Waalagu digtaa duul haduu kuu daraan jireye, Bal dayaay daalinkii wakaas sii dabayshadaye!
Ali Dhuux (Somali Poet)
By Heikal Kenneded
Monday, March 26, 2012
The latest surfaced video on the internet by Abu Mansur Al-Amriki in which he claims that he is in great danger because his life is “threatened by the Harakat al Shabab al Mujahedeen,” seals the end of Al-Shabab in Somalia, as we know it. What’s even more riveting about this video, beyond the crumbling terrorist organization’s war within its cadre is the flagrant fear in the eyes of the American native who left the US to fight with Al-Shabab. This allows the viewers to get inside the mortified terrorist mastermind’s dread of death. A sense of bereavement and cry for help hovers over his demeanor, not simply because he’s worried that his terrorist organization is defeated, but because he feels the end of his life is nigh and death is around the corner.
This shocking video only runs few seconds, but even those few seconds carry an appalling sense of apprehension that lingers in the eyes of the terrorist. He claims in the video due to differences of strategic opinion or misunderstanding among the terrorist organization’s leadership has made him fear for his life. Paradoxically, here’s one of the most hardcore jihadists within the Al-Shabab core group who recruited naive Somali teenagers from the ends of the earth in order to train them as suicide bombers in the name of Islam. And now that his days are numbered and his life is meted out the same destiny that he’s misled to many others, he’s shaking with fear and not able to face his fateful destiny - "Live by the sword, die by
the sword!"
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Omar Shafik Hammami who now goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Mansur Al-Amriki was born in Alabama, U.S.A and joined Al-Shabab militia in 2006. Since his early days of joining the militia, he acted as the mouthpiece for Al Shabab and was notorious for producing jihad-laden rap songs to lure young Somalis in the Diasporas to join Al-Shabab for jihad. He is now reported to have been abducted and detained by some of his closest comrades. I am sure if he ever gets his freedom back, he’d start rapping a different tune.
Since the trounced Al-Shabab insurgents currently face an increasing number of major challenges to their sustained longevity as the de facto prevailing force of much of southern and central Somalia, contentious infighting among the group has become rife and deadly. Reliable sources have reported that this latest straw that escalated into this lethal internal strife among the highest ranking of the Al-Shabab militants mainly stems from their recent declaration that they officially joined forces with Al-Qaeda network. It’s alleged that this new “desperate” alliance did not go down well with several key leaders, including Mukhtar Roobow and his lieutenants who all along felt sidelined and exploited by the militia’s highest ranking leadership, the reclusive Ahmed Godane and a cohort of his overzealous foreign fighters. Not to mention the crippling financial hardships that the militia faced recently due to the Arab Spring and incessant loss of fighters and strategic positions in city battles, which has made the terrorist group’s bitter infighting inexorable.
Further, faced with mounting battlefield setbacks, Al-Shabab leaders have repeatedly reached out to local clan leaders for financial support that fell on deaf ears, which eventually made their recruiting efforts a futile effort. Most of the Somali clans who were originally Al-Shabab sympathizers must have suspected all along these rogue insurgents were funded by foreign elements who also gave them their marching orders. Hence, when the militia joined forces with the Al-Qaeda network, most of these clans realized their suspicions were right on the mark and now decided to find other horses to bet on, as they pulled the plug on Al-Shabab.
That brings in the golden chance presented to the TFG leadership in that they need to make a strategic decision in the face of this new dawn, as the Somali forces backed by AMISOM edge out Al-Shabab from most of the key important provinces. The TFG should immediately set up reliable and credible local authorities to administer these newly liberated provinces, towns and local municipalities. In other words, how the TFG deals with this very challenge will determine the long term success of ending the government's transitional period. If the expectations are too high for the TFG leadership, they are off the charts when it comes to the rest of the Somali society, especially the well educated Somali Diaspora and their role to fill in the extraordinary vacuum that exists in the country, created by the protracted civil war that lasted over two decades. This by itself will depend on the make or break to bring Somalia back into the community of nations
Heikal I. Kenneded
Washington D.C.
[email protected]