Connections of War
It really is disheartening. One country after another, poverty-stricken to begin with, further ravished by war. What is it among we humans that we cannot leave one another alone to live our lives as best we can? Why must we forever inveigle ourselves into the business of others and instigate violence? Why must our belief in the divine cause us to interfere with the divine beliefs of others?Another poor country whose population has been wasted by years of war and invasion: Somalia. And here's Canada's connection. Canada, it would appear has one of the largest expatriate communities of Somalians within its broad borders. Somali-Canadians, that is Somalis who had emigrated to Canada and become Canadian citizens, have returned to be representated in the new interim government in Somalia.
That's on one side. Other Somali-Canadians were exhorted to return to Somalia to be recruited into the now-ousted Islamic Courts militias and were subsequently killed in battles near Baydoa with the Ethiopian invasion two weeks earlier. Others were killed in the south, where the U.S. just last week carried out air strikes in Somalia.
When the Islamic Courts captured Mogadishu last June its leadership portrayed itself as being engaged in a just and holy war. It was supported by al-Qaeda's Ayman Al-Zawahri. The Islamists received munitions and armaments and were trained and funded by Arab staes such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya and Eritrea. Other supporters of the Islamic Courts militia come from Pakistan, Yemen and Kenya as well. They respond to the brotherhood of Islamic jihad.
Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali-Canadian serving as personal secretary to Deputy Prime Minister Aideed, claims a Toronto mosque had recruited young Somalis to join the Islamic Courts. The mosque is affiliated with an al-Qaeda-linked Somali terrorist group headed by the leader of the Islamic Courts shura council, he further claimed.
Mr. Mohamed said he contacted the Canadian High Commission in Kenya to warn consular officials that Somali-Canadians were being groomed for overseas terrorist missions, along with recruitment for the Islamist shabab militia. "There are a lot of Somali Westerners, from Canada, the U.S., a lot of young Canadians are here that are being brainwashed to fight. Mostly they are in the shabab, the young Canadians."
What is additionally worrying for Canadians right here at home, far from Somalia, is that among the 18 men apprehended in Toronto last June for allegedly belonging to a homegrown terrorist group plotting bomb and shooting attacks in Canada were two Somali-Canadian youths.
An uneasy, nasty connection.
Labels: Particularities/Peculiarities
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 17, 2007
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