The raids started on a Sunday night and lasted until morning, with police targeting anyone who looked Somali. This included dozens of illegal residents who had fled the fighting of their homeland and blended into this largely Somali enclave known as "Little Mogadishu."
Which, I'm guessing, they've made much like "Big Mogadishu," complete with local Mr. Bigs and imported clan antagonisms...
But the raids also swept up Kenyan citizens, who had never visited the country of their ancestry,
"Y'ain't from around here, air yew?"
"Jes' down the road apiece! Honest!"
and Somalis with visas and citizenship from Canada, the United States or European countries.
"Sounds lak yew got some sorta fonny assent!"
"No, no! Really! I talk just like youse!"
Kenyan Mohammed Ibrahim was near one of Eastleigh's mosques when police arrived and stood his ground while others fled.
Hanging around the mosque is a pretty good indicator...
When the officer demanded proof of his citizenship, Ibrahim could tell from the constable's accented English that his native tongue was Luo, a dialect from western Kenya. Ibrahim replied in Luo: "You are targeting my community. What's your problem?"
"Why's ever'body always pickin' on me?"
The officer responded, "No problem," and walked away.
"Don't be here when I stroll back this way!"
Ibrahim, 30, was one of the few who escaped the dragnet. More than 400, including at least 13 members of Somalia's parliament, were taken into custody Jan. 17 and spent the night in jail. Kenya security ministers defended the raids and said they were conducted lawfully.
Somalia is of course Kenya's neighbor. They're the neighbor with the '62 Studebaker Lark up on blocks out front and the dead appliances on the front porch. They're the ones who have the cops there five nights a week, usually at 2 a.m., with the sounds of screaming and broken crockery the other two nights. They have 18 hound dawgs who bark, howl, and snarl 24 hours a day and always chase the Kenyan car when the populace comes home from work at night. They're resentful that Kenya for some reason doesn't want them on their lawn.
The sweep -- and violent downtown demonstration two days earlier by more than 100 Muslim protesters -- underscores the tension here, as problems in neighbouring Somalia threaten the stability of the Horn of Africa.
"An' youse cain't keep us off that lawn! Tryin' to keep us off'n thet thar lawn's goin' agin our honor and dignutty!"
After a year in power, Somalia's UN-backed transitional federal government still struggles for credibility and holds power in only a small area of Mogadishu. Protected by a 5,300-strong African Union mission, both government forces and AU peacekeepers are battered daily by al Shabab, an Islamic insurgency that Washington has labelled a terrorist group
The cops have to show up two or three cars at a time because when they try to intervene the denizens stop slapping each other around and turn on them.
Nairobi has recently been on high alert as al Shabab has vowed to attack the capital. Kenya has also become a key transit point for foreign fighters lured by Internet propaganda to join the Shabab. The group's prized Western recruits are difficult to detect in Kenya, as they usually enter the country legally as visitors, then slip across the largely unguarded border into Somalia. Five young Toronto men disappeared last fall after coming to Nairobi and are believed now to be among al Shabab recruits. One of the youths reportedly called home and told frantic relatives not to expect his return.
"Ah'm gonna ketch me thet thar car an' chew off its tires!"
Mohammed Sheikh Abdullah, a 25-year-old former Shabab member who recently defected and is under protection with Somalia's struggling transitional government, said he doesn't know the Toronto youths but had met many Canadians and Americans. "There are white Canadians
| "white" Canadians? Does that mean Arabs or Euro-descent types? If the latter, did they convert to Islam or are do they think they're just playing at being romantic banditti? |
and Somali Canadians," he said in an interview with the Toronto Star last week inside Mogadishu's guarded presidential compound, known as Villa Somalia.
Maw and Paw have locked themselves in the shed because the kids have set the dawgs on them...
He claims one "white Canadian," who goes by the name Ayottola Ali Jacob,
| Ayottola? A bit presumptuous, especially for a Sunni Muslim, which is what I assume he is supposed to be, the Shiites having Hizb'allah in Lebanon for absorbing idiots. |
is fighting on the front line.
| The right place for those who aspire to be cannon fodder. |
Abdullah said the group is keen to attract followers from the West because they elevate the status of the network from a local fight to part of a greater global struggle. He said a fighter by the name of Idris Mohamud Barkhadleh, or "Abu Wajir," acts as a recruiter for foreigners. Abu Wajir is Kenyan, of Somali heritage, and fluent in English, Swahili and Somali. He is the "focal point" for these recruits and arranges logistics of their arrival. "This man is the brainchild of bringing children of Somali origin here," Abdullah said. His title, or kunya, indicates Barkhadleh is from the northeastern Kenyan province of Wajir, which could make him a key asset in getting foreigners across the border.
But really they're being put upon, stereotyped, even profiled. It just isn't fair!
Abdullah said Abu Mansour al Amriki (an American) is also influential among foreigners and boasts of direct connections to Osama bin Laden. The U.S. convert to Islam (whose real name is Omar Hammami and was raised Baptist) lived for a year in Toronto in 2004, where he reportedly ingratiated himself in city's large Somali community. His YouTube videos calling for foreign fighters are widely circulated...
| Shh! Don't tell anyone about the CIA connections one or more of his connections does not boast about, or how many of his recruits oh so mysteriously disappear between leaving the bosom of the family and returning in triumph from the the battlefield. |
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The al-Qaeda-allied group al-Shabaab executed US-born jihadist