Somalia a Vital Front in Countering the Spread of Radical Islamists
By Douglas Farah
Somalia, reeling from decades of strife, civil war and chaos, has emerged as an important front in confronting the spread of armed Islamist groups with links to al Qaeda. Recent fighting in and around the rubble of what remains of Mogadishu has been the first armed response by a coalition of unsavory warlords against the growing strength of Islamist militias that have moved to impose sharia law on the land.
The warlord's coalition is a self-styled "anti-terrorism alliance" aimed at pushing back against gains made by Islamist militias that contain members who trained in Afghanistan and elsewhere by al Qaeda and its allies. Osama bin Laden's men helped train the Somali militias that downed the U.S. Blawkhawk helicopter in 1994 and dragged the bodies of U.S. troops through the streets. In the years since, bin Laden has mentioned Somalia as a possible venue for a "third war," after Afghanistan and Iraq, to tie up U.S. troops and weaken the West.
There are reports of U.S. support for the warlords, who have blood on their hands from years of brutal warfare but resent and fear the growing strength of the Islamist militias. The U.S. has not confirmed or denied the reports of support for the alliance, but Somalia presents another variation of the constant set of poor options available to U.S. counter-terrorism policy: support bad people who will fight the enemy to the death, or allow the Islamists to gain access to another safehaven with easy access and the multiple advantages of operating unfettered in a geographic region. My full blog is here.
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