CNN: Mogadishu, Somalia -- In Somalia's enduring chaos, militant groups have for years come and gone. Today's most powerful -- Al Shabaab -- are much more menacing, say those in Mogadishu.
In Arabic, Al Shabaab means 'the youth', but it is too far-reaching to be just a rabble of youngsters. It controls much of central and southern Somalia and large parts of the capital Mogadishu.
And after years of pledging allegiance to al Qaeda, Al Shabaab formalized the relationship in February. Since then, the Somali government says there's been an influx of foreign fighters.
"With regard to the fighting that's going on in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and in Yemen, some people are looking for a place to hide and Somalia is a good candidate for that," said Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who leads the weak, U.N.-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
Ahmed was once a senior, moderate figure in the Union of Islamic Courts -- an alliance that included Al Shabaab and which held power in Somalia for six months in 2006 before being overthrown by Ethiopian forces.
The Ethiopians remained until early 2009 when the TFG took tentative control, clinging to a small part of Mogadishu, and protected by African Union (AU) peacekeepers mainly from Uganda and Burundi.
A quiet figure, President Ahmed sits in his office at the palace grounds while government troops outside fire warning shots to prevent people from venturing too close.
"We used to estimate the number of foreign fighters to be between 800 and 1,200 but that number seems to have been growing," he said.
Al Shabaab has reached out to Somalis living in the West, radicalizing young Muslims via the Internet and encouraging them to move back to the country to join the Jihad. >>> Jane Ferguson, for CNN | Tuesday, April 27, 2010
