{"id":2027,"date":"2010-11-18T19:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T00:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=2027"},"modified":"2016-05-12T19:14:21","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T00:14:21","slug":"somali-islamists-and-congo-based-rebels-threaten-security-in-burundi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=2027","title":{"rendered":"Somali Islamists and Congo-Based Rebels Threaten Security in Burundi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor<\/strong><\/p>\n

November 18, 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shaykh Fu\u2019ad Muhammad Qalaf \u201cShongole,\u201d a leading member of Somalia\u2019s al-Shabaab Islamist militia, told a gathering in Mogadishu on November 4 that Bujumbura and Kampala would be the target of al-Shabaab attacks if Burundi and Uganda did not immediately withdraw their troops from Mogadishu (Sunday Vision<\/em> [Kampala], November 6; Garowe Online, November 4). Al-Shabaab forces have been strongly pressured in recent weeks by a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) offensive supported by Burundian and Ugandan troops of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).<\/p>\n

\"Burundi<\/a>FNL Leader Agathon Rwasa<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A more immediate threat comes from the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL \u2013 National Liberation Front), formerly known as the Parti pour la lib\u00e9ration du peuple hutu (PALIPEHUTU), a Hutu rebel movement formed in 1980 in Hutu refugee camps in Tanzania. Agathon Rwasa, leader of the FNL, is a former Hutu militia leader who took control of the party in 2002. Rwasa fled Bujumbura in July after the opposition accused the government of rigging local polls in May. Rwasa later claimed in an audiotape that he had feared for his life in Burundi, but is believed to be preparing a new round of armed opposition to the Tutsi-dominated government of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza from bases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (Daily Nation<\/em> [Nairobi], August 1).<\/p>\n

FNL members who remain engaged in the political process deposed Rwasa as party leader in late July, saying the FNL had \u201clost a lot by pulling out of the electoral process\u201d (Daily Nation<\/em> [Nairobi], August 1). Rwasa was replaced by Emmanuel Miburo as the party\u2019s new chairman.<\/p>\n

Security appears to be breaking down in the Burundi capital as well as along the northwest frontier with the DRC. On the evening of October 25 one group of gunmen attacked a police post in the capital while another group attacked the guards of intelligence chief General Adolphe Nshimirimana (AFP, October 26). Though observers saw Rwasa\u2019s hand behind the attacks, Burundian authorities lay the blame for all such attacks on \u201cunidentified bandits.\u201d The renewed violence has raised fears that a new civil war could be in the offing – Burundi suffered a thirteen year conflict between Hutus and Tutsis that claimed 300,000 lives from 1993 to 2006. Rwasa\u2019s movement was involved in two notorious atrocities \u2013 the 2000 \u201cTitanic Express\u201d massacre of 21 civilians on a bus and the 2004 Gatumba massacre of 152 Banyamulenge (Congolese Tutsis).<\/p>\n

\"Burundi<\/a>General Adolphe Nshimirimana<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the careful language used by Bujumbura, a senior government official recently told the French press that Rwasa was reorganizing and rearming in the Sud-Kivu province of the DRC and had reached terms with a Hutu rebel movement led by Rwandan genocidaires<\/em> active in the eastern DRC, the Forces d\u00e9mocratiques de lib\u00e9ration du Rwanda (FDLR). There are also suggestions that Rwasa may be cooperating with the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army (LRA), best known for its mass atrocities in northern Uganda. Rwasa\u2019s deputy described the allegations as an attempt to \u201cdemonize\u201d the movement (AFP, October 22).<\/p>\n

The army has also engaged armed gangs in the Rugazi Commune of Bubanza Province (Burundi\u2019s provinces are divided into \u201ccommunes\u201d and further sub-divided into \u201ccollines\u201d), a stronghold of the FNL (AFP, November 10; AfricaNews.com, November 11). The Rukoko Marshes and the neighboring Kibira forest near the border with the DRC have also been the sites of repeated engagements between insurgents and government forces (AFP, November 2). The marshes are only a few miles north of Bujumbura and have become largely depopulated due to attacks on the civilian population by gunmen (AFP, September 18). FNL fighters also clashed recently with troops of the DRC south of Bukavu, the capital of Sud-Kivu province (AFP, November 6; Net Press [Bujumbura], November 9; RFI, November 9).<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in the November 18, 2010 issue of the Jamestown Foundation\u2019s Terrorism Monitor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor November 18, 2010 Shaykh Fu\u2019ad Muhammad Qalaf \u201cShongole,\u201d a leading member of Somalia\u2019s al-Shabaab Islamist militia, told a gathering in Mogadishu on November 4 that Bujumbura and Kampala would be the target of al-Shabaab attacks if Burundi and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,16,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-burundi","category-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-drc","category-somalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2030,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027\/revisions\/2030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}