The choices one has in Somalia:
“In our country there are three paths: you can join al-Shabaab, you can join [the government forces] or you can go abroad,” said Ismael Mohamed. “Me, I don’t have money to go away so I join al-Shabaab.”
Ismael, 21, is a typical Islamist footsoldier. He is neither a jihadi nor an extremist; he loves God and Manchester United. He is a young Muslim with an education — his English is excellent — but no opportunities in a country that has been at war for as long as he has been alive.
Civil war led to the collapse of Somalia’s last Government in 1991. The rebels then turned on one another in a fight for power. Many Somali youngsters know nothing of life without war.
Al-Shabaab’s leaders are militant nationalists and Islamic extremists but the rank-and-file fighters are hired guns, conscripts or volunteers. Ismael joined up during last year’s failed rains when food was scarce and al-Shabaab was in the ascendancy — weeks earlier it had launched a fresh offensive against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). “I didn’t have anywhere to stay or anything to do.” My friends, some of them were al-Shabaab and they would tell me that TFG is not Muslim, but al-Shabaab is Muslim,” he explained.
abunoor 5:29 pm on February 1, 2010 Permalink |
Interestingly Ismael is said to have renounced AlShabaab after his life was saved by African Peacekeeping forces after he was badly wounded. Yet, he still speaks proudly of having been “real mujahidin.”