Somalia's Dismal Dysfunction

It was somewhat reminiscent of the 2008 Islamist attack by Pakistani jihadists, well organized, the well-armed and -rehearsed intruders prepared for a spectacular death toll as they acted out their martyrdom role, stealthily making their way by boat into the harbour at Mumbai, India's financial hub, and one of its largest metropolises, cosmopolitan and wealthy by the standards of the geography. That attack was deadly in its outcome, devastating to India, courtesy of Lashkar-e-Taiba, with links to the Pakistani military.

On this occasion it was another group of Islamists, the Somalian jihadist militia, al-Shabab which dispatched an estimated dozen or more well-armed terrorists to wreak havoc in an upscale Kenya mall known to attract foreigners, diplomats, and the well-heeled out for a day of dining and shopping and entertainment. This was to be the long-rumoured pay-back to Kenya courtesy of al-Shabab for the country's dispatch of its military aligned with the African Union into Somalia to rout the terrorist group into oblivion if they could.

The impression was that the conflict between al-Shabab and the African Union military mission had served successfully to decimate the "The Youth" of Somalia. They were routed from the major cities of Somalia which the administrative government had great difficulty in doing on their own, and in extending their authority any further afield. But while they were chastened, many of their members destroyed, they still held full sway over a large portion of the remote countryside. 

And like the Taliban in Afghanistan they rallied, they re-affirmed their support for and connection with al-Qaeda and strenuously recruited from among disaffected young Somalians whose families had re-located for safety and security elsewhere around the Globe. Their recruitment bore results as young Somali men from Europe, the United States, Canada and elsewhere responded, leaving security for adventure. It is even rumoured that one of the largest contingents of al-Shabab is Kenyan.

It hardly seems credible that young Somali men growing to maturity in an atmosphere of civility, peace and justice would find allure in the promise of vile armed conflict inflicted upon hapless civilians, forcing them to a way of life unfamiliar to them, restraining them from leaving, and refusing to allow foreign humanitarian aid workers to administer medical treatment and food during a time of famine. 

(These are the same Somalians of whom Western intelligence shudders at the prospect they may return to Europe and North America with their newfound skills and allegiances.)

But the attraction obviously was there, and it obviously resonated with those who viewed al-Shabab as 'heroic' in their convictions that they were appointed by god to restore his kingdom back to pure fundamentalist Islam. The shopping mall was not an army base, it represented a sure thing, what is termed by the military a 'soft target', just as what had occurred in Mumbai represented, inflicting bloody carnage on an unprotected society; how could they fail in their mission?

They ran unimpeded through the large shopping mall, going from floor to floor, targeting the most open areas, spraying the most vulnerably exposed with rapidfire bullets from their AK47s, and tossing grenades for maximum effect. This is why they were termed "cowards", but very effective at what they were doing, dispatching over 60 innocent men, women and children to death, guaranteeing their elevation to heroic status and their end to a martyr's Paradise.

The correspondent-journalist Matthew Fisher wrote of his experience in 1993 Somalia, arriving with a Red Cross charter flight at the distant desert town of Belet Huen. Where he witnessed children writhing in the agony of starvation then saw a miracle unfolding as the Red Cross workers speedily unloaded provisions of food and medicine, and fed the starving. The children, he said, soon recovered. And with their recovery came the appreciation.

"...the r e-energized kids started to throw rocks at them (the Red Cross workers). A few metres away, their parents inexplicably laughed and egged their offspring on as their European and North American benefactors danced a painful jig. The relief mission came to an abrupt end, the Red Cross plane returned to Kenya with all of its passengers and most of its cargo and, for a time, the Somalis went back to starving."

He wrote of a later visit to Mogadishu where venturing even a few yards beyond the airport perimeter was to court death. The city was ruled, he wrote, by rival gangs "high from chewing khat who raced around in Mad Max-style pick-up trucks known as 'technicals'." Later, with Canadian paratroops in Velet Huen, military engineers had put up a Bailey bridge. The next morning they viewed the scene of an absent bridge, completely dismantled; every scrap of metal taken away by the locals.