Somali terror group’s last week attack against a high-profile hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu in which more than seven people were killed and scores injured was carried out to intimidate the legitimate government that came to power after an election and is supported by AMISOM forces that are paying in blood for the peace and stability of Somalia. The legitimate government in Mogadishu is supported by the Somali people and the international community while Al Shabab which is adhering to groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS is supported by an international terror network bent on destroying the country and destabilizing the Horn of Africa.
As such, the guerrilla attacks Al Shabab is carrying out now and then in Somalia is a criminal attempt to overthrow the functional government and establish a kind of theocracy along the teachings of deranged people like the late Al Baghdadi and his cohorts. Like a wounded animal, Al Shabab too is angry, dangerous and extremely destructive anywhere it could insert itself and take retaliatory actions in a bid to create a false sense of effectiveness in carrying out its satanic agenda.
Al Shabab’s weakness or strength cannot be properly gauged on the basis of its ability to carry out such attacks. Al Shabab is rather a dying species and its death started well before it started it terrorist campaign. Its death started in its thinking and the brutal ideology that alienated it from the majority of the people of Somalia.
It then turned into an anti-Islam entity that is going against the very foundation of Islam which is peace. Al Shabab is a terrorist group that thrived in the chaos that engulfed Somalia for more than 20 years and as such its ideological or religious claims are only covers designed to attract young, unsuspecting and unemployed youngsters. Had Al Shabab embraced a just cause in Somalia, it could have won over the people without a single shot. Violence, as they say, is the way of the weak and the frustrated who impose their will by force of arms on an unarmed population.
Sporadic attacks by Al Shabab terrorists who have gone from a short-lived positional or conventional warfare to guerrilla attacks are, according to some analysts, signs that the group is severely weakened and on its way out because it has been beaten and thus angry. Its self-proclaimed and self-imposed authority is in tatters. Al Shabab is a kind of parasite living off the blood of innocent people and is supported by outside forces that have global agendas of destabilization and chaos. That is why the group is opposed everywhere and by people who hold different and even opposed ideologies come together and form a united global front as far as terrorism is concerned.
The United States, China and Russia pursue different political ideologies but they are united against terrorism. Russia and India have different political systems but they are standing together in fighting terrorism from the Caucasus to Kashmir. The Middle East and Europe embrace different faiths and political ideologies but when it comes to fighting terrorism they stand as one, whether the attacks occur in Paris, Brussels or Iraq, Syria or Lebanon. What unites these countries and populations is nothing other than their collective dread against political killings by small groups whose ideology is the hate they harbor against humanity.
Political gurus often say that war is the continuation of politics by other, and violent means. This is true in conventional warfare. Yet in the case of conflicts inspired by terrorist ideology and practice, war becomes a crime against humanity because it targets innocent civilians, women, children as well as the weak and the poor. Terrorism anywhere in the world is a crime because it promotes narrow political agendas inspired by bloody-minded leaders whose objective is not the defense of popular interests but those of a few individuals who put themselves above the common good. Terrorism is thus the preferred weapon of small groups of people who fantacise about attaining power and wealth by taking a road strewn with the blood and bodies of their victims.
Terrorism is sometimes confused with legitimate armed struggle for national liberation or against groups in power that oppress minorities. The same gurus warn us that “one man’s terrorism is another man’s freedom fighter” in order to highlight the importance of making a distinction between what they call just and/or unjust wars. Armed violence carried out in the name a specific ideology or belief system is also characterized as terrorism although the
claims and pretension are often misleading and untenable.
Terrorism in the Horn of Africa is not a home-grown phenomenon. It is rather an exported yet lethal commodity used to promote specific political agendas by using its victims as bargaining chips or shooting targets. It is a military movement fully supported and financed by groups that want to see not only Somalia but also the entire Horn of Africa up in flames. Modern terrorism knows no borders in practicing its hate-inspired and senseless attacks against its own people. Modern terrorism is also a big business that is generating billions in its illegally held territories to finance its campaigns of death and destruction.
When ISIS occupied part of Iraq a few years ago, its first target was the underground or illegal oil business that generated hundreds of millions of dollars used to finance its operations. Al Shabab too used and still uses its economic activities along the Indian Ocean offshore to engage in all kinds of pirated businesses to finance its killings and pay its suicide bombers. As a rule, terrorist groups do not fight for a cause but to make huge amounts of money, and if possible, conquer state power in countries where they are actively engaged. Neither modern terrorism a phenomenon confined to a specific geopolitical area. It thrives wherever there is a threat of chaos or potentials for conflicts.
In the Horn region, Al Shabab and other so-called Islamist terror groups before it, targeted Ethiopia because, according to their calculations, by destabilizing Ethiopia they could easily find a foothold in this strategic country from where they could spread their terror campaigns in the Horn at large. When this plan was nipped in the bud in the 1990s and early 2000’s. Al Shaba changed it strategy and eyed Kenya as the ideal launching pad for its murderous operations.
It was easier for it to penetrate deep into Kenya than into Ethiopia whose big towns are located far away from Al Shabab’s operation centers and were difficult to access logistics and carry out attacks. Even then, Al Shabab tried and failed on many occasions to carry out devastating operations in the capital Addis Ababa. Its agents were arrested by Ethiopian intelligence and security operatives at the planning stage while they easily carried out the most murderous attacks against Kenyan targets deep into Nairobi and the border towns.
Al Shaba, like any global terror group, might have regional ambitions. But as a group on the run, it has not been able to gain a solid foothold anywhere in the Horn countries. Its stronger cousins like ISIS or Al Qaeda could flee to Afghanistan as soon as their terror campaigns in Iraq or Syria showed signs of cracks and terminal death. They moved some of their operatives to Europe disguised as refugees and continued their senseless attacks against soft targets. Al Shabab has neither the logistic and organizational capabilities, the strategic vision of those groups or, what is most important, the support of the communities they claim they represent or on whose behalf they carry out criminal operations.
Yet, with all its weaknesses and recent defeats, Al Shabab is still a force capable of carrying out isolated but well-planned and well -executed attacks against civilian target, as last week’s event in Mogadishu demonstrated. It will always try to carry out attacks against strategic Horn countries and cities like Addis Ababa which is also the seat of the African Union and other international organizations. In the past, Al Shabab could not succeed in carrying out dramatic attacks for obvious reasons. It has no followers or social base to recruit, train and carry out deadly operations. Second, Ethiopian security operatives have a huge experience in thwarting such attacks at their planning or recruitment stages. Third, Ethiopians everywhere are united in condemning and exposing terrorism or informing on suspects or potential attackers. Constant vigilance is another factor that made Al Shabab ineffective in Ethiopia or in the Horn region at large.
Strategically speaking, Al Shabab and scores of other like-minded terror groups, are a sort of dying species because they do not represent the bright future of peace, hope and economic development that is in store for the peoples of the Horn of Africa. They rather symbolize the dark past of murders, lootings, hunger and poverty.
It may take even take more years and require more sacrifice to wipe out terrorism from the face of the Horn region, but its final defeat is inevitable as it was inevitable in Iraq and elsewhere. The fact that evil will be defeated and righteousness allowed to prevail is not an empty rhetoric but a faith deeply ingrained in the belief systems of tens of millions of people that are enduring the brutality and heartlessness of Al Shabab which is condemned to perishing by the very inhuman practices. Like its cousins in Iraq Syria and elsewhere, Al Shabab will inevitably be pushed to the gates of hell and will become another dark chapter in the annals of the history of the Horn region.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 29 December 2019
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
