Somalia's a really, really complex place.
It's not really a good idea to use the term 'Islamist' about Somalia, as its always had Islam as its most basic foundation. Nearly all Somalis are Islamic, and they have a culture that's comfortable with its strictures. Perhaps 'Islamist' could be replaced with 'Conservative' as it kinda means the same thing there.
Somalia has regions, tribes and ethnicities that are far, far less important than the clans. The Big Ten clans can defy 'Warlords' (another non-word) and enforce their will anywhere in the country. Clan based arrangements, like 17th century Scottish Highlanders, trumps all other loyalties. Most marriages are still contracted to ease clan relationships.
The death of Barre and the isolation of the generals created a flux in Somalia exacerbated by typical Cold War meddling from The Big Two. The loss of central control meant that each general was responsible for an area, and frictions arose between them as to who should succeed the central control and end the power vacuum. It started to subside again except that Aideed (a former Barre General) was still a major power, and was alarmed by UN-sponsored Pakistani help for common people that irritated some clan leaders. Aideed, thinking the Pakistanis were undermining him, ambushed some. This was just common practice in Somalia, it told you to watch yourself. Of course, the Pakistanis didn't have to put up with that sort of shit and things got very tense. Enter at this point the US and the loss of control by the Pakistanis of the effort, culminating in the regrettable Olympic Hotel Debacle and the loss of all those lives. (By the way, the Somalis didn't mortar the rangers because they were holding Somali families hostage, not the sort of thing Ridley Scott tells you).
The Islamic Courts arose and Aideed died, stability started to return and the innate conservatism if the ICU meant less piracy, brigandage and so on. Unfortunately, because the ICU gave lip service to Jihadis someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea if they got kicked out. It should be remembered by us westerners that conservative Islamic people don't like Jihad, its usage is usually abused and they're suspicious of projecting old customs on new events. A power vacuum again evolved, the Interim Federal Government which was little more than Ethiopian Somalis (there's a bunch there from the old colonial map-fucking) trying a power grab for their clans so irked everyone with their links to foreign governments that Somaliland and Puntland seceded (under former ICU generals).
This is another cluster-fuck of our own making.
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