Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya

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al-Itihaad al-Islamiya or AIAI (Arabic: الاتحاد الإسلامية‎‎ Unity of Islam) was an Islamist militant group in Somalia.

In the early 1990s, as Somalia fell into disorder following the end of the Siad Barre regime, Osama bin Laden took advantage of the chaos to fund al-Itihaad, later sending foreign militants who trained and fought besides al-Itihaad members with the goal of creating an Islamist state in the Horn of Africa. AIAI was also active in setting up sharia courts. Despite its association with al-Qaeda, other analysts caution against overgeneralization, noting that al-Itihaad had elements of a genuine social movement and that the characters of sub-factions throughout the country substantially differed from each other.^[1] AIAI was extensively connected to Al Barakaat, a Somali business conglomerate and money transfer organization described by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill as one of the "financiers of terrorism".^[1]

Funded by wealthy Saudis, al-Itihaad had extensive connections with the Somali expatriate community in Kenya, in particular the Eastleigh district of Nairobi and the predominantly Muslim coastal regions. According to U.S. intelligence officials, al-Itihaad cooperated with the al-Qaeda operatives who carried out the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that killed 224 people.

On 24 September 2001, al-Itihaad al-Islamiya's finances were sanctioned by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush under Executive Order 13224. Its then-head Hassan Dahir Aweys was also sanctioned under EO13224 in November of that year.^[2] In June 2004, Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki, who had become leader of the organization, was also sanctioned for his connections to bin Laden . al-Qaeda operative were reported to have used the al-Itihaad base on the island of Ras Kamboni, south of Kismayu near the border with Kenya.^[3] Other sources indicate that al-Qaeda formed a training camp on Kamboni, while al-Itihaad set up its own training camp at Las Quoay near the northeast port of Boosaaso. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, these camps were dismantled and the hundreds of trained militants sailed for the safety of tribal areas in Yemen.^[1]

Shortly thereafter it was claimed that al-Itihaad had dissolved as an organization. Sheikh Aweys went on to become one of the leaders of the Courts of the Islamic Court Union, which seized control of Mogadishu in June 2006 after several months of fighting.^[4]