AFP: Lawless Somalia draws influx of foreign fighters (mostly based in Garowe)

[Xudeedi]

A legitimate AFP report. Now you wonder why the SSDF state would divert the world attention from the dusty town of Garowe into Galgala.

 

Lawless Somalia draws influx of foreign fighters (AFP) – Mar 27

 

NAIROBI (AFP) — Egged on by Osama bin Laden and drawn in by Ethiopia's pullout, foreign jihadists have flocked to Somalia in recent months, joining forces with local fighters to turn the country into an Al-Qaeda haven.

 

Somalia now shelters an estimated 450 foreign fighters who are working with the Shebab, a home-grown hardline Islamist group that has spearheaded a bloody insurgency since 2006.

 

While foreign fighters wanted for links to Al-Qaeda have long used Somalia as a backyard, their numbers have swollen dramatically in 2009, experts say.

 

"There were maybe 100 foreigners last year but now our estimate is up to 450," said Ismail Haji Noor, a former Somali security official who has established a secular militia bent on rooting out the Shebab and their foreign allies.

 

Noor said the foreign jihadists come from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia and often enter the country on regular airlines from the northern semi-autonomous state of Somaliland.

 

Most of them are concentrated in Garowe, in the northern breakaway state of Puntland, and the southern towns of Baidoa, Merka and Kismayo.

 

"The risk is being taken increasingly seriously that they will look outside Somalia for their operations now," said one Nairobi-based diplomat.

 

Stripped of their arch-enemy Ethiopia, which ended its two-year military occupation in January, the Shebab have revamped their organisation and moved closer to Al-Qaeda, intelligence officials said.

 

LINK--read more

[Thankful]

"There were maybe 100 foreigners last year but now our estimate is up to 450," said

Ismail Haji Noor

, a former Somali security official who has

established a secular militia bent on rooting out the Shebab and their foreign allies.

 

Noor

said the foreign jihadists come from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia and often enter the country on regular airlines from the northern semi-autonomous state of Somaliland.

 

Most of them are concentrated in Garowe, in the northern breakaway state of Puntland, and the southern towns of Baidoa, Merka and Kismayo.

All your articles base their information on a ridiculous and bias source, in this case it’s a character called Ismail Haji Noor - who claims to be an anti-piracy advisor for the TFG under Sharif, that is why he named area's that are not under the TFG control as the places where foreign fighters are. Why didn’t he mention Mogadishu, didn't we hear of some dying a few days ago in a bombing???

 

 

This article is from 2009. This is also the year you were a big supporter the Puntland government. If you like I can show the links where you praised Faroole and Ilka-jiir as being educated men.

[Burn Notice]

Lol Thankful

 

It's all about timing with these guys..or should I say it's dependent on which way the wind blows

[NASSIR]

Burn Notice, aren't you an Australian of European descent and a shareholder of these fly-by night small companies in Puntland, coveting the blessed lands of Makhir people?

 

If you may recall, you and I had exchanged some private messages before on topics like PL's shady deals with RR and Africa Oil and when President Sharif and the Somali Parliament voted for and passed the implementation of Shariah law, which I objected to as the time wasn't ripe for it.

 

 

Burn Notice Alien Member: 10008 posted April 22, 2009 07:19 AM       Nassir, thank you for the time and effort taken to post the below right on the money IMO

 

cheers

 

"The implementation of Sharia law is the way forward, but its application needs circumspection and careful deliberation and established national judges with great credentials of religious background and probity, who can understand time's prerequisites. Good Times and circumstances of the past have dramatically shifted towards a chaotic world and a world of dishonesty and perfidy, greed and poverty. It's hard to implement the application of the cutting of hands for a mere shoplifting given the circumstances we are in. Human beings are fallible, judgemental, biased, subjective and divided over the complete and fair interpretation of the laws of Allah according to the right circumstances. Case in point is the stonning of the 16 yearl girl--that we all wept and grieved for her great deal of suffering--under the shaddow of the power struggle between the opposing forces of the TFG.

 

Look at how the scarcity of trustworthiness rooted in our culture today manifest itself from the past. When an English traveler under the contractual service of the Common Wealth Ministry visited Sanaag in 1843, he was marveled at the hospitality and extreme honesty of the inhabitants. He reported that "to call a man thief is a deadly insult to be washed by blood alone."That you could leave your personal property in an open marketplace with high concentration of particapants without having to worry about their loss was the norm.Compare that era to the present one, you are hardly equipped with such thoughts of complete integrity with todays' people.

[NASSIR]

"The risk is being taken increasingly seriously that

they will look outside Somalia for their operations now,"

said one Nairobi-based diplomat.

An old article but the Nairobi-based diplomat's prediction was right on target, proved by the recent bombings of Uganda.