These attacks should not have been a surprise. After numerous threats, al-Shabaab followed through on its promise to bring the fight home to the countries participating in the African Union's (AU) peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Since 2007, the AMISOM troops supporting the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) have been al-Shabaab's primary military obstacle in Mogadishu. It is hardly the first time that international peacekeepers have been drawn into the quagmire of the Somalian conflict; however, on 11 July, the al-Shabaab attacks were a sign of the high and ever-increasing stakes of the protracted violence in Somalia.The violence in Somalia has once again emerged as a problem with regional and global implications. After the bomb attacks, President Museveni of Uganda swiftly vowed to take revenge on the Somalian terrorists; a Ugandan army spokesman declared the country able and willing to send 2,000 more troops into Somalia. A chest-thumping op-ed in Uganda's Daily Nation claimed that Sunday's attacks 'give Uganda's role in AMISOM the popular legitimacy it lacked' and strengthened the country's resolve to emerge victorious in Somalia.[2] For Uganda, what had been an international peacekeeping mission has now become a question of national security and patriotism. Avenging Uganda's civilian dead is now part of the AMISOM mission. Neighbouring Kenya quickly warned al-Shabaab against attempting a similar feat in Kenyan territory.[3] President Barack Obama unequivocally condemned al-Shabaab, claiming that the attacks showed the organisation's disdain for African lives and were proof positive of its links with al-Qaeda as part of a global wave of Islamist terror. Even Jean Ping, the current chairperson of the African Union Commission, described the Uganda bombings as an event that has 'strengthen[ed] the collective determination of Africa to play its part in the struggle waged by the international community to stamp out the phenomenon of terrorism.'[4]
Clearly, the eyes of the world are once again on the hydra-headed Somalian civil war of Black Hawk Down infamy. This deadly conflict, which has destroyed millions of lives in the Horn of Africa, now threatens to seep deeper into East Africa and perhaps extend past African shores. And this time, the violence in Somalia is supposedly linked to a broader trend of fundamentalist Islamist terrorism. It is more important than ever to parse the intricate religious, historical and political web fuelling this deadly conflict or risk Somalia's continuing deterioration into a playground for pirates and terrorists. After more than 20 years of civil unrest, the persistent suffering of the Somali people must be brought to an end.The collapse of former Mohamed Siad Barre's government in 1991 is as good a place as any to start. Siad Barre became Somalia's president in 1969 and ruled the country with an iron fist, alternately supported by USA in the Cold War . Without the support of international allies, Barre became vulnerable . A UN peacekeeping mission attempted to intervene in Somalia in 1993, but retreated in 1995 after US troops suffered casualties in Mogadishu. Into this vacuum of effective power entered the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a group of shari'a-based courts with political ties to Eritrea and ideological ties to the stringent Saudi Islamic reform movement. These courts took on the task of governing a country wracked by civil war and offered education, healthcare and security services, within a system of government based on shari'a law. In Mogadishu, the business community, civil society and other local organisations rallied together to defeat the warlords terrorising the capital city. Where international peacekeepers and foreign soldiers had cut and run, the UIC, working with the local population, struggled to extract peace and order from chaos.
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