Saturday, 2 November 2013

Al-Shabaab (militant group)



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Somalia-based militant group. For other uses, see Al-Shabab (disambiguation).
Al-Shabaab
الشباب
Participant in Somali Civil War
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ShababFlag.svg
War flag

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Administration flag
Active2006 – present
IdeologySunni Islamism
Salafist jihadism
Anti-Sufism
Strict Sharia
Takfir
GroupsMulti-ethnic[1]
LeadersAhmed Godane (May 2009 – Dec 2010; Dec 2011 –)
Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad (Dec 2010 – Dec 2011)
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow (May 2008 – May 2009)
Aden Hashi Farah (2002 – May 2008)
HeadquartersKismayo (22 August 2008 – 29 September 2012)
Barawe[2]
Area of
operations		Somalia
Uganda
Kenya
Strength4,000–6,000 militants[3]
Originated asIslamic Courts Union (ICU)
Allies al-Qaeda
 Foreign Mujahedeen
Opponents  United States
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (HSM) (Arabic: حركة الشباب المجاهدين‎;Ḥarakat ash-Shabāb al-Mujāhidīn, Somali: Xarakada Mujaahidiinta Alshabaab, "Mujahideen Youth Movement" or "Movement of Striving Youth"), more commonly known as al-Shabaab (Arabic: الشباب‎), meaning "The Youth", "The Youngsters" or "The Boys", is theSomalia-based cell of the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda, formally recognized in 2012.[4] As of 2012, the group controls large swathes of the southern parts of the country,[5] where it is said to have imposed its own strict form of Sharia (law).[6] Al-Shabaab's troop strength as of May 2011 was estimated at 14,426 militants.[7] In February 2012, Al-Shabaab leaders quarreled with Al-Qaeda over the union,[8] and quickly lost ground.[9]
The group is an off-shoot of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which splintered into several smaller factions after its defeat in 2006 by the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the TFG's Ethiopian military allies.[10] Al-Shabaab describes itself as waging jihad against "enemies of Islam", and is engaged in combat against the TFG and theAfrican Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). Alleging ulterior motives on the part of foreign organizations, group members have also reportedly intimidated, kidnapped and killed aid workers, leading to a suspension of humanitarian operations and an exodus of relief agents.[11] Al-Shabaab has been designated a terrorist organization by several Western governments and security services.[12][13][14] As of June 2012, the US State Department has open bounties on several of the group's senior commanders.[15]
In early August 2011, the TFG's troops and their AMISOM allies reportedly managed to capture all of Mogadishu from the Al-Shabaab militants.[5] An ideological rift within the group's leadership also emerged in response to pressure from the recent drought and the assassination of top officials in the organization.[16] Al Shabaab is hostile to Sufi traditions and has often clashed with the militant Sufi group Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a.[17][18][19][20] The group has also been suspected of having links with Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram. The group has attracted some members from western countries, notably Samantha Lewthwaite and Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki.




























Al-Shabaab is also known as Ash-Shabaab, Hizbul Shabaab (Arabic: "Party of the Youth"),[21] and the Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations (PRM).[22] For short, the organization is referred to as HSM, which stands for "Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen". The term Shabaab means "youth" in Arabic, and the group should not be confused withsimilarly named groups.

Organization and leadership[edit]

See also: Mujahideen
Al-Shabaab's composition is multiethnic, with its leadership positions mainly occupied by Afghanistan- and Iraq-trained ethnic Somalis and foreigners.[23] According to the National Counterterrorism Center, the group's rank-and-file members hail from disparate local groups, sometimes recruited by force.[24] Unlike most of the organization's top leaders,[25] its foot soldiers are primarily concerned with nationalist and clan-related affairs as opposed to the global jihad. They are also prone to infighting and shifting alliances.[24] According to the Jamestown Foundation, Al-Shabaab seeks to exploit these vulnerabilities by manipulating clan networks in order to retain power. The group itself is likewise not entirely immune to local politics.[25] More recently, Muslim converts from neighbouring countries have also been conscripted, typically to do undesirable or difficult work.[26]
Although Al Shabaab's leadership ultimately falls upon al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the internal leadership is not fully clear, and with foreign fighters trickling out of the country, its structure is increasingly decentralized. In December 2010, al-Qaeda replaced Moktar Ali Zubeyr "Godane" with Ibrahim al-Afghani, also known as Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad.[27] But Al Shabaab refused to comply, and Godane continued to function as its Emir. The group was originally run by Aden Hashi Farah "Ayro", who was appointed by Hassan Dahir Aweys, one of the leaders of ICU at the time of the organization's founding. After the death of Ayro, Sheikh Mukhtar Robow (also known as Abu Mansur) became leader until he was succeeded by Moktar Ali Zubeyr "Godane".[28] In August 2011, Godane was heavily criticized by Al-Shabaab co-founder Hassan Dahir Aweys and others for not letting aid into the hunger stricken parts of southern Somalia. Although not formally announced, Shabaab was effectively split up into a "foreign legion", led by Godane and a coalition of factions forming a "national legion" under Aways. The latter group often refused to take orders from Godane and the two groups hardly talked to each other. In February 2012, Godane made a ba'ayastatement, swearing full allegiance to Al-Qaeda. With it he likely hopes to reclaim and extend his authority, and to encourage foreign fighters to stay. This move will further complicate the cooperation with the "national legion" of Al-Shabaab.[4]

Leaders[edit]

Other leaders:

Foreigners[edit]

Al-Shabaab is said to have many foreigners within its ranks, particularly at the leadership level.[23][46] Fighters from the Persian Gulf and international jihadists were called to join the holy war against the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies. Though Somali Islamists did not originally use suicide bombing tactics, the foreign elements of Al-Shabaab have been blamed for severalsuicide bombings.[47][48] A 2006 UN report identified Iran, Libya and Egypt, among countries in the region, as the main backers of the Islamist extremists. Egypt has a longstanding policy of securing the Nile River flow by destabilizing Ethiopia.[49][50]
Formerly a predominantly nationalist organization, Al Shabaab repositioned itself as a militant Islamist group that also attracted a large cadre of Western devotees.[51] As of 2011, the group's foreign recruitment strategy was active in the United States, where members attempted to recruit from the local Muslim communities.[52] According to an investigative report by the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, Al Shabaab recruited over 40 Muslim Americans since 2007.[52] In 2010, the New York Timesreported that after more than a dozen Americans were killed in Somalia, the organization's recruiting success had decreased in the US.[53]
These American and foreign recruits played a dual role within the organization, serving as mercenaries and as a propaganda tool for radicalization and recruitment. These individuals, including Omar Hammami, appeared in propaganda videos posted in online forums in order to appeal to disaffected Muslim youth and inspire them to join the Islamist struggle.[54] This was a top-down strategy, wherein Islamist agents attempted to use mosques and legitimate businesses as a cover to meet, recruit, and raise funds for operations in the US and abroad.[54] By mid-2013, the U.S. Congress reported that such militant recruitment appeared to have halted.[55]
Most of the foreign Al-Shabab members come from Yemen, Sudan, the Swahili Coast, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan andBangladesh. As of 2010, their number was estimated at between 200 to 300 militants, augmented by around 1,000 diasporan ethnic Somalis.[23] Many of Al-Shabaab's foot soldiers also belong to Somalia's marginalized ethnic minorities from the farming south.[56]
Of the foreign members, Jonathan Evans, former head of the British MI5, indicated at a 2010 London security conference that a significant number of British residents were then training in Al-Shabaab camps to take part in the Islamist insurgency in Somalia. Linking this increased involvement with a reduction in Al Qaida activity in Pakistan's tribal areas, he also suggested that since Somalia, like Afghanistan, at the time had no effective central government, the presence of foreign fighters there could inspire terrorist incidents in the UK.[57] Some British citizens have also been convicted of financing the group.[58] As of 2013, security sources estimate that there are around 60 active Al-Shabaab recruiters, including 40 Somalis and an additional 20 mainly British "clean skins", individuals who have not committed any crimes but are believed to have ties with the group.[59]
In 2012, it was also reported that the group was attracting an increasing number of non-Somali recent converts from Kenya, a predominantly Christian country in the African Great Lakes region. Estimates placed the figure of Kenyan fighters at around 10% of Al-Shabaab's total forces.[1] Referred to as the "Kenyan Mujahideen" by Al-Shabaab's core members,[26] the converts are typically young and overzealous. Poverty has made them easier targets for the group's recruiting activities. The Kenyan insurgents can blend in with the general population of Kenya, and they are often harder to track by law enforcement. Reports suggest that Al-Shabaab is attempting to build an even more multi-ethnic generation of fighters in the larger region.[1] One such recent convert, who helped carry out the Kampala bombings but now cooperates with the Kenyan police, believes that the group is trying to use local Kenyans to do its "dirty work" for it, while its own core members escape unscathed.[26] According to diplomats, Muslim areas in coastal Kenya and Tanzania, such as Mombasa and Zanzibar, are especially vulnerable for recruitment.[1]
Foreigners from Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Afghan-trained Somalis, play an important role in the group's leadership ranks owing to their combat experience. Bringing with them specialized skills, these commanders often lead the indoctrination of new recruits, and provide training in remote-controlled roadside bombings, suicide attack techniques, and the assassination and kidnapping of government officials, journalists, humanitarian and civil society workers.[23]
Foreign al-Shabaab commanders include:[60]
Foreign leaders and members:
  • Fazul Abdullah Mohammed: Mohammed, a Kenyan national, was appointed by Osama bin Laden as al Qaeda's leader in East Africa in late 2009. Before the death of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Mohammed served as the military operations chief for al Qaeda in East Africa. He was an experienced al Qaeda leader who is known to be able to move in and out of East African countries with ease. In August 2008, he eluded a police dragnet in Kenya. Mohammed had been hiding in Somalia with Shabaab and the Islamic Courts for years. Mohammed was considered to be Shabaab's military leader, while Sheikh Muktar Abdelrahman Abu Zubeyr was Shabaab's spiritual leader. He was killed on June 8, 2011.[61]
  • Shaykh Muhammad Abu Fa'id: Fai'd, a Saudi citizen, serves as a top financier and a "manager" for Shabaab.
  • Abu Musa Mombasa: Mombasa, a Pakistani citizen, serves as Shabaab's chief of security and training.
  • Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki: Amriki, whose real name was Omar Hammami, was a U.S. citizen who converted to Islam and traveled to Somalia in 2006. Once in Somalia, he quickly rose through the ranks. He served as a military commander, recruiter, financier, and propagandist. Amriki appeared in several Shabaab propaganda tapes. He became a primary recruiter for Al Shabaab; issued written statements on their behalf and appeared in its propaganda videos and audio recordings. An indictment unsealed in August 2010 charged him with providing material support to terrorists.[62] In January 2013, Amriki was ousted from Al-Shabaab because it felt he had joined in a "narcissistic pursuit of fame". He then publicly voiced ideological differences with the group via YouTube and Twitter, asserting that local militant leaders were only concerned with fighting in Somalia and not globally. He was reportedly assassinated by the insurgents in September 2013.[63]
  • Abdikadar Mohamed Abdikadar "Ikrima": a Kenya-born Somali Al-Shabaab commander alleged by the Kenyan government to have planned several attacks in the country, including a plot to target the UN's bureau in Nairobi, the Kenyan parliamentary building, and an Ethiopian restaurant patronized by Somali government representatives. According to US officials, Abdikadar was also a close associate of the late Al-Qaeda operatives Harun Fazul and Saleh Nabhan.[64][65]
  • Mahmud Mujajir: Mujajir, a Sudanese citizen, is Shabaab's chief of recruitment for suicide bombers.
  • Samantha Lewthwaite: Allegedly an Al-Shabaab member, she is believed to have been behind an attack on a sports bar in Mombasa in 2012. Widow of 7/7 suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay.
  • Issa Osman Issa: Issa serves as a top al-Qaeda recruiter and military strategist for Shabaab. Before joining, he participated in the simultaneous attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998. He has been described as a central player in the simultaneous attacks on the Paradise Hotel in Kikambala, Kenya, in 2002, and the attempt that year to down an Israeli airliner in Mombasa.[66][67]

Terrorist designation[edit]

Shabaab is designated as a terrorist group by Australia,[68] Canada,[69] Norway,[13] Sweden,[14] the United Kingdom,[68] and the United States.[12]

History and activities[edit]

Main articles: War in Somalia (2006–2009) and 2007 timeline of the War in Somalia
Map showing territorial gains made by al-Shabaab from January 31, 2009 to December 2010; the period when a civil war against the Transitional Federal Government commenced
While Al-Shabaab previously represented the hard-line militant youth movement within the Islamic Courts Union (ICU),[70] it is now described as an extremist splinter group of the ICU. Since the ICU's downfall, however, the distinction between the youth movement and the so-called successor organization to the ICU, the PRM, appears to have been blurred. Al-Shabaab had recently begun encouraging people from across society, including elders, to join their ranks. In February 2012, Sheikh Fu'ad Mohamed Khalaf Shongole, the chief of awareness raising of al-Shabaab, said that "At this stage of the jihad, fathers and mothers must send their unmarried girls to fight alongside the (male) militants". The addition of elders and young girls marks a change in the movement, which had previously involved only men, particularly young boys.[71]
Their core consisted of veterans who had fought and defeated the secular Mogadishu warlords of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) at the Second Battle of Mogadishu.[72] Their origins are not clearly known, but former members say Hizbul Shabaab was founded as early as 2004. The membership of Al-Shabaab also includes various foreign fighters from around the world, according to an Islamic hardliner Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Manssor.[73]
In January 2009, Ethiopian forces withdrew from Somalia and Al-Shabaab carried on its fight against former ally and Islamic Courts Union leader, President Sharif Ahmed, who was the head of the Transitional Federal Government.[6] Al-Shabaab saw some success in its campaigns against the weak Transitional Federal Government, capturing Baidoa, the base of the Transitional Federal Parliament, on January 26, 2009, and killing three ministers of the government in a December 3, 2009 suicide bomb attack on a medical school graduation ceremony.[74]
Before the drought in 2010, Somalia, including the Al-Shabaab controlled areas, had its best crop yield in seven years. Al-Shabaab claimed some credit for the success, saying that their reduction of over-sized cheap food imports allowed Somalia's own grain production, which normally has high potential, to flourish.[75] They asserted that this policy had the effect of shifting income from urban to rural areas, from mid-income groups to low-income groups, and from overseas farmers to local farmers. However, in response to the drought, Al-Shabaab announced in July 2011 that it had withdrawn its restrictions on international humanitarian workers.[76]
In 2011, according to the head of the U.N.'s counter-piracy division, Colonel John Steed, Al-Shabaab increasingly sought to cooperate with other criminal organizations and pirate gangs in the face of dwindling funds and resources.[77] Steed, however, acknowledged that he had no definite proof of operational ties between the Islamist militants and the pirates. Detained pirates also indicated to UNODC officials that some measure of cooperation on their part with Al-Shabaab militants was necessary, as they have increasingly launched maritime raids from areas in southern Somalia controlled by the insurgent group. Al-Shabaab members have also extorted the pirates, demanding protection money from them and forcing seized pirate gang leaders in Harardhere to hand over 20% of future ransom proceeds.[78]
While Al-Shabaab has been reduced in power and size since the beginning of the coordinated operation against it by the Somalian military and the Kenyan army, the group has continued its efforts at recruitment and territorial control. The group maintains training camps in areas near Kismayo in the southern regions of Somalia. One such camp was constructed in Laanta Bur village near Afgooye, which is also where the former K-50 airport is located.[79] On July 11, 2012, Somali federal troops and their AMISOM allies captured the area from the militants.[80]

Opposition[edit]

The U.S. has asserted that al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda pose a global threat.[81] Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated that "U.S. operations against al-Qaida are now concentrating on key groups in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa."
Complaints made against the group include its attacks on aid workers and harsh enforcement of Sharia law. According to journalist Jon Lee Anderson:
The number of people in Somalia who are dependent on international food aid has tripled since 2007, to an estimated 3.6 million. But there is no permanent foreign expatriate presence in southern Somalia, because the Shabaab has declared war on the UN and on Western non-governmental organizations. International relief supplies are flown or shipped into the country and distributed, wherever possible, through local relief workers. Insurgents routinely attack and murder them, too; forty-two have been killed in the past two years alone.[6]
Shabaab have persecuted Somalia's small Christian minority, sometimes affixing the label on people they suspect of working for Ethiopian intelligence.[82] The group has also desecrated the graves of prominent Sufi Muslims in addition to a Sufi mosque and university, claiming that Sufi practices conflict with their strict interpretation of Islamic law.[83][84] This has led to confrontations with Sufi organized armed groups who have organized under the banner of Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a.[85]
Echoing the transition from a nationalistic struggle to one with religious pretenses, Al Shabaab’s propaganda strategy is starting to reflect this shift. Through their religious rhetoric Al Shabaab attempts to recruit and radicalize potential candidates, demoralize their enemies, and dominate dialogue in both national and international media. According to reports Al Shabaab is trying to intensify the conflict: "It would appear from the alleged AMISOM killings that it is determined to portray the war as an affair between Christians and Muslims to shore up support for its fledgling cause... The bodies, some beheaded, were displayed alongside Bibles and crucifixes. The group usually beheads those who have embraced Christianity or Western ideals. Militants have begun placing beheaded corpses next to bibles and crucifixes in order to intimidate local populations.”[86] In April 2010 Al Shabaab announced that it would begin banning radio stations from broadcasting BBC and Voice of America, claiming that they were spreading Christian propaganda. By effectively shutting down the Somali media they gain greater control of the dialog surrounding their activities.[87]
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