HIGHLIGHTS OF NIF ROLE IN THE GREATER HORN OF AFRICA

The Emergence of Al Ittihad Al Islamiya
Somalia has a well-known history of an Islamic resistance to western occupation and influences: In 1899 Muhammed Abdilla Hassan (also know as the "Mad Mullah") raised an army of "dervishes" that sought to consolidate an Islamic state among Somalis and rid northern Somalia of British occupation. The resistance of his movement lasted until his death in 1921. His movement sought to organize Somalis across clan divisions and sought to impose a rigid Islam on a population practicing a generally moderate Sufi tradition of that faith. The combination of moral rectitude and aggressive tactics that characterized this earlier movement can be seen in the AI AI movement that emerged in Somalia in the 1980's.
The immediate ideological roots of AI AI may be found, however, in Islamic resistance to the socialist and secular government of General Mohamed Siad Barre. Post-independence Islamic militant groups first emerged in Somalia in the 1960's, and were inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the first modern Islamist organization that challenged secular rule in Egypt through Islamic revolutionary tactics. The Somali Islamist groups were brutally suppressed by former Somali strongman, Siad Barre, who came to power in a 1967 military coup. Siad Barre first allied himself with the Soviet Union , but then became a U.S. ally when the Soviet Union gained influence in Ethiopia . The anti-Siad Barre Islamic groups attempted to garner popular support for their opposition to the Barre regime through an appeal to Islamic identity and values - a faith-based political strategy which contrasted sharply with movements vying for political support on the basis of a secular Somali nationalism or clan identity and loyalty.
Later, in the early 1980's Islamic religious study groups consisting of young, professional men, many of whom had experience studying or worked abroad, merged to form AI AI. The two groups that merged to form AI AI were Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya (the Islamic Association), which was based in the South and was led by Sheikh Mohamed Eissa, and Wahdat Al-Shabab Al-Islam (Unity of Islamic Youth) based in the North and led by Sheikh Ali-Warsame. The corruption and repression of the Siad Barre regime had motivated these groups to look for political alternatives to the status quo. Somali Wahabists who had fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan as mujahadin in the 1980s helped shape AI AI's political, military and religious strategies. The ranks of AI AI's top leadership reportedly graduated from Islamic universities in Pakistan , Saudi Arabia and Kuwait .
The Afghanistan mujahadin connection appears to explain the genesis of AI AI's early association with Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups. East Africa reportedly was the scene of a major recruitment drive for anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan . There is evidence indicating that that several hundred recruits from central Somalia were airlifted in the 1980's to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union as mujahidin. This trafficking in Somali "mercenaries" reportedly proved to be a lucrative trade, from which government ministers profited. According to Kenyan security sources, in the 1980s over 2,000 recruits for the mujahdin fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan came from the Mombasa area alone. They were recruited from the ranks of unemployed youth and in later years, demobilized former Somali government soldiers.

Arabic Forum