The "Shebab" -- that is, "the youth" -- are now in control of 80% of Somalia. If the youth of any civilization are that civilization's future, and if wherever one looks, Islam's youth are the most militant in their views, tenaciously upholding the doctrine of jihad, what does this bode for the future of Islam and its interactions with the rest of the non-Islamic world?
"Radical Islamists linked to al-Qaeda set to take control of Somalia," by Mike Pflanz for the Telegraph, December 26:
Hardline Islamists are poised to take control of large areas of southern Somalia, opening a possible new front in the war on terrorism.Could? Be sure: it already is.
Fears are growing that this lawless area, bordering Kenya and Ethiopia, could become a stronghold for terrorists with possible links to al-Qaeda.
Somalia's weak official government, the 14th in the last 17 years, depends entirely on the presence of Ethiopian troops, who are deployed in and around the capital, Mogadishu.They invaded in December 2006, mounting an American-supported operation which overthrew an earlier Islamist regime, styling itself the Islamic Courts Union.
But Ethiopia has pledged to withdraw its troops at the end of December. When they leave, the official government is likely to fall - or be forced to evacuate Mogadishu.
An armed group styling itself Al-Shebab is likely to take over. Already, its fighters are believed to control more than 80 per cent of southern Somalia. These radical Islamists believe in imposing Sharia law and they recently approved the stoning of a 13-year-old girl.
Al Shebab, the fanatical armed wing which broke from the Islamic Courts Union which ran Somalia for the second half of 2006, now holds more than 80 per cent of the country – more territory than the Courts controlled during their reign.[...]
Al Shebab's chief military commander, Muktar Robow, said earlier this year that he was ready "to take orders from Sheikh Osama bin Laden".[...]
But there are concerns whether al Shebab, whose name means "the youth" and whose forces are largely illiterate and disaffected young men, can peacefully consolidate their power once they are in charge.
"Unless they can reach out and form some new alliances, which is not an easy thing to do among Somalia's clans, they will fail and we will see the start of yet another civil war," said Mr Abdi.
"I'm not optimistic. The future looks bleak and is likely to be bloody."
"I'm not optimistic. The future looks bleak and is likely to be bloody."
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That's what happens where there is islam, but no oil wealth or jizyah from foolish Western nations to fill up muslims' pockets. If there is no mass-apostasy in such parts of Dar al-islam, that's all that those blood-thirsty throwbacks should ever expect to have in life.
So long as hordes of refugees aren't allowed to settle in the West with a mission to reproduce exactly what they left in their homeland in the name of allah (that imaginary fantasy) because of quagmires of their own making, they should truly be allowed to keep doing their thing until all of them find out for themselves that there ain't no 72 virgins, no boys that look like well-hidden pearls and nothing of what their desert-rat, pseudo-prophet said they'd earn if they died for islam.
Insha'illah the shabaab will announce the formation of a new caliphate there. The Caliphate can then link up Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east (once the Americans leave and Pakistan collapses). The Caliphate is EXACTLY what we need. The West needs it so that it will know exactly what to quarantine and where to target the nukes.
Ever read Lord of the Flies?
The Caliphate is EXACTLY what we need. The West needs it so that it will know exactly what to quarantine and where to target the nukes.
@ Patrick, that's a good one
Here's a bit on Somalia from a few years back:
Reviewer:Robert D. Steele
I've heard Robert Young Pelton speak, and he is, if anything, even more thoughtful and provocative in person. He has written an extraordinary book that ordinary people will take to be a sensationalist travel guide, while real experts scrutinize every page for the hard truths about the real world that neither the CIA nor the media report.
Unlike clandestine case officers and normal foreign service officers, all of them confined to capital cities and/or relying on third party reporting, Robert Young Pelton actually goes to the scene of the fighting, the scene of the butchery, the scene of the grand thefts, and unlike all these so-called authoritative sources, he actually has had eyeballs on the targets and boots in the mud.
I have learned two important lessons from this book, and from its author Robert Young Pelton:
First, trust no source that has not actually been there. He is not the first to point out that most journalists are "hotel warriors", but his veracity, courage, and insights provide compelling evidence of what journalism could be if it were done properly. Government sources are even worse--it was not until I heard him speak candidly about certain situations that I realized that most of our Embassy reporting--both secret and open--is largely worthless because it is third hand, not direct.
[....]
What most readers may not realize until they read this book is that one does not have to travel to these places to be threatened by them--what is happening there today, and what the U.S. government does or does not do about developments in these places, today, will haunt this generation and many generations to follow.
The World's Most Dangerous Places, by Robert Young Pelton.
And more:
Mark Bowden writes in Blackhawk Down, Penguin: 2000, that America had a responsibility to try to save Somalia. Of the local warlord, he writes:
The victory was even more hollow for Somalia, although it is not clear even five years later how many people there understand that. The fight was a terrible mismatch. The Somali death toll was catastrophic.... Aidid died in 1996 without uniting Somalia under his rule, a victim of the factional fighting the UN had tried to resolve. His clan still struggles with rivals in Mogadishu, trapped in the same bloody, anarchic standoff. Clan leaders I spoke with in that destroyed city in the summer of 1997 seemed to think that the world was still watching their progress anxiously.... I told the Habr Gidr leaders who were hostile to our project that this would likely be their only chance to tell their side of the story, because there weren't journalists and scholars lined up at the border. The larger world has forgotten Somalia. The great ship of international goodwill has sailed. The bloody twists and turns of Somali clan politics no longer concern us.... Rightly or wrongly, they stand as an enduring symbol of Third World ingratitude and intractability, of the futility of trying to resolve local animosity with international muscle. They've effectively written themselves off the map. (pp. 333-34.)
But here they are again. Instead of being only a genocidal menace to each other, now Somalis are trying to involve themselves in a genocidal campaign against the modern world at large. due to a lack of resolve in the past, we now face an emboldened enemy we had beaten badly before we ran away from them. Can we ignore the threat?
Bowden continues:
The idea used to be that terrible countries were terrible because good, decent, innocent people were being oppressed by evil, thuggish leaders. Somalia has changed all that. Here you have a country where just about everybody is caught up in hatred and fighting. You stop and old lady on the street and ask her if she wants peace, and she'll say, yes, of course, I pray for it daily. All the things you'd expect her to say. Then ask if she'd be willing for her clan to share power with another in order to have that peace, and she'll say, "With those murderers and thieves? I'd die first." People in these countries...don't want peace. They want victory. They want power. Men, women, old and young. Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and killing continues because they want it to. Or because they don't want peace enough to stop it. (pp. 334-35.)
****
"That ship has sailed," but now we sail back and get hijacked on the high seas. I shake my head. But then I remember: Obama is going to bring Hope I can believe in. All is well.
Not to worry , humanitarian immigration from Somalia to the West will continue and should increase... we in the West must act in some small way to help these poor people. To 'discriminate' just because of their religion would be bigoted ... and we in the West must move beyond such evil, no matter what the cost. Of course any cost realised would be the fault of bigoted ( and let us not forget racist) Americans not welcoming these new 'Islamic ' Americans ...
As we well know the pursuit of diversity has no point of diminishing return. To question this would of course be a sign of intolerance.
Oops , I have to go now and pick my children up from their exclusive private school and bring them back to their gated community home.
Time to send in the Marines to hold a shish shebab, it's why they were originally created. Oh wait, the Dali Bama is now the chosen one and he shall wave a magic wand and peace shall sprout forth from the earth until it attains the height of his chiseled pecs. Years of inattention and general stupidity in this country is going to blossom a bumper crop of pain soon enough and then the learning curve will show a little progress.
Hey Muktar, Osama says throw yourself into the fire to prove you are ready to take his orders.
Gonna have to nuke 'em eventually. I don't want our ground forces to lose a single American life to these cavemen.
"80 per cent of the country"
For matters of accuracy that should read "80% of southern Somalia". In reality even that will be a huge exaggeration. I am not quite sure why our media makes these murderers stronger than they really are.
Al-Shababs control pockets of mad max Mogadishu, parts of Lower Shabelle valley, Lower Juba Region and bits of the Central region. Even there they are battling as speak with a Sufi group called Alhul Sunna wal Jama'a which upholds the more easy-going peaceful traditional version of Somali Islam. The usually non-violent Sufis were outraged by the barbarity of Al-Shabab who desecrated the graves of ancient Sufi Saints, destroyed a Church(Sufis consider churches and Synagogues as Houses of God)and stoned a girl to death. The battle is raging right now with at least 15 dead just today.
Overall I will say Al-Shababs and their rent-a-mob allies rule about 6-7% of whole Somalia. But they are gaining more ground in the South AND, this is important to note - facing more resistance every step of the way.
Expect more war and lets hope the `good'side wins.
"The youth" control eighty percent of Somalia? What do the people of Somalia expect anyone else to do about it? We're infidels. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. We're racists if we ignore them and racists if we invade.
Being that we're infidels, their religion requires that they resist us. Leave Somalia to the OIC. No one else should do business with them. Surely the Saudis can pay for a few mercenaries.
PMK
The point is they DONT control 80% or anywhere near it. See my post above.
I am a little wary of this `lumping' of all muslims together as hordes of fanatical murderers. It is just not fair or accurate. Sure Quran contains some seriously nasty stuff but not all Muslims believe acting on it or even, shock horror, actualy believe every word in the Quran.
There are some good guys out there in Islamdom who are fighting and dying for sanity every day of the week and they deserve our support.
This defeatist `plague on all their houeses' attitude so prevalent on this board is playinf into the hands of the monsters like Hamas and Al-Shabab and causing despair among friends of sanity and tolerance in these countries.