Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI), 1983–1997

In short

Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya was the first large armed Islamist movement in modern Somalia. Many of the people who later led the Islamic Courts Union and al-Shabaab passed through it, though the movement itself ended its armed campaign in 1997. The wider story of Islamist movements is told in Islamist movements and transitional governments, 2000–2012.

Founding

Wikipedia, drawing on Afyare Abdi Elmi's Understanding the Somalia Conflagration (2010), records that AIAI formed in 1983 from a merger of Wahdat al-Shabaab al-Islami (Union of Islamic Youth) and al-Jama'a al-Islamiya (the Islamic Group). Its founder and first leader was Sheikh Ali Warsame. In the years after the Ogaden war it ran Islamic schools in refugee camps, and it became public in 1989 (Wikipedia, Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya). The Library of Congress describes the growth of Islamist movements in this period (Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study, Rising Islamism).

Leaders

• Sheikh Ali Warsame, 1983–1992.
• Sheikh Abdullahi Bade, chairman, killed in August 1992.
• Sheikh Abdulsalam Osman, chosen in 1992.
• Hassan Dahir Aweys, named as a leader when the US sanctioned him in November 2001.
• Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki, named as a leader when the US designated him in June 2004.

(Wikipedia, citing the US State Department)

After 1991

In 1992 AIAI took control of Bosaso and ran the port of Marka. SSDF forces under Abdullahi Yusuf drove it out of Bosaso that year (Wikipedia, Somali Salvation Democratic Front). See Somali Salvation Democratic Front. It also fought the United Somali Congress at Arare bridge (Wikipedia).

In January 1993 its leaders told the New York Times that they saw the US-led force as an occupation (New York Times, 15 January 1993).

Luuq and Gedo, 1991–1996

By 1994 AIAI administered Gedo from Luuq, applying sharia in place of customary law and introducing free schooling (Wikipedia). The Somali National Front, with Ethiopian backing, fought it there.

War with Ethiopia

AIAI also operated in Ethiopia's Somali region. Ethiopian forces ambushed its leadership on 11 August 1992; a ceasefire at the end of that year broke down in 1994, when AIAI fought alongside the Ogaden National Liberation Front. In 1996 it was linked to an attempt on the life of an Ethiopian minister. Ethiopian and local forces then drove its remaining fighters into the disputed border areas (Wikipedia, citing Alex de Waal, Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa, 2004).

The end of the armed wing, 1997

In 1997 AIAI renounced armed struggle in Somalia and divided into centres in Mogadishu, Bosaso and Hargeisa. Many members moved into schools, health work and business. A non-armed successor, al-I'tisam, formed around 1996 (Wikipedia).

Links to later movements

The Council on Foreign Relations records that hardliners from AIAI joined the Islamic Courts Union in the early 2000s as its youth militia, which became al-Shabaab, and that Osama bin Laden partly funded and armed AIAI in the 1990s (Council on Foreign Relations, Al-Shabaab backgrounder). Stanford's Mapping Militants project records that al-Shabaab's first leader, Aden Hashi Ayro, was in AIAI from 1991 to 1997 (Mapping Militant Organizations, al-Shabaab).

Designations

The US froze AIAI's funds on 24 September 2001 and listed it as a terrorist organisation on 7 November 2001; the UK and New Zealand followed (Wikipedia).

Sources differ

• Founding year. 1983 in most accounts; some give 1984.
• How far later movements continued it. Some writers treat al-Shabaab as AIAI's direct heir; others stress that AIAI as a body gave up arms in 1997 and that many members took peaceful paths.

Read the primary sources yourself

• International Crisis Group, Somalia's Islamists (2005): PDF.
• Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study (1993): Rising Islamism.