On July 6, 2023, the Shahada News Agency, the official media outlet of Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, Harakat Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen (Al-Shabab), published an Arabic translation of an article titled “Somalia, A Repeat of Afghanistan?”[1] The article, by Dawoud Miri, argues that Al-Shabab cannot be defeated and that Somalis wish to be ruled by Islam rather than democracy. Therefore, it continues, the U.S. should engage in dialogue with the Al-Qaeda affiliate and allow it to take control of Somalia, just as it negotiated with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Afghan Taliban) and left it to assume power in Afghanistan after withdrawing its forces from the country in 2021.
The Shahada article included a link to the original English-language three-page article, on which this report is based. The original English, sometimes poor, has been lightly edited for clarity.
Al-Shabab Is Undefeatable Because It Fights For Its Faith
The article opens by noting that after 57 soldiers of the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) were killed in an Al-Shabab attack on their forward operating base near Bulo Marer in southern Somalia,[2] Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni expressed disappointment that U.S. forces did not offer the support of their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).[3] However, Miri asserts, while UAVs have provided a military advantage in scenarios like these, they have nevertheless “proven to be ineffective against an enemy like Al-Shabab.”
According to Miri, the jihadi group is difficult to defeat because its “ideological faith is indifferent to drone strikes, battlefield losses, or the death of its leaders,” while its jihad “will go on till doomsday,” in accordance with Islamic texts. He dismisses factors such as lack of aerial support, corruption, undue panic or poor training, which Museveni blamed for his forces’ defeat, claiming that if those were the real reasons for the setback then “America could have avoided the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan.” The true explanation for why the U.S. was forced to leave Afghanistan and why countries like Uganda suffer crushing losses in Somalia is that “the U.S. and [its] allies are oblivious [to] the religious impetus that propels the Islamists.”
Arguing that “for the West and [its] allies, Al-Shabab is like an elephant [in] the living room and they are appallingly incapable to remove the giant beast out of the way,” Miri concludes that “common sense dictates political settlement by means of dialogue” and calls on the U.S. to “engage [with] Al-Shabab diplomatically as it did with the Taliban in Afghanistan.”
The West Cannot Impose Democracy On Somalia Since Its People Have An Islamic Identity, Support Jihad
The article asserts that “despite the West’s absolute support, Somalia will never be a fully functioning democracy,” ascribing this to the region’s “historical, cultural, and religious affiliation with political Islam.” According to the author, “Somalis still regard Islam as an unwavering identity” as proven by the fact that Somali women wear Hijab “at the heart of the neoconservative white America like Tennessee, South Dakota etc.” He states that for many Somalis, “all hopes are riding on Al-Shabab’s struggle to reinvigorate Islam, and to restore the tremendous religious history that shaped their social ideals and made them culturally outstanding,” dooming to failure attempts to implement the “imported doctrine” of democracy in the country.
Despite residents’ strong connection to Islam, Miri claims that “Islam has been waning” since the country’s secular constitution was introduced in 1961, declining even further during the “Godless era” of President Mohamed Siad Barre. He warns that if the secular constitution is fully implemented, then “Western social norms will prevail” in Somalia, killing “the moral ethics of Islam.” For example, Miri notes that former minister of information Mohamed Abdi Hayir (Mareye) called for a “social restructure” in Somalia to eliminate “cultural defects” such as contempt for homosexuality. Miri rejects the former minister’s view that “Western lifestyle [is] a gateway to prosperity in [the] express lane,” claiming that on the contrary, “emulating foreign civilization unroots [sic] the historical correlation between the present and the past, and it demises [sic] the intellectual ability to think sovereignly or to plan the future within the context of their religious and cultural outlook.”
Miri further claims that the U.S.-led effort to bring democracy to Somalia is hampered by the people’s commitment to jihad. He states that “in East Africa it was predominately Somalis that uncompromisingly carried the banner for jihadi movements,” mentioning historical figures such as 16th-century warrior Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Grang Al-Ghazi, and early 20th-century leaders Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan and Sheikh Hassan Barsame, as well as Islamist militant groups of recent decades such as Al-Ittihad Al-Islami, the Islamic Courts Union, and Al-Shabab. All these leaders and groups are united by the “religious spirit” of “unyieldingly resist[ing] what they deemed as a hostile crusade against their land and religion.”
Bringing Democracy To Somalia Will Fail As It Did In Vietnam, Iraq, And Afghanistan; The U.S. Must Negotiate For Al-Shabab To Take Over
The U.S. project of imposing democracy on foreign countries has failed in Vietnam, Iraq, and most recently in Afghanistan, and “the likelihood of eradicating an adversary that deems death as a venerated religious milestone with the wish to shape the world according to Muhammad’s divine scripture is remote.” Comparing the Americans’ plight in Somalia to that of a patient with a brain tumor who cannot be helped by surgery, Miri states that the U.S. can neither “[sit] idly by the bedside” nor “[walk] away with the gullible assumption that death will somehow finish off the matter,” asserting that “this dilemma needs time to sort itself out.”
Miri further writes that “the U.S. has the tendency to cross into foreign borders arrogantly but it doesn’t have stamina to endure the war, particularly if the adversary employs asymmetric warfare,” and predicts that “Al-Shabab will wear them out with its wait-out strategy.” Noting that the U.S. withdrew its forces from Vietnam and Afghanistan, Miri surmises it will do the same in Somalia, claiming that the “War on Terror” has become “dull and ineffective.” Linking to a June 3 op-ed in Uganda’s The Independent newsmagazine titled “Time to Get out of Somalia,”[4] the article concludes: “Somalia needs order – the ability of the state to gain and monopolize the use of violence. It seems to me that only Al-Shabab has the capacity to ensure that. We should therefore leave Somalia and let Al-Shabab take over like the Americans did with the Taliban in Afghanistan.”
In recent months, Al-Shabab’s Shahada News Agency has published English-language articles and their Arabic translations praising Al-Shabab for implementing shari’a and calling for Somali and Ethiopian Muslims to embrace jihad.[5]
[1] Shahadanews.com, July 6, 2023.
[2] See MEMRI JTTM Reports: Al-Qaeda Affiliate Al-Shabab Claims Taking Control Of ATMIS Base In Lower Shebelle, Killing 137 Ugandan Soldiers, Taking Several Others Prisoners, May 26, 2023; and Al-Qaeda Affiliate Al-Shabab Releases Video About Recent Attack On Ugandan Base In Which Over 200 Soldiers Were Reportedly Killed, Reviews History Of Al-Shabab’s Fight Against Ugandan Forces, June 6, 2023.
[3] Chimpreports.com, May 30, 2023.
[4] Independent.co.ug, June 3, 2023.
[5] See MEMRI JTTM Reports: Al-Qaeda Affiliate Al-Shabab Publishes Email Sent To Operative Praising Shari’a After Visit To Al-Shabab Court, Calling For Jihad To Restore ‘Utopian Days Of Prophet Muhammad’, March 16, 2023; and Al-Qaeda Affiliate Al-Shabab Publishes Article Urging Ethnic Group In Ethiopia To Abandon Democracy, Embrace Islamic Law And Jihad To Achieve Self-Determination, March 30, 2023.