Security vacuum breeds extremism in Libya, Somalia

The evictions of Somalia’s Al Shabab from its stronghold in Kismayo, and of Ansar Al Sharia from Benghazi in Libya are the latest successes in a concerted, US-driven effort to eradicate Al Qaida-related groups from the Middle East and Africa. But it is doubtful that this is the end of extremism in either location, or that force of arms will deliver long-lasting security solutions in the region.

We have witnessed similar events before. Iraq produced the template: Al Qaida-linked fighters are driven out against a backdrop of burgeoning local hostility, only to return when the military and social climate is more favourable.

This pattern began with America’s 2006-07 ‘awakening’ and ‘surge’ campaigns in Iraq. To counteract the growing influence of the Al Qaida-dominated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), local Sunni tribes were ‘awakened’ from their tolerance of the group by a combination of the extremists’ own overzealous prosecution of Sharia and hefty American bribes. Turning the tribes against the ISI paved the way for a concentrated military operation the ‘surge’ involving thousands of extra American troops, to drive the extremists out.

Following the Iraqi surge, hundreds of Islamist fighters “migrated” to Afghanistan. On the extremists’ part, this is a deliberate strategy known as hijra (migration or flight) a reference to the hijra of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and his companions from Mecca to Medina to evade a murderous onslaught. Later, when President Obama deployed an extra 47,000 troops there during 2009-10, the Islamist fighters drifted back again.

By then, Iraq’s Sunni tribes were increasingly at odds with the Shiite-dominated, US-backed government which they felt discriminated against them. Consequently, they were less hostile to the poisonously sectarian ISI, which was able to re-establish itself.

At the end of 2011, US troops withdrew from Iraq, opening the floodgates for an ISI surge of its own. This year, Operation Breaking Walls resulted in more than 400 deaths during the month of Ramadan alone.

It seems likely that we will see a similar pattern repeated in Libya and Somalia. Dispersal is an acceptable outcome for Al Qaida-type groups whose survival depends on mobility. Hence the recent, rather baffled, reports from Kismayo and Benghazi that, following the September 11 murder of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three other diplomats in Benghazi, the extremists “just melted away”, abandoning offices and weapons without a struggle. Some of its fighters will undoubtedly have progressed to Syria, currently a magnet for international jihadists, while the rest have gone underground.

The present US-inspired weapons amnesty in Benghazi which offers iPods, laptops and the chance to win a new car in exchange for surrendered arms is reminiscent of the awakening campaign. And like that campaign, it misunderstands the nature of loyalty in a tribal society, believing it can be bought.

It is unlikely that the extremists are among those queuing to swap guns for raffle tickets and, by confronting them rather than attempting to absorb them into the fabric of the new Libya, the American strategy further polarises a society that is already struggling to establish its first “national unity” government. The prime minister, Mustafa Abushagur, has been dismissed by a vote of no confidence after 25 days during which he proposed two cabinets, both of which failed to win approval.

In Somalia too, Al Shabab’s current defeat at the hands of US-trained, mostly Kenyan, troops, has a backdrop of tumbling popularity among the all-powerful local clans, many of whom supported the group until it banned western aid organisations from areas it controlled during last summer’s drought and famine.

While Al Shabaab may have temporarily melted away to its remaining strongholds in the interior, Somalis have long blamed the chaos and instability that has plagued them for more than 20 years on “foreigners” and outside interference an analysis they share with the Islamists.

If the new President Hassan Shaikh Mohammad is unable to function without hefty international support the country is still, effectively, ungovernable elements of the population may once again look to Al Shabab to provide some semblance of (albeit extremist) law and order and reject the manipulations of the West. The same dilemma exists in Hamid Karzai’s Afghanistan, and the new Libyan regime has yet to prove its ability to go it alone.

The network of Al Qaida-related groups has widened over the years, and the security vacuums created by the Arab spring have afforded them new opportunities, particularly in Libya, Yemen, Mali and Syria; hundreds of jihadi ‘migrants’ have converged on the latter, adding to its woes.

At the same time, the regional drive for democracy presents a real chance to break the Iraq-style cycle of migration and return. If newly elected Muslim governments were able to fill the gaps left by dispersed extremist groups with stability, justice and security of their own making, such groups would have no further role and may look, instead, to participate in the political process.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd