Under_cover2, a member of Ekhlaas, announced two weeks ago that two of his fellow forum members have made the transition from forum fighters to foreign fighters. One went to Somalia, the other to Iraq.
Iraq makes sense, particularly for Jihadis living nearby. But Somalia? I don’t see it mentioned much as a destination anymore.
Document (Arabic): 7-11-08-ekhlaas-news-of-forum-member-who-went-to-somalia-and-another-who-went-to-iraq
3 Responses
My five cents: Somalia, with its famine and foreign occupation, must be very good recruiting grounds, and now they have the Etiopians in *their phase 3* so they know how to fight them better. Its a shame that the US didnt work that situation more cleverly, when they had Ethiopia firmly in place and they were going in anyway. (Wich was a stupid thing to do in itself.) I know several somalis, they are pretty pissed.
this might be in relation.
http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/06D8BF59-7DB4-4BFD-82F0-F7CBDC339BEF.htm
I’m not so sure about Somalia being a good recruiting ground. AQ went there first in the early 90’s and didn’t fair so well. First, they struggled to operate in a rugged, tribal environment. AQ operatives regularly got tossed around in tribal politics (similar to that of Anbar). Second, they saw African/Somali Muslims as subordinate to them which didn’t sit well. Third, their version of Salafism didn’t match up well with Somalis with the exception of a few spots in Southern Somalia. Fourth, AQ operatives were seen as outsiders as much as Western peace keeping forces. AQ thought they could transplant their operations along the Afgh-Pak border into Somalia and it didn’t work. I think this is why even today you might see a lot of talk about Somalia from AQ leadership but little tangible action and only a trickle of foreign fighters. By and large, the Somalia foreign fighter flow is hard to do. Just getting there is a huge problem and then once you are there, just surviving is challenge enough.