Islamic Courts Union - Tag Search

Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the embattled head of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, is preparing to strike a blow against Shabab Islamist militants in Mogadishu, the country's capital, according to news reports over the weekend.

The offensive could lend Ahmed, the former head of the Islamic Courts Union but now the enemy of Shabab, some much-needed legitimacy, the Christian Science Monitor reported. Yet the planned attack has been marred by delays and demoralized, unpaid troops, according to the Washington Post. (Thanks to Alex Thurston's Sahel Blog, an outlet I've just now discovered, for flagging these links.)

Adam Serwer posted a short item on the American Prospect's blog this morning, calling the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, and the subsequent deposal of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a "national security disaster."

The removal of the ICU empowered its radical wing, Al Shabaab, led by the al-Qaeda-trained Aden Hashi Ayrow, which has now taken over terrorizing the country with suicide bombings, assassinations, and the killing of civilians. The ICU weren't what you might call "good guys" by any means, but they also weren't as bad as Al Shabaab.

That prompted a long and somewhat disjointed Twitter argument (redundant, I know) between Serwer, the Washington Times' Eli Lake, and a few other interlocutors (including us).

Somalia is a bit outside our normal coverage area, but some interesting points came up in the discussion, and I wanted to expand on them (in more than 140 characters).

Yedioth Ahronoth reports that al-Shabab militants in Somalia are threatening to attack Israel over what they call an Israeli plot to destroy part of the al-Aqsa mosque.

I'm not sure how seriously to take this story. On the one hand, Mogadishu is a long way from Jerusalem. It's sort of like if Mullah Omar threatened to attack Israel: Nasty rhetoric, yes, but very hard to put into action.

That said, East African immigrants regularly find their way to Israel. It's obviously a dangerous trip: a long slog across Sudan, Egypt and the Sinai desert, ending with the very real possibility of being shot by Egyptian guards at the Israeli border. But thousands of them make the trip each year.