Have the Islamists started to go too far in Somalia?

The reaction among ordinary Somalis to an al-Shabaab car bomb attack on African Union peacemakers last week may be instructive.

The attack was billed as an act of revenge against America for a commando raid carried out a few days earlier by U.S. troops, who killed one of the most wanted al Qaeda men in Africa.

Seventeen of the peacemakers, all Africans, were killed. So too were a number of Somalis who had gone to the peacekeepers’ base for medical attention. At least 19 Somalis died in shelling that followed the car bomb attack.

“Bombing Somali Muslims because of a dead foreign terrorist is totally ungodly and
inhumane,” businesswoman Asha Farah told Reuters after the al Shabaab attack. “I can only say that al Shabaab are mad.”

Her view reflected that of many Somalis that Reuters correspondents spoke to in the capital, Mogadishu.

Will any of this make a difference to a group that has already conducted executions and punishment amputations and which shows no sign of letting up in its fight to oust the transitional government?

That remains to be seen, but it is perhaps worth remembering that both in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, al Qaeda lost a lot of  ground when they began killing innocent Muslims during their attacks on Westerners.

There is certainly frustration among Somalis, who feel that al Shabaab is misinterpreting Islam and using religion to justify criminal acts in what is after all a traditionally moderate Muslim society.

Most Somalis are not in a position to take the initiative against al Shabaab — but if a real international force took the fight to them in Mogadishu and elsewhere, it could find it had more support on the ground than expected.

My initial contact with Abdinasir Mohamed Guled was when he submitted a photo to our user-generated content service, called You Witness at the time, now Your View. The caption read "hi reuters" and the location was listed as Mogadishu suqa holaha district. This was enough to peak my attention.

I spoke with Abdinasir, who at the time was busy covering the story of pirates off the Somali coast. Below is his account of his journey from contributor to You Witness to regular stringer for Reuters.

A Somali family arrive at the Elasha Biyaha camp for the internally displaced  after they fled from renewed clashes in Mogadishu, May 13, 2009.  REUTERS/Abdi Guled

"Before working for Reuters I was working for a local radio station in Mogadishu and for various websites. I was working as a producer and would contribute to CNN.

I do like taking photographs, however it is not always easy in Somalia. One day I took a picture of Ethiopian soldiers walking on the street. They were really annoyed. One of the soldiers asked me what I was doing and I told him I was fixing my camera. He asked me to show him the picture and told me to leave the area. Be careful, always.

Ugandan peacekeepers from the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) return to their base from routine patrols in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu, May 7, 2009. REUTERS/Abdi Guled

I had seen the submit your photos icon on www.reuters.com. I clicked on it, filled out the form and sent my photos. The first editor I sent to was Corinne Perkins. We kept in touch, step by step. She gave me pointers and sent along some notes. She sent my submitted photos to the Africa chief photographer, Radu Sigheti. Radu called me and asked what I would be able to do. I said I can provide pictures from Mogadishu and some regions in Somalia. After three days, there was a U.S. airstrike on Somalia. I called one of my colleagues who was in the town that was hit and asked him to send pictures to me to send to Reuters. He sent them secretly. I sent the photos. Reuters was very appreciative as they were exclusive pictures. I had the ambition to work with Reuters.

People walk through rubble after U.S. war planes killed an Islamist rebel said to be al Qaeda's leader in Somalia and as many as 30 other people in Dusamareb, May 1, 2008. REUTERS/Abdi Guled

The first job I did for Reuters was to pick-up photos of al Qaeda militants and send them to Reuters. I was working very closely with the Reuters staff, especially the photographers. After some months of working with photos I became involved with text, where I am working now. I wrote a text story on Islamist forces and was able to secure photos of them too. No one had seen photos of them before. I was the first to receive those photos.

Masked Islamist fighters stand behind a group of eight soldiers of the Somali government and one Ethiopian soldier after they defected in Mogadishu September 6, 2008. REUTERS/Abdi Guled

From the first moment I sent my pictures to Reuters, it changed my life. My salary has increased more than 400%. I have become an ambitious person. I don't want to leave Reuters and plan to be with the company until death. I love Reuters and want to stay in Somalia.

It is very dangerous working in Somalia. There are areas where no international media can go. I always try to keep myself out of those areas. Sometimes being from Somalia can help. For example, if you try taking pictures inside an insurgency stronghold, you can be killed if you are seen taking pictures. To go to such places as a non-Somali is not safe.

Even though I like my country, I don't see a good future for Somalia. I have many friends who have fled to other countries but I told them I will remain here until death. I am still here. I will always be here. I will try to satisfy myself and tell myself this is the best country to work in."

A man walks down a deserted street after fighting between Somali government and Islamist insurgents in the capital Mogadishu February 25, 2009.  REUTERS/Abdi Guled

We often hear of the human cost of war. We don’t often see the cash cost laid out so baldly as in the price list that went with my colleague Abdi Sheikh’s feature from Mogadishu on the arms market that thrives in the city amid Somalia’s tragedy.

Among popular weapons, a 120 mm mortar costs $700, plus $55 for each mortar bomb. A 23 mm anti-aircraft gun (truck mounted), fetches a hefty $20,000.

Pistols range from $400 to $1,000 according to condition and country of origin. An Indian-made AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle costs $140. Better quality versions from North Korea cost $600 and the Russian original costs $400. Hand-grenades go for $25 each, landmines $100.

Huge weapons systems, such as nuclear missiles, are the stuff of international geopolitics. But in Africa at least, the weapons that are killing people on a daily basis in places like Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur are more modest in scale and can be bought at a relatively low cost.

As Somalia goes up in flames again , fingers are being pointed at Eritrea for its alleged role in fuelling the conflict.  East African regional body IGAD and the continent-wide African Union have both called for sanctions on Eritrea - including a no-fly zone and blockade of its ports - for allegedly supplying arms and equipment to Al Shabaab and other militant Islamist insurgents fighting Somalia’s interim government.

The accusations have been around for years, and have surfaced in U.N. reports on breaches of a weapons embargo for Somalia.
 
Asmara says its arch-enemy Ethiopia is driving the accusations, helped by CIA agents in the region, and denies it has given any material aid despite its antipathy towards President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s government.

Asmara says the government, formed in January during a U.N.-brokered process in Djibouti, is an illegitimate administration imposed by foreign powers. It challenges its critics to produce hard evidence, and says the accusations are particularly hypocritical given Ethiopia’s recent armed intervention in Somalia.

Analysts say the spat plays into the wider, unfinished conflict in the region between Ethiopia and Eritrea. They fought a border war between 1998-2000 - just a few years after Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia - and their armies still face each other, while the governments spit enmity between them.
 
So who is right? How can the rest of the world know the truth? What should Eritrea and Ethiopia both do to further peace in Somalia?

It’s a cynical adage of British journalism that one dead Briton is, in headline terms at least, worth several dozen foreign fatalities.

A similar law seems to be in play with the latest hostage drama on the high seas off Somalia, where four pirates have been holding an American sea captain in a life boat under the watchful eye of the USS Bainbridge.

At the moment, other pirates back at their bases in Somalia are holding 18 vessels and 267 sailors, the fruits of several months of attacks on ships off the coast.

The media in the United States has focussed fully on this latest story - a drama with just one American at its centre - while showing rather less interest in the hundreds of other hostages, none of whom is thought to be American.

So is this just the cruel law in action? Or should we be grateful that piracy is now receiving the full attention of the White House and the State Department and hope that at last more decisive action will be taken to clear the shipping lanes of bandits?

Six Ethiopian opposition parties have joined forces to go up against the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in next year’s parliamentary elections, but their chances of bringing change look slim at best and they complain of heavy-handed tactics by the ruling party.
 
The foremost opposition figure in Africa’s second most populous country, Birtukan Mideksa, a 34-year-old former judge, has been in solitary confinement since December. She was jailed after the first democratic poll in 2005, which ended in rioting that was bloodily suppressed, was pardoned in 2007 and rearrested last year after renouncing the terms of her pardon.
 
Bekele Jirata, a top official from another party, recently spent four months in prison after being accused of working with rebels from the Oromo region. He is now out on bail.
 
The government dismisses opposition accusations that political activity is restricted as baseless. “The political space is continually widening,” Bereket Simon, the government’s head of information, told me recently.
 
Meles points to achievements such as a reduction in infant mortality to 123 deaths for every 1,000 births from 166 in just five years. A programme to help seven million Ethiopians who regularly suffer from food shortages is meant to ensure the catastrophic famine of the mid-1980s is never repeated. Meles is a key regional friend of Washington and sent forces into Somalia to fight Islamists in late 2006, only withdrawing this year.
 
But Western allies and donors are frustrated by what they see as the restrictions on democracy. Human rights groups have cried foul over a new law that restricts groups that get outside funding from working on issues of democracy, human rights or criminal justice. The government says only Ethiopians should be involved in Ethiopian politics.
 
So is the ruling party restricting its rivals unfairly to ensure it keeps power or trying to protect an emerging democracy in a volatile part of the world?

Picture: Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi speaks to Reuters in 2007. Andrew Heavens/Reuters

For those looking to invest in Africa, the best prospects are in Nigeria and Ethiopia according to a new index of potential investment destinations published this week.

But should anybody want to put money into Africa at a time the global financial crisis and falling prices for export commodities, on which the continent is so reliant, have discouraged investors who had begun to see some African countries as promising frontier markets?

“Africa is going to overtake the Middle East to become the second fastest growing region in the world after emerging Asia. It will be affected by the global financial crisis but it is much less exposed than many places,” Katharine Pulvermacher, chief executive of business consultancy African Rainbow said this week on the launch of its Star of Africa index.

The index’s creators told my colleague Peter Apps that potential growth in energy, water and communications consumption could amply reward investors taking the risk in Africa. South Africa, Mauritius and Tanzania took third, fourth and fifth place respectively on the index. Somalia, Chad and Eritrea were the least appealing countries for investors.

The International Monetary Fund’s most recent forecast of economic growth for Africa this year was 3.3 percent – much slower than the 5-6 percent of recent years but good by the standards of Western countries in recession. A senior IMF official noted recently, however, that African growth could be sharply lower than its forecasts.

“Remittances, tourism revenue and even aid, we feel could fall further,” said the IMF’s Africa Department Director Antoinette Sayeh.

The African markets that had attracted most foreign investment in recent years – not only developed South Africa but also countries such as Nigeria and Kenya – are among those that have so far been hardest hit, while smaller economies that may not have had so far to fall have been less touched.

Despite the global woes, bulls still cite long term changes in Africa such as improvements in political and economic openness, a decrease in the number of conflicts, new technology, emerging middle classes and long term investment from Asia as reasons for optimism. Zimbabwe’s stock exchange restarted on Thursday after a three-month halt and a still shaky power-sharing deal has brought some hopes of economic revival in what used to be a strong performer.

For some, looking to the long term is not enough, though. UK asset manager New Star – being bought by a rival - said this month it was winding up its Heart of Africa Fund due to deteriorating market conditions on the continent.

Is Africa a good bet for investors? What do you think?

By Daniela Kroslak, Deputy Africa Program Director, and Andrew Stroehlein, Communications Director, of the International Crisis Group, Any views expressed are their own.

Pirates, Islamists, refugees, anarchy, civil war -- not much good news has come out of Somalia in the last couple of decades. With warlord replacing warlord over the years and transitional governments constantly hovering between extremely weak and non-existent on the ground, the temptation will be to view this week's election of a new Somali president with an eye-rolling, "so what?"

Yet there is a chance, albeit a slim one, that this moment will mark the start of some small progress for the shattered country. That is, if the international community plays the next few months very carefully and does not let ideology trump pragmatism.

The first reason to feel any hint of optimism is that Ethiopian troops, who invaded Somalia in December 2006, are now leaving. Ethiopia's occupation was an unprecedented disaster. The last two years have been among the worst since Somalia descended into anarchy in 1991, with huge displacement of civilians, a massive humanitarian crisis and grave violations of human rights.

The Ethiopian military campaign, combined with US bombings of suspected militant hide-outs, also set in motion a chain of events that in mid-2008 culminated in the recapture of much of the country's south by the hard-line Islamist insurgent group, Al-Shabaab. They used the Ethiopian presence to rally support from and recruit amongst those marginalised by the transitional government, and they radicalised the Islamist movement.

The way Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed was elected president of Somalia -- a title representing more hope than actual authority over the fractured country -- inspires little confidence in itself. A reformulated Somali parliament in exile, part of UN-sponsored reconciliation efforts known as the "Djibouti process" after the city where it resides, chose him from a list of 14 other bickering leaders, and the vote only happened because of external pressure from the UN, AU, EU and US. These Somali actors have generally been living in a "Djibouti bubble", out of touch with what is unfolding back home and enjoying little credibility among Somalis.

Still, the situation on the ground hands Sheik Sharif a few good cards to play. As a moderate Islamist himself and former chairman of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), an alliance that ruled southern Somalia for six months in 2006, he could be well placed to win over other Islamist elements outside the process and undercut support for the extremists of Al-Shabaab.

Sheik Sharif's installation is significant as he is the first Islamist leader to become head of state with Western support in the Horn of Africa, hopefully reflecting a pragmatic shift in Western attitudes towards political Islam and efforts to contain militant jihadism. But Sheikh Sharif is in danger of being outflanked by the radicals in his camp. He will have to strike a difficult balance between Ethiopia's tight embrace and a still hostile opposition, and he will have to weight carefully Somalia's complex regional interests and clan loyalties.

If Sheik Sharif had clear and substantial backing from the international community in these efforts, including renewed Saudi support to engage with Al-Shabaab, it would make success more likely. In practical terms, this would mean politically and financially supporting a number of steps and encouraging the UN Special Representative, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, to facilitate them.

First and foremost, Sheik Sharif and the international community have to make use of all intermediaries and back channels to reach out to the insurgent groups currently outside the Djibouti process, including Al-Shabaab, as well as the Asmara-based leaders of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia. They must be prepared to draw in to the negotiations members of groups which have control on the ground, even if their current leadership refuses.

The point is to get as many more radical groups and individual leaders on board for the negotiation of a comprehensive ceasefire as a step towards expanded Djibouti talks. Once a credible ceasefire agreement has been reached, each faction should be left to administer its respective territory temporarily and be invited to participate in talks intended to lead to the restoration of a legitimate government. The parties could then establish smaller sub-groups to negotiate issues such as: drafting a new constitution; integrating all armed forces into a common army and police force; planning for a national referendum on the new constitution; and establishing transitional justice processes to address the needs of national reconciliation.

If participants in the Djibouti process encourage influential clan leaders, business community leaders, clerics and civil society to create momentum and grassroots support for that process, its prospects for success will be improved.

The biggest obstacle to peace in Somalia this time may in fact not be Somalis' infamously fractious politics but the reluctance of the international community to engage with the Islamist opposition. However, if there is going to be a lasting settlement that returns even a semblance of stability to the country, Islamists cannot be excluded.

If they are kept out of the process, the extremist Islamists will maintain the upper hand and, quite simply, there will be no process. In that case, peace would, yet again, remain a distant illusion for Somalia's suffering population.

How times change. Somalia’s new Islamist president has been feted in Ethiopia, whose army drove him from power two years ago - with Washington’s backing - when he headed a sharia courts movement.

Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was greeted with a standing ovation from African Union leaders at a summit in Ethiopia, which pulled the last of its troops out of Somalia last month, leaving the government in control of little beyond parts of Mogadishu. The hardline Islamist al Shabaab militia control much of the rest of southern Somalia.

Somalia was far from being a prominent front in former President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror”, but the reverse Washington suffered there appears to be among its most dramatic. Meanwhile, the past two years have brought at least another 17,400 civilian dead in Somalia and more anarchy that has fuelled a wave of piracy.

Ahmed’s former administration was marked out by both the United States and Ethiopia as being little different to Afghanistan’s Taliban. Hardline members of the group were accused of links to al Qaeda. Now he is widely described by the international community as a “moderate” and he himself has welcomed the new U.S. stance as positive.

“One can say that the U.S. position towards Somalia has become honest,” he told the Egyptian newspaper el-Shorouk. “In the framework of the Djibouti negotiations, America has become a force which supports peace.”

But Somalia’s new president, chosen by parliamentary vote at the weekend, must now face the al Shabaab militia who grew out of the armed wing of the sharia courts
movement but later split with him. Al Shabaab have vowed to fight and highlighted his support from “non-believers”.

To try to bolster Ahmed, Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, the African Union chairman, called for U.N. troops to join the 3,500-strong AU peacekeeping force in Somalia. Right now, they cannot do much more than to try to defend themselves.

But some analysts and Ahmed’s aides believe that creating a U.N. force would be counterproductive because it could be seen as Western interference and encourage those who fought the invading Ethiopian troops to pursue their struggle.

Getting Somalia’s clans behind the government will be another big task, a challenge previous leaders have failed to meet during 18 years of conflict.

What is the chance that Ahmed’s election as president will be able to bring peace to Somalia? What should Africa and the rest of the world do to try to make sure that happens? What do you think?

With the naval might of the United States, Europe, China and others now lined up against Somalia’s pirate fraternity, shippers are hoping the nightmare year of 2008 will not be repeated.
 
Somali pirates — mainly gangs of poor young men seeking a quick fortune under the direction of older “financiers” and boat leaders –  reaped tens of millions of dollars in ransoms last year in a record haul of 42 hijacks, 111 attacks, and 815 crew taken hostage. 
 
That pushed insurance prices up, persuaded some ship-owners to go round South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, and prompted the unprecedented rush of navies from 14 different nations to the region. Even China is in on the act, deploying its navy for the first time beyond its own waters. And Japan is considering following suit despite its post-World War II pacifist constitution.
 
There have been some early successes from all the deployments - half a dozen pirates arrested and a series of attacks blocked, by helicopter and boat. Bad weather, too, has given the pirates some real problems, drowning five of them when their pockets were stuffed with dollars after taking their share of the ransom from the release of a Saudi super-tanker.
 
Yet the pirates have still managed two new hijacks and 11 attacks in the first half of January. They are hanging on to 11 ships with 207 hostages - most notably a Ukrainian ship with tanks on board. 
 
And with such a vast area of operations — plus fancy new speedboats that have taken them as far as Kenya and Madagascar, and GPS equipment to keep away from the warships — the pirates are confident of keeping their business going. So who will win this modern-day battle of the seas? Will the shipping industry lose as much to the pirates this year as they did last? Should they keep paying huge ransoms like the $3 million paid for the Saudi boat?

Maybe, some argue, it will never really be possible to eradicate such a lucrative business which, in one of the world’s most failed states, offers an opportunity for poor and hungry men to become millionaires after a few successful raids. As one pirate told us, they will carry on until there is government again in Somalia.