded that Al Shabaab’s sole objective appears to be the total eradication of any symbol that the Somali nation may have had in the past.

Al Shabaab appears determined to destroy, by any means, the only thing that has survived the twenty plus years Somali civil war: the sanctity of the Islamic religion. Although there has been a long history of Somali inter or intra-clan warfare, there has never been a Somali war, civil or otherwise, based on religion.

What Al Shabaab has done is to label any Somali national-the majority of the most prominent religious Islamic Somali scholars have rejected Al Shabaab’s ideology, who does not agree with its ideology and narrow-minded interpretation of the Islamic religion as a Takfir – an ‘apostasy in Islam.’ An HOA political analyst pointed out that “the intention is deliberate and is meant to remove any dissenting voices by using the Islamic religion as a cover and a basis for its ‘wicked’ actions against  the Somali nation.”

As one of the most vivid, yet, recent examples of the Takfirization of individuals or groups who oppose Al Shabaab’s agenda or its recent prominence in southern Somalia, a prominent HOA scholar pointed to the  root cause of the recent war between Al Shabaab and a group called Xisbul  Islam, Islamic Party.

The scholar rightly postulated as was also publicly acknowledged by Al Shabaab, that the Xisbul Islam group was simply demanding that Al Shabaab fulfill its part of the bargain to administer the Southern City of  Kismaayo as was agreed to when the groups took the city from a Somali warlord back in 2008. Instead, Al Shabaab labeled the leader of this group in Southern Somali as a Takfir and waged a brutal war which caused untold casualties within the two opposing groups and to the Somalis living in  southern Somalia as many had to flee their homes and seek refuge in Kenya.

Somalis in Somalia

The victims most impacted by Al Shabaab’s daily transgressions in the name of Islam are the Somalis who live in the areas where Al Shabaab now either fully controls, such as southern Somalia, or the places where it wages its war of attrition. These Somalis, through no fault of their own, now find themselves ruled by individuals some of whom may have less than three years of formal Islamic knowledge, let alone any idea of Islamic jurisprudence.

These individuals call themselves Emirs, Islamic leaders, although they may have little or no knowledge of the Islamic religion. These very same individuals may issue misguided ‘religious edicts’ ordering the loss of limps such as hands and or legs for individuals accused of theft without verifiable evidence as demanded by Islam or without them first providing the accused ‘thief or thieves’ sustenance which may have otherwise prevented them from stealing in the first place as is mandated by Islam.

They may order the stoning to death of accused ‘adulterers’ mainly women to date without providing witnesses who were present when and where the actual adultery may have taken place which is what is required under Islamic law. Worse, without any considerations to logic or logistics, these ‘Emirs’ may order, for example, the women in an entire city to cover  themselves from head to toe in a short amount of time, say in a day or two.

A knowledgeable source once articulated the absurdity and the logistical impossibility of the Somalis fulfilling such illogical ‘edicts’ as this: “Even if the city folks, as happened in Baidoba for example, were ready to fulfill the edict, one would neither find the clothing nor the tailors to make such clothing for an entire city in such a short turnaround.”

Somalis in the Diaspora

Given the twenty plus year old Somali civil strive and the former Somali military rule, many Somalis have found themselves resettling in many countries including those in the West in droves. Although it is not easy  to obtain an accurate count of the number of Somalis living in any one of these nations, however it is believed that the largest Somali Diaspora community in the West is found in Canada.

Most of these Somalis have now become citizens of their host countries. Many of these Somalis may also have had children who were born in the West or who may have spent most of their early childhood and now adolescence life in the West. Many of these youth may have yet to see their parents’ birth places in Somalia.

Since there are areas such as the North West and North East, for example, where people enjoy relative peace and have some sort of local governance compared to the South, it has become a tradition for some individuals from these areas to send their kids during the extended summer school breaks to these areas of Somalia. The adults may have also either gone back to start businesses or to visit their loved ones.

With the ascension and sudden prominence of Al Shabaab in Somalia, any one especially the Somali youth who travels to Somalia now is automatically labeled and investigated by the intelligence authorities in these countries. The suspicion is that these citizens of Somali origin may be going there for reasons other than visiting family members.

During the extensive research undertaken for this writing, one of the Ogaden Online Staff staff came across a case that highlights the enormity of the situation faced by the naturalized Somali citizens in the West as a result of Al Shabaab’s prominence. In one of the Western countries, parents of Somali origin are said to have sent back to Somalia one of their sons for what was said to be a family visit.

The son was reported to have died after being stabbed to death by a local Somali youth following an argument. When the parents reported their son’s death in Somalia to their adopted country, it is said that they were suspected of covering up for their son’s death following what the local authority termed as ‘fighting for Al Shabaab.’ It is said that the family had to stop the burial of their son in their home country in order to bring their son’s remains back to the West for an autopsy to prove the cause of his death.

The Ogaden Cause - Viewed as a Collateral Damage

Towards the end of the year 2008, many individuals may not recall that the regime of Meles Zenawi, the leader of the Woyane clique in Ethiopia, was in a very bad shape both militarily and politically following its failed  military excursion in Somalia. Zenawi’s regime failed to provide any tangible proof of the thousands of ‘foreign militants’ it claimed to have pursued inside Somalia. Despite having an army numbered in excess of 50,000, it had also failed militarily to help the Somali Transitional Federal Government (STFG) stand on its feet given the historical enmity between the two nations.

Instead of helping the STFG, It is believed that Meles Regime in Ethiopia worked tirelessly behind the scenes against the strengthening of the STFG by arming and coddling local warlords in its payroll. Worse, Zenawi’s regime was accused by reputable human rights organizations such as Amnesty International of indiscriminate shelling of civilians, extrajudicial killings, and many crimes against humanity committed by its poorly trained army deployed in Somalia.

At the same time, was finally facing an excessive pressure from the West brought on by the most extensive human rights research undertaken by a Western human rights organization concerning the genocide that was taking place in Ogaden. Human Rights Watch  (HRW) published its report of ‘crimes against humanity’ in Ogaden perpetrated by the same Zenawi led that at the time had large military presence in Somalia.

The European Union stopped its aid as a result of these reported and verified with the help of commercial satellite images of Woyane led  human rights transgressions. At the same time, the USA government was rethinking about its strategy in the horn. It was reported by highly placed sources that towards the end of 2008, the USA government was pressuring the Woyane-led regime in Ethiopian to pull out of Somalia altogether. The US was also said at the time to have been quietly demanding that Zenawi and his clique in Addis Ababa address the human rights situation in Ogaden.

When the Ogaden issue finally appeared to have gained traction in the West, all over sudden Al Shabaab gained military prominence in southern Somalia. Given that the West was wary of the threat, real or perceived, posed by Al Shabaab; given that not a single country in the West was willing to militarily deploy its troops in Somalia to nip in the bud the threat posed by Al Shabaab, the West started to ease the pressure on Zenawi’s regime in Ethiopia.

Instead of continuing the demands for Zenawi to open up access to Ogaden for the world to witness the genocide it perpetrated there, many Western countries with clout in the horn viewed Zenawi and his poorly trained militias masquerading as the Ethiopian army as what a HOA analyst termed as a ‘necessary evil.’ Zenawi’s regime all over sudden became an ‘evil’ that could one day deploy its troops back in Somalia should Shabaab militants attempt to extend its territorial gains. Thus, the Ogaden issue and the just cause of the Somalis in Ogaden became forgotten again given all the talk of ‘religious’ vagabonds who were claiming to be reading to cross in to Ogaden to pursue the ‘Ethiopians.’

To date, Zenawi’s dictatorial regime continues to overplay its newly found calling card called Al Shabaab. When there is talk of its human rights transgression in Ogaden, it always brings a quote from yet another ‘religious’ Al Shabaab illiterate who is claiming to be ready to wage Jihad, holy war, with the ‘Ethiopians’ in Ogaden. In essence, such talk appears to allow the West to look the other side when it comes to the  genocide in Ogaden in order to keep the Zenawi’s Woyane led militants onside just in case they are needed militarily in the near future.

Conclusion

It is undeniable that the West has awoken to the sudden military dominance of Al Shabaab in southern Somalia. It is also undeniable that the West is not in the near term a victim of Al Shebaab’s militancy shenanigans. However, today there are real victims of Al Shabaab. The once proud but now down trodden Somali nation is the first victim of Al Shabaab. The Somali people both inside Somalia and those in the West have suffered due to and as a result of Al Shabaab’s prominence.

Moreover, Zenawi’s dictatorial regime has taken advantage of the rise of Al Shabaab by changing the channels on the Ogaden genocide. It is in the West’s interest and in the interest of the people of the Horn of Africa that both the threat posed by Al Shabaab and the Zenawi led  regime be addressed properly.


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By Ogaden Online Staff