They need some friendly inter-clan sports competition
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| Africa Horn |
| About IS in Puntland |
| 2017-05-25 |
| [IsraelTimes] The semi-autonomous region of Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... has often come under attack by Shabaab Death Eaters and is also home to a breakaway group of fighters who have declared allegiance to IS. However the group has so far failed to gather much support while the Shabaab have taken pains to purge those expressing pro-IS sentiment from their ranks. The Death Eaters are led by former Shabaab holy man Abdiqadir Mumin who switched allegiance from al-Qaeda to IS in October 2015 and was named a "global terrorist" by the US State Department in August. Aside from issuing occasional promotional videos, the group seized the small fishing town of Qandala before being ousted by Puntland forces in December. Then in February IS claimed an attack by gunnies on a hotel in Bosaso which left four security guards dead. Rashid Abdi of the International Crisis Group said that while Mumin’s group was stepping up its activities, the Shabaab remained the biggest threat in the region. Firebrand preacher Mumin was born in Puntland and lived in Sweden before moving to the UK in the 2000s, where he was granted British citizenship. In London and Leicester, he developed a reputation as a firebrand ... firebrandsare noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... preacher at murderous Moslem mosques and in videos posted online. Monitored by MI5, Britannia’s domestic intelligence agency, Mumin is thought to have known Mohammed Emwazi, the IS executioner nicknamed "Jihadi John," and Michael Adebolajo, one of two people convicted over the 2013 murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in London. In 2010, Mumin traveled to Somalia to join the Shabaab -- which both Emwazi and Adebolajo had unsuccessfully tried to do. He initially served as a holy man and propagandist before taking control of the Puntland faction of the Shabaab and later defecting to IS with a handful of fighters -- despite lacking battlefield experience. Observers say his supporters are mostly made up of members of his own Majerteen clan, and the very existence of Mumin’s group is attributed to complex local clan rivalries. The International Crisis Group estimated in November that his group counted some 200 members and warned the threat of IS could not be "dismissed as insignificant." The group called for a "genuine political initiative to address local clan grievances." |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 The group called for a "genuine political initiative to address local clan grievances." They need some friendly inter-clan sports competition |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-05-25 14:05 |