The latest Al Shabab terrorist attack was aimed at the joint Kenyan-US base at Lamu that claimed lives and property destruction. A couple of weeks back, Al Shababa killed nearly one hundred people in Mogadishu in one of its worst terrorist operations. In 1917, it killed more than 500 in a single terrorist attack. It is continuing to kill many more. As we write these lines and you read them, Al Shabab may be planning new attacks to destroy more innocent lives.
Yet all this has not made Al Shabab more powerful or more effective or more feared. It has reduced it into a killing machine that needs constant flow of innocent blood for its survival. The same can be said about ISIS when it was in control of a large chunks of Iraqi and Syrian territory that made it look unbeatable for a moment. However, it is beaten or is being beaten wherever it chooses to go and carry out its evil designs.
Terrorism is the antithesis of civilized politics. No terrorist group has ran elections for power or gained power by other means anywhere in the world because it represents no cause, fights for no genuine reason or idea and kills only for the sake of killing and imposing its will on people. Global terrorism is a kind of global nihilism, a movement that opposes everything and cares for nothing except killing innocent people. Is Al Shababa after money? How can it make money by killing innocent people? The answer is yes. International terrorism is a big money spinning organization, a kind of Global Terror Inc. Al Shabab is after the natural and financial resources of Somalia and the Horn of Africa in general. It is engaged in terrorist business along the Somali seashores exporting coal, wood and other commodities through its clandestine channels.
This is similar to ISIS business strategy that illegally exported Iraqi oil in order to finance its terrorist campaigns. Otherwise, what is the point of carrying out terrorist attacks in Kenya or Uganda? If at any rate Al Shabab acquires power, it will certainly use it to obtain more wealth and conduct more ferocious terrorist operations to promote its illegal businesses in the Horn region and extend its area of control. The same can be said above Boko Haram in Nigeria or West Africa
Terrorism is not after politics because it knows no politics and has no politics. Its aim and objective is to kill in order to terrify people and governments into surrender or negotiate for more wealth and influence. This is not politics but the behavior of a criminal syndicate. Al Shabab and all its terrorist brothers are members of a big international terrorist syndicate. Look at what ISIS did in Iraq and to some extent in Syria and Afghanistan. It declared a caliphate, went on a killing spree for two or three years and then it disappeared from the scene after pocketing huge amounts of money and wealth. Some of them went to Afghanistan, not to liberate the people of Afghanistan but to seek new sources of acquisition of money and wealth. Al Baghdadi must have must have started his journey to hell with a lot of money.
Those who kill innocent people have never won the day. Sooner or later, their killings will be paid back in kind and they will pay for what they have done. History never forgets. It registers the good, the bad and the ugly. And Al Shabab’s ugliest deeds may make the terror company look strong. In reality, they are signs that the terror group is losing the war against the people of Somalia and the people of the Horn of Africa and the international community.
Al Shabab may rejoice in killing the innocent, kids and women but this will only satisfy its satanic cravings that needs more innocent blood to appease its anger for losing the real war on the ground. It may test the determination of all the forces involved in the war against international terrorism. Terrorism is like a mad dog. It goes from place to place to bite as many people as possible by infecting them with its poisonous saliva. Like all mad dogs, its final destiny is to be chased and destroyed.
Last week’s terrorist attack in which dozens people died was not claimed by Al Shabab because it might have been carried out by its brother ISIS that is keeping silent in order not to attract attention because it may not be strong enough to boast about its dirty operations. And what the hell is ISIS doing in Somalia or Afghanistan? Is it there to liberate people from real or imaginable oppressors? The answer is no because it has failed to do so in Iraq which was its birthplace. If at all it could be successful, it could have been successful in Iraq. It did not because it has no cause and no politics. It is killing members of all religious or sectarian communities, Kurds, Shia, Sunni, Muslims and Christians among others in its indiscriminating bombings.
Al Shabab is killing Muslims, Christians and members of all religious groups because it has no politics and no agenda to liberate or defend the interests of any people or group. Terrorists are not after freedom or equality because they are not free and hate freedom because it gives alternative and peaceful choices. Terrorists claim they are the only choice and the only righteous people. Some of the kill and die for “the promised heaven where ten or more virgins await them to give them the utmost happiness” This is not a human aspiration but that of a satanic temptation or ultimate evil. This is terrorists’ way of winning over young and gullible followers to their satanic temptations. Promising more virgins for those who dip their hands in the blood of innocent human beings could only be satanic impulse.
History is working against Al Shabab and all terrors groups. No terrorist organization in the world has won final victory because it has no victory to win. Victory belongs to those who fight for a cause. Al Shabab has not cause to fight for. It is a terrorist syndicate that makes a lot of money by shedding the blood of innocent Africans. Al Shababa is not a Somali entity as far as its ideas and dirty deeds are concerned. It has many faces, It is the face of Al Queada, ISIS, Satan, if Satan exists in bodily form, and many other evil spirits that thrive on the blood of innocent people.
The other point is that the more Al Shabab looks ferocious the more it strengthens the resolve of all the forces engaged in its final demise. Recently, Kenya made it evident that it will keep on fighting against the terror group that wrecked havoc across the east African country. Despite its controversy with Mogadishu regarding offshore oil exploration rights, Nairobi has made it clear that it will never flinch even an inch from fighting against Al Shabab. Ethiopia is of course the classic case of fighting terrorism in the Horn of Africa. It is also a potential target of Al Shabab that has repeatedly tried and failed to carry up operations right in the Ethiopian capital.
Terror groups never gain support wherever they decide to hide and carry on cowardly acts of destruction against peaceful civilians because they cannot win the hearts and minds of sane people. ISIS tied to lure young people everywhere into serving as its foot soldiers. Those who foresaw the eventual defeat left it sooner and those who chose to stay lost their lives or were arrested. The empty promises and propaganda declaration on the Internet may lure some youths into believing that the caliphate was the promised land of international terrorism. Yet, at the end of the day, both the so-called caliphate crumbled both in reality and in the imagination of young idealists who are ready to embrace any cause even the craziest one. The same can be said about Al Shabab whose very name is coined and used as a trap to catch uninformed and desperate youths who are enticed to join its ranks.
Terrorism is a temporary phenomenon whose staying power is based on favorable conjecture for its spread and a huge amount of money that serves it as a life line. It thrives on chaos and generates chaos to survive. Peace is the enemy of terrorism because it exposes its true nature and deprives it of the oxygen needed for its survival. If there is no conflict, terrorism is ready to produce one. Both ISIS and Al Shabab and their cousin Al Qaeda were born in the middle of chaos in Iraq or Somalia. The prevalence of peace deprives terrorism of its oxygen and condemns it to early death. So terrorists wither create chaos or insert themselves in chaotic situations to survive.
Evidently, terrorism cannot even survive in a chaotic situation for long because it has nothing to offer except death and suffering. ISIS occupied many Iraqi cities before it was driven out. The city of Raqqa was dubbed its capital but life under terrorist rule has proved worse than battlefield realities. Terrorists cannot offer a normal life even to the most fanatic among their followers let alone to ordinary people.
Al Shabab will eventually continue to cause mayhem in Somalia and elsewhere until it will be driven out of the Horn region for good. Its defeat is one hundred per cent assured because there has never been in human history a society, and less so a country that has been governed by terrorists who cannot offer nothing better than guns and explosives. The road to the final defeat of terrorist groups may be long and complicated but their defeat is inevitable as day inevitably follows night.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 12 January 2020
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
