Yusuf has claimed for years that al Qaeda is active in parts of Somalia,
namely in Mogadishu where the Islamic Courts Union took power in June 2006.
Although Somalia’s
Islamists repeatedly denied terror links, the U.S. and Ethiopian
governments sided with Yusuf’s claims and cooperated in the military
blitzkrieg to oust the Islamists from Mogadishu later that year.
But the Islamists
vowed a long and bloody insurgency, which has now entered its 15th
consecutive month, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of
civilians.
Insiders in Mogadishu
and other parts of the country say the insurgency includes Islamist
guerrillas supported by the international Islamic movement. Insurgent
groups such as al-Shabaab have repeatedly stated their ultimate goal of
reestablishing Islamic Sharia law across Somalia.
In September 2006, President Yusuf survived a suicide car bomb that
killed his younger brother and a dozen others.
His former Prime Minister, Prof. Ali Mohamed Gedi, survived three
assassination attempts during his three-year tenure.
But groups fighting
the government also include clan warriors opposed to the imposition of an
Ethiopian-backed, Darod-led government in Hawiye-dominated Mogadishu.
The Hawiye and Darod
clans have been vying for control of the country’s resources since the
eruption of the Somali civil war in 1991.
Ethiopian troops are
deeply unpopular in Somalia where many see them as the perpetrators of war
crimes and supporters of the country's hated warlords.
The African Union,
which has 2,000 peacekeepers in Mogadishu, has failed to bolster its
peacekeeping forces to replace the despised Ethiopian army
