GOOBJOOG

Today, 1st May 2008, the Pentagon announced the death of Aden Hashi Ayro, a senior leader of ‘al-Shabab Movement’ after American had dropped three large bombs at about 2:00 AM Wednesday on a house in small town known as Dhusamareb, a capital city of Galdud district, 500km northern Mogadishu, where Ayro is believed to have stayed that night.

This air strike was one of many which American forces conducted in Somalia simultaneously with the invasion of Ethiopian troops to Somalia backing the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and ousting the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) who have gained control over the southern regions of the country and established unprecedented law and order in 2006 after 16 years of civil war and anarchy before they were defeated and expelled by Ethiopian forces.

US air strikes in Somalia mostly claimed the life of civilians, herders and their cattle. This is the only one which succeeded to hit the target and cause the death of a senior leader of al-Shabab with other civilians raised up to 30 according to eyewitnesses talking to Reuters reporter. America will find that her efforts with her allies in the region, particularly Ethiopians and the so called Transitional Federal Government (TFG) are paying off, and already called the death a victory against terrorism. However, what impact will these deaths have on the future of al-Shabab movement and the prospected peace process between the TFG and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) formed in September last year, and leading the mainstream resistance against the Occupation.

The problem of western and American thinking perspective is that they usually assume that death and strikes threatens extremists and may stop them from continuing the resistance. On the other hand, the extremists see the death as a success and achievement of the ultimate desire of martyrdom, which they ask Allah to bestow them day and night. The ideology of martyrdom is what motivates all the Islamist fighters in Somalia and elsewhere, and they believe that the blood of the martyr is the generator which feeds and inspires the future generations of fighters. Here lies the dilemma that generates the action and reaction violences between state and none-state terrorism in which both are spreading their ideology through atrocities and brutal actions where the voice of rationality is jeoparadised.

Thus, the death of Ayro will not be more than a sign of a continuation of the illogic and irrational war, and can not be deemed as a victory or defeat to any of both sides. Further, it will most likely give the al-Shabab group the legitimacy of existence and continuation of their cause which inspires and recruits more youths to join them in order to gain one of the two achievements; victory over the enemy or becoming a martyr.

The other impact is that the death of the leader will make people consider that al-Shabab are the real fighters against the national and religious enemy as they depict Ethiopia, and that is why they are targeted by US strikes, thus, they can claim to be on the right path not those who want to make a deal with the enemy.

Al-Shabab will probably invest on this and use as a legitimate excuse to accuse the leadership of the Alliance in Asmara of putting their hands with the killers of the fighters’ leader who opposed any dialogue with the TFG and offered his life for the purpose, while the others spend their time at Asmara hotels, as the al-Shabab supporters claim and depict.

It is true that al-Shabab are potential spoilers who may be an obstacle to fulfill any agreement between the TFG and ARS, however, most of the Somalis strongly believe that the power and influence of al-Shabab is exaggerated too much by the western media from one side, and the TFG and Ethiopians who claim that they are targeting al-Shabab to justify to the outside public their brutality, and use that claim as a cover of their criminal actions against the civilians. Somali observers close to the resistance believe that al-Shabab are little in number but very loud in action and make big claims, however the focus on them in the media and the TFG and Ethiopian action backed by US give them the opportunity to recruit more youth.

Al-Shabab legitimacy is gained by the existence of the occupation and its crimes and abuse of human rights as happened last week in Mogadishu, when the Ethiopian troops slaughtered 30 clerics from a very peaceful Islamic group “Tabligh”, and killed and kidnapped school children, in addition -of course- to the US air raids.

On the potential peace dialogue, it will definitely hinder the process as the ARC leadership will not be happy to be depicted as the beneficiaries of the death of al-Shabab leader. They will most likely try to reject the peace dialogue proposal or postpone it to unknown future and put some more conditions.

Many Somalis including The clan elders were trying to engage the al-Shabab to the peace process so they don’t spoil what ever agreement is reached between the TFG and ARS and the prospects were optimistic, but now it will be hard to persuade them to accept that as they will claim to revenge for their leader.

The crisis will escalate more and the situation will be hard to handle. What America should understand is that those extremists may be contained by engagement and not exclusion and radicalisation. Only Somalis themselves, if the core problem of Ethiopian illegal occupation is eliminated, can deal perfectly with al-Shabab issue, otherwise, they will gain more legitimacy and become more radical by the time as long as the root cause of their emergence is not dealt with properly.

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