Somali Islamist Insurgents Threaten U.S. Attack

Al-Qaida linked al-Shabab targeted Somali-Americans for recruitment

Fuad Mohamed Qalaf (AKA Shongole)

By Mohamed Shiekh Nor

Dec. 27, 2010

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A leader of Somalia’s Islamist insurgency threatened to attack America during a broadcast speech.

“We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country,” Fuad Mohamed “Shongole” Qalaf said Monday.

Al-Shabab has not yet launched an attack outside Africa but Western intelligence has long been worried because the group targeted young Somali-Americans for recruitment. About 20 have traveled to Somalia for training and at least three were used as suicide bombers inside Somalia.

Al-Shabab holds most of southern and central Somalia and has the support of hundreds of foreign fighters, mostly radicalized East Africans. It seeks to overthrow the weak U.N.-backed government, which is protected by 8,000 Ugandan and Burundian African Union peacekeepers.

The al-Shabab militia launched coordinated suicide attacks in Uganda in July that killed 76 people. It has also announced its allegiance to al-Qaida and is believed to be harboring a mastermind of the twin 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.

The radio message was recorded in the town of Afgoye, near the Somali capital, during a meeting of Shongole and Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, formerly the leader of insurgent group Hizbul Islam. The two insurgent groups had clashed several times previously but announced a merger last week. Aweys said his group will fight under al-Shabab’s command. …

The arid Horn of Africa nation has not had a functioning government since a socialist dictatorship collapsed in 1991. Its position on the Horn of Africa means pirates can use its long coastline to capture shipping.

Analysts fear that al-Qaida linked insurgents are also gaining ground across the Gulf of Aden in the unstable nation of Yemen. If Yemen fell, that would mean failed states on either side of the shipping route leading into the strategically vital Suez Canal, the route taken by a substantial portion of the world’s oil shipments.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — December 28, 2009

Obama Opens Third War Front

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One year ago today, I reported that in the midst of two unfinished wars — Afghanistan and Iraq — the United States had quietly opened a third, largely covert, war front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — December 28, 2008

Taliban Power Growing

This image taken from television footage June 26, 2008, reportedly shows Afghan militants holding weapons next to the burning wreckage of a vehicle in Wardak province, Afghanistan. (Photo credit: The Associated Press)

Two years ago today, on Dec. 28, 2008 I reported that the Taliban, which had long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, had begun spreading north, encroaching on the capital city of Kabul. I also reported that 2008 had been the deadliest year yet for NATO forces in Afghanistan and that more than 20 people were killed and 50 wounded in a Baghdad bombing.