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The Anatomy of al-Shabaab
Posted on October 22, 2010 at 06:34:35 PM by mb4

The Anatomy of al-Shabaab

Abdirahman ‚Aynte Ali

Full-text report 54 pages

This paper seeks to retrace the evolution, the formation and the trajectory of al-Shabaab, the extremist militant group in Somalia. The paper contextualizes the group’s military success vis-à-vis the Somali government and other moderate Islamist groups. Moreover, the paper identifies the ideological underpinnings that inform al-Shabaab’s strict interpretation and application of Sharia, or Islamic Law. Finally, the paper analyzes the prevailing factors---both internal and external--- that led to al-Shabaab’s decision to adopt global Jihad as a modus operandi and as a guiding principle.

INTRODUCTION

Al-Shabaab is a Somalia-based radical militant group with ties to al-Qaeda. Among other things, its declared objective is to overthrow the Western-backed moderate Islamist government in Somalia, and replace it with an Islamic state ruled in accordance with the strict, Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. The ultimate goal of al-Shabaab is to help other global jihadists materialize the grand vision of resurrecting the global Islamic caliphate. Before May 2008, al-Shabaab was a little known ragtag militia in Somalia. But the largely obscure entity became familiar to the rest of the world on the first day of May, when at least four Tomahawk cruise missiles, fired by US warships, flattened al-Shabaab’s compound in central Somalia, killing Aden Hashi Ayro, the reclusive military leader of the group, and his top deputies. The attack came only two months after the US government designated the group as a terrorist organization. Other Western countries, such as Britain, Canada and Australia, to name a few, have since followed the footsteps of the US by classifying the organization a terrorist entity. On April 13, 2010, the White House issued a strongly worded statement directing the Treasury Department to freeze the assets of more Shabaab figures. President Barack Obama said that he‚ declared a national emergency to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by [the conflict in Somalia.3 The attack as well as the designation lifted al-Shabaab’s domestic and global stature among Salafi-jihadist groups. A senior Shabaab leader, Mukhtaar Roobow Abu-Mansoor, welcomed the designation as a badge of honor.

In a subsequent interview with al-Jazeera, he mockingly said that ‚our only regret is that we’re number 41 on that list, not number one! Viewed by many global jihadists as an effective Jihadist organization with great potential, al-Shabaab attracted hundreds of foreign fighters into Somalia, aggressively expanded its territorial ambitions and, perhaps more importantly, made lasting inroads with the al-Qaida network. Al-Shabaab now controls more territory in Somalia than any other entity, including the nascent Government of National Unity (GNU), the semi-autonomous Puntland in the Northeast, and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland in the North. Its strict Wahhabi rule stretches from the barren heartland regions in Central Somalia, all the way to the lush farms in the South. Al-Shabaab’s battle-hardened forces control significant portions of the capital Mogadishu, and even attack the basis of the African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM). More menacingly, the group has ratcheted up its suicide operations across the country, all the while sharpening its global Jihadist rhetoric. On December 3rd 2009, the Shabaab is thought to have carried out the most devastating suicide attack in Somalia to date, killing three cabinet ministers, several doctors and medical school graduates, as well as two dozen students, parents and professors. The attack, at graduation ceremony for Benadir University, marked a watershed moment in the Somali conflict: for the first time, the Shabaab, though it didn’t claim the attack because it would have constituted a political suicide, was not sparing‚ soft targets. More frighteningly, the Danish Security and Intelligence Agency, known by its acronyms PET, confirmed that the suicide bomber lived in Denmark for more than 20 years.9 As the American government zooms its focus on Yemen, following the Christmas Day attempt to blow-up a jetliner over Detroit, al-Shabaab wasted no time to pledge to dispatch its fighters in support of the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula10, or AQAP, which trained and armed the 23-year-old Nigerian suspect with explosives. In fact, al-Shabaab has admitted to swapping fighters and resources with the AQAP. As Medhane Tadesse, an Ethiopian scholar correctly observed, al-Shabaab drives so much of its power from‚ three F’s: fear, foreign money and foreign fighters. On February 1, 2010, al-Shabaab has, for the first time, declared that it would ally itself directly with the al-Qaeda Network. The group’s reclusive leader, together with a top Jihadist who is on the US and UN terror list, said that the Shabaab would adjoin the Horn of Africa Jihad to the one led by al-Qaeda and its leader Sheikh Osama bin Laden. The statement was historic in that it marks the first admission that the Shabaab is making an effort to become part of al-Qaeda network. Still, it falls short of a full-fledged membership to the coveted network.

http://www.radiodaljir.com/audio/docs/TheAnatomyOfAlShabaab.pdf

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