{"id":2704,"date":"2008-12-08T08:34:41","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T13:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=2704"},"modified":"2016-05-31T08:39:07","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T13:39:07","slug":"somaliland-charges-al-shabaab-extremists-with-suicide-bombings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=2704","title":{"rendered":"Somaliland Charges al-Shabaab Extremists with Suicide Bombings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

December 8, 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the completion of a month-long police investigation, Somaliland\u2019s Interior Minister, Abdullahi \u201cIrro\u201d Ismail, has announced al-Shabaab extremists are responsible for the suicide bombings that killed more than 20 people in Somaliland\u2019s capital of Hargeisa in late October. Al-Shabaab, originally the youth wing of Somalia\u2019s Islamic Courts Union (ICU) movement, has emerged as the most militant faction of the Islamist resistance. According to the Interior Minister, the three suicide bombings that targeted the presidential palace, the Ethiopian trade office and the regional UN offices were organized by al-Shabaab leaders Mukhtar Robow \u201cAbu Mansur\u201d and Ahmad Abdi Godane \u201cAbu Zubayr,\u201d the latter a Somaliland native who trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\"Somaliland<\/a>Ahmad Abdi Godane “Abu Zubayr”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Among those killed by the car-bombs were the President\u2019s personal secretary and senior anti-terrorism official Ibrahim Hutu. The actual operation was supervised by a man known as Abdulfatah Abdullahi Guutaale. Ismail added; \u201cSomaliland’s enemy, from day one to today, has always been al Shabaab\u201d (Garowe Online, November 27; AFP, November 27). A noted Somaliland Muslim leader, Shaykh Ali Warsame, condemned the attacks as outrageous and un-Islamic (Somaliland Times, November 1). The bombings may have been designed to interfere with upcoming elections next March.<\/p>\n

The investigation revealed that of the six suicide bombers involved in the October 29 attacks, only one was from Somaliland, while the other five hailed from Somalia proper. Somaliland, roughly corresponding to the borders of colonial-era British Somaliland, split from Somalia in 1991 following the fall of the Siad Barre regime. As the rest of the country plunged into violence and political chaos, Somaliland created a stable state with democratic elections, but has failed completely in gaining international recognition. Somaliland\u2019s security services are in admitted need of international assistance and training, but Somaliland\u2019s non-sovereign status prevents any such efforts.<\/p>\n

At the same time as the Hargeisa explosions, other suicide bombings occurred in neighboring Puntland, a semi-autonomous district of Somalia. A pair of suicide car bombs struck two anti-terrorism offices of the Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS) in Bosasso, the economic capital of Puntland. The huge blasts, which Puntland also blamed on al-Shabaab, killed six PIS agents (AFP, October 30).<\/p>\n

\"Somaliland<\/a>A Planned Attack<\/strong><\/p>\n

A document from the ICU\u2019s Shura Council dated September 28, 2006 and signed by Shaykh Dahir Aweys, called for the ICU \u201cto send 30 young martyrs to carry out explosions and killing of the Jewish and American collaborators in the northern regions\u201d (Awdal News Network, October 17, 2006). The Arabic language document included a list of thirteen prominent Somaliland politicians targeted for assassination (including President Dahir Riyale Kahin), all of whom are accused of apostasy by abandoning Islam to work with Americans and Jews. The decision came after ICU leaders viewed a video purporting to show the torture of Shaykh Muhammad Ismail by Somaliland security officials. Somaliland officials described the tape as a fake. The Shaykh was charged earlier with involvement in an attempt to disrupt the September 2005 elections with bombings.<\/p>\n

Some of Somalia\u2019s Islamists are intent on integrating Somaliland into a \u201cGreater Somalia\u201d that would also include Ethiopia\u2019s Ogaden region, semi-autonomous Puntland, Djibouti and north-eastern Kenya.<\/p>\n

Determining Responsibility<\/strong><\/p>\n

The day after the bombings, al-Shabaab posted a videotape to jihadi websites showing the last testament of one of the suicide bombers, though al-Shabaab did not explicitly claim credit for the attacks. The young man pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and called for the expulsion of all foreigners in Somalia, especially Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers. Two of the suicide bombers were identified by name; Abul Salam Hersi and Abdul-Aziz Saad, both of whom were members of the Hawiye\/Habr Gidir Ayr sub-clan, which supplies many of the Islamist fighters engaged in the struggle for Mogadishu (al-Jazeera, October 30; Somaliland Times, November 1).<\/p>\n

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer suggested al-Qaeda was the responsible party; “Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they have the markings of al-Qaeda \u2026 We believe that these senseless attacks highlight the determination of violent extremists to undermine peace and stability throughout Somalia and the Horn of Africa\u201d (AFP, October 29).<\/p>\n

Frazer, however, failed to mention the American connection to the suicide attacks. It\u2019s believed that one of the suicide bombers was 26-year old Shirwa Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen and resident of Minneapolis, home to a substantial Somali \u00e9migr\u00e9 population. Ahmed moved to Minnesota in 1996 and graduated high school there before becoming one of over a dozen young Somali men to disappear from the area in recent months. All are believed to have returned to Somalia to join the fighting, possibly as suicide bombers. FBI officials will not confirm whether an investigation is under way (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, November 25; KSTP-TV [St.Paul], November 29; WCCO-TV [Minneapolis-St.Paul], November 26; AP, November 26). Abdulfatah Abdullahi Guutaale, the local organizer of the Hargeisa bombings, once lived in the Minneapolis area and may have a U.S. green card, according to the Somaliland Interior Ministry investigation (AFP, November 27).<\/p>\n

Accusations that Somaliland officials were harassing refugees from Somalia following the blasts were denied by the government (Shabelle, November 17). Interior Minister Abdullahi Ismail Irro issued a statement urging Somalilanders to take possible suspects to the nearest police station instead of taking the law into their own hands (IRIN, November 10). Another victim of the bombings was Somaliland\u2019s voter registration campaign, which has now been suspended.<\/p>\n

Prior al-Shabaab Activities in Somaliland<\/strong><\/p>\n

In December 2006, a major trial ended in Somaliland in which 15 suspects were charged (six in absentia) with conspiracy to commit terror, illegal importation of arms and explosives and the wounding of three policemen in September\/October 2005. Most of the suspects were convicted and sentenced to 20 – 25 years in prison. Among those sentenced to 25 years was Shaykh Muhammad Ismail, a leading Islamist radical. Two of the others sentenced in absentia were Ahmad Abdi Godane \u201cAbu Zubayr\u201d (a suspect in the latest Hargeisa attacks) and Ibrahim Jama Afghani, another veteran of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan (Somaliland Times, December 9, 2006).<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, both Shaykh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Aden Hashi Farah \u201cAyrow,\u201d an Afghanistan veteran and military commander of al-Shabaab, were acquitted due to a lack of evidence. The two were tried in absentia.\u00a0 Aden Hashi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on his home last May. Shaykh Hassan Dahir Aweys is a former colonel in the Somali army and the leader of what might be termed the \u201crejectionist\u201d faction of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), taking a hard-line on peace efforts while calling for the destruction of Somalia\u2019s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the expulsion of all foreign troops. Aweys is an inflexible opponent of Somaliland\u2019s struggle for independence; \u201cPeople in Somaliland worship a deity called \u201cPeace\u201d and this deity is mirrored on Western ideology\u2026\u201d (Somaliland Times, December 9, 2006).<\/p>\n

The al-Shabaab threat has been used for political purposes within Somaliland. A wave of bombings struck Hargeisa in April, including a grenade attack on the home of a cabinet minister and a large bomb that caused heavy damage to one of Somaliland\u2019s houses of parliament, the House of Guurti (elders). The government blamed the opposition Kulmiye party (Garowe Online, April 10). In August, Interior Minister Irro accused a leading member of the opposition Kulmiye party of being a member of al-Shabaab. The arrest of Hersi Ali Haji Hassan followed his criticism of an exclusive livestock export deal made by the Somaliland president with a Saudi Arabian company. The Kulmiye party responded by accusing the President of damaging the region\u2019s peaceful image (Garowe Online, August 12). Raising livestock is a major industry in Somaliland and the President\u2019s grant of a monopoly on exports to a Saudi firm brought charges from the opposition of violating the constitution and even \u201chigh treason,\u201d an impeachable offense (Garowe Online, July 29).<\/p>\n

A Low Level War with Puntland<\/strong><\/p>\n

Somaliland is also engaged in a bitter dispute with Puntland over the Sool and Sanaag regions, which both territories claim. A local insurgent group fighting to end Somaliland\u2019s \u201coccupation\u201d of the Sool region, the Somali Unity Defense Alliance (SUDA), appears to be a thinly veiled Puntland proxy. Such accusations are denied by the group\u2019s leader, Colonel Abdiaziz \u201cGaramgaram\u201d Muhammad, who is best known as a former commander in the militia of notorious warlord and accused war criminal Muhammad Said Hersi Morgan while the latter was fighting the Juba Valley Alliance for control of the port of Kismayo (now in the hands of al-Shabaab) (Garowe Online, September 10). Colonel Muhammad\u2019s predecessor, Colonel Deyr Abdi, was captured by Somaliland security forces when they raided a gathering of pro-Puntland militias at the regional capital of Las Anod last January. Colonel Abdi had been appointed military commander of the region by Puntland\u2019s ruler, General Adde Musa. A column of Somaliland troops in 20 armored trucks under Colonel Hashi Yare seized the coastal town of Las Qorey last July after Puntland troops withdrew to the east (Garowe Online, July 9).<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Somali insurgents, including al-Shabaab, regard the Hargeisa government as being U.S. and Ethiopian backed. Somaliland authorities again became hopeful international recognition might at last be on the way when U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer met with the Somaliland president for security talks last February. The meeting followed a visit by President Dahir Rayale to Washington the previous month. The October 29 blasts will undermine Somaliland\u2019s projection of an image of security and damage its prospects for recognition. The consequent withdrawal of United Nations personnel leaves Somaliland more isolated than ever. There are fears that Islamist extremism may gain ground in Somaliland if recognition of Somaliland\u2019s independence continues to be withheld. Italy and a handful of African countries pose the main opposition to Somaliland\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in the December 8, 2008 issue of the Jamestown Foundation\u2019s Terrorism Monitor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor December 8, 2008 With the completion of a month-long police investigation, Somaliland\u2019s Interior Minister, Abdullahi \u201cIrro\u201d Ismail, has announced al-Shabaab extremists are responsible for the suicide bombings that killed more than 20 people in Somaliland\u2019s capital of Hargeisa … 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":[18,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-somalia","category-somaliland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704","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=2704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2707,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704\/revisions\/2707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}