A moderate Islamist militia has pulled out of the fragile Somali government less than a week after the country’s prime minister quit.
The Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca (ASWJ) militia signed a power-sharing treaty in March with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, which is besieged by a growing radical Islamist insurgency led by the Al-Qa’ida-inspired rebel groups Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam.
The ASWJ has been critical in the government’s effort to repel the insurgency in central Somalia, but announced over the weekend that the government had reneged on the deal by trying to incorporate ASWJ forces into the government and by failing to appoint five ASWJ members to the cabinet as agreed upon in the power-sharing treaty.
“The ASWJ represents traditional Somali Islam but they didn’t play a significant role in the government,” Bashir Goth, a Somali analyst and the former editor of the Awdal News told The Media Line. “They are probably maneuvering to have the next prime minister appointed from among them. They are saying ‘we have been supporting you, we are important to you, now it’s time to give us the second position.’”
The moderate militia’s move comes less than a week after Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke resigned amid growing frustration over the government’s failure to curb the Islamic insurgency.
Somali analysts differ as to whether or not President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's administration is on the verge of collapse.
“This group was more moderate so it’s an interesting development and does weaken the president himself,” Dr. Theodore Karasik, Director for Research and Development at the Institute for Near East Gulf Military Analysis told The Media Line. “So we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.”
Goth argued that despite the impression the ASWJ’s departure may give, the government’s position has improved recently.
“The situation is not as bad as it looked a few weeks ago,” he told The Media Line. “Although the withdrawal of the ASWJ is a setback to the Transitional Federal Government, Al-Shabaab seems to be weakening when compared to a few weeks ago.”
“The government is also getting a lot more support from the people, especially the Hawiye clan, which is waking up to the disaster of Al Shabaab taking over the country,” Goth said. “There are also new Somali troops recently trained in Kenya and Ethiopia.”
Last month, gun battles and heavy artillery fire between forces loyal to the Transitional Federal Government, backed by African Union troops, and combatants from Al-Shabaab exploded in the Somali capital Mogadishu for almost a week. Eighty people were killed in the first three days of clashes alone.
Hundreds of African Union troops, most of them from Uganda, were flown into the city to protect the port, airport and presidential palace: the three areas in the capital which the government still controls.
“There’s a big difference between what you wish for and what you get, and Somalia is constantly wracked by problems -- it’s the nature of the state,” said Dr. Karasik. “There are attempts to have some kind of normalcy, but that’s few and far between.”
“I think what we’re seeing now is a shift of the internal situation in an attempt to bring about some more rational behavior,” he added. “We have reports about the U.S. and U.N. wanting to work closer with some of the regions (Somaliland and Puntland) and try to work with the clans that are working to shut down the Al-Qa’ida-type cells and the piracy that’s going on.”
Somalia has not had a functioning government since the 1991 ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre. The ensuing years have seen a chaotic system of rival clans controlling various parts of the capital.
The Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was set up in 2004 but Mogadishu remained under the control of a coalition of sharia courts known as the Islamic Courts Union.
Originally, the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union, Al-Shabaab, began an insurgency in late 2006 with assassinations and suicide bombings targeting aid workers and transitional government officials. The group has since made significant gains and now controls some 80 percent of southern Somalia and much of the northern and western districts of the capital Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab members have cited links with Al-Qa’ida, although the affiliation is believed to be minimal. The group has several thousand fighters divided into regional units which are thought to operate somewhat independently of one another.
The Western-backed Ethiopian military invaded Somalia in 2007, but many analysts believe this, too, augmented Al-Shabaab's military campaign against the transitional government.
The Ethiopians withdrew in January of last year after more than 16 months of Al-Shabaab attacks on its forces.
A former schoolteacher, the new President of Somalia Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is a moderate who is supportive of Sharia law and who seeks to integrate Al-Shabaab fighters into the transitional government's forces. His overtures have to date been rejected and the government has largely failed to contain Al-Shabaab's expansion. The transitional government's new military chief was until just over a year ago the assistant manager at a McDonald’s in Germany.
The United Nations estimates that the Somali National Security Force has less than 3,000 soldiers on the government payroll, with another 5,000 to 10,000 fighters from government-aligned militias operating in Mogadishu.
The government is backed by African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi. Al-Shabaab recently orchestrated a twin bombing attack in Uganda which killed more than 70 people watching the World Cup in the capital Kampala.
Source: The Media Line.
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