Somalia’s Unfinished War

On July 23rd, 2014, Saado Ali Warsame, a politician and celebrated folk singer, was killed along with her driver in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. According to witnesses, gunmen pulled beside her car in another vehicle, before shooting the female legislator in the Hodan district, then widely considered one of the safest places in the city because of its considerable security presence. However, this attack was not simply an isolated occurrence. Warsame was the fourth politician killed in Somalia this year alone. Just weeks before, four people, including politician Mohamed Mohamud Heyd, were killed in a similar drive-by shooting while on their way to a parliamentary meeting in the capital. Both of these brazen attacks were orchestrated by the Somali-based terrorist organization, al-Shabaab, whose fighters have pledged to intensify violent actions during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Al-Shabaab, which translates as "The Youth" in Arabic, is a militant Islamist organization that, until recently, controlled large swathes of southern Somalia. The group was originally part of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which along with its rival, the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP), had been vying for control of Somalia since the early 1990s. Following the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre and the ensuing collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic on January 26th, 1991, there had been no universally accepted national government in Somalia. Although the ICU's beginnings are still somewhat murky, it has been generally accepted that Hassan Dahir Aweys, former leader of the Islamist group al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, and other influential Somalis like the future president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Sheikh Ali Dheere, who established the first Islamic court in Mogadishu, were instrumental in the early formation of the organization in 2006. For many Somalis, desperate to escape the anarchy and violence that had consumed much of their country, the ICU seemed to provide a degree of stability, albeit through the strict implementation of Sharia law.

In 2000, the various Islamic courts began to consolidate resources and power on a regional basis, rather than along traditional clan lines. That being said, the dominant Hawiye clan retained most decision-making authority within the ICU. These actions increasingly brought the ICU into conflict with the relatively secular warlords then in control of Mogadishu, who established the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in an effort to oppose the further erosion of their power. Conflict between the groups soon broke out within the already devastated capital, killing an estimated 300 people; however, the ICU could now claim on June 5th, 2006, that it controlled the entire city.

The rise of the ICU in southern Somalia had not gone unnoticed in neighboring Ethiopia, which remained fearful of incursions into its predominantly Somali Ogaden region. On July 20th, 2006, Ethiopian forces were reportedly deployed near the Somali border. In response, the ICU sent its own fighters to the region. Receiving support from the United States, which believed that the ICU was receiving support from al-Qaeda and sheltering terrorists involved in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ethiopia sent forces to support the UN-backed TFP then based around the provisional capitol of Baidoa in the south-central Bay region of Somalia. On December 12th, the ICU imposed a one-week deadline for Ethiopian forces to withdraw from the country; nevertheless, Aweys made clear that Somalia was at war, saying, “All Somalis should take part in this struggle against Ethiopia.” Heavy fighting between the ICU and Ethiopian forces occurred shortly thereafter and soon much of southern Somalia was embroiled in conflict.

Despite some initial victories against Ethiopian forces and the influx of Islamic fighters from abroad, the ICU lost a considerable amount of territory and was forced to retreat to Mogadishu, which was captured by TFP and Ethiopian forces on December 28th, 2006. However, the ICU quickly established a new headquarters in the city of Kismayo, located near the Jubba River in southern Somalia. A prolonged insurgency would continue to devastate the surrounding region until the signing of the Djibouti Peace Agreement in June 2008. Reconciliation and the subsequent election of Ahmed, a vocal supporter of the peace accord, as President of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in February 2009 would see further divisions within the ICU leadership. Those opposed to cooperation with the TFG, including Aweys, would eventually splinter into a smaller group that absorbed the youth movement within the ICU and later adopted the seemingly innocuous name, al-Shabaab.

Although receiving international recognition and support, including the deployment of nearly 22,000 African Union peacekeepers, the TFG struggled to maintain legitimacy in war-torn Somalia. Two weeks after Ahmed assumed the Presidency, al-Shabaab attacked the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) base in Mogadishu, killing 11 and injuring 15. A similar attack on September 17th saw members of al-Shabaab drive two cars laden with explosives and, reportedly, marked as United Nations vehicles deep into the AMISOM headquarters located within Aden Adde International Airport. Once inside, the suicide bombers detonated their vehicles near a fuel depot, resulting in the deaths of at least 17 peacekeepers and Somali police officers. Another incident, which created international out-cry, was the now infamous public execution by stoning of the 13-year-old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, accused by members of al-Shabaab of adultery.

The rapid territorial expansion of the Islamist organization was also of great concern for many observers and, by late August 2008, al-Shabaab was believed to control most of southern Somalia, with the notable exception of Mogadishu. On May 7th, 2009, al-Shabaab (along with other groups, like Hizbul Islam) launched a major offensive aimed at wresting control of the Somali capital from the beleaguered TGF; although al-Shabaab made significant gains, the offensive ultimately failed to defeat the TGF, which on May 22nd launched a successful counter-offensive. Intermittent fighting in the city would continue until early October 2009, the resulting violence would leave more than 1,700 people dead and thousands more displaced. Having failed to capture Mogadishu, though still in control of the surrounding rural hinterlands, al-Shabaab began to shift its focus toward countries that it accused of supporting the TFG in Somalia.

On February 7th, 2010, al-Shabaab declared war on Kenya for allegedly training TFG forces. Shortly thereafter, in retaliation for the country's support of AMISOM, a suicide bomber in the Ugandan capital of Kampala claimed the lives of 74 people and left another 70 injured. Besides showcasing al-Shabaab's growing capabilities to commit acts of terror, this marked the first attack outside of Somalia. In mid-October 2011, members of al-Shabaab abducted two Spanish women working for Médecins Sans Frontières, an international humanitarian aid organization also known as Doctors Without Borders, at the Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya. Furthermore, several foreign tourists, including the cancer-stricken and quadriplegic French woman Marie Dedieu (who later died after the militants refused to give her medication sent by the French government for heart disease), had been kidnapped from Kenyan beach resorts in two separate incidents over the previous month. In response, the Kenyan military sent an estimated 3,000 troops into southern Somalia on October 16th, 2011. Working cooperatively with the TFG and Ethiopian forces in what later became known as Operation Linda Nchi, which translates as " Protect the Nation" in Swahili, they sought to reduce al-Shabaab's ability of committing similar acts of terror, while consolidating the TFG's position within Somalia. For its part, al-Shabaab prepared its fighters with Sheikh Hassan Turki, a senior leader with the Islamist organization, calling upon them to unite against “this blood-thirsty enemy that has crossed into our territories and the apostate Somali militants helping them.”

Operation Linda Nchi proved a largely successful venture, in that, al-Shabaab was forced to withdraw from a large proportion of territory that it previously occupied in southern Somalia, including the strongholds of Afgoye in Lower Shebelle region and Kismayo. In early June 2012 the operation ended with most Kenyan forces being incorporated under AMISOM command. Later, Kenya would agree to send an additional 5,000 troops to assist the newly formed Federal Government of Somalia, created after the interim mandate of the TFG expired on August 20th, 2012. Nevertheless, al-Shabaab remained a significant challenge to regional stability in East Africa. In February 2012, Mukhtar Abu al-Zubair announced that al-Shabaab had merged with the international terrorist organization al-Qaeda. In the 15-minute video al-Zubair says to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, “On behalf of the soldiers and the commanders in al-Shabaab, we pledge allegiance to you. So lead us to the path of jihad and martyrdom that was drawn by our imam, the martyr Osama.” It should be noted, however, this merger has resulted in some internal-rifts developing within al-Shabaab's leadership; Aweys, described as the spiritual leader of al-Shabaab, fearing persecution by al-Zubair, who had reportedly put sixteen leaders under arrest in Barowe for insubordination, went into hiding and was later captured by Somali government forces in June 2013.

On September 21st, 2013, unidentified gunmen entered the upscale Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. According to witnesses, the attackers came into the building around noon and began firing indiscriminately at shoppers, while others came through a parking lot entrance and threw grenades into a crowd viewing a cooking competition. In order to distinguish non-Muslims, the attackers reportedly began asking people to recite the Shahada, in what a spokesman for al-Shabaab would later call “a meticulous vetting process...to separate the Muslims from the Kuffar (unbelievers).” Although widely suspected of being involved, it was not until September 23rd that al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the mall attack that resulted in the deaths of 67 people. In a series of messages posted online by the terrorist organization, the attack was characterized as “just retribution” for the continued presence of Kenyan troops in Somalia. Since then, al-Shabaab has continued its war against Kenya, attacking the coastal village of Poromoko in mid-June 2014; barely 24-hours later a similar attack near Mpeketoni (a popular tourist destination in Lamu County) left at least 48 people dead.

Somalia's turbulent history gave rise to al-Shabaab and while Operation Linda Nchi, along with the presence of AMISOM, has greatly reduced the terrorist organization's capabilities, this may still not be enough. Although having been largely forced into the more remote areas of southern Somalia, al-Shabaab remains a significant challenge to regional stability in East Africa, as demonstrated by the Westgate mall attack. Growing evidence also shows that al-Shabaab is developing ties with other terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Nigerian-based Boko Haram. Increasingly, al-Shabaab has begun to make use of social media, perhaps most infamously Twitter, in order to distribute its propaganda, secure funds, and attract foreign recruits (largely from the Swahili Coast, Middle East, and Asia) to continue its now nine-year insurgency in Somalia.