By RODNEY MUHUMUZA
Thursday May 26, 2022
A Somali police officer recently received an unexpected
summons from the enemy. An unknown caller ordered him to report to a town
outside the capital, Mogadishu, where the extremist group al-Shabab would
settle a dispute between him and his brother. The caller assured the officer he
would be safe even if he showed up in uniform.
Overcoming his fear, Khadar traveled to meet with a panel of
four bearded men in an office made from iron sheets. The al-Shabab men wanted
to know why he was denying his brothers a share of the land they inherited from
their father.
“After an hour and a half of debate, the men directed me to
distribute the inheritance among my brothers," Khadar recalled in an
interview with The Associated Press, withholding his last name for safety
concerns.
Khadar complied, an extraordinary gesture to an armed group
that continues to pose a deadly threat to his police colleagues and his
government at large.
The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab is projecting authority and
asserting a wider role in public life in this troubled Horn of Africa nation,
underlining the extent of the challenge Africa's deadliest Islamic extremist
group presents to the newly elected government of President Hassan Sheikh
Mohamud. The threats range beyond regular attacks on places frequented by
officials and include militant control of vast territory where federal
officials don't dare go and can't even collect taxes.
The group, which seeks to create an Islamic caliphate out of
Somalia, is also increasingly undermining authorities by offering a parallel
justice system — enforced by the threat of violence — in a country where many
have little faith in conventional courts.
Some people who spoke to the AP expressed a favorable view
of al-Shabab, saying its mobile courts are not corrupt and that the group
appears able to protect vulnerable people in ways the federal government
cannot.
“You will get justice in al-Shabab courtrooms if you know
you are doing the right thing,” said farmer Muallim Abdi, a father of eight
children who lives in another al-Shabab-controlled village near Mogadishu. “But
in the government-controlled areas it will take time, and the formal courts are
corrupt.”
Abdi acknowledged that life under al-Shabab is “extremely
difficult,” citing the children forced to join the group, the tax burden and
the inability to enjoy private property. Last Ramadan, he said, al-Shabab asked
residents to raise money to buy livestock to be slaughtered for the Eid feast,
an unreasonable demand at a time when the riverbed was dry and some people were
on the verge of displacement amid drought.
Al-Shabab “remains in a healthy financial position” thanks
to illicit taxation as well as income derived from the ongoing sale of $40
million in charcoal stockpiles in the city of Kismayo, a U.N. panel of experts
reported last year.
Al-Shabab's tax code compels all those intending to buy or
sell farmland to register with the group's land office, through which sales can
be finalized. Farmers are ordered to notify al-Shabab of the quantities they
are harvesting.
“Once I harvested and sold 2,247 bags of onions but did not
inform al-Shabab because I had an emergency to attend to," Abdi said. “I
was home when two men on motorcycles arrived. I was accosted for not telling
them about the harvest. I was detained in a small, dark room and nearly
suffocated.” There's no room for appeal in the al-Shabab system.
Despite the $1,123 fine he paid, Abdi still sees al-Shabab
in a positive light because later it ruled in his favor to settle a land
dispute with a neighbor. Both claimants were summoned and told to prove
ownership before a committee that found his papers authentic, he said.
“The public would rally behind al-Shabab if they stopped
killing people," Abdi said.
Al-Shabab, which has killed thousands of civilians in the
last decade, is estimated to have anywhere between 4,000 and 7,000 fighters,
according to the Mogadishu-based security think tank Hiraal Institute.
Although al-Shabab's extortionate power has been a major
concern among traders, some businesspeople said they feel more confident in its
mediation of disputes.
“They are becoming more reliable, and the people are
counting on them,” Hiraal Institute's Samira Gaid said of al-Shabab's court
system.
Somalis from minority clans, a growing community, see
al-Shabab courts as fair, she said.
Al-Shabab has seized even more territory in recent years,
taking advantage of rifts among security personnel as well as disagreements
between the government seat in Mogadishu and regional states.
Forced to retreat from Mogadishu in 2011, al-Shabab is slowly
making a comeback from the rural areas to which it retreated, defying the
presence of African Union peacekeepers as well as U.S. drone strikes targeting
its fighters.
The militants in early May attacked a military base for AU
peacekeepers outside Mogadishu, killing many Burundian troops. The attack came
just days before the presidential vote that returned Mohamud to power five
years after he had been voted out.
Al-Shabab’s strategy is to “bleed the system” while
patiently waiting for the exit of foreign troops, said Gaid, the security
analyst.
The restructured AU peacekeeping mission is set to wind down
by the end of 2024, when Somali forces would take over security
responsibilities.
American officials cited the heightened threat posed by
al-Shabab in mid-May as President Joe Biden signed an order to redeploy
hundreds of U.S. troops to Somalia. Somali authorities have welcomed the
decision reversing a 2021 order to withdraw U.S. troops.
Mohamud has said securing Mogadishu will depend heavily on
pushing militants out of the neighboring regions of Lower Shabelle and Middle
Shabelle. That could be challenging.
Al-Shabab “has sharply increased its infiltration of state
institutions, particularly security institutions,” said political analyst Abdi
Aynte, a former government minister.
Rebuilding Somalia's security system "isn't an
administrative problem but ultimately a political one," with the new
president needing to reform the security services in a way that's accommodative
of all competing groups, he said.
An Associated Press journalist in Somalia contributed.
Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda.