Bloomberg
By Hamsa Omar
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Bare Ali Bare, a military commander of the Ras Kamboni Brigade, was gunned down inside Bakara market, an Islamist stronghold in the center of the city, Sheikh Ali Ahmed, an official from Hisbul Islam, said in a phone interview today.
“This is a big issue because Bare was one of our top officers and we should apprehend the masterminds soon,” Sheikh Ali Ahmed, a commander of the nationalist Hisbul Islam group, said in a phone interview today. “The criminals will be brought to justice.”
The Ras Kamboni militia merged with al-Shabaab earlier this year, having previously belonged to Hisbul Islam, according to Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based intelligence group. An alliance between al-Shabaab and Hisbul, which together began an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the Western-backed Somali government from power in May 2009, has deteriorated into open confrontation between the two sides, Stratfor said on Feb. 1.
Bare said at the time of the merger that those who had joined al-Shabaab were “individuals and didn’t represent our name.”
Somalia’s government has been battling Islamist insurgents, including al-Shabaab, since 2007. The rebels control most of southern and central Somalia. The U.S. accuses al-Shabaab of having links to al-Qaeda, which has said it aims to establish a caliphate, or Islamic government, in the Horn of Africa country.
Stratfor said Ras Kamboni’s absorption into al-Shabaab could be seen as a public recognition by Ras Kamboni leader Hassan al-Turki of al-Shabaab’s dominant position in Somalia’s southwest, both political and militarily.
Somalia hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of the former dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, in 1991.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Johannesburg at [email protected].
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at [email protected].