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| Volume IX, March 2002, Number 1 |
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| EXCERPT: Political Islam in Somalia |
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| Ken Menkhaus |
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Dr. Menkhaus is associate professor of political science at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina.
Fears that lawless Somalia may become a new safe haven for Al Qaeda are generating renewed Western interest in that country, largely ignored by the West since the ill-fated U.N. peace operation in Somalia closed in 1995. This revived interest and concern has collided with the troubling realization that little is known about the nature and extent of political Islam in contemporary Somalia. This article constitutes a first step in addressing that problem. It provides an overview of our current state of knowledge about the subject and assesses the Islamist movements in terms of their potential to threaten, or coexist with, Western security interests.
The thesis of this analysis is that most of the wide range of Islamic political activities and agendas present in Somalia can coexist with Western security concerns, but that two radical Islamist agendas inside Somalia constitute serious threats. These are (1) the commitment to jihad against the Ethiopian government (embraced mainly by Somali Islamists with some external support) and (2) the commitment to a terrorist war against the West (embraced by a very small number of Somali and non-Somali radicals associated with Al Qaeda).
A collorary to this thesis is the argument that distinguishing between the “benign” and “malignant” strains of political Islam in Somalia is a difficult but vital first step in establishing successful security strategies in the Horn. Understating the threat runs the risk of overlooking a potential base of operations or safe haven for Al Qaeda. Overstating the threat runs the risk of alienating a great many Somali Muslims whose interests, agendas and allegiances can and should be kept quite separate from those of Al Qaeda.
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