Sons of Somalia? Maybe, If We Leave It Alone
The Washington Post ran this story a few days ago and I wanted to belatedly say a few words:
In Somalia’s war, a new challenger is pushing back radical al-Shabab militia
The militia, a Sufi group, is posing the strongest challenge yet to al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked organization. The Sufis potentially offer an alternative strategy for the United States and its allies in the struggle to stem the rising tide of Islamist radicalism.
That Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamaa is providing a relatively moderate and militarily viable challenge to Shabaab’s bid for control of south central Somalia is a welcome development.
Concerns that the group, despite being self-described defenders of their country above the political fray, is acting based on hardnosed political motivations that could ultimately prove divisive are valid. However, some of the other potential alternatives, namely a TFG collapse and/or Shabaab takeover, are pretty obviously worse.
Ironically, to give this movement even a slim chance of succeeding, the U.S. and its Ethiopian allies are going to have to work as hard as possible to appear to have little to do with it. The U.S. government especially is going to want to give public support to demonstrate that it is doing something and that it in fact has a Somalia strategy. Putting Western or Ethiopian fingerprints all over all over the Sufi group and its activities, however, is the quickest way to rob this fledgling initiative of any legitimacy it might currently have.
The important thing is to make any assistance going forward as subtle and covert as possible. It’s either that or risk having another potentially ally against extremism in Somalia branded as a illegitimate puppet of Ethiopian and Western interests and put ourselves right back where we started: nowhere.
