New York Times: Islamist Militants in Somalia Begin to Fight One Another

[Liibaan]

Islamist Militants in Somalia Begin to Fight One Another

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

 

New York Times, United States

 

NAIROBI, Kenya — Somalia’s Islamist militants, long a bane of the country’s weakening government, are now officially fighting one another.

 

On Sunday, a powerful, newly militarized Islamist group declared a “holy war” against other Islamist factions, and it seems to have the muscle to back up its intentions. Over the weekend, the group, the Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama, killed more than 10 fighters from the Shabab, a rival Islamist faction known as one of Somalia’s toughest.

 

The group issued a statement calling on its followers to “prepare themselves for jihad against these heretic groups,” referring to some of the other, more hard-line Islamist factions, and “to restore stability and harmony in Somalia and achieve a genuine government of national unity.”

 

Many Somalia analysts had been predicting that this would happen: that as Somalia’s transitional government headed toward collapse — it now controls just a few city blocks in a country almost as big as Texas — the Islamist insurgents of varying agendas would begin to slug it out themselves. This weekend’s violence is a strong sign that the infighting is under way.

 

An episode of grave desecration may have been what started it. In early December, fighters from the Shabab, one of Somalia’s most militant Islamic groups, ransacked the graves of moderate Islamist clerics who had been buried in Kismaayo, a town the Shabab controls. On Sunday, moderate Islamist leaders brought this up and condemned the Shabab for such un-Islamic behavior.

 

“It is a politically motivated act, which can ignite a sectarian war,” warned Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, one of the moderate Islamists, at a news conference in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.

 

On Saturday and Sunday, gunmen from Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama took back two towns that the Shabab had controlled, Guriel and Dusa Marreb, and they vowed to roll back recent Shabab gains in other parts of the country. Until recently, Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama was known as a religious brotherhood of moderate Islamists, and it did not have a formidable military wing.

 

The tension among Islamic groups comes at a time when politics in the country are as precarious as ever. Somalia’s transitional president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, is expected to resign any day now, and on Sunday more than 100 soldiers loyal to him flew out of Mogadishu for their clan stronghold in northern Somalia. Several Somali politicians aligned with Mr. Yusuf also left for northern Somalia on Sunday, implying that Mr. Yusuf’s powerful sub-clan, the *****ten, may be pulling out of the government.

 

Aides to Mr. Yusuf said he would to step down on Monday because he was sick of being blamed for the country’s deepening crisis. Mr. Yusuf, a former warlord in his 70s, has been roundly criticized for blocking peace efforts and refusing to negotiate with Islamic leaders.

 

His expected exit is sure to kick off a clan-based succession battle for leadership of the transitional government, despite how marginalized it has become. At the moment, the real power is divided among the country’s Islamist factions, which is why the new wave of infighting is so troubling for many Somalis.