A QUESTION THAT HAS SET OUR TEETH ON EDGE

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel briefly and clearly explained the purpose of the point operations of US special forces in Libya and Somalia on 4-5 October - "to hold international terrorists to account" and "send a strong signal to the world that the United States will spare no effort to hold terrorists to account no matter where they are hiding and how long they manage to evade justice". Hagel's words were confirmed by Secretary of State John Kerry, who said that "members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations will not be able to escape" from the US government "regardless of how they are running away".

So, as a result of a secret special operation by the US Navy SEALs, who successfully eliminated Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011, a Kenyan citizen of Somali origin, Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, better known by the alias Ikrima, was reportedly captured (reportedly killed) or reportedly not captured (reportedly not killed) in the Somali town of Baraawe. Ikrima is one of the leaders of Al-Shabab (Mujahideen Youth Movement), a group that has been fighting against the central government of Somalia over the past six years, preventing UN humanitarian activities in the country and making forays into the territory of neighbouring states. It is also believed that Ikrima is linked to Al-Qaeda, the explosion at the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998 and the terrorist attacks in Mombasa in 2002. As for Al-Shabab, it was the main talking point recently in connection with the 21 September terrorist attack on a luxury shopping mall in Nairobi, in which more than 60 people, including US and UK citizens, were killed. Al-Shabab demands that the Kenyan authorities withdraw their troops from Somalia.

Why was the terrorist "reportedly captured" and "reportedly killed"? The thing is that the SEALs, who faced with fierce resistance from the militants, were forced to retreat after an hour-long fierce exchange of fire. But the result with which the special force retreated is unclear. Representatives of Al-Shabab are talking about losses by the US military, while US officials claim that Al-Shabab suffered casualties and that Ikrima was among the dead. Also, the Western media reported that the American soldiers retreated after they saw that among those at the villa were a lot of women and children. The United States refuses to recognize the special operation as failed, because, in their opinion, they achieved the main thing - "they demonstrated that they can get anyone". Meanwhile, what is unclear is not only the fate of Ikrima, but also if he was the real target, because it is possible that the mansion in Baraawe served as a residence for Al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.

Literally at the same time, but in Libya, the US military held another special operation, which resulted in the capture of a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda, Anas al-Liby (Nazih Abdul Hamed al-Ruqai), who is believed to be involved in the US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, when more than 220 people were killed. Unlike the operation in Somalia, al-Liby was taken "without a fanfare". Special Force soldiers - the Delta unit of the US Army - surrounded the terrorist with three cars in a car park near a house, smashed the window of the car and took him with them.

The biography of al-Liby is like that of a character from some bad movie about terrorists - it seems unimaginable. For example, in 2002, when he was in a Sudanese prison, the Americans tried to get him, but then changed their mind. Before that, al-Liby lived in the UK (where he allegedly had political asylum for unclear reasons and services and was engaged in education), lived in Qatar and then hid in Syria and Libya. It is also alleged that he was detained by the CIA in 2007. Currently, al-Liby is on a military transport ship of the US Navy, where he is being interrogated. According to Pentagon spokesman George Little, it is "all legal" and in accordance with the laws of war.

It is noteworthy that the Libyan authorities categorically denied any involvement in the raid, and after a few days, the story received quite an unexpected continuation. On the night of Thursday, 10 October, the country's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was abducted from the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli. He was taken away by a group of men dressed in civilian clothes who acted "respectfully and without firing a shot". The respectful people were a group of former militants called "The command centre of the Libyan revolutionaries". It was stated that the incident was an act of revenge for the alleged involvement of the country's authorities in the US special force's operation to capture Anas al-Liby. The militants claimed that they detained the prime minister for harming national security and almost in line with a prosecutor's warrant. Later Zeidan was found indeed... in the Interior Ministry, in the department to fight crime. According to Bloomberg and Al-Jazeera, the former militants were recruited to work for government agencies in order to control their influence in the country. However, other media (lenta.ru, Agence France-Presse) write that the Libyan Interior Ministry is controlled by former rebels, who worked closely with Abu Anas al-Liby. That's why Zeidan strongly condemned the seizure of al-Liby.

What's going on? The US continues to systematically destroy terrorist leaders. Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki (the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula killed in a US drone airstrike in Yemen in 2011), Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir (Ikrima), Anas al-Liby and many others ... This is touted as the continuation of a successful strategy to combat terrorism. But how successful is such a strategy? How expedient is it to hunt for leaders who can easily be replaced by others? How advisable is it to eliminate the leaders of terrorist organizations? After all, these organizations are not uniform and are divided into multiple "branches", are broken up into clans and even fight among themselves. That's how experts characterize the group based in Somalia Al-Shabab, for the sake of catching one of the leaders of which the spectacular operation of US troops was arranged. The Somali ranks of Al-Shabab have up to 9,000 fighters - can't one of them replace the eliminated leader?

It seems that the main problem here is not about who controls the terrorist groups, but whether they have a territory where they can gain a foothold, take root and flourish. For Al-Shabab it is Somalia - a kind of "black hole" on the world map. The state, which we do not even dare to call a state, is constantly shaken by conflicts between the rulers of the various self-governing territories, clans and factions and is tormented by militants of every stripe, pirates, terrorists and bandits. There is no central authority - the internationally recognized government controls only Mogadishu and a number of small areas, while the militants are feeling much freer. Kenya and Ethiopia - as part of the African Union forces - have already struggled to cope with the threat emanating from Somalia, and as they say, not without the help of the United States. To no avail. And to no avail not because Ikrima or anyone else in his place is such a brilliant leader, strategist and commander, but because the terrorists have a place where they can put down roots.

Terrorists are skillfully using internal and external political conflicts and inter-confessional, ethnic, tribal and inter-clan contradictions. The "Arab Spring", which swept away a couple of regimes in North Africa with its fresh breeze, had another effect, namely, it significantly expanded the vital area for terrorists. In fact, many African countries - with their modern history "from one coup d'etat to another" and sometimes outright poverty among the majority of the population, enormous challenges in health, education, etc., ethnically disparate population, complex geography and limited water resources - are a perfect base for terrorism. And the presence of hydrocarbons and precious metals in the African countries and plus their unbeatable location to control international maritime routes play the role of a stable source of funding.

Moreover, what is the point in methodically killing terrorist leaders if in some countries terrorist groups actually have access to the governance of the whole country? As we can see not only on the example of Somalia, but also on the tangled story with the kidnapping of the Libyan prime minister, it seems that in this country national security is now taken care of by former and maybe not quite former militants ...

Of course, it is important to hold terrorists to account, but it does not amount to attempts to eradicate the phenomenon itself. There is a feeling that we are back to the old question of what causes terrorism. What is the point in making huge efforts to find the leaders of the radicals if whole generations of those who will inevitably fill their ranks are growing in many countries?

Why? Is it really necessary to answer this question for the thousandth time? On 3 October, the day before the special operations in Libya and Somalia, another boat, packed with refugees from Africa, was wrecked off the coast of the infamous Italian island of Lampedusa. Residents of Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and other countries were trying to get to a better life - without militants who control all spheres of life, without hunger and poverty. Not everyone was able to do so - 302 people were killed - 210 men, 83 women and 9 children.