Qaeda rallying cry for a militant uprising in Somalia will fall on deaf ears: Its violent brand of militancy repels ordinary people and real hope now exists that the country's new leader can end 18 years of chaos. Osama Bin Laden's appeal on Thursday for Somalis to topple President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is an attempt to boost spirits among increasingly unpopular Al-Qaeda-aligned fighters, rather than a realistic political action plan, analysts said. While Bin Laden's local allies pose a real military menace, most Somalis appear to place more faith in the 42-year-old former teacher and his record of building community stability than they do in Al-Qaeda's message of war, experts say. “There is no possibility of that revolt happening. This is primarily designed to boost the morale of Shabaab,” said Rashid Abdi, a Somali expert at the International Crisis Group. “The statement shows Al-Qaeda is ambitious in Somalia, but politically, Sharif Ahmed has the bulk of the country with him.” Al-Shabaab is a powerful Al-Qaeda-aligned group of militant fighters who control large swathes of territory and, together with like-minded groups, are waging an insurgency against the fledgling administration and its foreign backers. But set against this military threat is a profound sense among ordinary Somalis that Ahmed, a moderate Islamist elected at UN-hosted talks in Djibouti in January, represents the country's best chance in years of a new future. Analysts say Ahmed has a real possibility of healing some of the worst rifts in the 10 million population given his religious roots and a feeling in the West that he should now be given a chance to try to stabilize the Horn of Africa nation. Abdi Samatar, a Somalia scholar and professor of geography and global studies at the University of Minnesota, said: “Bin Laden can pontificate all he wants, but that will not change this unfavorable political landscape for Al-Shabaab.” Dangers abound “The will of the people is to say ‘No' to war, and that is a major obstacle to Bin Laden.” Al-Shabaab's main foe until the end of January was an Ethiopian occupation force sent into the country with tacit US approval in 2006 to crush supposed Al-Qaeda activity. Ethiopia's presence provided the fighters with a nationalist raison d'etre that many Somalis understood. But the completion of the Ethiopian pullout kicked away an important political prop and Shabaab appears to be struggling to remain a cohesive force in its absence, analysts said. Big dangers do abound for Ahmed, not least the risk of assassination by al Shabaab, which continues to receive funding from foreign sources and guards its secrets well -- not easy in a garrulous society with a highly developed bush telegraph. As yet, Ahmed has little in the way of military muscle: Government troops and some 3,500 African peacekeepers control just a few districts of Mogadishu. Also, the new leader faces big challenges: Ending violence and piracy, building ties to the new U.S. administration, rebuilding roads and ports and keeping at bay predatory warlords and businessmen with an interest in minimizing state power. But broad changes to the political landscape in the past six months means improved prospects for tackling those tasks and ending the clan-fuelled anarchy of the past 18 years. The current emphasis in Washington for the moment is on a diplomatic, nation-building approach to counter-terrorism and rebuilding failed states like Somalia. “The new administration in Washington is not inclined to go the military route in Somalia,” said David Shinn, a Horn of Africa analyst at George Washington University. Somalia expert John Prendergast, co-chairman of the U.S.-based advocacy group the Enough Project, said the West's best policy options were diplomatic rather than military. “The best thing the West could do would be to patiently support this unity government's attempts to win over the various constituencies in the country and to slowly and steady extend of state control,” he said.
