[ShabelleMedia] Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
in Somalia has approximately doubled in size over the past year, the chief of U.S. Africa Command told VOA.
Guess somebody's been asleep at the switch.
Comfy in Germany much?
"I am concerned about the northern part of Somalia and ISIS growing in numbers," AFRICOM commander Gen. Michael Langley said in an exclusive interview, using an acronym for the terror group.
Langley declined to provide the United States’ estimate of how many Islamic State fighters are in Somalia, other than to say that the group’s had grown about "twofold" in the past year. Previous estimates have put the number of Islamic State fighters in north Somalia at about 200 fighters.
The AFRICOM commander also warned about the possibility of Islamic State increasing its foreign fighter presence in Somalia.
Somali Brigadier General Abdi Hassan Hussein, the former intelligence and police commander of Puntland
...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion...
, where Islamic State is located in the north, told VOA earlier this year that the number of Islamic State imported muscle there alone is estimated in the hundreds. This figure has yet to be confirmed by local authorities.
Good to know. A U.S. official told VOA in June that Abdulqadir Mumin, the leader of Islamic State in Somalia, had been targeted in an American Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM! ...
in May. Mumin appears to have survived the strike.
Bummer. Foiled again. Asked whether Mumin was now the global leader of IS, Langley said the U.S. must take those reports as "credible."
He’s the international Number 1? That suggests a certain lack of depth — or possibly breadth — in the international ISIS leadership talent pool. "ISIS professes that. Sometimes you’ve got to take that seriously," he said.
AL-SHABAAB
... the personification of Somali state failure...
The increase in Islamic State fighters in northern Somalia comes as the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab has exploited diplomatic disagreements between Somalia and Æthiopia to raise its recruitment numbers.
Landlocked Æthiopia and Somalia’s breakaway Somaliland
...Republic of Somaliland is an unrecognised sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, recognised internationally as a de jure part of Somalia. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden with approximately 5.7 million residents as of 2021. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa. The government regards itself as the successor state to British Somaliland, which united from 1960 to 1991 with the Trust Territory of Somaliland (the former Italian Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic. Under the Siad Barre regime, Somaliadestroyed ninety percent of Hargeisa Per international law, once you're in, you gotta stay in, no matter how bad it smells....
region signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year to use its Red Sea port of Berbera, a deal that Somalia has rejected. Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre on Friday accused Æthiopia, before the U.N. General Assembly, of actions that "flagrantly violate" Somalia’s territorial integrity.
"The have used that (dispute) to their advantage," Langley told VOA.
| Al-Shabaab has been back at high numbers of between 12,000 to 13,000 fighters due to strong financing and heavy recruitment efforts, senior defense officials told VOA in June. |
Al-Shabaab has been back at high numbers of between 12,000 to 13,000 fighters due to strong financing and heavy recruitment efforts, senior defense officials told VOA in June.
The political rift has bled into counter-terror cooperation between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu, with Langley telling VOA that Somali operations with Æthiopia have been "limited."
"Time will tell if they can settle their differences and coalesce into a force that’s very effective, because when they do work together, they’re very, very effective at clearing out al-Shabaab.’’
Al-Shabaab has continued attacks on civilians, including in the Mogadishu area. The terror group grabbed credit for a gun attack and suicide kaboom that killed at least 32 people in August on a popular beach in the Somalia’s capital. The group is also suspected to have carried out two deadly bombings on Saturday, one in Middle Shabelle region and another about one kilometer from the president’s office.
Al-Shabaab has suffered defeats from the South West State of Somalia down to the Juba River Valley and has sought to reset and counter-attack in those areas.
However,
the way to a man's heart remains through his stomach...
in central Somalia, al-Shabaab has reversed gains made by Somali forces over the last two years as government forces failed to hold the terrain they had retaken, according to senior U.S. defense officials.
Unexpectedly. "We need a credible holding force, because sometimes shadow governments of al-Shabaab try to re-insert themselves back in that region and try to influence some of the local leaders," Langley said.
He said the time following the clearing and liberating of a region is a "very fragile period" where Somalia and partners like the U.S. Agency for International Development can initiate local services that will increase the population’s faith in the federal government.
"If they can’t sustain that because they’re moving to the next region or next district, it ebbs," he said, adding that U.S. training was currently focused on helping Somali forces hold liberated terrain.
The Somali government has pointed to the El Dheer and Harardhere areas as evidence that some liberated terrain in central Somalia remains under government control.
ATMIS TRANSITION
Later this year, the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
Transition Mission in Somalia will leave the country after nearly two years of helping Somalia fight al-Shabaab Lions of Islam and will be replaced in 2025 by a new African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia. Which forces will be comprised in the mission is still being worked out by the African Union and the United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
Langley ruled out any U.S. role in the transition, saying American forces would maintain only their advise-and-assist mission.
"Our piece of enabling is not our boots on the ground. We’re there to advise and assist, and assist in their training, but the fight is theirs," he told VOA.
Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth . Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
s
In addition to Islamic State and al-Shabaab, Somalia also must worry about Iranian-backed Houthi snuffies in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
, just north of Somalia across the Gulf of Aden, whom Langley says have "aspirations" to collaborate with al-Shabaab.
"We’re concerned, and we’re closely watching that, because this can turn into a bad neighborhood real quick," he said.
| Should the Houthis and al-Shabaab put pressure on the Gulf of Aden from opposite sides, Langley worries that squeezing this strategic choke point could further hinder the free flow of commerce and affect the global economy. |
Should the Houthis and al-Shabaab put pressure on the Gulf of Aden from opposite sides, Langley worries that squeezing this strategic choke point could further hinder the free flow of commerce and affect the global economy. And analysts fear that Houthis could insert more sophisticated weapons into the fight for Somalia.
Houthi snuffies have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
started in October, seizing one, sinking two and killing at least four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.
Blind as bats, all of them. And they shoot off missiles like a girl. And not a boss girl, either. The Houthi krazed killer campaign began after Israel launched a retaliatory attack against Hamas
 ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack, and the Houthis claim they are acting in solidarity with Paleostinians during the war.
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