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Al-Shabaab (aka the Harakat Al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin, al-Shabab, Al-Shabaab, the Youth, Mujahidin al-Shabaab Movement, Mujahideen Youth Movement, Mujahidin Youth Movement), is an Islamic organization that controls much of southern Somalia, excluding the capital, Mogadishu. It has waged an insurgency against Somalia's transitional government and its Ethiopian supporters since 2006. Originally the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union, the group that controlled Somalia prior to the country's invasion by Ethiopian forces, al-Shabaab leaders have claimed affiliation with al-Qaeda since 2007.
Though most analysts believe al-Shabaab's organizational links to al-Qaeda are weak, in February 2008 the United States added the group to its list of foreign terrorist organizations. In what marked the group's first major attack outside of Somalia, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for twin bombings that killed more than seventy people in Kampala, Uganda (NYT) during the World Cup final on July 11, 2010. The 2011 widespread famine in southern Somalia weakened the group, some analysts say. Rashid Abdi, International Crisis Group's Horn of Africa analyst, says many in Somalia, even former supporters of the group, saw them as being culpable in the crisis because they prevented aid groups from helping needy populations in time. In 2009, al-Shabaab banned some international aid agencies, including the UN World Food Program, from southern Somalia. Though they reversed this decision in July 2011 after the famine, restrictions remain (Telegraph).
Leadership and Divisions
Al-Shabaab is nominally led by Sheikh Mohamed Mukhtar Abdirahman "Abu Zubeyr," though experts say a core group of senior leaders guide its actions. The group is divided into three geographical units: Bay and Bokool regions, led by Mukhtar Roobow "Abu Mansur," the group's spokesman; south-central Somalia and Mogadishu; and Puntland and Somaliland. A fourth unit, which controls the Juba Valley, is led by Hassan Abdillahi Hersi "Turki," who is not considered to be a member of al-Shabaab, but is closely aligned with it. These regional units "appear to operate independently of one another, and there is often evidence of friction between them," says a December 2008 UN Monitoring Group report.
Estimates of al-Shabaab's size vary, but analysts generally agree that the group contains several thousand fighters, many of whom are from the Hawiye clan. The group has been able to expand its footprint in Somalia with relatively small numbers for two reasons: Somalia hasn't had a central government since 1991; and many of the clan warlords that filled the power vacuum have proven willing to cooperate with al-Shabaab, at least in Somalia's south. Al-Shabaab has engaged in forced recruitment among Somalis, so it's unclear how many members of the group truly believe the organization's ideology. Experts say the number of rank-and-file members is less important than the number of hardcore ideological believers, which could range between three hundred and eight hundred individuals.
Foreign fighters have traveled to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab, as have Somalis from the United Kingdom and the United States. "We have seen an increasing number of individuals here in the United States become captivated by extremist ideologies or causes," said White House National Security Adviser John Brennan in a May 2010 speech, noting, among others, five Somali-Americans that left Minnesota to fight in Somalia. U.S.-born Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki joined al-Shabaab in 2007 and has become the recognizable face of the group (NYT), starring in propaganda videos that have helped recruit hundreds of foreign fighters, according to intelligence officials. In June 2010, two U.S. citizens from New Jersey (CSMonitor) were arrested at New York's JFK Airport after allegations that they planned to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabaab. The arrests came amid a growing trend in which radicalized Americans have become involved in terrorism-related activities.
Some experts say there are deep divisions within al-Shabaab. In a February 2009 report for the Enough Project, Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus writes that, "The al-Shabaab faces multiple internal divisions--over clan, leadership, tactics, and ideology--which a new unity government can exploit to convince parts of the al-Shabaab to abandon the movement and gradually outmaneuver, marginalize, and defeat the core hardliners." Each unit of al-Shabaab is led by individuals who must combine their ideological aims with pragmatic considerations of different clan-based agendas. It's important to "focus on what they do, not what they say," writes Menkhaus.
Roland Marchal, senior research fellow of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, says that reports of increasing divisions within al-Shabaab are overstated. They are "based on the assumption that they were once united," he notes. However, he says the organization must decide "to what extent they want to accommodate the Somali society and to what extent they want to keep the ideology they have developed."
Tactics and Motivations
Al-Shabaab's tactics have evolved over time. When it began its insurgency in late 2006, it used classic guerrilla tactics--suicide bombings, shootings, and targeted assassinations--to oppose the Somali government and what it perceives as its allies, from aid groups to the Ethiopian military to African Union peacekeepers. Much of the violence was concentrated in Mogadishu; battles between the Ethiopian military and al-Shabaab in August 2007 caused roughly four hundred thousand people to flee the city.
In 2008, al-Shabaab began to reach out to the Somali public with a series of town visits. A December 2008 International Crisis Group report describes these outings as "well choreographed, with clerics addressing public rallies and holding talks with local clan elders." Al-Shabaab would hand out food and money to the poor, give criminals quick trials with "mobile sharia courts," and attempt to settle local disputes. As the group sought to take control of towns in southern Somalia, it began to use political strategies as well. Before a particular town was captured, insurgents had meetings with local clan leaders to convince them that their intentions were good. By February 2009, al-Shabaab controlled most of southern Somalia, as depicted in this map by the Long War Journal. However, the group continued to launch suicide attacks. In February 2009, al-Shabaab killed eleven Burundian soldiers in the deadliest attack on AU peacekeepers since their deployment and engaged in heavy fighting that killed at least fifteen people in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab carried out twin bombings in Uganda--another country participating in Somalia peacekeeping efforts--in July 2010. The attacks point to an internationalization of al-Shabaab's terrorist activities, which could destabilize East Africa (Atlantic) and unleash repercussions abroad.
Experts say al-Shabaab's methods and ideologies aren't necessarily consistent with each another. According to Marchal of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, "al-Shabaab has tried to evolve from a group that has a purely militaristic approach to a group that pretends to rule and wage jihad at the same time." On the one hand, the group espouses a strict form of Islam, Salafi/Wahhabism, and websites for the group claim to be waging jihad against infidels. On the other hand, al-Shabaab has extended its political power in southern Somalia through pragmatic means, not radicalism. It has imposed sharia law in some of the towns it controls, such as Baidoa, but "imposing the puritanical brand of Islam it espouses . . . would quickly alienate many Somalis," says the International Crisis Group report.
Links to al-Qaeda
When the United States placed al-Shabaab on its list of foreign terrorist organizations in February 2008, it claimed the group has an allegiance with al-Qaeda. Specifically, it said that senior al-Shabaab leaders trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda. Experts say there are links between individual al-Shabaab leaders and individual members of al-Qaeda, but any organizational linkage between the two groups is weak, if it exists at all (many experts note that al-Qaeda operates in a disaggregated manner--so linking self-proclaimed members of al-Shabaab to self-proclaimed members of al-Qaeda would not necessarily indicate that the two groups are coordinating with one another in a systemic way). There is evidence that foreign fighters have trained al-Shabaab members on the use of weapons and how to construct roadside bombs. But Marchal says many of these foreign fighters are not part of al-Qaeda.
The strongest tie between al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda seems to be ideological. In September 2008, a senior al-Shabaab leader released a video in which he pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and called for Muslim youth to come to Somalia. In February 2009, Ayman al-Zawahiri, then al-Qaeda's second-in-command, released a video that began by praising al-Shabaab's seizure of the Somali town of Baidoa. The group will "engage in Jihad against the American-made government in the same way they engaged in Jihad against the Ethiopians and the warlords before them," Zawahiri said. Though al-Qaeda appears to support al-Shabaab's jihad, it's unclear whether al-Shabaab has ambitions beyond Somalia. According to a report by Chris Harnisch of the American Enterprise Institute, the group's "rhetoric and behavior" have shifted over the past two years, "reflecting an eagerness to strike internationally" (PDF).
Future of the Organization
The withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia in January 2009 removed the group's principal adversary. Yet al-Shabaab continues to launch suicide attacks against African Union peacekeepers in Somalia that often result in civilian casualties. As evidenced in the July 2010 Uganda bombings, the group has also directly targeted civilians in what may have been a retaliatory attack (Bloomberg) against Uganda for sending its troops on peacekeeping operations to Somalia. The FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security have warned that al-Shabaab's actions in Uganda could signal the group's capability of launching a successful attack beyond Africa, and even in the United States. Some experts see early signs of public opinion turning against al-Shabaab. First, clan-based militias have started to oppose al-Shabaab. In January 2009, militias repelled al-Shabaab's attempts to assert control in the central Somalia area of Galgadud. "There is a mobilization of various groupings of orthodox Sunni Muslims all over Somalia to form a broad front" against al-Shabaab, the International Crisis Group's Somalia observer told Voice of America in February 2009.
Looking ahead, there are several measures that will indicate al-Shabaab's level of strength and internal coherence: first, whether the group is able to maintain its territorial control over parts of Mogadishu and how far it can expand this control in Somalia; second, whether Somalia's business community decides to support the group; third, whether the Somali diaspora continues to fund al-Shabaab through the hawala money transfer system (it is not clear how much money al-Shabaab currently receives from the diaspora or other sources). Finally, analysts are closely watching the extent to which the Somali government, led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, negotiates with al-Shabaab.
The United States has launched air strikes to target high-level members of al-Shabaab it believes have links to al-Qaeda. In April 2010, President Barack Obama issued an executive order (PDF) aimed at blocking the finances of al-Shabaab's leaders and those who are contributing to the conflict in Somalia. Following the Uganda bombings, the Obama administration also indicated that it would boost its efforts against al-Shabaab, most likely in the form of increased assistance (IPS) to the African Union Mission in Somalia, which plans to send two thousand additional troops to the country, as well as to the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu.
But experts say these activities have only increased popular support for al-Shabaab. In a March 2010 CFR report, Bronwyn E. Bruton argues that "the open blessing of the TFG by the United States and other Western countries has perversely served to isolate the government and, at the same time, to propel cooperation among previously fractured and quarrelsome extremist groups." She proposes a "constructive disengagement" policy that recognizes al-Shabaab's Islamist rule in Somalia as long as it does not engage in regional violence or terrorism.
-- Michal Toiba contributed to this report.
