Somali Islamist Group Gives Government Five Days to Surrender

I found this interesting article on Bloomsberg.com this morning.

Somalia’s al-Shabaab (the youth) terrorist organization, thought to have ties to al-Qaeda, is calling for the Government of Somalia to lay down their arms within the next five days and make way for the group to set up a Caliphate.  The group says that if the Government refuses, they will face trial in the Shariah courts.  Somali President (Since January) Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has called for peace talks amongst the various Islamist groups in the country.

“I call on the apostate government soldiers who are in the frontline of battle to surrender to the Islamists and to hand over all their weapons,” Sheikh Muktar Abu-Subeyr, the highest ranking officer of al-Shabaab, said in an audio recording distributed to reporters in the capital, Mogadishu, yesterday.

Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siyad Indha’ade, Somalia’s minister of state for ministry of defense, verified the authenticity of the recording and rejected the call for surrender.

“I call on the Somali people to become ready to establish an Islamic government,” Subeyr said. “It is based on justice and Islamic brotherhood. It doesn’t need any foreign aid and it will benefit from the land of our resources.”

I don’t think that al-Shabaab is influential enough to actually make an entire Government surrender, but definitely watch the country the next couple of days as this progresses.  Most likely, the Government will call the bluf and al-Shabaab will increase violence over the weekend.

This is just another of the many problems facing the country of Somalia right now.  You’ll remember my post about Modern Day Piracy, based in Somalia, that, on top of 18 years of civil war really make Somalia difficult to deal with.  Odds are, violence will only increase in Somalia and not much positive can be drawn from the developements there.