Kismayo - the Vortex of Country's Wars

The Somali civil war erupted in Somalia has not had an effective government since January 26, 1991.when hawiye USC warlords overthrew Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other , following the overthrow hawiye clan warlords, who quickly turned on each other and plunged Somalia into years of violence, massive exodus and national disintegration. The clan warlords lacked a national vision - and some were hell-bent on committing clan massacres against innocent civilians.
period 1991-2006 was marked by violent clan feuds based on a competition over land and resources among Somali clans, especially in the southern regions. Four regions in southern Somalia experienced the worst bout of clan wars, namely: Banadir (capital: Mogadishu), Lower Shabelle (capital: Marka), Bay (capital: Baidoa) and Lower Jubba (capital: Kismayo). These key towns were prized for one reason or another. For example, Mogadishu is the Somali national capital, blessed with state-infrastructure such as airports, ports and paved roads. Likewise, Marka and Lower Shabelle region as a whole suffered tremendously during the enduring civil war years, since the region is prized for its ports, airports, agricultural farms, and proximity to Mogadishu, making it attractive ground for rival warlords to violently jostle for power.
In many ways, the southern port of Kismayo and Lower Jubba region as a whole share many similarities with the civil war developments in Lower Shabelle region. Since 1991, the native clans of Lower Shabelle were subjected to unimaginable brutalities, such as widespread killings, imposition of non-native clans and forced evictions of local families from their homes. The founding principle behind such horrific crimes is that certain hawiye clan habar-gidir sup-clans from the central regions, namely Galgadud region, have advocated and partly realized a strategic population shift to the southern regions in order to seize economic infrastructure and access to international markets. Of course, Lower Shabelle's brutality was shared by the neighboring region of Banadir, where Mogadishu's native clans have been forced to wage endless wars in order to stop, or at least thwart, the forced imposition of non-native clans onto Banadir territory. The key difference, naturally, is that the Lower Shabelle native clans were unarmed and easy prey for the predatory clans from Galgadud. Comparatively, some of the Banadir native clans fought back unsuccessfully but existed in a hostage-like situation until the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) revolution of June 2006.
Revolutionary change
The mostly Hawiye Terrorist ICU militia was at first seen a group of ragtag fighters who battled against Mogadishu's notorious warlords. For once, Somalis young and old were captivated by the rise of the ICU - widely seen and respected as a powerful coalition of Islamists who were able to restore law and order in chaotic Mogadishu for the first time in 16 years. Generally, the people of Somalia hated Mogadishu's warlords, who held the national capital hostage for a decade-and-a-half, even defying a United Nations peacekeeping effort in the 1990s. Remarkably, the warlords of Mogadishu belonged to the capital's dominant Hawiye clan-family, who sliced Mogadishu into small personal fiefdoms and deviously played one clan off another to remain in power. Under such circumstances, the ICU revolution of 2006 was widely welcomed across Somalia as a historic opportunity to regain all that was lost. But, beneath the ICU's initial glory lay the undercurrents of predatory clans who thrived on the illegally seized economic assets of the civil war; the power-hungry politicians dressed in Islamic garb; and, shying away from the limelight, the religious extremists with unknown motives and international connections.
And so, the short-lived ICU revolution was quickly and militarily crushed by the Ethiopian army's two-year intervention that ignited an insurgency popularizing assassinations, roadside explosions and suicide bombings as tools of war. It can be said unequivocally that the Ethiopian army's crushing defeat of the ICU's grand agenda, which was never monolithic, dramatically shifted the military and political situation in southern Somalia. The state of utter confusion on the ground drove hordes of young fighters to join al-shabaab - the ICU's military core, drawn up mostly of young masked fighters with a reputation for strict enforcement of Al Shabaab's laws.
While the ICU's leaders and "parliament" was dominated by Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan-family, Al Shabaab's leadership consisted of Somalis from all major clans, economic classes and regional backgrounds. It was this ideal of Al Shabaab's non-clan composition, its political framework demanding a puritan Islamic state, and its hardcore fighters who challenged the might of the Ethiopian army that attracted the masses to join Al Shabaab's cause, including suicide bombers from as far away as the U.S. State of Minnesota.
The Ethiopian military withdrew from southern Somalia in Jan. 2009, followed by the election of former ICU chief Sheikh Sharif Ahmed as the President of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Ethiopia's withdrawal again revolutionized the situation on the ground. The "jihad" that drove young Somalis from around the world to join the insurgency against Ethiopian troops lost its most critical component: the Somali people have a historic abhorrence for Ethiopian troops, thereby drawing hundreds of young fighters to join the insurgency. Suddenly, in order to maintain and to propel the war machine, the new enemy became the small African Union peacekeeping force (AMISOM) in Mogadishu and, unsurprisingly, President Sheikh Sharif - who led the ICU during the 2006 revolution, with Al Shabaab foot soldiers on the frontlines of the four-month war against Mogadishu's clan warlords.
The vortex of wars
U.S. warplanes targeted and killed Al Shabaab's daring young leader in May 2008. Sheikh Aden Hashi Ayro was a reclusive commander, who became a public hero for leading the insurgency against Ethiopian troops. With Ayro's death, Al Shabaab became stronger. Three months later, in Aug. 2008, the group seized control of Kismayo with the support of native clans - namely, Harti and Ogaden clans, both part of the Darod clan-family. Kismayo's outgoing ruler,jubbaland army , losing nearly 25 fighters in two days of battles against a coalition of Islamist and clan rivals,.Jubbaland army mostly Marehan clan - also part of the Darod clan-family. To avoid clan competition, the Harti and Ogaden clan (ONLF) al-shabaab Terrorist militia commanders agreed for Al shabaab Terrorist establish jehadist administration in Kismayu for a six-month interim period, beginning in Sept. 2008. Consequently, the Harti and Ogaden militia transformed into Islamist groups named Anole and Ras Kamboni Brigade*, respectively, and played a minimal role in helping Al Shabaab administer Kismay under a tenuous relationship surrounded by anatmosphere of distrust and bothersome questions of each group's long-term political ambitions. (*Anole and Ras Kamboni Brigade merged with two other factions to form Hizbul Islam in Feb. 2009)
Similarly, Al Shabaab's seizure of Baidoa in Jan. 2009 was aided by local clans - most prominently the Rahaweyn clan-family of Al Shabaab's former spokesman, Sheikh Muktar Robow "Abu Mansur." He was later replaced as spokesman after Al Shabaab leaders accused Abu Mansur of making a secret deal with a Rahaweyn warlord in Baidoa, Mr. Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade, to take over the warlord's weapons in exchange for something yet-unknown. This clan-based political development took place weeks after the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, exposing the undercurrents of clan interests within Al Shabaab's Terrorist political framework and in direct contradiction to the Islamist faction's self-professed image encouraging a puritanical Islamic state, promoting justice and equality among Somali clans, and seeking the unity of the Muslim Ummah (people) worldwid
Lower Shabelle region was seized by Terrorist al-shabaab in Nov. 2008, after the region became a hotbed for violent clashes between TFG forces divided along clan lines. Al Shabaab's seizure of Lower Shabelle received little or no backing from the native clans, who were not armed. However, the native clans hoped for the restoration of justice and the return of looted properties, including farms seized and controlled by predatory clans since 1991. At least, Lower Shabelle's unarmed civilians have received protection under Al Shabab from the interests of predatory clans. However, unlike Kismayo and Mogadishu, where the native clans have fought back time and again, the natives of Lower Shabelle's provincial seat Marka have managed to adapt to each incoming ruler - whether it was Mogadishu's brutal warlords or the Al Shabaab's gold tooth-removing commanders.
The international community's confusion with Somali politics is understandable. It is regrettable that the Somali people, who share a single religion, language and cultural heritage, are so radically divided into rival political camps with violence as the balance of power. Today's ongoing insurgency in Mogadishu is deeply rooted in the collapse of the Somali central government in 1991, The justice the Somali public hoped for then - and still hope for today - never came, because the violent clan competition over land and resources rages still; the only difference is, this time, the actors are wearing new clothes,Hizbul Islam is a loose outfit of clan militias who hoped to form a single bloc to challenge Al Shabaab's widespread influence. However, Hizbul Islam is less organized, less motivated, less coordinated and therefore utterly ineffective to operate across provincial boundaries. When Al Shabaab seized Kismayo on Oct. 1, 2009, Hizbul Islam's public threats of "war across Somalia" became mere lip service. The group's politically convenient clan arrangement - drawn up of Harti, Ogaden and Habar Gedir (Hawiye) fighters - does not enjoy the benefit of maintaining a strong chain of command structure that can challenge Al Shabaab's military superiority. But Al Shabaab's new spokesman, Sheikh Ali "Dheere" Mohamud, understood the consequences of an all-out "war across Somalia" between Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam. After Kismayo was seized by Al Shabaab, Sheikh Ali Dheere told reporters in Mogadishu that Al Shabaab is not at war with Hizbul Islam - they are only fighting Sheikh Ahmed Madobe, a senior commander of Hizbul Islam.Indeed, the battle for Kismayo brought two undeniable facts to the forefront of today's Somali saga: 1) Hizbul Islam's political and military weakness in the face of Al Shabaab, given that the former was conceived as a marriage of convenience in Feb. 2009 when four factions merged to form Hizbul Islam; and 2) Al Shabaab's political future suffered a tremendous dent when the group distanced itself from its own puritanical vision and used non-native clan fighters to help them seize Kismayo.Independent sources in Kismayo tell Somali news agency Garowe Online that notorious thugs and clan militiamen from Marehan Hirale's ruling days in Kismayo (1999-2006) helped Al Shabaab fighters in the battle against Hizbul Islam on Oct. 1, 2009. Various sources have confirmed that 10 battlewagons belonging to Hirale have arrived in Kismayo to reinforce the Marehan clan fighters already there. Remarkably, the consumption of khat - a leafy narcotic strictly controlled by Al Shabaab - has already returned to Kismayo streets after Al Shabaab's one-year administration successfully banned khat's public consumption. For the above-mentioned reasons, and other reasons yet-unknown to the world, the new alliance of political convenience between Al Shabaab and Marehan clan interests hell-bent on controlling Kismayo cannot last.In conclusion, solving the political problems in southern Somalia completely depend on resolving the grievances of old and ongoing crimes such as social injustice, looted properties and land seizures committed over the course of 19 years of civil war. Al Shabaab is a new phenomenon in Somalia, but clearly, even Al Shabaab's tyrannical order is no match for the Somalis' centuries-old clan system and the group seems to sink deeper into the hole.
Kismayo is only part of a larger and more complex vortex of war over land and resource ownership in Somalia. Unless the serious threat posed by predatory clans is addressed appropriately and resolved immediately, the challenge of restoring national order and institutions in Somalia will remain bleak and blurred by the perpetual bloodletting among Somalis.