Al-Shabaab: growing from Somalia’s ruins

Sub: IR

Sec: Places in news

Context:

Recently, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at a Hotel in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. This was followed by a shooting at civilians.
The strike was subsequently claimed by al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, which has waged a war against the Somali government for the past 17 years.
Somalia’s has a history is authoritarianism, clan war, famine, piracy, corruption and resource crunch. Al-Shabaab adds terror to this list.

Formation of Somalia

From the 7^th to the 19^th century, Somalia and neighbouring regions were ruled by a series of Sultanates, with Islam’s Sunni subsect being the primary religion.
The 19th century witnessed the arrival of colonial powers, and the region was shared between British, Italian and French forces.
Upon the withdrawal of British and Italian forces from the northern and southern regions in 1960, the two regions came together and formed modern-day Somalia.
Democracy prevailed for a brief time until 1969 when Siad Barre came to power through a military coup.
The authoritarian regime under Barre saw its downfall with the Ogaden war.

The Ogaden war

The Ogaden War, also known as the Ethio-Somali War, was a military conflict fought between Somalia and Ethiopia in 1977-78 over the sovereignty of Ogaden.
European powers had drawn up arbitrary boundaries to suit their convenience, which upended the lives of the natives, who were plucked from their societies and cultures and thrust into alien living conditions.
Ogaden, which fell under the Christian-majority Ethiopia, was home to many Muslim Somalis.
Additionally, the area was a breeding ground for Cold War politics. The conflict began in July of 1977 with Ethiopia acting as a U.S. ally and Somalia backed by the USSR.

Aftermath of the war

The war proved costly for Somalia as it had to retreat from the Ogaden region and grapple with the influx of Ogaden Somali refugees.
Depleted of finances and resources, Barre began to lose his grip on the country’s administration. Certain policies did not sit well with some clans, who turned against each other.
By 1991, Barre fled Somalia following an uprising by clans supported by Libya and Ethiopia. The northern part of the country proclaimed independence as Somaliland; and clan wars were rife, killing close to 3,00,000 Somalis in a year.
Somalia follows a federal system of governance making the loyalty of clan leaders crucial. The hostility between the clans made it impossible to govern the country.
The U.S., the UN and other international troops took turns coming into the country to fix the situation but to little effect.

The rise of al-Shabaab

Al-Shabaab, a militant group had spread its roots in Somalia by seizing Mogadishu in 2006.
Its origins can be traced back to the al-Ittihad al-Islamiya (AIAI), a militant group that gained prominence in the 1990s after the fall of Barre’s regime.
The group has since then, swell in numbers and spread to neighbouring countries.
Despite carrying out suicide attacks and terror strikes, al-Shabaab draws legitimacy by positioning itself as an alternate form of governance for the people of its home country.
The Somali government, with the help of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the Somali National Army (SMA), managed to drive away al-Shabaab from Mogadishu and other port cities. After this, al-Shabaab relocated to the south and has now focused its activities in rural areas of Somalia.
Even then, the occasional attacks planned by them cost 4,000 lives between 2010 and 2020, making it surpass Boko Haram as Africa’s biggest terror threat.