Union of Islamic Courts

The Islamic Courts Union ( so, Midowga Maxkamadaha Islaamiga) was a legal and political organization formed to address the lawlessness that had been gripping Somalia since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991 during the Somali Civil War.

The Islamic Courts Union was embraced by a plurality of Somalis, as Islam was viewed as one of the last credible institutions left in the wake of the collapse of the state. The courts were able to quickly gain the trust of war weary Somalis, as they had emerged at a grassroots level and claimed to rule under the neutrality of Islam, which was viewed as an attractive alternative to the country rife with heightened clan tensions.

The union was a diffuse organization, with rivaling leaders sending conflicting messages about the group's goals. Some members had national political ambitions, while others wanted to focus on resolving local disputes and bringing people closer to Islam.

In the summer of 2006, the ICU would expel an alliance of Somali warlords funded by the American Central Intelligence Agency and became the first organization to consolidate control over all of Mogadishu since the collapse of the state in 1991. The period that followed is commonly heralded as the most stable and productive era Somalia had seen since the outbreak of the civil war up to that point. Residents of Mogadishu were finally able to move around the city without fear of attack, the international airport and seaport would be opened for the first time in over a decade, a massive rubbish clean up campaign was started and there was a significant reduction of arms on the streets.

Six months into its reign, the Islamic Courts Union would be ended during the final days of 2006 by an Ethiopian-led intervention, supported by the United States, which brought the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government to power. The organization would completely dissolve early in 2007 due to the invasion and internal disagreements.

Following the foreign intervention most of the moderates of the organization would flee Somalia. Consequently an obscure radical wing of the Islamic Courts, the now infamous Al-Shabaab, stayed behind and invoked jihad against the American backed Ethiopian invasion, greatly empowering themselves.

Many of the high ranking members of the Islamic Courts would later become members of the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government, with former chairman of the ICU, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed becoming president of Somalia in 2009. In 2012 the country would adopt a new constitution that would go on to declare Somalia an Islamic state whose primary source of law was Shari‘a.

History

Origins

The Islamic courts were not the first attempt to use Islam in an attempt to quell the growing disorder in Somalia. Just before the dictatorship had been toppled in 1991, a group of sixty highly prominent members of Somali society, under the banner of ''"Islamic Call"'', published a public manifesto addressed to President Mohammed Siad Barre. The manifesto warned that he had committed serious transgressions against the laws of Islam and unsuccessfully called for him to peacefully step down from power.

The first attempts to use Islamic law (Shari'a) to build local stability began sometime in 1992, in the northern part of the Somali capital Mogadishu, in attempt to address the spiraling chaos and lawlessness that was gripping the country following the toppling of the Barre regime and the brutal clan driven civil war.

The first Shari'a courts were started on a very small local neighbourhood level by Somali religious leaders as a way to address issues in their communities. Most problems they dealt with were related to petty crimes and family disputes. In the chaotic political context of war torn Mogadishu the religious leaders were considered by most Somalis as some of the only people who could be trusted to impartially resolve disputes. Importantly, the courts also did not take positions on national-political or clan affairs, lending significant credence to their purported impartiality.

The Sheikh Ali-Dhere court

In either 1993 or 1994 (the precise year is difficult to determine due to the chaos of the civil war) a Sheikh named Ali Dheere, living in one of the most dangerous regions of Mogadishu had become exhausted with the growing anarchy and decided to put his religious training to use and set up the first known Shar'ia court in Somalia. The infamous "Siisii Street" ran through his community, and was notorious for being one of the most dangerous roads in war torn Mogadishu.

Primarily his court focused on aiding merchants and store owners resolve their disputes, helping people arrange legal agreements for large purchases like homes, and trying people for crimes. Local scholars, elders, businessmen and political leaders cooperated with Dheere in a bid to end the spiraling chaos in their community. Soon Ali Dheere had a staff that would apprehend bandits and thieves in the area and bring them to be put on trial. His success in bringing order to his neighborhood in Mogadishu became well known through out the city and led to the establishment of another copycat Shar'ia court.

The court did not shy away from strict punishments and even carried out executions. Soon word began rapidly spreading that law and order was being established in Dheeres sector of the city and the crime rate in the area subsequently dropped dramatically.

Rise of the Mogadishu Islamic Courts

In 1993 or 1994, other Shari'a courthouses began opening up in Northern Mogadishu, operating independently in their own self contained jurisdictions in the city. The first Sharia court did not start in southern Mogadishu until 1998, as the de facto ruler of the territory, General Mohammed Farah Aidid opposed the Islamic courts, and no progress occurred until after his death. Ali Mahdi, Aidids prime rival controlling the northern part of the city, would issue a decree to dismantle Ali Dheeres Court after perceiving the Sheikhs rising popularity as a threat to his own authority. As the years passed, with nothing but warlords offering to replace its authority, the rule of the sharia courts began to cement.

By 1999 the multiple Islamic courts had jurisdiction over much of the south of the city as well and five active Shari'a courts were operating in the region. While the courts were not an organized movement or a government, they represented the closest thing Somalia had to either of those things. The Islamic Courts Union's influence was enhanced by financial donors abroad who sought to bring any semblance of stability to the country. In April 1999 the Shari'a courts came together for the first time and jointly seized control of Mogadishu's Bakara Market from the warlords and later that year made a successful united effort to push the warlords to the outskirts of Mogadishu, though they did not control the entire city.

Consolidation and formation of the Islamic Courts Union

In 2000, after clearing much of Mogadishu from control of the warlords, eleven separate Shari'a courts in the city would finally merge to form the Islamic Courts Union. Mark Fathi Massoud, a professor of politics at UC Santa Cruz, notes that the turn that Somalis made in the late '90s and early 2000s towards establishing local religious courts for self-governance and then linking them into a system mirrored the same patterns of early democratic Western Europe and colonial North America, where state-building relied upon courts, and judges invoking will of God. He also notes that, "In using religion to build stability, the Shari‘a courts bear striking parallels to those courts that played an influential role in the early development of democratic states."

While many Somalis voiced disapproval of the more fundamentalist ways of the original Shari'a courts, most felt that they were well organized and effective civil administrators.

Top UN officials have referred to this period as a '''Golden era in the history of Somali politics. The courts would go on to create a coast guard to combat the growing phenomena of piracy in Somalia, and were able to successfully curb its rise during their rule.

When the Transitional National Government of Somalia was established in Djibouti during the spring of 2000 the momentum of the ICU was slowed. It would not return until it was revived in 2004 by Sharif Sheikh Ahmed who was subsequently elected as chairman of the ICU.

Rise of the Transitional Federal Government

Following the failure of the Transitional National Government of Somalia established in 2000, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) led by Abdullahi Yusuf was formed in 2004. Yusuf was a previous close ally of the Ethiopia and the Ethiopian government in return strongly backed him his leadership. Its backing of Yusuf reported to be instrumental in his victory for the TFG leadership during the election held in Kenya.

The TFG operated entirely outside of Somalia due to instability in Mogadishu and consequently was criticized by Somali citizens and international community. At the time the TFG was only recognized by Kenya and Ethiopia, as the European Union, the United States and other members of the international community refused to fully recognize the TFG's legitimacy until it operated from Mogadishu. To counter this, the TFG moved into Somalia for the first time in 2005, eventually setting up its headquarters south west of Mogadishu in Baidoa.

The ICU becomes a target of the War on Terror

The Bush administration had become increasingly concerned with the growing power of the Islamic Courts Union, and feared that they would make Somalia a haven for Al-Qaeda to plan attacks from, like in Afghanistan. The Americans would go on to approve funding for the Somali warlords and actively encourage them to counter the ICU, a decision made by top officials in Washington which would be later reaffirmed by the U.S. National Security Council during meeting about Somalia in March 2006. At the time of the meeting there was fierce fighting in between the warlords and the Islamic Courts around Mogadishu, and the decision was taken to make counterterrorism the top policy priority for Somalia.

The warlords had united under the banner of the " Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism", and according by the International Crisis Group, had a notorious pattern of seizing innocent clerics with little or no intelligence value, which greatly feed into a growing perception among Somalis that the Americans and the warlords were waging a war against Islam under the guise of the War on Terrorism.

According to Mary Harper, a journalist with BBC Africa, the Islamic Courts Union was in reality more of a loose federation and only began to unite into a homogenous body with a clear authority when its existence was threatened by the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.

The internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, being both in conflict with the Islamic Courts and backed by the Americans, openly opposed the Americans operation to fund the warlords. Nine of Mogadishu's most prominent community leaders that were opposed to the ICU claim they secretly flew to neighboring Djibouti in early March 2006 and pleaded with U.S. military officials there to stop funding the warlords who were devastating the city. They allege that they warned the Americans that backing the hated warlords would end up greatly empowering the Islamic Courts and inflame the radical elements within it.

American support for the warlords extended to the point where, on numerous occasions, Nairobi-based CIA officers would land on warlord-controlled airstrips in Mogadishu with large amounts of money for distribution to Somali militias. According to John Prendergast, CIA-operated flights into Somalia had been bringing in $100,000 to $150,000 USD per month for the warlords and he further claimed that the flights would remain in Somalia for the day so that CIA agents can confer with them. The CIA also gave its newfound allies surveillance equipment for "tracking al Qaeda suspects". A United Nations report on violations of the international arms embargo on Somalia claimed that the Ethiopian government had armed warlord Mohamed Dheere to fight the ICU.

According to multiple U.S. officials, the decision to use of the warlords as proxies was born from fears of once again committing large numbers of American soldiers to Somalia following the disastrous 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. Ironically, the warlords the Americans would fund to fight the Islamic Courts Union were many of the same ones that had fought directly against the Americans in Mogadishu during the bloody summer and fall of 1993.

Between May and July 2006 the warlord alliance went on the offensive against the Islamic Courts Union, and attempted to seize total control of Mogadishu.

Defeat of the warlord alliance and seizure of Mogadishu

On June 5, 2006, the Islamic Courts Union decisively defeated the warlord alliance in the Second Battle of Mogadishu, gained total authority over the capital and proceeded to establish a 65-mile radius of control around the city. This was a seminal moment in modern Somali history, as the ICU was now the first group to have consolidated control over all of Mogadishu since the collapse of the Somali state. According to Chatham House, "''The Courts achieved the unthinkable, uniting Mogadishu for the first time in 16 years, and re-establishing peace and security"''.

Over the next few months the Islamic Courts embarked on a campaign to stabilize the city. On 15 July 2006, Mogadishu International Airport, which had been closed since the withdrawal of the international forces in 1995, reopened.Mohamed Abdi Farah
Somalia: Reopening of Mogadishu's airport welcomed
'' SomaliNet'', July 15, 2006. The ICU organized a clean-up campaign for the streets of Mogadishu on 20 July 2006. This was the first time litter and rubbish had been collected in the entire city since it collapsed into chaos over a decade earlier. On the 25 August they also reopened the historic seaport of Mogadishu, which had been one of the busiest in ports in all of East Africa.First ship arrives in Mogadishu
''BBC
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