A GIMF communiqué posted January 1, 2008 on the Islamist website www.ekhlaas.info (hosted by Piradius.net in Malaysia) reveals a rift between Somalia's two major jihad groups.

The communiqué, signed by Abu Mansour Al-Amriki - an American who provides military training for mujahideen in Somalia - states that Harakat Shabab Al-Mujahideen (the Movement of Jihadi Youth - MJY), which is currently the most active jihad group in Somalia, has severed ties with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).

The two groups had initially joined forces to fight Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu, but later fell into a dispute over the September 2007 Asmara Conference, a summit under the aegis of the Eritrean government that was aimed at reconciling the various Somali opposition groups. While the ICU participated in the conference, the MJY boycotted it, saying that it was "doomed to fail" because it brought together "desperate [elements] with conflicting agendas" - that is, Islamists and secular nationalists - and that it promoted a "new and counterproductive culture and [Western] concepts like moderate[ness], retreat, compromise."

In the communiqué, Abu Mansour accuses the ICU of favoring nationally based alliances with Somali secularists over partnership with devout Muslims, and of focusing on limited national interests while betraying the greater Islamic causes, such as the establishment of the global Caliphate. He further accuses the ICU of restricting the action of the muhajiroon (i.e. the non-Somali mujahideen) who come to assist the Somalis in their jihad against the Ethiopian forces in Mogadishu, and of attempting to direct the jihad in Somalia from posh hotels in Eritrea. Finally, Abu Mansour announces that the MJY remains loyal to the ideology of Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and that it aspires to establish a global Islamic Caliphate