A Stratagem of War: The Redeployment of Some Al-Shabaab Mujahideen from Mogadishu

In the name of Allah, the Most Kind, the Most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. And peace and prayers be upon the Imam of the Mujahideen, Prophet Muhammad, and his family, and his Companions in their entirety, and upon all those who follow him until the Day of Judgement. To proceed: Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the cause of Tyrants: So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan [Surah An-Nisa: 76] The strategic withdrawal of Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen is perhaps the single most misunderstood single event in this long war between those who fight in the cause of Allah and those who fight in the cause of Taghut. It has been seen as a huge setback for the Mujahideen by all of the friends of Satan, as well as by a small number of the friends of Ar-Rahman. The Mujahideen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Islamic Maghreb have all made similar strategic decisions to withdraw from certain areas at certain times, yet in no other instance has this decision been greeted with such confusion and uncertainty. The purpose of this article is to illustrate some of the strategic advantages of a partial withdrawal from Mogadishu. First and foremost this confusion results mainly from the fact that the Mujahideen in Somalia were in a unique position, in that they controlled the capital city of the land in which they waged Jihad. This is something we have not seen anywhere else since the start of this new Crusade in 2001. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Islamic State of Iraq, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are the other principal participants in what has truly become a global battle between the forces of Haqq and

Baatil. Do any of these groups control the capital city of the main country in which they are waging Jihad in the path of Allah? No! Yet do they continue to grow stronger with the help of Allah (SWT) with every passing day? Absolutely! By capturing Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, the Mujahideen inadvertently caused some of their Muslim brothers to think that the Jihad in Somalia was virtually over. That the Crusaders in Washington would accept Shariah being established throughout Somalia, would allow peace and prosperity to flourish in the lands. What a calamity that would be for their Crusade against Islam! They have been preaching that Islam brings nothing but chaos and corruption to any land that accepts it - how could they possibly tolerate Mujahideen extinguishing the chaos and corruption that had engulfed Mogadishu for the past two decades?? So only a simple-minded person could believe that the Zionist-Crusaders would allow an Islamic Emirate to flourish in the Horn of Africa. So the Mujahideen could not be allowed to control Mogadishu and hence the Ethiopian rabble were sent to Mogadishu by their American masters in December 2006. Since that time the Crusaders have sought to convince the people, inside Somalia and outside, that the one who controls Mogadishu, controls Somalia. The Rejectionists control Baghdad, the Crusaders control Kabul and the Apostates control Islamabad - does that mean that they control the entire country?? Of course not, the Mujahideen are vastly more powerful and popular than the security forces in vast areas of all of the nations. So why is it that the Mujahideen in all of these other arenas of Jihad do not control the capital city? Are they incapable of doing so? With the assistance of Allah (SWT) the Mujahideen are capable of anything! So if they are capable of capturing these cities but have not done so, we can only conclude the senior leadership of the Mujahideen has judged that capturing these areas would not be in the best interests of the Mujahideen. Certainly it would give them a temporary boost, but in the long term (and this is going to be a very long war!) the cost of holding the territory would far outweigh the benefits it would bring.

The cost of holding onto captured territory - particularly in a densely populated area like Mogadishu - is very high, both in terms of manpower and the financial resources required to keep a large standing-army fully equipped at all times. In Jihad, it is imperative that the Mujahideen can pick and choose where and when to attack the Kuffar. The Mujahideen should be able to wait until the Disbelievers have fallen asleep for example, and then fire a single mortar, which forces all of the enemy soldiers to wake up and take cover in an underground bunker. Half an hour later, when the all-clear is given, the enemy returns to his bed and drifts off to sleep, only to be woken be another single round 15 minutes later. In this way a single Mujahid can prevent 100 or even 1000 soldiers from getting virtually any sleep. As Allah (SWT) says: "Fight the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them and beleaguer them and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)" [Surah at-Tawbah: 5] By having your front-lines, bases, safe-houses within mortar range of your enemies bases you allow your enemy to pick and choose the time and type of engagement. You allow the enemy to continually attack you, and prevent you from getting any sleep! In the case of Mogadishu these very real problems were compounded by the fact that the African Union troops responded to the precise strikes of the righteous Mujahideen with decidedly imprecise mortar barrages which were designed to turn the Muslim masses against their Mujahideen brothers. By redeploying their forces to cities and towns outside of Mogadishu the Mujahideen will still be able to collect revenue for the city, such as from sympathetic traders in the Bakarah Market who are waging Jihad through financing fighters, but have removed all excuses or pretexts for the Crusaders to shell the market and the city itself. The next reason why it was imperative to withdraw from Mogadishu was that by concentrating their forces in such a small area the Mujahideen inadvertently allowed the AU to prop-up the Apostate Sharif with a surprisingly small number of troops. Let us never forget that Sheikh Usama (may Allah have Mercy on him) stated numerous times that the way to win this global war was to bleed the enemy dry - to make him expend an unsustainable amount of men and money, until the enemy collapses in the same way as the Soviet Union did following their disastrous intervention in Afghanistan.

Let us remember also that the vastly superior (when compared to the AU) American army sent well over 100,000 troops to Iraq, and during 2011 has had roughly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan as well (not including the armies of their Crusader allies, or the several hundred thousand private contractors and puppet Afghan soldiers) And yet the African Union sought to control Somalia with just 8000 soldiers! And as long as the Mujhaideen were preoccupied with controlling Mogadishu then this number was acceptable to the international community. It has been their strategy to secure the capital city alone, and then to turn the people against the Mujahideen rather than defeating them militarily. It has saddened me deeply to hear some from among the Muslim masses saying if only the Mujahideen would not attack the AU forces, then surely the AU would not attack the Muslims Did the Mujahideen of al-Shabaab attack Ethiopia before they invaded Somalia in 2006? Did Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen launch strikes inside of America, Uganda and Burundi prior to their drones and troops being deployed to Mogadishu? And now the Kenyans are the latest Crusading nation to send troops to Somalia - once again these troops were sent in without a single attack by the Mujahideen on targets inside Kenya. What nonsense to state that the Kuffar would stop attacking the Muslims if only the Mujahideen stopped attacking the Kuffar - when the Kuffar were the ones who struck the first blows in this Crusade! As we have seen in the wonderful Al-Kataib media release Shoot, O you sons of Ismail the Mujahideen have sought to employ tactics such a sniping which allowed them to attack the Kuffar whilst preserving the lives and the property of the Muslims as much as was possible. Yet even when the Mujahideen concentrated their blows exclusively on the bases of the African Crusaders the results were always the same: even successful Mujahideen attack against the Kuffar was met with wild barrages of mortars sprayed at random into the civilian areas which surrounded. In fact the Kuffar have purposely sought to establish their bases only in those areas where there are many civilians located nearby, in an attempt to make the Mujahideen

weary or targeting the occupiers, lest they should harm the Muslims masses unwittingly. Put simply, they sought to control the country and eradicate the Mujahideen with the minimal possible cost in terms of lives and treasure. Allah is He Who makes feeble the plans and stratagem of the Unbelievers [Al-Anfal: 18] By dispersing their forces from the capital Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen will force the Crusaders to send thousands more troops into Somalia, thus costing them many more lives and billions more dollars. These new Crusaders will be sent further and further from the airport in Mogadishu, deeper and deeper into the trap of the Mujahideen. While they have largely sat behind concrete blast walls for the past few years, they will now be forced to send their vehicles along narrow roads that present countless opportunities for ambushing or bombing their convoys. Finally, let us remember the place of strategic retreats in the history of Islam. If any do turn his back to them on such a day - unless it be in a stratagem of war, or to retreat to a troop (of his own) [Al-Anfal: 16] Strategic retreats from an enemy are perfectly permissible in Islam, they are mentioned in the Quran and numerous ahadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) Many of the Salaf a-ali and Muslim commanders throughout Islamic history and right up until the present have chosen to withdraw from a particular battlefield due to unfavourable conditions. In almost every instance the Muslim withdrawal led to the Kuffar becoming intoxicated with their imagined victory, only for the Mujahideen to return stronger than ever. Allah (SWT) has bestowed so many favours on the Ummah through the events in Somalia. He has allowed thousands to make Hijra and thousands more to wage Jihad. The Hudood has been established over vast swathes of territory. The brothers from Hizbul Islam stunned the Kuffar and made the Believers weep for joy when they united with Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen.

Wallahi one cannot count the favours that Allah (SWT) has already bestowed upon Somalia. We pray that it wont be too long before He (SWT) bestows one last favour on them: "And another (favour will He bestow,) which ye do love: help from Allah and a speedy victory. So give the Glad Tidings to the Believers" [Surah As-Saff: 13] And our final prayer is that all praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. May peace and prayers be upon the Seal of the Prophets - Muhammad ibn Abdullah - and upon his family and his Companions in their entirety.

Your brother Abu Fatima Friday November 4th 2011