Al Shabaab in Somalia

There are lots of events happening in Somalia that are all somewhat linked back to the al Shabaab. The al Shabaab is-- the Somalia-based cell of the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda, formally recognized in 2012.^[3] As of 2012, the outfit controls large swathes of the southern parts of the country,^[4] where it is said to have imposed its own strict form of Sharia law.^[5] Al-Shabaab's troop strength as of May 2011 was estimated at 14,426 militants.

As of right now it is still dangerous to take a ship near the Somali coast. Most of the pirate gangs there have shut down but many are still trying to use aggresive tactics to catch and destroy ships that pass by. The pirates are currently holding four ships and 108 sailors. Thankfully, due to the anti-piracy patrol there have not been any ships captured in the last nine months.


The defeat of al Shabaab in the last year has led several hundred foreign terrorists, who had earlier fled from defeat in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere, to leave the country. Many are then showing up in Yemen and Kenya, two places that are easy for them to reach. The Kenyan border is not hard to sneak past since it is not heavily guarded and smugglers regularly move people from Somalia to Yemen. "Yemen defeated an al Qaeda insurrection last year but the Islamic radicals sill have sanctuaries in some remote villages. About 11 percent of 43 million Kenyans are Moslem, and most live in coastal cities like Mombasa (where about a third of the population is Moslem). Most of those Moslems are ethnic Somalis and many have been in Kenya for generations. But several hundred thousand are Arabs. Inside Somalia, many of the al Shabaab deserters are going back to their clans and rejoining the clan militia. While some of these men were disillusioned with al Shabaab, many were not and are just biding their time, waiting for another opportunity to join an Islamic radical group. Some of these deserters, including those who joined the army as part of their rehabilitation, are now secretly carrying out or supporting terrorist attacks. Some of these men are still willing to be suicide bombers. Not a lot, but several times a month al Shabaab suicide bombers are in action, a reminder that al Shabaab is defeated but not destroyed. This has forced the Somali Army to become more accurate in screening al Shabaab deserters, especially those willing to join the military."

I was confused when I read the word "Moslem" in this article and wondered about its spelling. I googled it and found that ---
According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies,"Moslem and Muslim are basically two different spellings for the same word." But the seemingly arbitrary choice of spellings is a sensitive subject for many followers of Islam. Whereas for most English speakers, the two words are synonymous in meaning, the Arabic roots of the two words are very different. A Muslim in Arabic means"one who gives himself to God," and is by definition, someone who adheres to Islam. By contrast, a Moslem in Arabic means"one who is evil and unjust" when the word is pronounced, as it is in English, Mozlem with a z.
For others, this spelling differentiation is merely a linguistic matter, with the two spellings a result of variation in transliteration methods. Both Moslem and Muslim are used as nouns. But some writers use Moslem when the word is employed as an adjective.

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/somalia/articles/20130224.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shabaab_(militant_group)
http://hnn.us/articles/524.html