History+of+Rebel+Groups+-+RG+-+SP12

__Somalia: The Al-Shabaab:__ Al-Shabaab members are mostly adolescents and young adults in their early twenties. The large majority of members are uneducated. The creation of Al-Shabaab was made by members of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which was a court system given government tasks since the central government collapsed in 1991. The ICU controlled much of Southern Somalia in 2006. In 2006, the ICU’s grip on Somalia was loosened as a new central government was founded. When the Transitional Federal Government was founded, the ICU reconstituted itself as a militia. Their idea was to use guerrilla tactics against the new government. However, many members of the ICU split off and formed Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam. Both groups continued to fight against the Transitional Federal Government. Al-Shabaab revealed in February 2012 that they will be merging with al-Quaeda.

__Sudan: JEM:__  The JEM were founded in 2000 after The Black Book was written. The book which was written by leader Khalil Ibrahim sparked the controversial rebelling against the Sudanese government. In recent history the JEM have been defeated by the government but as of February 13, 2012 the JEM have captured 49 international peacekeepers and 3 suspected Sudanese Intelligence Agents for investigation. This has definitely hurt the developments in Darfur. Since the beginning of the JEM there has been constant fighting and death and now that al-Bashir has said the “war is over”, members from the JEM continue to feel threatened by the Sudanese government. When the government issued the peace treaty, the JEM refused because they felt like it didn’t address the Darfur problems at its roots. The JEM had disagreed to attend peace meetings with the Sudanese government for years. But in 2009 they signed a goodwill agreement to stop the violence and rebelling. It fell apart soon later after al-Bashir was wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court in Hague. As a result al-Bashir expelled a western aid group in Darfur causing the JEM to rebel once again. In February 2010 however peace talks began to happen again and the JEM reached a ceasefire deal with the Sudanese government in Qatar. On March 29 the JEM threatened to resume its armed rebelling if the talks were not successful for the people of Darfur. After the killing of JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim his brother was chosen to take over. The United Nations has seen Sudan as a dangerous area due to fighting between Jem and the government.