al-Ittihad al-Islami
al-Ittihad al-Islami (abbreviated AIAI ; Arabic الاتحاد الإسلامي, DMG al-Ittiḥād al-Islāmīy 'Islamic Union'; falsely also Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya ) was a fundamentalist Islamic organization in Somalia , terrorism and ties to al-Qaida were accused. It was mainly active in urban areas from the late 1980s onwards, but attempts to gain power in a larger city during the civil war failed. AIAI then made the Gedo region in the southwest of the country their base. In 1996 it was largely destroyed by an intervention by the Ethiopian army.
history
The organization was founded in the late 1980s from Islamic study groups and groups from the Muslim Brotherhood in Somalia, most of whose leaders had been trained in Saudi Arabia and were Salafist supporters .
In the early 1990s, al-Ittihad al-Islami was funded by business people from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. These funds made it possible for her to run schools and social institutions and thereby gain a larger number of visitors at times. However, when disputes arose between AIAI and the traditionally significant Somali clans , even AIAI members were more likely to support their clans.
Attempts by the organization to take Merka or Boosaaso in Puntland failed . AIAI then went to the more marginal Gedo region and made Luuq their base. There she gained a certain following among the Gabaweyn ethnic minority by enabling displaced Gabaweyn farmers to return to their villages.
From 1991 there was also an offshoot of the AIAI in the Somali region of Ethiopia . This was initially registered as a political party, but militarized itself from 1992 onwards. Ethiopia accuses AIAI of bomb attacks in Addis Ababa and therefore took military action against the organization from 1992-1996. In 1996 the Ethiopian army marched into Luuq and ousted the Islamists.
Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , the US has viewed AIAI as a terrorist organization with possible links to al-Qaeda. The 1998 terrorist attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam are said to have been controlled from Somalia. It was also suspected that Somalia could serve as a location for terrorist training camps or even as a refuge for Osama bin Laden . Raas Kaambooni was mentioned as a possible location for such camps. In connection with these suspicions, the US enforced the closure of the Al-Barakat money transfer company in 2001 . AIAI leader Gouled Hassan Dourad is detained as a suspected terrorist in Guantánamo .
However, AIAI has reportedly been largely inactive and incapable of military action since its 1996 defeat by Ethiopia. In any case, it lived on insofar as opponents of the Somali interim government formed in 2000 - especially Hussein Mohammed Farah - accused the interim government and its members of contact with AIAI and al-Qaeda in order to discredit them.
Elements of the earlier AIAI also flowed into later established Islamist organizations in Somalia. Hassan Dahir Aweis , who was one of the leaders of the AIAI, became an important representative of the extremist wing within the Union of Islamic Courts . Today he heads Hezbul Islam , which controls parts of southern Somalia.
swell
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b [{{Web archive | text = archive link | url = http: //www.tobiashagmann.net/documents/Hagmann_MHK_2006_Bildhaan.pdf | wayback = 20080828080610 | archiv-bot = 2018-03-28 19:08:30 InternetArchiveBot} } Tobias Hagmann, Mohamud H. Khalif: State and Politics in Ethiopia's Somali Region since 1991] (link not available) (p. 8; PDF file; 118 kB)
- ↑ Somalia - In the Pull of Anarchy , National Geographic June 2002
- ^ A b Abdul Mohammed: Class and Power in a Stateless Somalia . Hornofafrica.ssrc.org. February 20, 2007. Retrieved September 12, 2010.