Somalia: Tribal strife parallel with sectarian war

As it is emerging on the ground in Somalia, the country seem to be getting into further and difficult stage according to the current events in some parts of the war-ravaged southern and central regions of Somalia along with the piracy problems off shore.

The evacuation of the resigned president’s special security guards with their families from the volatile city of Mogadishu and Baidoa the seat of the parliament is a sign of clan conflict as the country experienced in 1990s.

Preparations are now under way in the Islamist infested city of Mogadishu and Baidoa, 250km southwest of the capital to safely withdraw all the figures and politicians affiliated with the aging quit president Abdulahi Yusuf as the government by the prime minister Nor Adde is getting bigger public support but facing more growing Islamist group who now confirmed the seizure of much of southern and central Somalia.

When the president vacate the position there could be retaliation on the Yusuf’s family by the Mogadishu residents on what they had been subjected during the last two years fighting as warned by Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the moderate Islamic leader speaking to the local media.

In other words, more freshly the country touched in the quagmire of sectarian war when the powerful Islamic radicals ‘Shabab’ clashed with the Islamist Sufis leaving more human casualty in central Somalia. The war sparked when Shabab group began to destroy more shrines in the country which angered the Sufis who had spiritual influence on the public.

The destruction by Shabab on the shrines was strongly condemned by the leader of the alliance for re-liberation of Somalia Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed who was not known to stand against Shabab fighters. This visualize an imminent showdown between these two Islamist groups, Sheikh sharif said that destroying shrines and grave yards have nothing to do with Islam and is a political motivated.

The usage of the recent strong words by Sheik Ahmed shows that he is unpleasant with the Shabab’s movements and sees them as stumbling-blocks to the peace process in Somalia.

More predictable, Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia will suffer again and would be a place of more bloodshed as the divided Islamist groups are struggling for taking control of the strategy positions that are now to be abandoned by the Ethiopian troops. Earlier the Shabab group vowed that they will not let the Ethiopian force to leave safely the country but will make them humiliated and defeated as the Ethiopian government is taking more precautious steps to take all its troops back home without any damage.

These parallel disasters in the improvised horn of Africa country ‘Somalia’ might cause an other mass influx of refugees and humanitarian crisis that could have a security impact to the neighboring countries like Kenya and Ethiopia.

To the conclusion, gun will rule Somalia as long as the hostile groups with different ideologies are battling for power.