Aliyu Musa
For Mogadishu and its residents, last Saturday was spectacularly horrible. It was, in fact, a very tragic day for hundreds of Somalis and their families and friends. It was a day terrorism went fully bonkers, unleashing the worst bloodbath in Somalia’s over two decades of civil war.
In what has been described as one of the most lethal terrorist attacks in recent history terrorists linked to the al-Shabaab group set off about 350kg of military grade and homemade explosives in a lorry at a busy crossroads in the centre of the city.
The target, soft as it was, produced maximum fatalities as death toll hit 300 with more than 300 injured and an unspecified number of people missing. The death toll, government officials say, is likely to rise as more corpses are recovered from the rubbles and, possibly, some of the critically injured give up the fight.
Al-Shabaab is synonymous to terror in the beleaguered Somalia. It has equally carried out a series of terror attacks in neighbouring Kenya, including the siege on Westgate Mall in September 2013, killing dozens of shoppers among whom was the renowned Ghanaian poet and author Kofi Awoonor, and the raid on the Garissa University College, which left nearly 150 people dead and dozens injured.
Although the terror group withdrew from the country’s capital Mogadishu six years ago and has since then continued to operate mainly in the outskirts, it, nonetheless, keeps coming back to hit targets in the city. Often, the targets include the African Union peacekeeping mission, Amisom, Somali troops and, like last weekend, vulnerable civilian spots that could be hit with precision. This is in spite of the coordinated military operations of the Somali and Kenyan military and increased US military drone strikes on the group.
So, clearly, al-Shabaab would not go down without dragging everyone else with it and the recent attack was a strong indication of this. And, as investigations earlier in the week have suggested, it might have been a revenge attack.
The suspected suicide bomber, investigations reveal further, was an ex-soldier retaliating an August 2017 US drone strike in his home town of Bariire, a stronghold of al-Shabaab 50km west of Mogadishu. Three children reportedly died in the drone strike, which infuriated tribal leaders who ordered retaliation. And the defector became a ready hand.
It’s also believed that the original target was a heavily guarded compound housing the UN, the Amisom headquarters and several foreign missions. The real plan, intended to send a strong message perhaps, was to blow up the heavily fortified gate and gain entry to the compound and cause maximum havoc.
But the plan, itself, blew up into bits when an accompanying smaller vehicle, also conveying explosives, was intercepted and the accomplice (driver) apprehended. The terrorists then switched to plan B, catching the victims, who were ‘only out and about’ in a perpetually sick city, unawares.
The trouble with terrorists like al-Shabaab is they often vent their anger on innocent people they blame for not being party to their demented ideology and or for colluding with authorities to expose the fraud they retail. They brand anyone and everyone not rejecting western education and democracy hypocrites or infidels and, through their criminally minded and morally bankrupt leadership, pass fraudulent rulings that inspire toxic acts.
They dupe young people into believing theirs is a holy cause and, on this basis, enthuse a generation of murderers to whom the sacredness of life means nothing. They hate everyone, including fellow Muslims on whom they often unleash their vile exploits.
Islam, for them, is merely a tool of convenience; they proclaim ‘jihad’ backed by their misinterpretation of verses of the Holy Qur’an and prevarication of the Hadith of the Prophet (SAW). They ignore Allah’s (SWT) injunction on the taking of any innocent life and the Prophet’s (SAW) saying that whosoever commits suicide incurs the wrath of Allah for which there will be grave penalty on the Last Day.
Yet they claim to speak for Islam and Muslims, which perhaps explains why their atrocities only draw global outrage if the victims are people of other faiths or culture. But where they (victims) are mostly their own and, particularly, the poor unimportant people, the world pretends all is well and no one stands with the victims.
That is why the Somalis are standing alone, regardless of the atrociousness of the atrocity of that ghastly Saturday. Poor souls, whose departure is not honored by the appearance of comets. Imagine how the world would have reacted had the original plot succeeded.
This article appeared in the Blueprint newspaper of Saturday October 21, 2017.
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