al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (
HSM) (Arabic:
حركة الشباب المجاهدين;
Ḥarakat ash-Shabāb al-Mujāhidīn,
"Mujahideen Youth Movement" or
"Movement of Striving Youth"), more commonly known as
al-Shabaab (Arabic:
الشباب,
"The Youth" or
"The Boys"), is the Somalia-based
cell of the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda, formally recognized in 2012.
As of 2012, the outfit controls large swathes of the southern parts of the country,
where it is said to have imposed its own strict form of Sharia law.
[6] Al-Shabaab's troop strength as of May 2011 is estimated at 14,426 militants.
[7] In February 2012, Al-Shabaab leaders quarreled with Al-Qaeda over the union,
and quickly lost ground.
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 the African 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 United States Department of State has open bounties on several of the outfit'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]
Terrorist designation
Shabaab is designated as a terrorist group by Australia,
[53] Canada,
[54] Norway,
[13] Sweden,
[14] the United Kingdom,
[53] and the United States.
[12]
History and activities
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),
[55]
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.
[56]
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.
[57]
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.
[58]
As of January 2009, Ethiopian forces have withdrawn from Somalia and Al-Shabaab carries on its fight against former ally and
Islamic Courts Union leader, President
Sharif Ahmed, who heads the
Transitional Federal Government.
[6]
Al-Shabaab has had 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.
[59]
On the other hand, in the areas it controls, Al-Shabaab has reduced
over-sized cheap food imports. This has allowed Somalia's own grain
production, which normally has high potential, to flourish.
[60]
This 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. The policy worked remarkably well until drought began to
hamper local food production in 2010. In response, Al-Shabaab announced
in July 2011 that it had withdrawn its restrictions on international
humanitarian workers.
[61]
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.
[62]
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 outfit. 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.
[63]
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 outfit
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.
[ On July 11, 2012, Somali federal troops and their AMISOM allies captured the area from the militants.
[65]
Opposition
The U.S. has asserted that al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda pose a global threat.
[66] 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]
Anderson also reports that enforcement of law against adultery or
zina includes execution. In 2008,
in the port of Kismayo, a young girl accused of adultery was buried up to her neck in the field of a soccer stadium packed with spectators, and then stoned
to death; her family said that she was only thirteen years old and had
in fact been gang-raped. This summer, in the ancient coastal town of Merca,
the Shabaab decreed that gold and silver dental fillings were
un-Islamic, and dispatched patrols to yank them out of people's mouths.[6]
Shabaab have persecuted Somalia's small Christian minority, sometimes affixing the label on people they suspect of working for Ethiopian intelligence.
[67] 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.
[68][69] This has led to confrontations with Sufi organized armed groups who have organized under the banner of Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a.
[70]
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.”
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.
[72]
