In a Changing Somalia, Islamist Forces See Support Wane

NAIROBI, Aug. 6 -- After a decade of U.S. concern that Somalia could become a base for terrorists bent on launching attacks across the region, many analysts say that al-Qaeda's Somali sympathizers are at their weakest, and perhaps also at their most dangerous, point iAccording to Somali analysts, U.S. officials and others, the country's Islamist rebels, known as al-Shabab, are becoming more divided and unpopular across this war-weary and traditionally moderate Muslim country -- a development that makes the group more vulnerable but that is also driving some factions to embrace the most extreme leaders linked with al-Qaeda.
A recent move by the group to purge members deemed "impure" Muslims -- including the beheading of seven militiamen last month -- and other brutal actions are signs, some say, of the Shabab's growing desperation.
"What we have seen over the last few months is that many things have weakened them significantly," said a U.S. government analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "There are splits in their organization. The level of support they had among Somalis is no longer there. More and more, they are on their own."
In a meeting with Somali President Sharif Ahmed in Nairobi on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated long-standing U.S. concerns about Somalia but also called Ahmed's government "the best hope we've had in quite some time for a return to stability" in the volatile nation in the Horn of Africa. The United States recently shipped 40 tons of ammunition to boost the fragile interim government's fight against the rebels, and Clinton pledged Thursday to expand that assistance.
Rebels still hold vastly more territory than does the government led by Ahmed, a moderate Islamist now doing battle against them. The Shabab controls most of southern Somalia and half of the capital, Mogadishu, and it has made territorial gains to the north in recent months. A suicide bomber recently killed Somalia's security minister, a charismatic figure who had been crucial to the government's campaign. The rebels have also been bolstered by an influx of hundreds of fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Britain, the United States and other countries.
At the same time, the Shabab -- whose rank and file are mostly young men who grew up in a chaotic society without much hope of a future independent of the AK-47 -- is increasingly bereft of causes that once rallied many Somalis.
Though Somalis are traditionally pragmatic, moderate Muslims, the Shabab became popular when it helped defeat a group of hated warlords as the military wing of a movement that deployed Islamic law to restore some order in Mogadishu. After a U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion ousted that movement in 2006, the Shabab rallied followers against the occupiers and the secular government they installedn years. ..more..http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080600997.html