Westgate: Signs of Al Shabaab on the Downswing

All photos by Will Swanson, published on Al Jazeera

Of all the things that this week’s attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi was- horrific, tragic, inhuman, revolting- one thing it wasn’t was a surprise, either in terms of location or tactics.

Security observers have been warning about the threat of a high-profile terror attack in Kenya’s capital for years. Since the disastrous US embassy bombing of 1998, travel to Nairobi has always been accompanied by a warning that Islamist militants may attempt to stage a similar event. Targets of choice for terrorist attacks are those most likely to garner widespread international attention: High-end hotels, embassies, international organizations, tourist hotspots, and places where foreigners and wealthy locals gather, like restaurants and malls.

In mid-2012 I had lunch with a Rwandan friend at Onami, a Japanese restaurant upstairs in the Westgate complex, overlooking the carpark out front. He was working for our Somalia office, and I had recently been to Somalia myself, so the threat posed by al Shabaab was something both of us thought about regularly. Leaving the shopping mall after a pleasant lunch, we discussed Westgate’s security vulnerabilities. As we drove down the ramp that is the mall’s side vehicle entrance, I pointed to the security booth by the boom-gate, manned by a couple of unarmed security guards waving mirrors under entering vehicles.

“A small team of gunmen with AKs would make short work of that,” I observed, and he nodded.

On Saturday, that’s just what they did.

Nobody with a concern for security would have failed to note the shortcomings of Westgate. A couple of dozen private security personnel, mostly armed with nothing more than nightsticks. A boom gate around the side. A massive parking-lot facing the plate-glass frontage- which a small car-bomb would turn into deadly shrapnel. A couple of guys with wands searching handbags and backpacks as you come in the doors. It stood out sharply to the Nairobi I’m more familiar with. I’ve been coming to Kenya since 2001. I still recall walking through the Sarit Centre (Westlands’ main upmarket shopping mall before Westgate was opened) and seeing four uniformed squaddies on their routine patrol, each of them brandishing what looked like PKM light machine-guns, muzzles practically dragging on the poured cement floor. Walking through an Uchumi supermarket at another centre, I remember a paramilitary policeman perousing the aisles, casually swinging an Uzi by its magazine as though it were nothing more than a baton. Well-armed security was everywhere in those days, a response to Nairobbery’s skyrocketing crime rate.

Nairobi’s improved crime situation over recent years is partly to account for the shift away from heavy-handed visible security forces- together with improvements in counter-terrorism intelligence and the quality of reaction forces. None the less, even in 2012 the low security at Westgate exemplified the term ‘soft target’, and whenever I gave security briefings to Nairobi-bound travellers, Westgate was listed among the places I mentioned as possible targets for a terrorist attack, which I described as ‘unlikely to happen during the short time you’re there, but it could still happen’.

Al Shabaab have been threatening a major terrorist attack in Nairobi ever since the Kenyans invaded southern Somalia in late 2011, ostensibly in support of the Africa Union mission to stabilize Somalia and wipe out the indigenous hardline militia that at various times controlled much of the south of the nation. Even prior to that, and in part precipitating the Kenyan invasion, al Shabaab have been feared to pose a threat to Kenyan domestic security. However all that we’ve seen since that time until now is a series of low-impact, low-profile attacks that have mostly focused on security forces in the north-east of Kenya. These have been primarily grenade and IED attacks, with some shooting incidents as well. Grenades have been thrown in Nairobi and Mombasa, targeting bars, churches and public transportation. A day or two after I had lunch with my friend at Westgate, a small IED went off in downtown Nairobi, but the impact was minimal. Although people were cautious for a few days afterwards, it had no discernible impact on the Kenyan psyche or in promoting terror. In all, a couple of dozen civilians have lost their lives over the last few years.

Analysts gave a good reason why that was the case. Nairobi is home to a massive Somali diaspora. For many years, Somalia’s government in exile was based in Nairobi. Shabaab too has supporters in Nairobi- in significant numbers. The general agreement has been that most of the terror attacks in Nairobi and Mombasa were not so much al Shabaab-initiated attacks, but rather were attacks by al Shabaab sympathisers using their own resources and initiative, which the Shabaab was happy to claim for its own propaganda purposes.

This Somali diaspora has traditionally been one of the most stable elements of support for al Shabaab. They provide funding, raised through legitimate trade and business, and returned to Somalia via remittances. The Somali diaspora worldwide supposedly provides more remittances than any other group of diaspora. Were al Shabaab to carry out a major attack on Kenyan soil, two things were likely to happen. First, the Kenyan government would crack down on the Somali population in Nairobi- arrests, surveillance, and likely vigilante violence as well. Second, the Kenyan government would increase restrictions around Somali businesses sending money back to Somalia. Making Nairobi Somalis suffer for an al Shabaab attack would decrease sympathy for the movement, and also cut one of the al Shabaab’s most lucrative funding sources.

For this reason, a state of tense stability remained within the security context. It was generally accepted that a major al Shabaab attack was possible but unlikely, because by carrying out such an attack, al Shabaab would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Unless, of course, it was a last resort and they had little to lose by trying.

Three things have happened over the last 12 months that should have put up red flags in security monitoring circles that have shifted the nature of this dynamic. The first is that with improved safety and stability in Mogadishu (everything relative), large numbers of Nairobi Somalis have been returning to Mogadishu, and re-establishing their businesses in Somalia instead. Eastleigh- the main Somali neighbourhood in Nairobi- has reportedly seen a large outmigration of both people and businesses, and the Kenyan government has actively encouraged this, as it has long seen the Somalis in Kenya as a security risk. In this way, Nairobi has decreased in importance as a support hub for al Shabaab (although it’s not altogether negated).

The second is that al Shabaab have been consistently and steadily losing operational control of territory. This started in earnest (again) in 2011. While the loss of key holdings like Kismayo, Baidoa and other urban centres is claimed as blow against al Shabaab, as a militant group their real strength lies in the support of the people themselves. However in much of Somalia, they have been gradually losing a sense of legitimacy, due in large part due to their perceived brutality. An effort to re-brand themselves as an Al Qaeda subsidiary, together with an influx of foreigners that picked up since 2009, has strengthened their hardline core, but alienated them even from their core supporter base in Mogadishu, in Bay-Bakool and other al Shabaab heartland areas (and even al Qaeda have been lukewarm in embracing what is still essentially a locally-focused and peroquial extremist militia).

The third thing that has happened- a side-effect of the second- is a leadership struggle that has pitted certain hardline elements against a number of more moderate voices. This culminated less than two weeks ago in the killing of two prominent foreign jihadis who had grown increasingly critical of the al Shabaab leadership.

Al Shabaab now finds itself in a precarious position. They have a leadership that is new and not supported by all elements of the organization. They continue to lose territory and support at home in Somalia and support from abroad. And their supporter base in Nairobi has diminished.

At this point in time, hindsight lets us observe that perhaps the security context had shifted significantly.

Whether the Nairobi attack is directly due to the establishment of new hardline leadership is currently a matter for speculation. The current leadership has been consolidating itself over several months, although the elimination of some of the dissenting voices is much more recent. The planning-cycle for a large-scale terror attack is typically measured in months, or longer if it is highly complex. Whether this attack has been in the works for many months and has been on standby waiting for the right trigger, or whether it has gone swiftly from planning to execution isn’t currently known. None the less, an event like the Westgate attack serves several purposes. It demonstrates to al Shabaab itself that the new leadership are competent and in control. It panders to the hardline cadre. Al Shabaab are in a situation now where things really can’t get much worse for them, so they have nothing left to lose- the risk is worth it. And if the Kenyans respond by cracking down on the Somali diaspora still in Nairobi, al Shabaab may win a second victory by increasing Somali resentment in the face of a new round of Kenyan brutality.

There are other indicators that suggest, contrary to some observations, this attack is a sign of al Shabaab’s weakness, not its strength. First, the tactics used. Terror attacks can take a number of forms, the most spectacular and shocking generally involving large bombs- like the ones used in the Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam Embassy Bombings. In fact the Westgate shopping mall leant itself perfectly to a bombing. Its plate-glass frontage would, in the event of a large explosion, turn into deadly shrapnel, killing and maiming in great numbers.

That al Shabaab did not use this tactic is something we should be grateful for. The fact they didn’t tells us a lot about their capacity. Bombs are hard. They take raw materials to make the bomb (which are monitored for by counter-terrorism forces), and a specialised skill-set is required for a bomb-maker. They take months to plan, prepare and prime, and they are easy to mess up. Poor techniques in mixing, assembling, priming or triggering the explosive, and months of work can be lost- and a highly skilled asset exposed. On top of that, the counter-intelligence required to maintain secrecy for such a project is significant. It takes a robust organization with resources to spare in order to carry out this sort of attack outside an area under its operational control. Al Shabaab did not avoid this tactic because they wanted to avoid spectacle or had no stomach for the loss of life. They avoided it because they did not have the capacity.

Instead they went with a couple of groups of gunmen with grenades and automatic rifles. Both weapon sets are quickly, cheaply and easily obtained in Kenya, with its large proliferation of small-arms and highly militarized and easily-permeated northern borders. As for the personnel, it’s not yet clear whether they were smuggled in from Somalia or home-grown Nairobi Somalis mobilized for the job. The former is the more likely suggestion, because all indications suggest they were at least somewhat trained and battle-hardened, under al Shabaab operation control while in the mall, and because mobilizing inexperienced Nairobi Somalis would be a riskier proposition in terms of mission compromise and in terms of being able to execute the mission. Regardless, moving a dozen personnel from Somalia to Kenya, while carrying an element of risk and cost, is not a major operational difficulty.

In short, the tactics used are highly effective to purpose, but the cheap option. Indicators that al Shabaab have limited resources and capacity.

A second hallmark of terror attacks today is the use of multi-tiered attacks. The combination of a bomb-blast and then a secondary device to target evacuees or rescuers; of a bomb-blast followed by a team of gunmen who use the chaos to enter and cause more harm; or of simultaneous attacks.

The Westgate attack was an extremely simple affair. Two teams of fighters with weapons and grenades, dropped off by cars, entering a very poorly guarded target. There was no complexity. There was little tactical challenge. There was no primary device. A friend who was in the Sarit Centre, about a kilometre away, when the attack began, said he heard the grenades and then automatic fire begin in the distance, and immediately went to cover with his companions, knowing that a standard protocol is for two targets to be hit simultaneously. The Sarit Centre, still an expatriate hub, would have been an easy second target for a second team, and would have increased the chaos and fear quotient significantly, splitting Kenya’s response units and strangling a major economic hub of the city for days. Any Shabaab mission planner would have known this. Again the fact that Shabaab did not do this indicates their capacity to carry out foreign attacks is extremely limited.

Far from spreading fear that al Shabaab is on the ascendency, the Westgate attack should be seen as a last-ditch attempt by an ailing group to bolster its own internal networks, and hope to trigger a negative backlash against Somalis in Kenya who might then become renewed Shabaab sympathisers. It’s a desperate move, one that suggests they have very limited resources, and hopefully one that’s unlikely to be repeated in a hurry- if not for a lack of will then for a lack of resources and opportunity.

Two caveats. A negative backlash against Somalis in Kenya would almost certainly play into Shabaab’s hand and strengthen their position. Somali communities in Kenya have already spoken out against the attack and indicated solidarity with Nairobi citizens in condemning al Shabaab’s tactics. Kenya’s authorities should now move to ensure that Somalis are protected from a vigilante backlash, and do not themselves take their anger out on Kenya’s Somali population in frustration.

The second is that just because al Shabaab’s capacity to attack overseas is weak, it does not mean that Somalia’s Islamist militancy is about to be overthrown. Whether al Shabaab as an organization continues to exist in a meaningful tactical sense over the next two to three years remains to be seen. However the militant and extremist interpretation of Islam that al Shabaab embraces is reflective of a large portion of rural south-central Somalia, and has been a part of the security landscape in Somalia since the mid-90s in one form or another. Al Shabaab is a home-grown militant network that is simply the latest embodiment of an attitude that is found deep in the population. As long as south-central Somalis feel disempowered by clan politics, an illegitimate central government, or foreign occupying forces, there will be extremists who will use IEDs, suicide attacks and ambushes against both military and civilian targets to get their point across, and there will be outside elements who will further take advantage of this disenfranchisement for their own purposes. Instability in south central Somalia is, unfortunately, here for the long-haul.

Somalia: Famine, Access and al Shabbab

Somalia is understood to consist of three states of varying autonomy. ‘Somalia’, with its seat in Mogadishu, is frequently refered to as ‘South Central Somalia’, and while it alone has international recognition as a nation-state, the political forces that control the state by name in fact cling to a handful of Mogadishu suburbs, and not much else. Puntland, occupying the corner, or horn, of Somalia, is aligned with the Mogadishu government but has its own para-state structures and functions largely independantly. Somaliland, which makes up most of northern Somalia, is a semi-autonomous state that has recently celebrated its 20th anniversary since breaking away from Mogadishu, and continues to strive for international recognition.

For the last five years, al Shabbab has been growing into the most powerful insurgency group in south-central Somalia. A militant group which aligns itself with al Qaeda, al Shabbab is in effect in ‘control’ of the majority of territory in South-Central. There’s no simple way to explain the power dynamics within this portion (or any other) of Somalia. Its base is a nexus of clan affiliations and alliances of varying reliability and strength, and a combination of ideology, brutality, and ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Its main opponent is the Transitional Federal Government (TFG)- ostensibly backed by western governments who are increasingly wary of the TFG’s corruption and incompetence, and supported by an Africa Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) staffed largely by longsuffering Ugandans. However there are plenty of groups opposing al Shabbab from within Somalia as well, including various clan-based rivalries.

Since 2006, when al Shabbab began to rise to the fore with the splintering of the Islamic Courts Union, it has waged war not just against the TFG, but also against targets it deems representative of western influence- much in line with other militant groups such as the Taliban, and various branches of the al Qaeda network (yes, I see the redundancy there). This has included aid agencies. Between 2008 and 2009 as many as 42 aid workers were killed by al Shabbab, and by late 2010, virtually no western aid agencies (including UN agencies) had any significant presence in south-central.

While al Shabbab does exert a level of civil control with para-state structures and local governance institutions, its reach is fragile and its support services largely ineffective, with its focus on warfighting and territorial control. The impact for the Somali citizenry in al Shabbab-control territories has been a dearth of basic services- education, health, infrastructure development- and it is not coincidental that the areas which the UN last week declared a “famine” (a technical term relating to surpassing a specific threshold of mortality and malnutrition in a given population)- Bakool and Lower Shabelle- are under al Shabbab control.

In a radio interview on the 5th of July, an al Shabbab spokesperson indicated that al Shabbab was commencing drought response activities, and that it would allow support from anybody, muslim or non-muslim, who only had a humanitarian agenda.

This implied a shift in position for al Shabbab, which had banned aid agencies from its territory since 2009. The implication of the message was that western aid agencies were welcome to begin operating in its territory again, and would presumably be safe to do so. The UN has already commenced drought response operations, and many other agencies are now considering their options.

But why aren’t aid agencies pouring into Somalia as we speak? If al Shabbab have said that it’s okay, what’s the delay? Surely the need of the Somali people on the ground is so urgent that it’s now time to rush in with all our resources and do whatever we can?

Well, in some ways, yes, it is. In others, not so simple. Here are some of the issues to consider that I understand many international organizations are currently wrestling with.

Security

An invitation from al Shabbab central command may sound like a good enough reason to think aid workers would be safe re-entering south-central, but in fact it isn’t. Like many insurgency groups, al Shabbab is as much a network of affiliated warlords as it is a hierarchical paramilitary organization. Fighters on the ground- the ones with guns, grenades and IEDs- will align themselves first with their local commander, and only after that with al Shabbab central. Then there’s the assumption that the message is even getting down to those field grunts and their captains. Or the notion that some 16-year-old with an AKM, who’s never been to school but has spent the last ten years being told that westerners are pillaging his country and deserve to die, will pay any attention to some recent order from someone he’s never heard, when he sees an NGO Land Cruiser drive past.

South-central is heavily mined, and with shifting fronts and ongoing combat operations, new explosive devices are still being laid. Al Shabbab and AMISOM fight almost daily battles in and around Mogadishu and other locations, while rival clans with varying allegiances also struggle with al Shabbab fighters on multiple fronts around the region. Lawlessness and the gargantuan proliferation of small arms would make south-central an insecure prospect even without an ongoing civil war. Last I checked, the pirates who operate along Somalia’s coastline weren’t taking instructions from al Shabbab Central (admittedly they are mostly gathered further north now, in Puntland, but seriously, can anybody say “Open Season”?). Aid agencies who have had to pull out of existing programs (at al Shabbab’s instruction) may have left behind resentful community members or former staff in a culture where disagreements are often settled with firearms.

Finally, the statement- which was vague at best- comes at a time when al Shabbab continue to face uncertainty. Their territorial hold is weakening and they are increasingly being targeted by western intelligence, including drone strikes. The recent killing of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu robbed them of a senior commander, in an organization that is rife with internal power-struggles. The authority behind the statement may be in question, and if, in the midst of a power struggle, different voices take control of the leadership, what will this mean for aid agencies who have returned to the field?

In short- the statement from al Shabbab does not guarantee that aid workers are going to be safe from indocrinated and hard-core al Shabbab fighters and commanders at the field level, never mind the host of other security risks that are on offer.

Logistics

Logistics is a bit of a no-brainer. Somalia’s a remote, hostile environment where 20 years of civil war has been systematically destroying any real effort at building a local infrastructure. A network of airfields and roads (mostly unsurfaced) exists, but there are challenges which need to be overcome. Sourcing goods and supplies is hard when everything has to be flown in from outside (and recall that piracy makes shipping difficult), and agencies will have to staff their operations, many from scratch. This slows down any response, even if agencies are willing to step in.

For more discussion in a different context on some of the factors relating to why aid gets bogged down (some of which apply here), see this post on aid arriving in Haiti from last year.

Politics

Al Shabbab isn’t very popular. The TFG doesn’t like it. AMISOM is fighting a war with it. The CIA keeps bombing it. Most thinking people with a moderate worldview villify it. And now, with a famine in their back yard, most local Somalis are pretty unhappy with the way they run things too.

Tens of thousands are on the move. Thousands of kids are dying. Al Shabbab is losing support. And the outflux of population robs it of a source of new fighters for its cause. Not to mention a resource base on which its fighters draw to survive themselves.

Letting aid workers in solves many problems for al Shabbab. It demonstrates to its own people that it’s taking steps to solve the problem. It helps slow the outflux of refugees. It brings in resources that bolster the population- which may be appropriated by fighters at times, or the effects may be indirect, such as more money in the economy that supports fighters’ families which in turn supports them. And, if aid agencies don’t do the right thing by al Shabbab, it gives them fresh ammunition in the polarizing of its people against the west.

Finally, al Shabbab is being targeted by US drones. The presence of aid workers acts as a human shield. Suddenly, pickups and four-by-fours with aerials racing through al Shabbab territory may not certify a senior commander in his wagon, but perhaps a bunch of USAID consultants on their way to a project site. Ooops.

Resources

An aid operation requires resources- money, vehicles, property, supplies. These come from donors. Unfortunately, most western aid donors have very strong restrictions around dealing with terror-aligned organizations (of which al Shabbab is widely recognized as one). However operating in al Shabbab territory, it is impossible not to engage with al Shabbab, almost impossible to guarantee you haven’t inadvertantly hired an al Shabbab operative, and difficult to ascertain that some of your support doesn’t trickle down into al Shabbab’s hands. With no exemptions from western governments for aid agencies operating in these highly complex circumstances, agencies put themselves at risk of losing donor support, or at worst, criminal prosecution at the hands of donor governments, by operating in these areas.

Many aid agencies operated in south-central Somalia and were ejected by al Shabbab. Some of these did so quickly, at a metaphorical (and sometimes not-so-metaphorical) gunpoint, and in doing so, left behind not just staff and community trust, but also physical assets- cars, computers, generators, compounds. This resulted in a large financial loss to the organizations- resources that had been hard to come by in the first place, given low donor interest in Somalia. Should aid agencies begin operating again in al Shabbab territory without expecting some form of recompense for the loss of their assets? Or do they just ignore the loss of those assets, and let al Shabbab have their way, in the name of helping people? While in principle it may be easy to say that helping people is more important than getting your pound of flesh back, the reality is that agencies have been ill-able to afford the loss in the past, and now investing further in new assets and compounds to replace those lost in evacuation is coming at a cost of resources that might have gone into communities instead.

And what’s to stop al Shabbab doing it all again six months from now and seizing all those shiny new Land Cruisers? And what will donor governments say when they see their logos on the side of technicals being used to ambush AMISOM troops?

The Humanitarian Imperative

All this is very well, but of course, people- and particularly, children- are dying. And these are people who may not support al Shabbab, and certainly didn’t vote for them. Is it fair to let our organizational retisence, our principles of non-politicization, or even some fear that one or two staff members might run over a stray landmine, stop us from rushing in to Somalia to help those who need our help most?

I’m not going to give an answer. The concerns are real. The potential harm from entering this context exists- albeit, at the moment, in some analytical future. The potential harm from not entering the context also exists- and it’s real, and in our faces. But for many years now, the aid community has had to contend not just with growing security risks, but also a growing appreciation for the complexity of their operating environment and the very real need to Do No Harm. Agencies taking a bit of time to assess as best they can the potential risks should be leant some grace, just as those who rush in to begin operations without thought for potential ramifications need to ensure they’ve done their due diligence.

I hope- I sincerely hope- that as many agencies as possible and as much assistance as possible will pour into south-central Somalia. As long as the factors remain as they are, though, this will be an exceptionally challenging operation, with high risk of negative ramifications for even the most thoughtful or well-meaning response agency.

Aid, Insurgents and Institutional Donors

The ‘N’ stands for ‘Non’.

The question whether or not NGOs can ever be truly independent if they accept funds from government departments is not a new one, and different orgnizations deal with it differently. Some agencies will take whatever funds come their way, and even let themselves be railroaded into sectors, regions, and government-nominated outcomes. Others refuse to touch any government funds at all and rely purely on private donations, precisely to avoid this quandry.

Article four of the Red Cross Code of Conduct (to which most major NGOs are signatory) states that NGOs will endevour not to be used as agents of government foreign policy.

Article three states that we are neutral, and article two states we’re impartial.

Article one states that we hold the Humanitarian Imperative- that is, the need to save lives and relieve human suffering- as our primary motivator for action.

But the moment that we start letting governments tell us how to do our job, we find ourselves in contravention of article four. And by inference, articles three and two. And ultimately, the humanitarian imperative can become sidelined.

This doesn’t always happen. Some government agencies do try and take their lead from UN and NGO statements on where the greatest needs are and what sectors require the most attention. This is a step in the direction of good donorship. Unfortunately it’s not universal.

I’ve recently been learning practically about another challenge when dealing with government agencies, and that has to do with the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

(I give this phenomenon its title and acronym to suggest that it is an entity unto itself, and a social/political construct, as opposed to a universally accepted paradigm. GWOT is a name given to a specific campaign being waged by a conglomerate of western-based political entities and it needs to be recognized as such).

Under the current GWOT paradigm, and courtesy of the Bush Administration’s clever little ‘illegal combatants’ tag, certain groups and organizations have been PNG’d. They’re called ‘terrorists’, and, according to our governments, they’re evil.

If I sound flippant, I’m not really meaning to be. I’m not about to sit here and say that I condone suicide bombings (although by the same token I’m also not about to sit here and say that I condone aerial drone strikes on Pakistani villages either). I fundamentally disagree with the means used by many of these groups to communicate their message or affect the political change they’re chasing. But I also want to point out that the demonization of Islamo-fascist insurgent groups such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Al-Shabbab, TeT, JI and others- not to mention political insurgent groups such as the largely-defunct (for now) LTTE- occurs at the behest of government spokespeople and the media machine behind them, with society jumping on board without always engaging careful critical analysis.

A few years back I remember seeing a spreadsheet passed across my desk. It was a list of about 950 organizations deemed by the US State Department to be linked in some way to terrorism. They included banks, community groups, charities and support services, as well as the organizations themselves. NGOs wanting to receive money from the US Government had to be sure that they weren’t in any way connected to, working with or providing funds through any of these organizations.

What the polarizing press fails to recognize is that these ‘terror’ groups, while offensive to Western viewers, are insurgency groups party to an armed conflict. Their methods and ideology may differ slightly, but as entities they share a similar space to resistance movements and rebellions the world over and throughout history. Biafra seperatists, Congolese rebel groups, Oliver Cromwell’s roundhats, the French Resistance, Sudan’s SPLM/A, and hundreds more. At one time or another, they’ve all been demonized by the powers they’ve fought, and most, if not all, have used violence in ways that we find ethically questionable. Some- like fighters in the French Resistance who used terror tactics such as kidnappings, assassinations and bombings against both occupying Germans and their capitulating French countryfolk- have been excused by the writers of contemporary history. Others remain damned.

I’m not interested in glorifying the methods used by Al-Qaeda in Iraq or suggesting they are some noble underdog fighting for the welfare of an oppressed mass. My shallow understanding of the Qaeda network leads me to believe they’re a fairly small bunch of violent thugs who’ve managed to garner a bit of a following in a world of globalized media and communications which has gone viral. I trust readers will forgive me when I observe, in context, that the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 2001 was the greatest media stunt pulled in history.

The current western paradigm from which the majority of international aid agencies are drawn has condemned these groups and created a new category for them within the confines of their own national narratives- US, UK, Australia and others. In the broader narrative of International Humanitarian Law, however- which is the one in which aid agencies operate, and from which the Code of Conduct, among other guiding principles, is drawn from- there is no such thing as an ‘illegal combatant’. They are parties to a conflict. And under IHL, and in the pragmatic realities of day-to-day operation in a hostile environment like Afghanistan or Somalia, NGOs are necessarily going to interact with these groups.

I’ve been witnessing events this past week or two in a few different contexts of this sort. In Pakistan, the ramping up of media attention on the floods has necessarily prompted concern that NGOs might get asked questions around the proliferation of ‘terror’ groups in the conflict-ridden north of the country, and how they ensure that donor funds don’t make it into the hands of ‘terrorists’.

Then in Afghanistan, there’s been a flurry of concern around the tragic killing of 10 IAM workers in that country’s north, ostensibly by the Taliban and ostensibly because they were carrying Bibles and were carrying out religious coercion (an unlikely motive for the killings, as my understanding, reading about the attack, is that they were killed well before any search of their posessions had taken place; the religious angle was simply a convenient narrative to justify to a wider audience what was otherwise a cruel and brutal assault by thugs). It’s important to note, however- and this was a cause for some brow-furrowing by IAM leadership and others- that in fact IAM staff crossed paths routinely with Taliban fighters and would treat their wounded who had eye injuries. This informal standing agreement had led to a tacit understanding that IAM staff would be free to move in and out of these areas unharmed (where they’d been working for more than 40 years) and had been a beautiful example of how articles 2 to 4 of the Code of Conduct can really help NGOs carry out their mission to help.

In Somalia, there’s been discussions going on around NGO operations in south-central Somalia. The area is controlled by the Al-Shabbab group, also considered a terrorist organization (although it has far more sway in southern Somalia- and arguably even legitimacy- than the transitional national government clinging like a limpet to a small patch of besieged ground in Mogadishu). Like the TeT in northern Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan, Al-Shabbab insurgents are based in and drawn from the communities which they have control and influence over. Their administrators have a presence in villages and towns, and their permission- written or implied- is required to provide aid and assistance.

(This is where International Law falls short and has failed to adapt to a changing environment, of course. In a discussion I don’t have time for here, International Law is constructed around the notion that there is a clear line between combatants and non-combatants. Recent decades have seen that paradigm collapse. As is now well documented through recent conflicts such as Afghanistan (but which has been a reality of warfare for as long as there have been insurgencies), fighter A is also farmer N, and all he needs to do is lock his Kalashnikov in the hatch under the grain barn, pick up his hoe, and he’s gone from combatant to civilian and altered his legal status under International Law.)

It’s a complication that is pertinent but also peripheral to the discussion here.

Where I’m going with this (in a traditionally roundabout way) is to observe that in order to carry out their mission (Article 1- Humanitarian Imperative) aid agencies need to interact with insurgent groups. We simply can’t afford to do what governments do and write them off as illegal, or untouchable, or assign a political value to them. Whatever our personal view of insurgencies (just as with national governments) we can only do our job by at least attempting neutrality and impartiality (recognizing that we can never be perfectly one or the other, even if we have the will).

Aid agencies must not be forced to adhere to government policies around who they can and cannot interact with. It really is that simple. Sure, steps need to be taken to ensure that funding is not being misused- be that by insurgent groups or any other form of corruption which agencies have to deal with on a daily basis.

If that means that governments feel that for reasons of foreign policy (or ‘national security’) they feel they themselves want to ignore the humantiarian imperative and not give to aid agencies who wish to remain neutral and impartial, then so be it. I can’t fault them for that.

But I do object to government agencies putting pressure on NGOs to represent their policies and ideologies at the field level. And I equally call on NGOs to take a stand against such manipulation, and stop being such slaves to the dollar (a naive cry perhaps- but I know there is a fair groundswell of push in that direction at certain levels).

Aid agencies need the freedom to be able to interact with insurgent groups embedded in the communities in which we serve without fearing repurcussions- fiscal or legal- from the donors who make noise about wanting to help the less fortunate. This is a far more insiduous form of tied aid, but it’s there none the less. Recognize it for what it is, embrace it, or step away from it altogether. But let’s all of us stop playing games here.

For more discussion on the construct of terrorism and the threats inherent within, see my earlier post, ‘The Threat of Terrorism’

The Threat of ‘Terrorism’

I think it would be fair to say it’s extremely difficult to turn on a major international news network without being bombarded with messages about terrorism. If it’s not news about a suicide bombing in Fallujah or Kandahar, then it’s an embassy being placed on high alert in Jakarta, a Special Operations raid in Bradford, or some new airport screening measure designed to keep us safe. It seems that everywhere we set our foot (especially those of us whose feet set us in some of the world’s more colourful locales), we’re facing imminent annihilation at the twitchy trigger-finger of some suicidal anarcho-islamo-socio-fascist with enough RDX to level a city block in his (and increasingly, her) back pocket.

I don’t really want to talk much more about that.  What I want to talk about is the threat posed by the notion of terrorism, and specifically, its misapplication.  Click here to read more…