Look, years ago, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) destroyed the warlords who ran Somalia’s capital. These warlords, to give some context, would drag teenaged girls, by which I mean 14 years old, out of their parents shanty, take them away, and gang rape them.
The ICU were Islamic, to be sure, but they weren’t particularly radical as such folks go, and they brought law and order. They were willing to make nice without the outside world, wanted to be the government and were willing to negotiate. Sure, they would have imposed some variation of Sharia, but it would have been an improvement on the Warlords. A massive improvement.
The West wouldn’t have it, it got African neighbors to invade (and don’t pretend it would have happened if the US, in particular, hadn’t wanted it to). The ICU splintered, and as often happens, the people who replaced them were far nastier, were straight up Islamists.
And so you get this chilling statement:
An Al Shabaab spokesman as far back as in October 2011 had threatened Kenya with retaliation if it did not get its soldiers off Somali soil.
Ali Mohamud Rage said: ‘‘We, the Mujahideen, say to the Kenyan government: have you thought of the repercussions of the war against us? We are far more experienced in combat than you.’‘
Which is chilling because it is true.
As for driving them out of the cities, so what? The Taliban was driven out of the cities too. Rural based insurgencies don’t need the cities, they are not particularly important. They’re easy for conventional militaries to hold, bit they also don’t matter much.