Analysis: Somali infighting could help al-Qaida

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - As battles rage between Somalia's Western-backed government and Islamist insurgents, another conflict is being fought behind the scenes between competing versions of Islam.The winner may determine not only the future of the failed state, but whether al-Qaida establishes permanent bases in the strategically vital Horn of Africa.
Fighting has intensified in the past two weeks as insurgents attempt to push the government from the capital; nearly 200 people have been killed. The bloodshed has been fueled by the arrival of hundreds of radicalized foreign fighters who, experts fear, could use Somalia as a base for terror in the region.It's a pattern that has played out in bloody conflicts around the world, including Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq: petrodollars from oil sheikdoms in the Middle East pay for fighters to travel to far-flung wars.Experts now fear Somalia has become a magnet for such fighters."The radical factions need to boost their forces, and that means inviting in more foreign fighters," Mark Schroeder, an analyst for the international intelligence company Stratfor, told The Associated Press.Last year, the Islamist insurgency split, and its more moderate wing now forms the government. But analysts say fighters from countries including Pakistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are reinforcing the more extreme insurgent factions fighting government forces.Now two different types of Islam are struggling for dominance, adding sectarian violence to what has mainly been a clan-based conflict.Arid Somalia's camel-herding nomads and their descendants traditionally observe Sufi Islam, a relatively moderate form of worship that allows the veneration of respected saints. But in recent years, Somalia's insurgent militias have also begun to follow austere Wahabi Islam _ rooted in Saudi Arabia and practiced by Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.Wahabism is a component of jihadi Salafism, a doctrine that preaches spreading a strict interpretation of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, through violence...more,,..http://www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1684060