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U.S. Monitors SSC Militants as They Step up Assassinating Somaliland Officials

April 5, 2011   ·   2146025 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fsomalilandpress.com%2Fu-s-monitors-ssc-militants-as-they-step-up-assassinating-somaliland-officials-21460U.S.+Monitors+SSC+Militants+as+They+Step+up+Assassinating+Somaliland+Officials2011-04-05+08%3A38%3A37Hassan+Alihttp%3A%2F%2Fsomalilandpress.com%2F%3Fp%3D21460

“Currently, the NSUM [SSC] members are busy collecting money not for rebuilding schools and hospitals but for detonating explosive against Somaliland politicians, police and army officers in Sool region. Mark my word! The NSUM [SSC] has its assassinations contrived.” I wrote in May 2009.

Four months later, in October 2009, no sooner the SSC/NSUM militants vowed to attack Somaliland security forces and dislodge them from Sool province, in eastern Somaliland, “By any means necessary” (the SSC’s war slogan) than a wave bomb attacks ripped through Somaliland cities. But nothing frightened the Somaliland authority more than the SSC’s unabated Al-Shabab’s style assassinations against the officials. Although Somaliland recently crushed the SSC militants militarily, and U.S. began monitoring their activities, they stepped up their assassinations against the Somaliland officials—an unprecedented warfare, nerve-racking and horrifying, that the militants shrewdly understood the security forces were neither prepared for, nor equipped to apprehend its perpetrators.

Anyone who followed how the SSC/NSUM militants evolved could have seen the writings on the wall. Neither their connection to Somalia’s Hizbul Islam [merged with Al-Shabab] terror group, nor their desire to engulf Somaliland in clan violence was ambiguous. In November 2009, I warned, “The answer to Al-Shabab´s increased murder rate in Somaliland lies squarely within the enemies of Somaliland. That is, Gen. Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan—the butcher of Hargeisa, Somaliland capital—the violent NSUM [SSC] and the pro-Puntland group from Sool region of Somaliland.

Gen. Morgan who commanded the Somali National Army’s 26th division, stationed in the north [Somaliland] before the collapse of the Somali regime in late ‘90s, attended a meeting convened in Nairobi by the violent NSUM [SSC] and the pro-Puntland group from Sool region, in October 2009.

Little do most of people know that Gen. Morgan´s forces are already fighting in Kismanyo region of southern Somalia under the banner of Islamic group: Hizbul Islam. Now, he wants to shore up support for the new pro-Puntland group, and in return he wants a militia [SSC] from Sool region to join his violent Hizbul Islam militia in Kismanyo—a militia that will eventually wage suicide attacks against Somaliland officials.”

The same SSC militia—originally aligned itself with Gen. Morgan’s Hisbul Islam terror network, now assassinates Somaliland officials, in the name of reunifying former Somalia and under the banner of SSC. From 2009 to present, the SSC’s death squad carried out a number of bombing attacks and murdered more than a dozen Somaliland officials. Some of the SSC’s victims include the most recent killings. In March 2011, concealing their malicious murders so inconspicuously, the SSC’s masked men assassinated the civil judge, Ahmed Saleban Gele, and the head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Mohamud Mohamed Hirsi, of Sool province while severely wounding the second officer in charge of the CID and riddling an innocent bystander, unfortunate young female, who alerted the authority, with bullets. Instantly, she died. Additionally, in 2010, the SSC’s hit men ambushed Col. Mohamed Husain Roble and Col. Adan Ruush’s vehicle travelling near the WidhWidh village, butchering both officers to death. (See Col. Roble and his family’s pictures.) Also, in November 2009, the SSC, using a remote-controlled bomb, sadly, murdered the commander of Somaliland’s 12th infantry division, Col. Osman Yusuf. In Somaliland, bombing police stations and detonating remote-controlled bombs against officials are the hallmarks of the SSC militia, just as SSC is synonymous with death squad. But who finances the SSC?

In my article entitled, “How Financiers of Terrorist Attacks against Somaliland Enjoy Western Lifestyle”, I detail how the violent SSC militia receives funding from its supporters, mainly, in North America and Europe. And when the SSC militants fail to evict Somaliland army from Sool province, they still find a way to beguile millions of dollars from oblivious Diasporas, naïve and gullible, as I explain in another article: “The Clan-War Industry”.

Portraying himself as an activist who advocates for the rights of his clan, the SSC’s top warlord, Suleman Essa Ahmed (Hagal Tosiye), a Somali-American from Columbus, Ohio, claims that his militia is non-violent. But is it, really? To the contrary, not only does he wage war in Somaliland and receive military supplies from Eritrea, but he also slips back into U.S. without a hitch and raises millions of dollars, in the United States, for his Jihad war against peaceful, democratic Somaliland, unabatedly. And if Al-Shabab could recruit Somali MP’s niece, the SSC could enlist its sympathizers in the U.S. to wage war against Somaliland, under the banner of “unifying Somalia”. After all, one of the perquisites for Somali unity demands to disintegrate Somaliland into feuding clan fiefdoms, reducing it to Somalia’s current status.

After his militants, gruesomely and savagely, butchered a number of Somaliland officials to death, Mr. Ahmed, a.k.a the Abu Zubeyr of Somaliland, named after Al-Shabab’s top leader Sheikh Mukhtar (Ahmed Abdi Godane), recently came under the scrutiny of the U.S. federal authorities. According to an Associated Press (AP) article, “Ahmed said the SSC is not an armed group and is not associated with any terrorist group, including al-Shabab.” But according to this Al-Jazeera’s video, clearly the SSC is armed with bazookas, AK-47 guns, rocket propelled grenades and other weapons. Also, in another video, one could clearly see Mr. Ahmed himself inspecting his heavily armed militias.

As for the SSC’s connections to Al-Shabab, again the evidence speaks for itself. First, in this audio clip the SSC (or the NSUM: the political wing of the SSC) admitted bombing Somaliland police stations, in Las Annod, the provincial capital of Sool. Second, recently, members of Somali MPs held a press conference in Mogadishu warning against the danger of the SSC group and its close relationship with Al-Shabab. Third, another video depicting SSC’s Jihad war against Somaliland, shouting “God is great and calling for a holy war against Somaliland“, the familiar chilling voices of the typical terror groups was recently removed from YouTube. The list goes on and on. Truth is: Mr. Ahmed could claim all he wants, but the evidence against him contradicts him.

He could go free, however. But in doing so would, inadvertently, tantamount to condoning his terrorist activities in Somaliland. And above all, the United States would infuriate frustrated Somaliland officials and its peace-loving citizens alike, risking its [U.S.] security cooperation with Somaliland and jeopardizing the stability of the whole region.

Fortunately, under the United States’ immigration and naturalization law, its citizens cannot engage armed conflicts in other countries and slip back into the U.S. However, that is what precisely Mr. Ahmed does. If a U.S. born citizen joins a foreign military, his/her citizenship could be revoked; now, what would be the punishment for a naturalized American, such as Mr. Ahmed who openly leads the violent armed SSC group, evidently connected to a terrorist organization known as Al-Shabab? Even, if the U.S. vindicates him from his terrorist activities despite the overwhelming evidences against him, it cannot ignore that, in fact, he wages war in Somaliland, that he raises millions of dollars in the United States for the war, and that he refuses to abandon his violence against Somaliland. The least the U.S. that can do is: ban him to collect funding for his terror group and block him to leave the U.S. To the grieving survivors of the victims that his SSC assassinated their family members, the best the U.S. can do for them is, however, to revoke his citizenship and hand him over to Somaliland authority to stand trial for the barbaric murders, senseless and brutal, of their loved ones.

Additionally, Mr. Ahmed tells the AP that his ultimate goal is: “…to seek a functioning, unified Somalia.” And so is Al-Shabab’s top leader, Sheikh Mukhtar (Ahmed Abdi Godane), ultimate goal. But how! Through gruesome bloodshed! (Violent minds too think alike, don’ they?) Their approach to unity, committing horrific atrocities under the pretext of unifying Somalia, remains the antithesis of unity principles, paradoxical to the core, replete with self-sabotaging canards. So much for Somali unity!

In fact, the SSC and Al-Shabab share one common goal: reunifying Somalia and Somaliland—by any means necessary, at any cost. “Action is louder than words”; their action, far from empty words, speaks for itself. And just like Al-Shabab, the SSC refuses dialogue to end violence. For instance, the Somaliland President, Ahmed Mohamed Mohamud Silanyo, a vigilant and dovish leader, repeatedly, called for negotiations and cessations of violence. But to no avail.

Observing and documenting the SSC’s violent activities for years, I never doubt its terrorist credentials are, indeed, as credible as that of Al-Shabab’s. The two groups’ resemblance speaks for itself in volumes. The SSC militia, the archetypical of a terror network, burns Western countries’ flags, namely British, and permeates Jihadist videos to recruit the next generation of suicide bombers and assassinators, and so does Al-Shabab, among other nefarious clandestine operations against the republic of Somaliland. To illustrate, in this video, the SSC’s supporters incinerate the British flag while its second warlord in command, a Somali-Canadian from Toronto, Col. Ali Hassan Ahmed Sabarey, fomenting violence against Somaliland and Britain, screams at the top of his lungs, “Down with Britain; down with Somaliland”. Clearly, the evidences to prosecute Mr. Ahmed and Col. Sabarey are now in abundance.

Ironically, the SSC’s supporters recently demonstrate in front of 10 Downing Street, official residence and office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in London and the U.S. Department of State, denouncing Somaliland’s military operations in Sool to avert the SSC’s villain strategy to spur clan violence in the region.

Without any doubt, before the SSC group arrived in Somaliland, political assassinations were unknown. But today the city of Las Annod competes with Mogadishu for its gruesome campaign of terrorizing and assassinating officials.

It would be imprudent for the United States to set Mr. Ahmed (or more precisely Ahmed assassin) and his SSC henchmen in U.S. free. Through the eyes of the Somaliland officials and the Somaliland citizens, he is a dangerous man—in fact, the Abu Zubeyr of Somaliland. Evidently, Mr. Ahmed leads an armed group that openly admits bombing police stations. And above all, Somali MPs in Mogadishu, not Somaliland MPs in Hargeisa, raise a red flag about Mr. Ahmed and his militants’ growing ties with Al-Shabab. The evidence against him is overwhelming.

The International community is already fed up with Al-Shabab’s senseless violence in Somalia; hence, another terror-bent group, or one that seeks the reunification of Somalia through violence, in Somaliland would result a major setback to peace in the region. Therefore, the international community should aid Somaliland to disarm the rebels peacefully or forcefully as a list-ditch effort to avert clan wars erupting in Somaliland, creating a fertile land for terrorists, pirates, and warmongers—regressing Somaliland to late ‘80s when violence lurked in every corner of the country.

Somaliland, on its part, aught to continue addressing the disgruntled locals’ grievances and reaching them out, winning their hearts and minds. Truth is: Somaliland is at war with the vicious SSC militants, not with its people—the peaceful clans of Sool region.

By Dalmar Kaahin

dalmar_k@yahoo.com

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By Hassan Ali

Tags: Al shabab, feds, Hisbul Islam, Morgan, saleban ahmed, Somaliland, ssc, Terrorism, U.S.