An Al Shabaab leader this week claimed it was Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda that was instrumental in ousting Maj. General Mohammed Si'ad Barre, who headed Somalia's military regime.
Sheikh Mukhtar Rabow, a/k/a Abu Mansur, an Al Shabaab terrorist group official, made the claim while speaking at memorial in honor of the now deceased bin Laden on Wednesday in a town near the Somali capital of Mogadishu where Al Shabaab continues to rule."In [the early] 1990s, the martyred al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had sent a number of his fighters to Somalia to train some of Somali guerrillas in order to help depose Somali military regime," Abu Mansur said, according to an unclassified intelligence report.
Abu Mansur claims that Osama also played a key role in financing the Somali Islamic forces and gave them material support such as providing them with firearms and rocket-propelled grenades and launchers.
He stated that Al Shabaab depends on the military and financial support of al Qaeda that both terrorist organizations are united.
Abu Mansur boasted that the killing of the al Qaeda leader in Pakistan will not undermine Al Shabaab efforts and battles to topple the United Nations-backed government of Somalia, which is internationally recognized. Besides Somali government forces, African Unions peacekeepers are posted in the war-torn country.
In 1998, when U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were bombed with hundreds of people dead, bin Laden was blamed as the mastermind of those almost simultaneous terrorist attacks.
The Al Shabaab leader noted that al Qaeda played a large part in the 1993 U.S. special forces (Rangers, Delta Force) battle with Somali militia leader Mohamed Farah Aidid as portrayed in the motion picture Black Hawk Down.
When the smoke cleared 18 U.S. soldiers were dead and another 84 were wounded in that battle, with hundreds of Somali fighters killed or wounded. Following the "Black Hawk Down" battle, then-President Bill Clinton pulled U.S. troops out of Somalia.
Some intelligence experts believe it was the U.S. retreat from Somalia that encouraged Osama bin Laden to continue his attacks against Americans and American interests.
"While the U.S. government all but ignores Somalia, it was in that north African country in 1993 that bin Laden came to the decision that the United States would back down if it suffered devastating attacks," said former military intelligence officer and police detective Mike Snopes.
He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer and columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. Kouri appears regularly as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Fox News Channel, Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, etc.