From The New York Times:NAIROBI, Kenya — Somalia’s Islamist militants, long a bane of the country’s weakening government, are now officially fighting one another.
On Sunday, a powerful, newly militarized Islamist group declared a “holy war” against other Islamist factions, and it seems to have the muscle to back up its intentions. Over the weekend, the group, the Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama, killed more than 10 fighters from the Shabab, a rival Islamist faction known as one of Somalia’s toughest.
The group issued a statement calling on its followers to “prepare themselves for jihad against these heretic groups,” referring to some of the other, more hard-line Islamist factions, and “to restore stability and harmony in Somalia and achieve a genuine government of national unity.”
Many Somalia analysts had been predicting that this would happen: that as Somalia’s transitional government headed toward collapse — it now controls just a few city blocks in a country almost as big as Texas — the Islamist insurgents of varying agendas would begin to slug it out themselves. This weekend’s violence is a strong sign that the infighting is under way.
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Update: Somalia: Local Militias Seize Town From Islamists -- All Africa.com
My Comment: They are now fighting over the spoils of war.
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