So who’s targeting the Turks in Somalia?
Abdi A. GardaadAbdiGardad2@gmail.comFebruary 8 2015The world abandoned Somalia after the United States withdrew its forces from the country in 1994, following the bloody “Black Hawk Down” battle in Mogadishu. President George H.W. Bush sent American marines to Somalia in 1992 after a severe drought and clan warfare crippled the country and killed tens of thousands. Unfortunately, the American mission strayed from its original humanitarian relief mission to one of state building. The mission ended in bloody failure, and, two years later, President Clinton pulled out all American forces from Somalia. Since then, Somalia was abandoned to its vulturous warlords and scavenging neighbors.
Turkey was not one of the countries that got involved in Somalia’s chaotic situation for the last twenty-some years. Although the relationship between the Somalis and the Turks goes a long way back (back to the era of the Ottoman Empire, when the northern Somali coast was part of the great Ottoman Empire), the geographical distance between the two countries and the policies of the westward facing pre-Erdogan Turkish leaders ensured there was no Turkish interest in the affairs of Somalia. That all came to an end in 2011, when Recep Tayyib Erdogan, then-the prime minister of Turkey, became the first major world leader to visit Mogadishu since the Somali government collapsed, back in 1991. Mr Erdogan’s visit couldn’t have been timelier. Somalia was then in the middle of the worst drought that hit the country since 1975.
Then on March 6, 2012, Turkish airlines became the first international carrier to start regular flights to Mogadishu since 1991.
Prime minister Erdogan’s visit not only put the situation in Somalia on the world stage, but the visit also kick started a large scale Turkish relieve and reconstruction operation to help the Somali people. The Turkish operation unmasked the scandalous state of the so-called international relief organizations. In the last two decades, billions of dollars were allegedly spent by these organizations on relief and development in Somalia. But there was nothing on the scene to show for this spending. Turkish organizations, such TIKA, IHH, etc. contributed food and built water wells, orphanages, schools, hospitals, and roads. The Turks have changed the landscape in Mogadishu forever.
For us Somalis, it’s not the first time the Turks showed up to save the day. In 1543, the Somalis, under the leadership of Imam Ahmed bin Ibrahim Alghazi (Ahmed Gurey), finally managed to defeat and conquer the ever threatening Abyssinian kingdom. However, before the Somalis could celebrate the victory, the Portuguese, then-the dominant naval power of the world, landed their forces in Eritrea, and together with the remnants of the Abyssinian king’s forces, defeated the Somalis and killed Imam Ahmed Gurey. Without the timely arrival of the Turkish musketeers, the vengeful Abyssinians and their Portuguese allies would have wiped out the Somalis off the Horn of Africa. The Somali people can never forget those who came to help in their hour of need.
As much as the common Somali appreciated the help of their Turkish brothers, there are some people who cannot stand the idea of the Turks building roads and opening orphanages in Somalia. Thus, the Turks became their number one target. Yes, they started assassinating Turkish engineers who were repairing roads. They began conducting suicide attacks against Turkish relief workers and diplomats.
On April 14, 2013, a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle against a minibus carrying Turkish relief workers in Mogadishu. Three Turkish relief workers were wounded, while a Somali national working for one of the Turkish charities died. Several Somali by standers were also killed. Alshabab released a communiqué, saying this was a warning for all “foreigners” to leave Somalia. Perhaps it was a veiled warning, exclusively for the Turkish, because in Mogadishu, there were thousands of foreign soldiers, diplomats, spies, and relief workers, who were barely criticized by Alshabab.
On July 27, 2013, a suicide car bomber attacked a building that served as the interim Turkish embassy in Mogadishu. The building housed Turkish relief workers and their families. A Turkish guard was killed and several others were injured. Alshabab claimed responsibility for the attack. Their spokesman, Ali Rage, said the attack was justified because the Turks “left the religion” and were part of NATO, whom he said, attacked Muslims in Afghanistan. He also said the Turks were damaging Somali economy by “slaughtering female animals” and spreading un-Islamic culture! This was an attempt to make sense of the ongoing Alshabab campaign against the Turks.
On January 19, 2014, a road side bomb targeted a vehicle belonging to a Turkish relief agency in a suburb of Mogadishu. The Somali driver was wounded.
On the night of April 10th, 2014, the Turkish embassy building in Mogadishu (which was under construction) was attacked with rockets. Two Turkish engineers were wounded.
On May 27, 2014, the head of the Turkish airlines security team was assassinated while driving through central Mogadishu.
On October 7, 2014, American SEALS conducted an unsuccessful raid to arrest Abdulqadir Ikrama, an Alshabab agent, in the town of Barawa. Even thought the Pentagon announced that American Special Forces conducted the raid, Alshabab insisted Turkish forces were responsible for the raid.
And then there was this most recent (January 22) suicide attack against the Turkish delegates at SYL hotel.
While the United States, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, and a host of other countries are militarily involved in Somalia, Turkey’s mission in Somalia was solely humanitarian. So what made the Turks the number one enemy of Alshabab militants?
To answer this question, we need to first explore the history of Alshabab and see who they really are, and who controls them.
THE CREATION OF ALSHABAB
What we know today as Alshabab have their roots in the now defunct Islamic Courts Union (ICU) organization, which briefly took control of southern Somalia in the summer of 2006. In late 2006, several factions of the ICU, representing the more radical elements of the ICU, such as the Raskamboni brigade, the Salahudin group, and the CC district group, came together to form a powerful faction within the ICU, to be called “Alshabab”. Alshabab, thus, became the military muscle of the ICU. Then came the Ethiopian invasion at the end of 2006. The Ethiopian army, supported by American special operations forces, quickly routed the ICU forces. The ICU leadership was in disarray. The most senior members fled to Eritrea, where they worked with nationalists to form a united front against the Ethiopians. Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the ICU chief, later became the president of the Transitional Federal Government after negotiations. The Ethiopian invasion’s impact on Alshabab was, however, more covert and long lasting.
THE COVERT COUP WITHIN ALSHABAB
When Alshabab was first created in 2006, the top leadership of the organization consisted of well known members from the Islamist movement in Somalia. Adan Hashi Ayro, the ICU’s top military commander, was to be the overall commander of Alshabab forces. Sheikh Hasan Turki, the spiritual leader of the powerful Raskamboni Brigade, was elected as the new group’s chairman of the Shura council. Ismail Arale, a moderate Islamist from the Somaliland region, was elected to serve as the “Amir” of the group. Ahmed Madobe, the current president of the Jubba Administration, was elected as the deputy Amir.
The Ethiopian intelligence worked hard to not only decimate the Alshabab leadership, but also to infiltrate and control the group. Ethiopian forces, with the support of American Special Forces, captured Ahmed Madobe, the deputy amir of Alshabab, after he was wounded by an American air strike on January 2007. Allegedly, he was betrayed by informants who were part of his group, as he was targeted while deep inside the lower Jubba jungle west of the city of Kismayo. But the worst was to come for Alshabab. The amir of the group, Ismail Arale, was captured by American forces in Djibouti while on his way to Eritrea for the opposition conference. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay where he was incarcerated for several years (as prisoner number DJ9SO-010027DP) before he was finally released.
The way Mr Arale was lured into coming to Djibouti and then arrested, shines some light on the nature of the current Alshabab leadership. Khalif Adale, one of the current top leaders of Alshabab, was then an aide to Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the former chief of ICU. Khalif was responsible for facilitating the travel of ICU leaders inside Somalia to Eritrea for the opposition summit. The interesting part is that even though Ismail Arale was not on the list of the delegates invited to come to the summit, Khalif Adale sent an invitation letter to Mr Arale (who was in hiding then). Khalif Adale also sent Mr Arale $15,000 to facilitate his travel and instructed him to meet him in Djibouti so they can go together to Eritrea for the summit. The Alshabab amir took the bait and traveled to Djibouti using a forged passport with a false name. He was not arrested initially as he landed in Djibouti, perhaps because he was using a false name. However, after he met Khalif Adale in Djibouti and as they were trying to board a plane to Eritrea, Ismail Arale was promptly arrested by Djiboutian security agents who were waiting for him at the airport. The Djiboutians immediately turned him over to the American forces in Djibouti.
With both Alshabab’s amir and his deputy arrested, and the remaining Alshabab leaders scattered and in disarray, a group of young, unfamiliar individuals within the organization grabbed the opportunity, and, after a quick, unscheduled conference, elected a new leadership for Alshabab. The new leadership was led by men who were unknown in the Islamist movement. A mysterious man with the name “Sheikh Mukhtar Abu Zubayr” was now elected as the amir of Alshabab. His real name turned out to be Ahmed Abdi Godane. He was one of about a dozen young men (whom I call the Hargeisa network, because their network was organized in Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland region) who came from the northern region of Somaliland around the time of the ICU revolution in southern Somalia. He was a rather an unknown figure within the Islamists in both southern Somalia and Somaliland. A fellow Hargeisa network member, Mahad Karatay, became his right hand man. If Ahmed Godane was a questionable figure for the position he got, Mahad Karatay’s ascend was outright suspicious. Mr Karatay was a young man in his early twenties when he joined the Islamist organization “Al-itihad Al-islam” in the early ‘90s. In 1997, after Ethiopian forces defeated Al-itihad forces in the Gedo region (bordering Kenya), Mr Karatay became disillusioned with Al-Itihad’s project and left for Kenya. In an event that is yet to be explained, Kenyan intelligence picked up Mr Karatay from Nairobi and handed him over to the Ethiopia intelligence. It was not until 2005 that Mr Karatay surfaced again, mysteriously, in the high security “Mandera” prison in Somaliland. Apparently, the Ethiopian intelligence, which had and still has unchecked influence over Somaliland leaders, wanted Mr Karatay (who they held for many years) to be released for a mission without attracting any ridicule. During the 2005 presidential elections in Somaliland, Mr Karatay was quietly released from the Mandera prison. During the short period he was in the Mandera prison, he created a network of young Islamists in the prison who would, when later released, come join him in Alshabab. When he got out of prison, Mr Karatay linked up with another team of secretive young men in Hargeisa, which perhaps was also organized by the Ethiopian intelligence. This group was headed by Ahmed Godane. The whole team traveled to southern Somalia and, with their money and tight organization, quickly climbed through the ranks of the ICU leadership. Before the ICU collapsed, Mr Karatay was named the chief immigration officer at the Mogadishu international airport, while Ahmed Godane became the secretary of the ICU. Now that both the ICU and Alshabab leadership had collapsed, the Hargeisa network quickly seized the moment and got for themselves the Alshabab leadership. The remnants of the previous Alshabab leadership were simply sidelined, except for Adan Hashi Ayro. Ayro, the young, apolitical commander of the Alshabab forces, was first accommodated by the network members. The network members didn’t want to be seen as instigating a coup and grapping power for themselves.
ALSHABAB 2.0
The first act of the new leadership was to create a powerful intelligence agency, the so-called Amniyat. Mahad Karatay, the security chief of the Hargeisa network, quickly put into action this secret organization. Although none of the members of the Hargeisa network had any official military or security background, it didn’t take much time to assemble and put into action this new powerful intelligence agency. This is because the core membership and leaders of the Amniyat were, just like Mahad Karatay himself, members of the Ethiopian intelligence. The Hargeisa network members used the Amniyat to consolidate power. All of the former commanders and leaders of Alshabab were either assassinated or replaced. And in their place, Amniyat members were put in charge.
After consolidating their hold on power, the new Alshabab leaders worked hard to do what their handlers wanted: manipulate the young, ignorant, extremist men in Alshabab to do Ethiopian intelligence’s dirty work. First, the new leaders started attacking the two most anti-Ethiopian clans who led the resistance war against the Ethiopian occupation: the Ogaden clan and the Ayr clan. After relentless attacks, the Ayr were forced to seek the help of their former enemies (the Ethiopians), while the Ogadenis were pushed against the Kenyan border and forced to accept Kenyan help. Thus, both clans were turned into powerless puppets of their former enemies.
Alshabab then started a systematic campaign to cleanse Islamist elements from the federal government ranks. It’s well known that when Sharif Sheikh Ahmed became the president of the federal government back in 2009, he gave almost half of the ministerial posts and more than half of the top security posts to the Islamist. Today, there is barely any meaningful position held by the Islamist, thanks to Alshabab’s relentless assassination and bombing campaign to exterminate Islamists within the government. On the other hand, Alshabab never targets former warlords and other pro-Ethiopian officials in the federal government. Alshabab also targeted any and all anti-Ethiopian forces within the country. The ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front) bases in the southern Jubba had to be dealt with as soon as Alshabab reached the Jubba region. Hisbul Islaam organization, which had fought the Ethiopians, had to be disarmed and destroyed.
Alshabab also had to maintain a level of violence that made Mogadishu and Somalia in general unsafe for foreign investment and dependent on foreign troops (mainly African) for security. Interestingly, Alshabab only launched attacks against non-Ethiopian AMISOM troops. They never attacked the Ethiopian troops and they always conducted a smooth withdrawal whenever Ethiopian troops arrived at a region.
Since it is obvious that Alshabab is under the control of Ethiopian intelligence, one might ask why the Ethiopians would want to unleash their Alshabab puppets to attack the Turkish interests in Somalia.
To answer that question, we must examine Ethiopia’s policy towards Somalia for the last two decades. Ethiopia’s policy towards Somalia is guided by three main pillars:
(1) The potential threat of a strong Somalia that can lobby for (or fight for) the Somali Ogaden region that is currently part of Ethiopia,
(2) The Ethiopian lordship of the IGAD regional organization in the absence of a Somali state that can counter balance it, and,
(3) Ethiopia’s privilege in the west as the regions favorite bulk ward against Islamism.
These three pillars shaped the Ethiopian policy of keeping Somalia in a state of controlled chaos. The Ethiopian strategy had been, and still is, to have a Somalia that is always in controlled crisis, so the west would always view Ethiopia as the regions indispensible peacekeeper, while at the same time there won’t be a government in Mogadishu that can be strong enough to challenge Ethiopia. Thus, Turkey’s strong wish to help reconstruct the Somali state runs directly counter to the Ethiopian strategy. And therefore, the Ethiopians are using their Alshabab tool to abort the Turkish mission.
Abdi A. Gardaad – AbdiGardad2@gmail.com
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