Al Shabab’s Resurgence
Wednesday, January 04, 2017
By Joshua Meservey
Why Its Campaign of Terror Will Likely
Accelerate
Somali soldiers inspect the scene of a suicide car bomb attack by al Shabab in Mogadishu, September 2016. FEISAL OMAR / REUTERS
Al Shabab,the al Qaeda affiliate that has
bedeviled the East African country of Somalia for a decade, is currently
enjoying its most successful run of attacks in years against the Somali
government. Since mid-August alone, the group has killed a number of
high-ranking officials, including a senior intelligence officer, a district
commissioner, and a general in the national army. Its intensified assault on
the government comes in the middle of an electoral process that inaugurated a
new parliament in December and is scheduled to bring a new president this
month.
Disrupting the electoral process is consistent
with an old al Shabab strategy of discrediting any competing sources of
authority and legitimacy. However, something new is afoot as well: al Shabab
has escalated its attacks in the north of Somalia this year, outside its
preferred southern area of operations. The group’s history and ideology suggest
the campaign is likely to accelerate once the electoral process finishes. There
are a number of worrisome consequences of a northward lunge by al Shabab, the
worst of which would be a renewal of ties with the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), historically the al Qaeda affiliate most focused on
attacking the United States.
The change in al Shabab’s previously desultory
approach to the north became clear in March 2016, when it landed as many as 600
fighters on the shores of the semiautonomous northern region of Puntland. The
ultimately ill-fated campaign was an unprecedented investment of manpower
outside al Shabab’s southern stronghold, where it once had dominion over nearly
a third of the country. Its presence in the north had previously been mostly
confined to a small militia based in the Galgala Mountains region.
The Puntland attack was
just the start. In March and April, Puntland security services broke up an al
Shabab cell in Garowe, and al Shabab attacked the towns of Beledweyne, Bosaso,
Galkayo, and Garad—even briefly capturing the latter—all of which are outside
the area in which the group usually operates. In late November, the group
killed four pro-government soldiers with a roadside bomb near Bosaso, and in
August it launched the deadliest terror attack ever in Puntland, when two
suicide car bombs ripped into local government buildings in Galkayo, killing
nearly 30 and wounding almost 90 people.
Al Shabab’s northward play makes sense for
several reasons. It is being squeezed in the south by the various forces
arrayed against it, and could be looking for an escape valve. Al Shabab is in
no danger of being militarily defeated in the south anytime soon, but it is natural
for such a canny group to hedge its bets.
There is also the matter of Abdiqadir Mumin, the
senior al Shabab religious leader based in Puntland, who declared allegiance to
the Islamic State (ISIS) along with a small number of fighters in October 2015.
Despite repeated overtures from ISIS, the rest of al Shabab has remained
fiercely loyal to al Qaeda, hunting down anyone within its ranks suspected of
ISIS sympathies. Mumin’s band emerged from hiding in October to seize Qandala,
a port town in Puntland, for over a month. Al Shabab wants him dead, a task
that will require a stronger presence in the area.
Wreckage at the scene of an attack by Al Shabab in Mogadishu, Somalia, October 2016. Feisal Omar/ Reuters
STAVE OFF A REUNION
The most concerning consequence of al Shabab
moving north, however, would be any renewal of its friendship with AQAP.
Although the details are unclear, Al Shabab’s links with its associates across
the Gulf of Aden extend back to at least 2010. In 2011, the United States
captured a high-ranking al Shabab operative named Ahmed Warsame as he was leaving
Yemen in a skiff. Warsame had close links with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American
terrorist who was AQAP’s most senior and effective propagandist. In 2012, al
Shabab reportedly sent 300 fighters to receive training and to fight with AQAP
in its war against the Yemeni government. The increasing sophistication over
the years of al Shabab’s explosives may be the fruit of that collaboration.
The relationship between al Shabab and AQAP
appears to have weakened after both groups suffered significant military setbacks
in their respective countries. However, the civil war between Iranian-backed
Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led military coalition that has gripped Yemen since
2015 has been a boon for AQAP. It took advantage of the chaos to rapidly
expand, at one point controlling nearly 400 miles of Yemeni coastline and the
country’s third-largest port, Makalla, from which it derived as much as $2
million per day in taxes. At that time, it also freed more than 100 of its
jailed members—including senior leader Khaled Batarfi—and seized huge amounts
of weaponry from a government depot.
The Saudi-led coalition eventually drove AQAP
from Makalla, and it has lost ground in other parts of the country as well. Yet
it still controls significant chunks of Yemen, and the group’s long-term
prospects are good as the stalemated civil war ensures the sort of violent
instability off of which AQAP feeds. The Yemeni group is likely to remain an
attractive partner for al Shabab for the foreseeable future.
A renewed relationship between al Shabab and
AQAP would make it easier to move materiel and men back and forth and for each
group to share its expertise with the other. This is the sort of cooperation
that has strengthened terror organizations throughout the world. Boko Haram in
West Africa (now an ISIS affiliate), for example, began as an unremarkable
militia. Yet the training that some of its fighters received from al Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al Shabab helped it transform into one of the
world’s deadliest terrorist organizations that routinely humiliated the
Nigerian army and conquered chunks of Northeast Nigeria.
A longer-term possibility is that a stronger
friendship between AQAP and al Shabab could influence the latter to invest some
of its energies into global jihad. Al Shabab has historically shown little
interest in attacking what al Qaeda dubbed the Far Enemy, apart from
occasionally and unsuccessfully calling for lone-wolf attacks in the United
States. It is for now preoccupied with fighting a regional war, and there is no
indication it is rethinking its strategy.
Yet elements of al Shabab’s leadership have
always been sympathetic to internationalist terrorist goals, and many of its
founders fought in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Al Shabab’s steadfast
loyalty to al Qaeda signals at least tacit acceptance of the latter’s
internationally focused brand of terrorism. Attacking Western targets,
specifically the United States, has been a pillar of al Qaeda’s strategy since
the early 1990s.
Al Qaeda generally struggles to get its
affiliates to look beyond their local wars, yet AQAP has adopted al Qaeda’s
internationalism with gusto. In 2009, the group just missed killing the deputy
interior minister of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah using a man with explosives hidden
in his body. AQAP was behind failed attacks on airlines bound for the United
States in 2009 and 2010, as well as the January 2015 attack on the offices of
Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.
It is likely no coincidence that in 2011 when al
Shabab was closer to AQAP than it is now, at least several al Shabab leaders
were plotting attacks against Europe. The group has extensive networks
throughout East Africa, and there are many inviting Western targets there
should al Shabab decide to prioritize a broader jihad. Al Shabab also once
attracted the support of scores of Europeans and Americans. The longer the
feckless Somali government disappoints its citizens and the longer foreign
troops fighting al Shabab remain in Somalia, the more the level of appeal al
Shabab holds for foreign fighters is likely to rebound. That would open up
opportunities for al Shabab to directly strike Western countries, something
beyond its current capacity.
AQAP and al Shabab do not appear to have yet
rebuilt ties, and al Shabab is preoccupied with disrupting Somalia’s electoral
process. Expect al Shabab’s northern activities to continue, however, once the
distraction of the electoral process has faded, and particularly if AQAP
continues to revive. Now is the best time to nip a reunion in the bud, which
will require vigilance and determination in both Somalia and Yemen.
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