Somalia Jihad Update. "Somali gov't names Qaeda leader as fighting rages," by Sahal Abdulle for Reuters:
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - The Somali government said on Thursday that al Qaeda had made a young militant Islamist commander its leader in Mogadishu as fighting raged for a second day in the coastal capital.
Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle told a news conference Aden Hashi Ayro -- an Afghanistan-trained commander in his 30s who runs the Islamists' feared Shabab, or military wing -- was personally directing the growing insurgency.
"The government is being targeted by those who used to work with terrorists, the so-called Islamic Courts," Jelle said. "And after they had a long consultation with al Qaeda, they named Aden Hashi Ayro as head of (al Qaeda) operations in Mogadishu."
The United States and the Somali government have long accused Ayro, and other Islamist leaders, of links to al Qaeda. But some critics say the government paints its political rivals as terrorists to secure more backing from Washington.
Thursday's accusation came as insurgents again battled Somali government forces and their Ethiopian military allies, forcing hundreds of families to flee in the worst fighting in the Horn of Africa nation since a war at the end of 2006.
[...]
The former leader of the Islamists, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, surfaced in public for the first time since the war calling on Somalis to remove their foreign "occupiers."
In a telephone interview, Aweys told the BBC's Somali language radio section that he was still inside the country.
"Somalia is under occupation and people have the right to remove occupiers," he said. "The Islamic Courts should have been commended for returning law and order, but the international community failed to do so."
Jiahd is global and thinks in the long term
I would not want to live under the law and order that Somalia's Islamic Courts have created.
Aden Ayrow is by far the most dangerous thug in Somalia. He thinks like a businessman, is a skilled organizer, he's not young (he did his first jihad tours back in the 1980s), he's well-funded and well-connected. He also has the right tribal connections. He won't pull the random attack, he builds well-trained cadres that train others, which makes him valuable to many forces outside Somalia. The sooner something high-speed and metal hits him, the better.
The sooner Ayrow is eliminated, the sooner the specter of Shari'a can be exorcised from Somalia. The complete decimation of those in Somalia’s leadership favoring an Iranian-style "Islamic Republic" would be more effective still. Before the devastation wrought by the twin plagues of clan hatred and Islamic extremism, Mogadishu was a thriving modern metropolis that rivaled those of the Mediterranean in wealth and culture and which served as a Window on the West for Africa. Fortune willing, The Mog shall be restored to its former glory.