Fighting resumes in Mogadishu; Shariah Law enforced
By Bill Roggio
The Islamic Courts Union, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia, is consolidating power in the capital city of Mogadishu. The ICU is conducting military operations against rival warlords who sat out of last month's fighting. Over 140 Somalis have been killed in the past two days of fighting, with over a hundred estimated wounded. The ICU is attacking warlords Abdi Hassan Awale Qeydiid and Hussein Aidid. Hussein Aidid is the son of Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the target of the United Nations and U.S. operations in October of 1993 during the Battle of Mogadishu. Qeydiid's militia has surrendered to the Islamic Courts, who displayed their weapons.
No longer maintaining the fascade of a 'moderate' Islamic government, the Islamic Courts has begun to enforce the strict brand of Shariah law the Taliban favored after their rise to power in Afghanistan from 1996 to their ouster in 2001, and currently is enforcing in several agencies of Pakistan's North West Frontier provinces today. Islamic Courts fighters beat members of the Mogadishu Stars, a musical band, with "electric cables" after performing at a wedding ceremony. "We had warned the family not to include in their ceremony what is not allowed by the sharia law. This includes the mixing of men and women and playing music. That is why we raided and took their equipment. What was going there was un-Islamic," said Sheik Iise Salad, according to the Associated Press.
Two Somalis were killed in Mogadishu after an Islamic Courts militia shut down a cinema broadcasting the World Cup. "They know the law, they broke it and they were punished according to the law. We need to be disciplined because this town especially is in danger from attack by Ethiopia," said Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamic Courts. In Jowhar, the Islamic Courts "punished 11 teenagers with 40 lashes in public each... after they confessed to 'un-Islamic behaviour', including smoking marijuana, pretending to be Islamic militia, violence and looting."
U.S. forces recently signed an agreement with the neighboring government of Djibouti to expand the size and upgrade the facilities in Camp Lemonier, the headquarters for Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa. CJTF-HOA's mission has just become much more complicated with the rise of the east African version of Talibanistan. The seventeen known terror camps and the Islamic Court's consildation of power may neccessatate a switch from covert and humanitarian missions to more overt missions designed to prevent the Islamic Courts from expanding into northern Somalia and westward into Ethiopia.
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