I am told the Americans are in the midst of a major rethink of their policy towards Somalia, as fighting within the last few days threatens to topple the government in Mogadishu, such as it exists.
This comes as the FBI investigates 20 Americans, mostly Somali refugees, who have reportedly joined the Islamist militants who threaten the capital.
Andrea Elliott has the story in Sunday’s New York Times. The US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano talked to me about the problem last month when she was in London, trying to pick up some tips in dealing with home-grown radical Islam.
(Remember, most of the 9/11 hijackers were not permanent US residents but Saudis studying in the US, so the Americans – who have long criticised us for letting radical Islam get out of hand – are now dealing with it themselves).
It seems one American blew himself up in Somalia last October and the NY Times is reporting that the FBI investigation into links between the Somali community in Minneapolis and the Al-Shabaab militia in Somalia is considered the biggest domestic terrorism investigation since 9/11 itself.
It seems likely that London and Washington will also be pushing for changes to the UN arms embargo on Somalia. The Americans have already funnelled in some $10m in arms and ammunition to Sheikh Sharif, who only formed a government back in February.
Washington is desperate to prop him up. It is believed that some 500 foreign jihadists are in Somalia, some of them junior remnants from fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it is increasingly clear that the African Union force of some 4,000 Ugandans and Burundians is trying but failing to keep the militants at bay.
More than 200,000 people have reportedly fled Mogadishu in the last month. The government has called upon Ethiopian and Kenyan forces for help but neither country wishes to be sucked in. And the dire humanitarian situation we highlighted in a film last month can only have worsened.
Commentsoldest first
There are so many places & peoples in the world that pose a ‘threat’ to humanity, it beggars the question, why is there so much hate towards the US & UK etc? Is it people who are ‘brainwashed’ or, so-called ‘radicalised’? I fear not.
It’s more to do with greed, inequality & lives of downright misery. This leads to hatreds & revengeful intentions. Match this with human evilness and you have a cocktail of continuous hell. As Capitalism grows in the world &, the rich dominate, ‘Revolutions’ will take place in ALL countries.
Mr. Martin is correct about the evil’s of greed based capitalism as exemplified by Halliburton in Iraq and then relocating its HQ to Dubai.
But, in dealing with Islamic people it’s more complex…many tribes and nations keep their poverty stricken populations in check by preaching the evil nature of infidel materialism and that being poor and humble is a holy state.
Why then would Somali kids raised in America fly off to die fighting a jihadist war in Somalia? They received the call from above and answered it.
This is a similar call that a suicide bomber in Iraq or Israel receives…his people and his faith are giving him a higher calling.
It would be so much less complicated if religion were absent from the world right now…then a poor person would simply be envious of the rich and hopefully seek ways to make money for himself. At least then there would be some logic and rationality involved, things often absent from religion.
Oportunities for poor people to ‘make money for themselves’ are so rare and few, that the notion is false to believe people have ways. As fat-cats continue to dominate, control & dictate resources, there leaves nothing for others apart from hate, crime, revenge, etc. This is clearly going to get worse &, I fully understand why poor people commit justifiable’crimes’.
I’m afraid there’s another essential ingredient. Prejudice. As long as people are not welcomed with a society and prejudiced against there will always be an eager band of willing recruits for extremist causes. The more they are prejudiced against the more they will look for a reason and fall prey to such gangsters.
In the west we need to be mindful not to target a whole group, but to individualise. It’s not islam or Al Quada, but it’s a group that has a particular grievance (rightly or wrongly). By using such a big brush we inadvertently target innocent people and make a rod for our own backs.
What we desperately need to do is really to see there is a distinction between the different groups of gangsters (terrorists is a misleading term to me) and it is up to the Journalists to uncover these differences and to point what each different group’s purpose is (those that carry murders).
By not prejudicing there’s no reason for people to feel they are unfairly treated. It is important to understand what the current grievances of the young immigrants are (radicalisation is a symptom of another problem) and more importantly to rectify them.
Leave a comment
* Required field.