By Ryan Mauro
The Obama administration yesterday announced that it will increase assistance of arms and funds to Somalia’s government, as it tries to beat back a terrorist insurgency that includes an international who’s-who of jihadists, including Al-Qaeda.
It does not exaggerate the stakes in Somalia to say that for the first time in its history, Al-Qaeda is about to have rule over an entire country. The Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based affiliate of the group, assassinated the country’s national security minister on June 18 and currently controls the entire south and large portions of the central parts of the nation, along with parts of the capital. Should the terrorists succeed, they will also have extremist Somali networks in the West to call upon to expand their jihad and support their efforts.
Al-Shabaab and its allies have received extensive backing from foreign countries, the greatest of which is Eritrea, a single-party state with a history of religious oppression and with a recent fondness for rogue states like Iran. Eritrea was accused by the U.N. in June 2007 of secretly providing Somali insurgents with “huge quantities of arms” possibly including suicide bomb belts and anti-aircraft missiles. Read more ...
The Obama administration yesterday announced that it will increase assistance of arms and funds to Somalia’s government, as it tries to beat back a terrorist insurgency that includes an international who’s-who of jihadists, including Al-Qaeda.
It does not exaggerate the stakes in Somalia to say that for the first time in its history, Al-Qaeda is about to have rule over an entire country. The Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based affiliate of the group, assassinated the country’s national security minister on June 18 and currently controls the entire south and large portions of the central parts of the nation, along with parts of the capital. Should the terrorists succeed, they will also have extremist Somali networks in the West to call upon to expand their jihad and support their efforts.
Al-Shabaab and its allies have received extensive backing from foreign countries, the greatest of which is Eritrea, a single-party state with a history of religious oppression and with a recent fondness for rogue states like Iran. Eritrea was accused by the U.N. in June 2007 of secretly providing Somali insurgents with “huge quantities of arms” possibly including suicide bomb belts and anti-aircraft missiles. Read more ...
Source: FPM
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