the al Shabab militant group in Somalia claimed responsibility for a day-long siege in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. At least 25 were killed in twin suicide bombings. This siege saw the militants storm through hotels, shops, and restaurants, finally taking over control of an entire building.
Now, back in 2017 when Trump first came to office, he intensified the drone strikes in Somalia that were originally initiated by President Obama back in 2011. And Trump also expanded the rules for the strikes, allowing for many more attacks against basic foot soldiers within al Shabab.
Since Trump took office, the United States has ratcheted up the strikes in Somalia, at least 46 of them occurred in 2018, and that beat the prior year’s record-breaking total. The official count already, and we’re only a couple of months into 2019, is already at 24 strikes.
Investigating the impact of the U.S. air campaign in Somalia, journalist Amanda Sperber found that strikes that went unreported until they were raised with U.S. Africa Command, known as AFRICOM. According to Sperber, the Pentagon policy under Trump its that AFRICOM will only confirm certain airstrikes if they are asked about them by reporters or non-governmental organizations.
Sperber’s reporting raises questions about the Trump administration’s counterterrorism campaign in Somalia, including the number of civilian deaths and whether the CIA is also conducting strikes inside Somalia. The U.S. claims that only 0-5 civilians were killed in airstrikes in Somalia for the entire year of 2018. They’re acknowledging a range of the total killed as 238 to 242. The U.S. claims no children were killed.
Sperber’s reporting included Somalis who told her they survived these strikes and that children were in fact killed. The story of what is actually happening in Somalia is almost never discussed in the U.S. media. And when it is, it’s always about counter-terrorism or terrorism and is often reported without any historical context. The Pentagon largely sets the narrative that is then repeated in the U.S. press. It’s just, the U.S. struck terrorists and killed them. And Somalia, well, it’s Somalia. Black Hawk Down. End of story.
But there is actually a truly incredible part of this history that seldom gets told. It is the story of how the George W. Bush administration — working clandestinely with the dictator of Ethiopia — crushed the best hope that Somalia had to bring peace and stability back to the country while simultaneously stopping al-Qaeda and al-Shabab from rising in Somalia. It is, in some ways, a story of regime change. But the regime in question had barely taken power in Mogadishu before being brought down after just six months. It was this campaign that began in late 2006, spearheaded by a U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, that would ultimately remove the moderate forces known as the Islamic Courts Union and give rise to al-Shabab.
Harun Maruf talking:
The proper Somali government collapsed in January 1991, then the country fell into a civil war between factions and later on between clans and this has resulted [in] the massive hunger and famine that was killing about 1,000 people — Somali civilians — every day. This is what attracted or convinced former U.S. president, late George H.W. Bush to send American soldiers into Somalia in December 1992.
At that time, the country was divided into different fiefdoms ruled by clan warlords who were impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid into Somalia and that’s what was told, the international community that the United States soldiers will go into Somalia to deliver aid. But Somalia was a lawless country and what was not known to many people was that [the] Salafi group by the name al-Ittihad al-Islamiya also had military bases in Somalia where they trained militants and armed wings. A small group within the al-Itihaad, very ideologically driven unit, were bringing foreign jihadists to help and train Somali jihadist. Also, other al-Qaeda figures came to Somalia and trained this wing within al-Itihaad. This group split from al-Itihaad in 1995.
Then they started sending more Somali jihadists to Afghanistan to get training. So they emerge, [ultimately the] emergence of al-Shabab was not accidental. It was very much the work and the mentorship and the support and the training that’s Somali jihadists were getting from al Qaeda, in the run-up to the battle of Mogadishu in 1993, the Black Hawk Down attack.
Which later on where claimed officially by people who belonged to that ideologically-driven wing within al-Itihaad who later on became members of al-Shabab.
– After the United States pulls out of Somalia and basically most international forces step away, you then had the kind of factionalization occur in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia where what are traditionally called warlords start to take over. And a number of countries Eritrea, Ethiopia, certainly the United States begin kind of funding or arming various factions. Describe that period when the United States sort of pulled away from an overt military campaign in Somalia and began secretly aiding or working with warlords.
The warlords have tried to reconcile, have tried to form some kind of government for Somalia. There were a number of Somali reconciliation conferences. They failed to come together and form a government. Finally, in 2004, they met in Kenya and they formed the Transitional Federal Government. Although this government was formed, the country was still ruled by warlords. There was hopelessness among the civilians. Then, in parts of Mogadishu, emerged Islamic Courts, which were primarily funded and supported by businessmen and the main intention to support this Islamic Courts was to get peace and some sense of stability in parts of Mogadishu. It starts with parts of Mogadishu, then it slowly expanded.
– Just so people understand, you had about a half a dozen representatives of various groups or clans or political centers of power that were trying to come together and unite under a government of Islamic Sharia law with the intention of expelling the warlords, including CIA warlords, from Mogadishu — basically just stabilizing the country. I mean, Somalia is basically a hundred percent Muslim country. It doesn’t mean there’s not diversity of political thought but the idea that if you unite behind Islamic Sharia law and you expel the gangsters, the warlords, the criminals that you can stabilize this actually very important African country. Somalia has the largest coastal territory of any country in Africa. I mean, it could be a phenomenally successful country and it’s important you point out, it was business leaders that really wanted this stability to come. So, they organize these Islamic Courts, but really what you’re talking about is a kind of coalition government under the banner of establishing Islamic Sharia law.
At the beginning, these courts were run by a Sufi moderate individuals whose, their main goal was to restore some sense of stability in their neighborhoods, in their districts, in Mogadishu and what they used to do was take disputes over land, fight against the thieves and criminal gangs, solve disputes between clans. This is what they were doing. They were not imposing themselves on other Somalis. They were not dictating people on what to do and how they, people want to live their own life is or socialize or that was never the case. The primary objective was to get that sense of support and stability and the people who were behind it were moderate religious individuals and business people.
– These were not al-Qaeda friendly individuals. There certainly were people who were operating with a kind of more radical Islamist agenda, but they were not the most powerful people within the courts. What happened in Mogadishu during that very brief period when these moderate figures were able to expel the warlords and kind of start governing in a way?
People were able to go out and run their business. The seaport and the airport was opened. The rubbish was cleaned from the streets. There were no fear of warlords, no fear of criminals. This time period which was from June 2006 until December 2006, six months, that is the period which many people regard as the golden age after the state collapsed in 1991.
– This sounds great for Somalis. You have this constant bloodshed, criminal gangs, warlords, the CIA, Ethiopia, Eritrea, all, you know, with their dirty hands in Somalia and you have the Bush administration with its declaration of the so-called war on terror that supposedly was about destroying al-Qaeda and bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. In Somalia, you have these moderate Islamic figures with actual credibility in different parts of the country come in and essentially make al-Qaeda obsolete because they were working through the Somali clan system and also through Islamic Sharia courts. So, certainly Harun, the Bush administration, welcomed this, right? Because this would have been a very effective Somali solution to the problem of al Qaeda or terrorism. So Bush supported this, right? He thought this was great that the Islamic Courts Union had finally stabilized Mogadishu?
No, Bush did not support. The Bush administration, the U.S. under-secretary to Africa painted them all as extremists, terrorists. The fact is that the individuals, that some of them came from Afghanistan, some of them were harboring individuals who were wanted by the United States, but they were a small minority. And at the time, [the] Islamic Courts were too powerful for them. And if they were given an opportunity or if the international community engaged the Islamic Courts leadership against these elements, I don’t think the international community would have failed to achieve its target through diplomacy and engaging with the leadership of the Islamic Courts. And the Islamic Courts never rejected engagement from the rest of the international community.
– Then you have the series of secret meetings between Bush administration officials and the longtime dictator of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi and the Bush administration wink-wink, nudge-nudge encourages Ethiopia to invade Somalia. And Ethiopia does that and then simultaneously you have United States special operations forces, JSOC — the Joint Special Operations Command — begins striking inside of Somalia, attacking individuals that they say were terrorists or al-Qaeda supporters. The CIA also engaging in that. They were doing kidnap operations, snatching people, and rendering them. They were paying their warlords to go out and kill people post-9/11. But talk about that crucial moment in 2006 when the Bush administration effectively gives the green light to Ethiopia and Meles Zenawi to invade Somalia. What happens?
What was said in private and in public might have been conflicting. There might have been conflicting messages by the United States officials because the impression and the statements they were giving to the media was very much the dismissal of the Islamic Courts. Ethiopia already sent soldiers into Somalia. So, the United States [was] very much in support of that, to paint Islamic Courts as a terrorist organization, as an entity that’s hostile to the federal government of Somalia. But then eventually, the individuals within the Islamic Courts also fell into that trap and directly threatened the Transitional Federal Government, fighting broke out between the Islamic Courts and Ethiopia and then the Islamic Courts were defeated.
From there on, the United States was also involved in conducting airstrikes against the Islamic Courts.
– you have this moderate Islamist movement or groups of movements, the Islamic Courts Union, they are shattered and spread out and destroyed or imprisoned or killed by the Ethiopian forces and at times by the United States. Then Ethiopia effectively or not effectively does occupy large sections of Mogadishu and commits widespread human rights abuses, extrajudicial killings, rapes, murders. Talk about that period when the Ethiopians with the support of the United States effectively occupy parts of Somalia.
Ethiopia never admitted officially the number of soldiers it sent to Somalia, but there were thousands of soldiers into Mogadishu and in other parts of the country, in Kismayo, in Baidoa. Then there was an emergence of the Moqawama or the resistance which was an armed wing of the Islamic Courts. That’s when al Shabab became very well known to many Somalis, to many in the international community. They were also returned to Mogadishu to mobilize themselves and to attack and fight against the Ethiopians. There were heavy battles between the Moqawama and the Ethiopian soldiers.
And at that time, very interestingly, I was in Mogadishu and I was [a] researcher for [a] human rights organization. And what we documented was that Mogadishu was destroyed, that period in 2007, more than any other time in the history of the Civil War in Somalia.
There were entire neighborhoods where Ethiopian soldiers marked them as areas, or bases for the Moqawama and the other opposing militias and entirely bombed them using Katyusha rockets, artillery, tank fire. Thousands of people were killed, probably hundreds still missing.
– That crucial period 2006 and 2007, you had an actual chance to not only stabilize one of the most volatile, deadly countries in the world but to actually have a government in power in Mogadishu that would have been able to credibly, with its own people, battle against the ideology of al-Qaeda. And the United States for its own reasons — one of which is their complete lack of understanding that the word Islamic in Islamic Courts Union does not equal al-Qaeda — that you had the United States, effectively with its policy and the backing of the Ethiopians, give rise to a group of very militant, violent individuals whose thinking was aligned with Osama Bin Laden, put them then at the vanguard of what was a struggle against Ethiopian or foreign occupation. In other words, what I’m saying is that the United States played a central role — and certainly, Ethiopia was at the forefront of that — in giving rise to what we now know as al-Shabab.
That was a big, big opportunity that was missed by the international community, by the regional governments, by everybody. And we talked about just before the war or the fighting with Ethiopia, the fact that the international community did not invest or engage or even try to bring the two sides together to find common ground was an opportunity that was lost. But the fighting that ensued in Mogadishu radicalized so many people, [a] large number of [the] young generation who lost relatives, who lost fathers, who lost brothers and sisters into that war, joined that fighting against Ethiopia and very likely became extremist individuals. And that is the period that al-Shabab has benefited from that chaos and strengthened and trained it and produced it and expanded its ideology. It was playing to the concern and the [inaudible] of Somali people that they were wrongly treated by the international community, that nobody listened to their leaders, that nobody wanted or cared about what they wanted. And there’s still, [a] large number of people who believe that that was an example that the international community doesn’t want, or would never accept an Islamic government in Somali regardless of who runs that leadership.
So Obama was the architect of the start of the current drone strikes. The intensity was lower, but nonetheless, [the] Obama administration was largely targeting key individuals, al Shabab leaders, top-tier individuals. Under Trump, the airstrikes initially started with targeting top-tier individuals, but immediately it expanded to foot soldiers, mid-level al Shabab individuals, training camps. Now, it’s almost 99 percent, almost a hundred percent of the airstrikes target foot soldiers whether that’s to disrupt possible al Shabab gathering, possible al Shabab attacks against military base or whether that is just to reduce and severely limit the number of al Shabab or both, we will learn more in the coming months and years.
— source theintercept.com