When Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 with U.S. support, displacing the Islamist government, the Islamic Courts Union, the usual conservative cheering section erupted in applause over the Bush administration's "toughness" in the war on terror. In fact, the decision was a humanitarian and national security disaster as the documents related to the Minnesota indictments of several Somali Americans yesterday make clear.
The removal of the ICU empowered its radical wing, Al Shabaab, led by the al-Qaeda-trained Aden Hashi Ayrow, which has now taken over terrorizing the country with suicide bombings, assassinations, and the killing of civilians. The ICU weren't what you might call "good guys" by any means, but they also weren't as bad as Al Shabaab. In fact, Osama bin Laden was so impressed by Al Shabaab that he offered them al-Qaeda's endorsement, denouncing the former head of the ICU, after he was elected president of the Transitional Federal Government, which has now adopted sharia anyway. The Bush administration's policy led directly to the rise of a more radical Islamic terrorist movement in the region, one that has culminated in the largest group of American citizens ever accused of joining a radical terrorist group, not to mention the first American suicide bomber.
The FBI criminal complaint yesterday makes clear that the political situation in Somalia figured directly in the recruitment of the individuals who have been indicted so far. One of the recruiters named, Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, according to the complaint, told eventual recruits that "he experienced true brotherhood while fighting in Somalia and that travel for jihad was the best thing that they could do." Another individual named in the complaint, Abdiweli Yassin Isse, who wanted to go to Somalia to "fight Ethiopians," helped raise money for friends to join him by telling everyone in the community they were going to study the Koran in Saudi Arabia. He himself never made it--but he did manage to fund the trips of others.
According to the complaint, Al Shabaab wasn't designated a terrorist organization by the State Department until June of 2008, nearly two years after the invasion. The problem isn't just, as Matthew Yglesias wrote last year, that the invasion bred "a new generation of anti-American jihadists." It's that it's breeding them here.
It's hard to imagine a worse outcome.
-- A. Serwer
