Alshabab militants in Somalia arrest football club Boss By Shafici Mohyaddin Abokar 29 June 2010
Dahabshil FC chairman, Abdulkadir Ali Barre second from right is pictured while participating in a conference for club chairmen in Mogadishu on Sep 23 2009 Photo By Shafi’i Mohyaddin Abokar
The Alqaeda-linked Alshabab militants in Somalia arrested the Chairman of Dahabshil Football Club, Abdulkadir Ali Barre, Somali football federation and family members confirmed Monday.
According to the federation Mr. Barre was arrested late on Sunday in the southern outskirts of the capital while on his way to the Elasha-Biyaha village along the road linking Mogadishu to the town of Agoye about 30 kilometers south of the city. Afgoye witnessed the arrest of 31 fans earlier in the month.
The militants did not tell why he was arrested, but his wife said she was very shocked by his detention in a militant-controlled territory. “He left home a little while before midday, I didn’t receive any call from him for hours and when I called his phone, Al shabab militants told me he was jailed by them” Mr. Barre’s wife Sahra Mahmoud said in a telephone interview Monday.
“I could not control myself, as I was talking to the militants, my phone fell down on the ground and I got shocked—still I don’t know how I am” added Sahra a mother of four children.
She said that she didn’t slept all last night, thinking over where her husband’s fate will last be, since he fell into the hands of militants who mostly do not arrest, but kill people they catch.
“The told me that he was guilt, refusing to give details about the mistake he did” the nervous wife said during a telephone conversation on Monday.
Militants term football a 'satanic act'
Late last year the same militant group, with ties to Osama Bin Laden’s Alqaeda Network detained and tortured another football club chairman and Coach Towfik Ismail who as accused of misguiding young boys from Islam. Towfik was training his young boys when he was snatched from a football stadium in the volatile northeastern part of the capital Mogadishu. Towfik was later released on bail.
Militants have termed football “A satanic act” against Islam and banned playing a ball or watching international games in areas under their control.
Since the start of FIFA world cup, Somali militants killed at least three people and arrested scores in different areas after they were accused of watching the current world football competition in south Africa, the first time that the world’s most populous sporting event is being held in Africa.
slamist insurgent fighters during clashes with Somali government soldiers in southern Mogadishu's Wardhigley neighborhood, Somalia, 24 June 2010.Photo AP
Professor Kenneth Menkhaus of Davidson College says counter-terrorism efforts might have further strengthen Islamic groups in Somalia.
A U.S. based university professor has said counter-terrorism efforts by both U.S. and Ethiopian governments to marginalize or defeat Islamic groups in Somalia might have had the unintended consequence of further strengthening the groups.
But, Kenneth Menkhaus, professor of political science at Davidson College in North Carolina, said he was encouraged by policy shifts both in Ethiopia and the United States to reduce external factors that he said sometimes inflame radicalism in Somalia.
His comments came as a two-day summit on peace and security opens Wednesday in New York City to explore a variety of conflict situations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and their possible effect on national security.
A workshop at the summit is expected to consider the possible impact of the global jihadist movement on Somalia and whether the global jihad problem has been created by U.S. counter-terrorism efforts.
Professor Menkhaus said Somalia is a security threat to its neighbors and the West because of the dramatic rise of the jihadist group al-Shabaab.
“Since 911, and most specifically since around 2004-2005, the rise of the jihadist group al-Shabaab has dramatically increased the security threat that Somalia poses to its neighbors and possibly to Western countries, and the United States.
Al-Shabaab has directly affiliated itself with al Qaida, at least rhetorically. It has declared war on both Ethiopia and Kenya. It has a physical presence inside Kenya. That puts it in the position to potentially launch a terrorist attack on that country if it chose to do so,” he said.
Menkhaus said, while over 200 years of international exploitation and colonialism might have contributed greatly to Somalia’s current instability, it is ultimately the responsibility of the current Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to pull Somalia out its quagmire.
“There’s a lot of blame to go around for what has gone wrong in Somalia. Certainly, external actors during the Cold War provided support to a dictatorship that gave rise to these armed liberation movements and devolved into criminal militias fighting one another. Having said that, it is the Somali leaders’ responsibility to pull the nation out of this mess,” Menkhaus said.
He said the international community continues to support Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government despite its weakness because the cost of abandoning the government is high.
“We supported the Transitional Federal Government not because it’s a good option, but because it’s been the best of bad options.
There’s real frustration both in Somalia and in the international community about what to do with the TFG. The costs of abandoning it are fairly high. Most observers still don’t want to consign Somalia to yet another round of national reconciliation talks,” Menkhaus said.
Menkhaus reiterated his belief that foreign military intervention has been a significant source of radicalization.
“This has become a vicious circle in which both Ethiopian and U.S. efforts to reduce, or marginalize, or defeat Islamic radicals in Somalia has had the unintended consequence of strengthening them or empowering them in ways that (we) could never have imagined five years ago,” he said.
But, he said he was encouraged by policy shifts both in Ethiopia and the United States to reduce external factors that he said sometimes inflame radicalism in Somalia.
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