In Pursuit of al-Qaeda in Somalia: A Critical Analysis of U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Somalia
By Ramla Bile | August 2007
In an attempt to monitor and curb terrorist activity in East Africa, the United States launched an aggressive campaign against the Union of Islamic Courts—a rising political force in Somalia, including a direct invasion, which ensued a failed attempt by the CIA to defuse the movement. In this effort to weave the Horn of Africa into this ever-exhaustive war on terrorism, there has been a tendency to demonize the UIC and portray the organization as another menacing and monolithic Islamist movement without doing justice to the complexity of Somali politics. It is often the case that the UIC is inappropriately linked with other Islamist movements, such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. Such allegations have largely been reported as fact in media outlets even though supporting details remain weak. Publications and news stories with headlines, such as, “The Hunt for al-Qaeda in Somalia,”[1] “Al-Qaeda Threat Seen Looming if Government Fails,”[2] and “U.N. Says Somalis Helped Hezbollah Fighters,”[3] dominate media discourses and perpetuate the idea of a menacing movement emerging in Somalia. Additionally, much of the existing representations of the UIC in Western media invoke an alarmist sense of urgency to act and dismantle the group. In this paper, I argue that the U.S. approach to Somali politics has largely been shortsighted and uncritical. I deepen this argument by examining the tactics employed by the U.S. and the ramifications of such policies.
Keywords: Somalia • war on terror
