SINCE the early 1990s, when Siad Barre was ousted from presidency, Muslim scholars and business people led by a Somali called Hassan Aweys were meeting to solve the problems in their country.
Aweys was also the leader of a group called Al Itihad Al Islamiya (AIAI) which was a combination of various revolutionary Islamic groups that began in 1991.
Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, in this period, began assisting the Somalis in trying to re-establish an Islamic government in Somalia.
By 1994, the AIAI and the other groups were fully operational.
Owing to the US’ anti-Islamic expeditions post the September 11 2001 attacks, these groups were officially recognised as terrorists by Western nations such as US in 2001, UK in 2005 and also New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.
These Somali groups referred to themselves as Islamic courts and revolutionaries, not terrorist groups.
Although the Islamic courts were active since the early 1990s, they were under divided leadership.
The hostility and isolation the Islamic courts faced after the 9/11 attacks called for the Islamic courts to unite forces and co-operate with each other.
In July 2006, the AIAI officially merged with other Islamic groups to form the United Islamic Courts (UIC) and the Supreme Islam Courts Council.
Aweys, along with other militants from AIAI, was made leader of the UIC.
These UIC were also known as the Islamic Court Union (ICU).
In the beginning of November of that year, another influential Somali group called the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) had all its militia defecting to the UIC.
By November 14, an entire sub-clan from a large tribe called Marehan defected to the UIC.
By December of that same year, 350 troops from a large group called Rahamweyn Resistance Army from southwest Somalia, which had initially fought against the UIC, defected to the ICU along with an entire district called Dinsoor.
This made the ICU the single most influential group in Somalia. The UIC were exceedingly popular among the Somalis and brought peace and unity to the land.
Peace treaties were signed among rival factions.
The country that had been in ruins for the past 15 years was beginning to realise peace and stability in a very short time.
The UIC established Islamic law called Sharia, which literally means ‘law’ in Arabic.
When the US and UN left Somalia in 1993 and 1995 respectively, they did not do so without identifying individuals and groups they sympathised with and called friends.
After 2001, the US and UN backed a group of Somalis they wanted to run the country without instituting Sharia law, but adhering to the dictates of the international community.
By 2004 the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia which was ‘internationally recognised was active and fully backed by the US and UN.
The existence of this government the Somalis perceived as illegitimate also stepped up the unification of the Islamic courts within two years after its appearance.
As soon as the so-called internationally recognised transitional government of Somalia became functional, US and UN presence and activity began to be evident in Somalia.
Between May and June of that year, the Islamic groups successfully drove the US-backed TFG out of Mogadishu.
As soon as the US noticed the positive events that were taking place in Somalia, they quickly decided to intervene, not only through the TFG and the UN, but also through neighbouring Ethiopia.
On July 20 2006, Ethiopian troops entered Somalia and they were supported by the foreign-backed government of Somalia.
This was very unpatriotic of the TFG to go against its own people militarily, on the side of another nation.
The UIC then turned against the TFG and the Ethiopian troops militarily.
Ethiopia has, since a century ago, helped Western nations against Somalia because of its Christian affiliation to the Western nations.
The US was responsible for founding and supporting the TFG, setting up a passage for the UN Security Council resolution against Somalia, the deployment of Ethiopian troops and the anti-Islamic extremist campaigns that continue to plague the Somali people.
The foreign entities were after Somalia’s resources and coasts, forcing the Somalis to defend their land and rights.
The ICU had about 10 000 troops with outdated weapons and the Ethiopians had a US-backed 35 000 troops.
The Ethiopians had an infantry of
30 000 troops and sent 7 000 to battle.
The Ethiopians had tanks, helicopters and fighter jets while the ICU was using guerilla tactics.
Over 1 000 Somalis were killed and 800 injured by the Ethiopians by December 2006.
This ended the period of ceasefire among the Somalis which had begun in May of that year.
All these forces that fight in place of the US against the Somalis are backed by US with weapons, vehicles, war planes, war ships, intelligence and finance.
The US will not fight against the Somalis directly because the last time they did so in 1993, it ended with them making a bloody and humiliating exit which made the Somali expedition unpopular.
The most recent participant in Somalia, on the side of the US, is the African Union (AU).
The US, through the UN, successfully coerced African nations to send troops against its brother nation of Somalia by way of an African-led force called IGASOM.
Eventually, the US coerced the AU, through the UN, to replace this group with the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) which continues to be functional in Somalia to date.
US’ involvement in creating the situation in Somalia today cannot be downplayed. The US set up a Joint Command Task Force in Djibouti to regularly spy on Somali activities and has done this under the propaganda-backed excuse of checking for terrorism and piracy.
However, the US continues to deny direct involvement when the evidence on the ground proves otherwise.
The US has opened military bases in neighbouring Kenya and uses Kenyan troops in the same way as the Ethiopians, to fight the Somalis.
The US once deliberately omitted a demand for the withdrawal of 8 000 Ethiopian troops from Somalia.
The US’s opposition to the formation of an Islamic Somalia also led to the CIA making secret payments to aid ‘friendly’ Somali warlords in 2006 under the name ‘Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter Terrorism’.
To add to the fragmentation of the Somalis, neighbouring Ethiopia strategically backed the few remaining independent Somali warlords against united ICU.
The ICU had vowed to reclaim the region of Ogaden that had been lost to Ethiopia during the reign of Negus Menelik II in 1897.
As a result, there was vicious fighting in the Ogaden region.
Ethiopia went further to join the US and Europe in calling the UIC and Al Qaeda terrorist groups in order to isolate them.
Somalis have less hope of victory and sovereignty because their closest neighbour has firmly taken sides with their enemy against them.