hundreds of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen fighters were wrapped up military training in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials told Shabelle radio on Friday.
More top officials of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen had lectured to the Islamist fighters at Maslah camp in Mogadishu saying that the forces will fight with the transitional government troops and AMISOM.
Sheik Moktar Robow Ali Abu Mansour who was one of the high officials of Haraket Al-shabab Mujahideen said that the fighters wrapped up for the military training will fight with the African Union troops from both countries Uganda and Burundi and also the transitional government soldiers in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Sheik Fu’ad Mohamed Khalaf, high member of the Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen officials said that the fighters are required to wipe out the UN, international community and the ICC calling for the Islamist forces to assure the Jihad (Islamic war) adding that there was no difference between the Islamist movements of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen and Hizbul Islam.
He reiterated to be united and united.
Lastly Sheik Ali Mohamud Raghe (Sheik Ali Dere), the spokesman of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen talked at the centre where the military training concluded for the Islamist forces in Mogadishu and said that the trained fighters were not from out of the country stressing that they were out of the military training of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen in the country.
"no difference between the Islamist movements of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen and Hizbul Islam"?
Have to see if Sh. Aweys' responds to that one. While there is some overlap in the goals of both movements, there is plenty of ideological gap that separates them.
Counter to his statements provided in that report, Robow is quoted elsewhere as stating that the fighters are going elsewhere
Mareeg Online: Al Shabaab says they will send fighters to Yemen
“We will cross the water between us and fight along side with you against the enemy of Allah, be patient until we reach you brothers,” said Sheikh Muktar Robow Ali Abu Mansuur, a former spokesman of the group and a prominent official.
Sheikh Robow was addressing to hundreds of newly trained al Shabaab fighters in the capital Mogadishu when he declared they will send the fighters to Yemen.
“These young fighters successfully completed several months of tough training and they are now ready to join their brothers in the holy war against the enemy of Allah worldwide," Robow added.
That report makes it sound like Robow is saying the fighters were trained to be sent outside of Somalia. This next report is a little more nuanced,
Reuters: Al Shabaab Urges Muslims to Support Yemeni Qaeda
Somalia's hardline Islamist rebel group al Shabaab said on Friday it was ready to send reinforcements to al Qaeda in Yemen should the U.S. carry out retaliatory strikes, and urged other Muslims to follow suit.
Yemen-based al Qaeda groups have come under intense scrutiny since the Nigerian who tried to explode a bomb aboard a Detroit-bound Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam was linked to the country.
Yemeni and American officials are reported to have mulled targets for retaliatory strikes against such groups inside Yemen.
"We call upon all Muslims to give a hand to our brothers in Yemen and we, al Shabaab, are ready to send them reinforcements ... and Inshallah we shall win over America," said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abuu Mansuur, a senior al Shabaab official.
He urged hundreds of the group's soldiers, who marched around the northern parts of the battle-scarred capital in brand-new uniforms, to redouble their efforts in the fight.
Neither source quotes Robow as stating anything about supporting or defending al-Qa'idah in Yemen, of which, according to one 'expert', "the list of wanted people on charges [of having ties] to Al-Qaeda is no more than 50 people." [Maybe more, depending on whom you believe.]
And the latter article makes clear that this was a threat in response to another. In fact, it sounds very similiar to the rhetorical threat made two months ago re sending a brigade to protect the Al Aqsa mosque and "our Palestinian brothers".
It would be very informative to get ahold of data attempting to quantify the numbers of innocent Muslim civilians killed in counter-terrorism attacks as opposed to those killed, both Muslim and not, in officially-designated terrorist attacks. It might open some eyes, for one. After all, "counter-terrorism" is still terrorism. Is anyone really expecting that people will just stand by while somebody's women and children are being slaughtered? That, in my read, is the foremost context here. The mujahideen's transnational outlook -- understanding themselves to be at the recieving end of a global war -- is nothing new.
One more source here trying to conflate Robow and AQ,
AFP: Somalia's Shebab says will send fighters to Yemen
Somalia's hardline Shebab insurgents Friday said they will send fighters to Yemen to help an Al-Qaeda affiliate behind the failed Christmas Day jetliner bombing in its fight against government forces.
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansour, a senior official of the Shebab militia that pledges allegiance to Al-Qaeda, announced the plan as he presented hundreds of newly-trained fighters in the north of Mogadishu.
"We tell our Muslim brothers in Yemen that we will cross the water between us and reach your place to assist you fight the enemy of Allah," said Robow, to chants of "Allahu Akbar", or Allah is great, by the young fighters.
"Today you see what is happening in Yemen, the enemy of Allah is destroying your Muslim brothers," he added.
"I call upon the young men in Arab lands to join the fight there."
"the Shebab militia that pledges allegiance to Al-Qaeda"? Robow's militia? Really now... When was this?
The AFP is more interested in presenting a spin here than in stating facts, obviously.
For instance, further on the article leads the reader to believe that Mogadishu was ever under control of the transitional government & its foreign fighters:
The Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab control large swathes of south and central Somalia and have wrested control of much of the capital Mogadishu where they have relentlessly attacked government and African Union forces.
"These young fighters successfully completed several months of tough training and they are now ready to join their brothers in the holy war against the enemy of Allah worldwide," Robow said.
The NYT adds
While it was not clear when or whether the rebels could carry out their threat, the avowed goals signaled a shift in strategy from an Islamist insurgency that has drawn foreign fighters here to one that aims to provide them to insurgencies abroad.
...
A Shabab spokesman, Sheik Ali Mohamoud Rageh, said the fighters, who had just completed military training, would fight in every corner of the world that is ready for jihad, or holy war.
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At the ceremony on Friday at a rebel camp near the former animal market in northern Mogadishu, hundreds of jubilant fighters paraded before reporters and senior rebel leaders chanting, “God is great.” It was the first time the rebels had presented their recruits to the news media.
The officials rebuffed reports of a split among Shabab fighters and vowed that they would unite with a rival rebel group, Hizbul Islam.
Not seeing any mention of earlier claims, by the Yemen govt, that Somalis were already crossing over to fight alongside the insurgency there.
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No doubt some will try to spin the following story too
APA: Somali militants set fire to WFP food aid
The Al Shabab extremists in Somalia have set fire to hundreds of sacks of food owned by the World Food Program (WFP) in the city of Merka, the provincial capital of Lower Shabelle region which is about 111 kilometres south of the capital Mogadishu, a regional governor told reporters on Thursday.
The governor Sheikh Mohamed Abdullahi said that the 300 sacks of maize and beans were confiscated from a WFP-owned warehouse in the city of Merka where he said they became dirty after many years of storage.
“The vulnerable people in the region have been very much in need and the WFP has been keeping the food here for so many years and they now want to distribute it to our people after it had expired. That is something we cannot allow so we have burned it in front of the public,” the militant’s governor stated.
“Our intelligence services got the information that the WFP was about to distribute the dirty food to the people so we have intercepted it before they would hand out this expired food to our people,” he added.
He said that the Mujahideens also burned packages of expired medicines taken from pharmacies and stores belonging to some unspecified aid agencies in Merka.
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Geez. Somalis are in danger of becoming the de facto face of Islamic extremism in Western consciousness
AFP: Danish police arrest man trying to kill cartoonist
Danish police said Saturday they shot and arrested an axe-wielding Somali man who tried to kill a cartoonist whose depictions of the prophet Mohammed infuriated Muslims.
The 28-year-old who lives in Denmark but was not identified broke into the home of Kurt Westergaard in the western city of Aarhus late Friday. Police guards shot and wounded the intruder before arresting him.
The Somali national had terrorist intent and was close to the radical Somali Shebab movement and leaders of Al-Qaeda in East Africa, the internal security service PET said in a statement.
...
Bent Preben Nielsen, chief police inspector for East Jutland, told AFP that police fired at the aggressor who was threatening them with an axe and a knife, hitting him in the hip and the right hand.
The Somali, who was taken to hospital but whose injuries were not life-threatening, would be charged with "attempted murder of Kurt Westergaard and a policeman," East Jutland police chief Mikael Larsen said in a communique.
PET said in its statement: "The attempted murder of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard is linked to terrorism. The person arrested... has close links with the Somali terrorist organisation Al-Shebab as well as with the heads of Al-Qaeda in East Africa.
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Following up on that conference in Uganda in early December, it was indeed an attempt to shape perceptions and influence the media in other African countries to get behind sending troops to join AMISOM, as this report published at Hiiraan Online states
Why Troops Must Be Deployed Now
The entire event was aimed to explore mechanisms of influencing public opinion and support for African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM) in Somalia, especially in current and potential Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs).
The forum sought to enable citizens—through gatekeepers—from the TCCs to appreciate the roles, responsibilities and contributions of their troops to the peace process in Somalia and its far-reaching implications for the African continent. It also aimed to explore mechanisms of influencing public policy in the current and potential TCCs with a view to generating more troops for the mission.
One of those mechanisms is fear-mongering,
Acting Special Representative of the Chairperson of African Union Commission on AMISOM, Hon. Wafula Wamunyinyi grabbed the attention when he raised the alarm that if TCCs do not redeemed their pledge of sending troops to tackle insurgency and restore peace in Somalia, the continent should not be surprise to witness a repeat of September 11 attack on an African soil with the kind of support the Al-Shabab group was enjoying from Al-Qaeda which is known to commit ghastly terrorists attacks that have led to hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths in counties like US, Afghanistan, UK, Pakistan among others. “If more security-sophisticated countries like the US, UK and Spain could be affected, then Africa may be like a play ground for any Al-Qaeda terrorist attack,” he explained.
Wamunyinyi further warned that African continent is not immune from the September 11-like attack if each member state of the African Union (AU) continues to play the ostrich as Al-Shabab are now being trained by Al-Qaeda militias in terrorism acts, suicide bombings, targeted attacks and kidnappings. He added that “no African country should think it is safe as long as Al-Qaeda is present in Somalia.”
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Some more on Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen's military ceremony in Mogadishu and what was said & where the emphasis is
Garowe Online: Hundreds of Al-Shabaab fighters finish training
The ceremony was held in the capital’s northern Huriwa district at the group’s base in Suqa Holaha where several people and top Al-Shabaab officials including Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Ali Abu Mansur.
“The new fighters have finished their military training and are ready to fight Amisom that has taken over the country’s source of economy. If they die, they are martyrs and will be rewarded in hereafter. If they survive they will live in blissful life,” he told the crowd.
He reiterated the group’s ambitions to topple the fragile UN-backed government and target anyone who support the government.
Another Al-Shabaab top official called Sheikh Fuad Mohammed Khalaf, who spoke at the ceremony, said the new recruits were specially trained to oust the AU troops from the country, insisting that the group is intact.
“The reports that say we are divided is false and we are engaged in alliance with Hizbul Islam to accomplish our mission of depose the government and its backers AU and UN,” he said.
The group’s spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohammed Raghe Ali Dhere said the fighters were trained in the country and are willingly recruited to take part in the holy war.
“The fighters are trained in the country, they are ready to employ their tactics and uphold their oath of driving the enemy of Allah out of the country.”
Which is what I would have expected from an insurgency that has yet to fully capture the strategic capital.
Shabelle Media adds
Sheik Moktar Robow Ali (Abu Mansor), who was one of the high Islamist officials of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen said speaking in the occasion where the training wrapped up in north of Mogadishu on Friday that they got information that the transitional government and AMSIOM troops were organizing attacks against the Islamist forces asserting that they were completely ready for protecting any of their assaults in the capital.
The ceremony was intended to make a show of force in anticipation of the expected operations by the TFG's backers. Any secondary threats were probably motivational rhetoric.
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Reports Saturday indicate that Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen took back Dhusomareb in the efforts to recapture and solidify their control of central Somalia.
Garowe Online: Somalia's Al-Shabaab capture strategic central town
Somalia’s Al-Shabaab insurgent group has reportedly seized the control of central town of Dhusamareb, the capital of Galgadud region 500km north of capital Mogadishu.
Reports say heavily armed Al-Shabaab militia attacked the town on Saturday morning and overpowered militia loyal to Ahul-Sunnah Wal-Jamaa, who controlled the strategic town.
...
Independent sources ... report that the control of the town has totally changed hands with armed Al-Shabaab fighters patrolling the streets.
The fighting comes a day after Ahul-sunnah elected officials for the local assembly and a speaker. However, the officials were not around when the town was captured.
Al-Shabaab has recently vowed to recapture all the towns that they lost to Ahlu-Sunnah, in particular Dhusamareb, which is the birthplace of Al-Shabaab’s founder Sheikh Hash Aden Ayrow.
Expecting more Ethiopian troop movement into the region.
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Michael Weinstein follows up his last intelligence brief on the mujahideen's encirclement strategy following the latest events in Galgadud
Al-Shabab Implements its Encirclement Strategy
Whatever the outcome of the conflict turns out to be, the attack on Dhusamareb confirms the intelligence reported by this writer in Garowe Online on December 8, 2009 that H.S.M. has adopted a strategy of encircling Somalia’s weak and internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) in Mogadishu by achieving dominance in the central regions of Hiraan, Galgadud and southern Mudug. Should H.S.M. succeed in capturing Dhusamareb and then extend its sway to strategic towns in Galgadud, such as Guri-el, Abudwaq, and Balanbal, which remain A.S.W.J. strongholds, the balance of power between H.S.M. and the variegated coalition resisting it in the central regions and in southern and central Somalia in general will be decisively altered. Although A.S.W.J. is only partially aligned with the T.F.G., the former’s control over Galgadud – a buffer region between the Hiraan region to the west, in which the nationalist Islamist Hizbul Islam movement (H.I.) and H.S.M. are dominant and dispute and collaborate; and the Middle Shabelle region to the east, in which H.S.M. predominates – has been one of the most important pillars of the anti-H.S.M. coalition’s aim of rolling back H.S.M., which is currently dominant in most of southern and central Somalia; the noose around the T.F.G. will tighten, which is the aim of the encirclement strategy. At the least, Galgadud has been thrown into contention and A.S.W.J.’s credibility as a resistance force against H.S.M. has been thrown into question.
...
Although the decisional processes of H.S.M. are not readily accessible to outsiders, its decision to attack Dhusamareb is intelligible in terms of A.S.W.J.’s efforts from mid-December into January to form a permanent administration in Galgadud. In a later communication, the source of the December 8 intelligence reported that Ethiopia – the muscle behind much of the anti-H.S.M. coalition – would move into Galgadud to protect A.S.W.J.’s conference on creating an administration for Galgadud. It is likely that H.S.M. moved to derail the conference, which it succeeded in doing on January 2, when A.S.W.J. suspended the conference for two weeks, as its attention became fully absorbed in tightening security in the towns that it controlled, and in preparing for a counter-offensive against H.S.M. in Dhusamareb.
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Marine Corps Times: Corps weighs merits of Africa task force
Talks are underway to add a special-purpose Marine air-ground task force to U.S. Africa Command ... officials say.
...
MAGTFs are quick-reaction units that range in size. The smallest comprise only a handful of troops, while the largest include thousands. Media reports published in December suggest as many as 1,000 Marines could be stationed in Europe as part of an AfriCom MAGTF, though neither the Marine Corps nor AfriCom would confirm how large this task force could be.
And both entities were careful when speculating about future basing options, saying only that prospective locations are being studied and that Europe, with its established infrastructure and proximity to Africa, is a logical contender. Locating a MAGTF on the African continent is not an option, officials said, even though Marines already deploy to Camp Lemonier, a joint expeditionary base in Djibouti, just north of Somalia.
“It’s phenomenally diplomatically sensitive when you start talking about stationing troops in Africa,” said Vince Crawley, a spokesman for AfriCom.
Stationing a MAGTF in Europe may help sidestep political sensitivities among African leaders already abuzz over the thought of Marines in their backyard.
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“Having a [Marine] unit available … provides this command the ability to improve engagements and be more responsive to other missions, such as disaster relief and humanitarian assistance,” [Master Sgt. Grady Fontana, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Africa,] said.
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AfriCom was created when the Horn of Africa gained greater focus as the U.S. increased efforts to disrupt suspected terrorist activities in countries with unstable governments. A permanent Marine task force also could prove valuable to counter-terrorism efforts throughout the region.
For reference,
Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force - Afghanistan
Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Afghanistan operates in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s International Security Assistance Force. Its mission is to conduct full-spectrum counterinsurgency operations, with a focus on training and mentoring the Afghan National Police.
From Wikipedia
The Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) is a term used by the United States Marine Corps to describe the principal organization for all missions across the range of military operations. MAGTFs are a balanced air-ground, combined arms task organization of Marine Corps forces under a single commander that is structured to accomplish a specific mission. The MAGTF was formalized by the publishing of Marine Corps Order 3120.3 in December of 1962. It stated:
A Marine air-ground task force with separate air ground headquarters is normally formed for combat operations and training exercises in which substantial combat forces of both Marine aviation and Marine ground units are included in the task organization of participating Marine forces.
..MAGTFs have long provided the United States with a broad spectrum of response options when U.S. and allied interests have been threatened and in non-combat situations which require critical response. Selective, timely and credible commitment of air-ground units have, on many occasions, helped bring stability to a region and sent signals worldwide that the United States is willing to defend its interests, and is able to do so with a significantly powerful force on extremely short notice.
From the December 16th Stars and Stripes article linked above
..the Marine Corps Web site mentions very little about training when talking about the capabilities of a Marine Air Ground Task Force, or MAGTF.
“MAGTF’s are readily available, self-sustaining, combined arms warfighting organizations,” the Marines’ Web site explains, noting among other things that such task forces are equipped to move forces into crisis areas without revealing their exact destination or intentions and project combat power at night and under adverse weather.
Finally, let's throw in this bit from the USMC's "'the Long War' brief", specifically the summary for a scenario sketch on rapid expansion of military combat operations into Africa in 2010:
This vignette has shown how a Marine infantry battalion with supporting aviation and logistics assets might be employed in the future across a full range of military operations. Within less than 5 days, the Marines of 1st Battalion 2nd Marines have gone from conducting capacity building, humanitarian assistance, foreign internal defense, and counterterrorism spread across several thousand miles of African territory, to a coalesced infantry battalion ready for high intensity combat operations.
Oh yeah... one more, from the 2009 AFRICOM posture statement:
U.S. Africa Command's theater strategic objectives:
* Defeat the Al-Qaeda terrorist organizations and its associated networks;
...
2 comments:
Appreciate the heads up on this, I hadn't seen it. high intensity combat operations will do a lot to solve the pervasive political problems. On the other hand this should help recruit for al-Qaeda, which will keep the long war fans in business keeping the long war going.
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