Islamist Networks in Somalia. FOI Somalia Papers: Report 2

This report examines the rise and subsequent downfall of the Union of Islamic Courts and other Islamist networks in Somalia. These networks have, as represented in the study, always existed and are derived from a traditional model for administration, adapted to a social and political structure based on a population dominated by nomadic and agricultural economics. Although several attempts have been made by domestic, as well as international, Islamists to make Somalia an Islamist state they have never succeeded. The report argues that the principal reason for this is that the first wave of internationalized Islamism in somalia failed when the Islamists were defeated on the battleground by their enemies during the civil war. With that, the international Islamists lost their best entrance to Somalia. The second wave of attemps to use Somalia to spread global Jihadism began in 2000 but reached a blind alley at the start of the Ethiopian invasion in December of 2006. The report then discusses possible challenges concerning the Somali Islamists.