Making sense of Somalia

Another senior ICU commander, Shaikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on Washington’s wanted list, is also former leader of the Al Ittihad Al Islami. His election as the new chairman of the courts, replacing the moderate Shaikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed, may play into Washington’s fears of radicals taking control.

There are also concerns that the ICU may whip up Islamic dissent in the hitherto peaceful and stable states of Puntland and Somaliland as well as in neighbouring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. Suspicion is also building up that the ICU may re-ignite the old Somali irredentism, so inciting the sizable Somali populations in Ethiopia and Kenya to take up arms against their governments to realise the dream of greater Somalia.

Riding on popular support, however, the ICU seems to be unfazed by all these concerns. Securing its grip on the capital, it has swooped on the remaining strongholds of the warlords bringing almost all strategic towns under its control and closing up on Baidoa, the seat of the beleaguered TFG government, in an apparent attempt to pressure the TFG to accept its terms - if not to storm the town and disband the parliament altogether.

Until now, Somalians may have admired the ICU victories, thanking it for ending the reign of the warlords, but ICU forces will run into their first serious hurdle if they try to cross into Puntland or show signs of interfering with the internal affairs of Somaliland. People of these regions enjoy peace and stability under elected governments and parliaments.

Press reports about ICU curbing freedoms, banning music and not allowing people to watch the World Cup, indicates a shallow understanding of the epoch-making change it has brought and could turn leaders into religious warlords. But if the ICU hands over the power to an elected government and returns to the pulpits it may earn the clerics world admiration and could even make them serious candidates for a Nobel Peace Prize.