Their latest strategy to seek strength from women and elderly men too old to even walk is both baffling and totally anti-Muslim and against Somali traditions. But as is clearly evident in their barbaric acts, this bunch of criminals killing innocent people in the name of the Lord will stop at nothing to implement their evil agenda.

By Mariam Yarisow

 

Mogadishu, April 28 — Something interesting has been happening in Somalia where Al-Shabaab has been getting a thorough beating from across the country by government forces in the past few weeks and months resulting in the militant group loosing ground and so many young fighters forcing them to seek for strength from women and elderly men.

 

Al-Shabaab has lost Dobley, Bula Hawa, Luuq and so many other strategic towns in south-central Somalia. In the capital Mogadishu the group only controls two districts from the 16 districts in the seaside Somali city.

 

Their latest strategy to seek for strength from women and elderly men too old to even walk is both baffling and totally anti-Muslim and against Somali traditions. But as is clearly evident in their barbaric acts, this bunch of criminals killing innocent people in the name of the Lord will stop at nothing to implement their evil agenda.

 

In Mogadishu, the epicenter of the unholy war waged by Al-Shabaab against Somali government forces and the poorly funded African Union peacekeepers the group is reportedly banking on the experience of a bunch of elderly men believed to be in their 60s and 70s some of who are former Somali army officers.

 

Sheikh Mukhtar Robow aka Abuu Mansur Robow, a senior Al-Shabaab commander is on record urging the “the old former soldiers” to join their rank and fight the enemy who have invaded their country.

 

Al-Shabaab has used women before, but in a totally different manner all together. Women informers are a common feature in Somalia while scenes of women sympathetic to the group demonstrating in various streets of Mogadishu controlled by Al-Shabaab as well as many other similar demos in Kismayu are common in the Horn of African country.

 

It is important to note that most of these women used by Al-Shabaab are their spouces or widowers who have fallen for the wrong doctrine preached by the group. As much as our sisters are wrong we can only blame those commanders who brainwash them to commit such inhuman acts of killing their own sisters, mothers and brothers.

 

According to credible sources, the group is believed to be planning to unleash women suicide bombers mainly because their areas of control in Mogadishu is diminishing every other day following the ongoing successful government offensive with the help of AMISOM peacekeepers.

 

The government expansion has denied their male suicide bombers the free will to roam and look for their target. This is probably why they are planning to use suicide bombers simply because it’s common to see a veiled Somali woman even in government controlled areas.

 

And as if that is not enough. In the Bondere frontlines in Mogadishu security sources have confirmed corpses of Al-Shabab women fighters killed in combat.  This is a worrying trend for Somali women who together with children have suffered most from the 20 year conflict in our country.

As a Somali woman who lives in an IDP camp in the outskirts of Mogadishu, the latest news only affirms my worries about these gangsters called Al-Shabaab. They have wiped out our underage boys and are now planning to eradicate our mothers and fathers.

 

Surely, when will Al-Shabaab stop sacrificing our people in a useless war that has nothing to do with religion?

 

Now that they have turned to women and elderly men for strength, this only reiterates their weak status. They are loosing the battle and their heinous rein is slowly fading away and it’s just a matter of time before they are extinct.

 

I was reading online about a Kenyan young man called Abdullahi trained in Somalia by Al-Shabaab who has dispatched back to Kenya to go and wreck havoc there. This brazen audacity by the militants simply proves that there are no longer a Somali menace and hence the need for regional and international efforts to eradicate them from the face of the earth.

 

The latest development reaffirms the need to support the weak Somali government who are fighting Al-Shabaab in order to stop the group from exporting terror.

 

It’s high time for Somali women to realize that Al-Shabaab does not mean well for Somalia and the world and should therefore desist from being wasted by this mad gang that thrives in killing innocent civilians.