Somalia: Warlords Fall To Islamist Rebels genre: Just Jihad & Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

In another sign of increasing Islamist influence in Africa, U.S. backed warlords were reported to have fled the capital city of Mogadishu as Islamist rebels claimed to have taken control of the city. The New York Times has the full article here.
Thought Theater has written about the growing Islamist influence here and the shifting position of the Bush administration to one of containment here.

The battle for Mogadishu has been a proxy war, of sorts, in the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism, with the warlords echoing Washington's goal of rooting out radical Islam and the presence of Al Qaeda in the region.

But as the warlords who have ruled over Mogadishu for the last 15 years went on the run on Monday, it appeared that Washington had backed the losing side, presenting the administration with a major setback at a time of continued sectarian violence in Iraq and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The spokesman for the State Department, Sean McCormack, appeared to repeat those concerns at a news briefing on Monday when asked about the takeover in Mogadishu. "We don't want to see Somalia turn into a safe haven for foreign terrorists," he said. "We do have very real concerns about that."

While the administration has repeated the oft heard statement that we are safer since the fall of Sadaam Hussein, the outcome in Somalia adds to a growing body of evidence that Islamist extremists continue to assert greater influence in more regions of the world. Their influence and the prevailing beleif that Islamism is under attack from the West has provided an atmosphere for radicalism and the recruitment of followers intent on battling the influence of Western civilization.

Many in Mogadishu said the common belief that the United States was taking sides only strengthened the Islamists, who accused the warlords of being puppets of Washington.

Now that the Islamists have taken over, it remains to be seen how they will choose to govern and whether infighting among them may send the city back into the chaos it has long known.

An American-led relief effort in 1993, which metamorphosed into a hunt for one of the warlords whose fighting with one another interfered with food distribution, ended tragically after 18 American soldiers were killed in a battle made famous by the film "Black Hawk Down."

The United States has largely kept the country at diplomatic arm's length ever since, viewing with skepticism the 14 failed rounds of peace negotiations over the years. The latest one produced an interim government carefully balanced by clan representation, which has been urging Washington to back it more vigorously.

Daniel DiRito | June 6, 2006 | 8:15 AM
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Comments

1 On July 14, 2006 at 7:50 PM, fuattoti wrote —

oh mr bush your way of fighting terrorism is helpfull what i need is to fight againest all muslims in order to gain may strategic goals
to day somlis became what i whant to become
thanks for alaah

Thought Theater at Blogged

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