Inside Al-Shabaab by Harun Maruf Dan Joseph

Author:Harun Maruf,Dan Joseph [Harun Maruf,Dan Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780253037510
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2018-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

Political tension, not military carnage, held center stage as evening fell in the Somali capital on September 20, 2010. A power struggle between President Sheikh Sharif and Prime Minister Sharmarke over a proposed new constitution had reached the breaking point, and Sharmarke was preparing to resign the next day. Some Somalis thought that Sheikh Sharif should go too: twenty months into his presidency, conditions in Somalia had not improved in the slightest. His government remained bloated, corrupt, and dysfunctional; Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam still controlled most of Somalia south of Puntland; there were still no basic government services; and soldiers were still only occasionally paid.

Maybe it was talk of the political situation that caused soldiers posted at Villa Somalia’s main gate that night to let down their guard. Maybe it was a bribe, the money making up for all the missing paychecks. Perhaps the soldiers had been chewing khat and just didn’t care. In any case, when a convoy carrying AMISOM troops passed through the wrought iron gate, the soldiers did nothing to stop a slim young man carrying an AK-style assault rifle from jumping on the back of one of the trucks.

Protocol called for the truck to stop at three checkpoints inside the walls, each manned by AMISOM troops. The stowaway made it through at least one, possibly two, for reasons that were never explained. By the third, either because of detection or by his own choice, he made his presence known. He dashed off the truck, running into an open area of the compound between the offices of the president, the prime minister, and the interior and security minister. He fired off shots from his rifle, wounding two guards. He threw a hand grenade, causing an explosion but no damage or casualties.

And then he was shot. One bullet struck the right side of his head. Within a few minutes, he was dead.

Officials rushed over to examine the gunman’s body. It didn’t take long to recognize him—it was Dalha Ali, a.k.a. Asad Yare, the former Shabaab fighter turned bodyguard for Interior Minister Omar. Had he come back to kill Omar? The president? The soon to be ex-prime minister? There was no way to know. Officials recognized that the damage could have been much worse—they found him wearing a suicide vest that had not exploded.

A Somali news site posted a photo of Ali’s body online the next day. The picture, taken at close range, shows his body lying faceup on the brown patterned tiles of a floor. Blood from the wound near his right temple has trickled across his cheek and forehead, forming lines that look like bright-red tiger stripes. More blood has pooled on the floor behind him. His right eye, mostly closed, looks down and off to the right, while his left eye remains wide open, gazing straight ahead. If not for all the blood, a casual viewer might conclude the subject is alive and staring defiantly at the camera, in a manner that says, “You looking at me?”

But he wasn’t alive.

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