Al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda based in Somalia, is finding new support among the young as well as forming new alliances, such as with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, reports Tam Hussein in the online magazine UnHerd (September 16). The ineffectiveness of the Somali government in defeating the terrorist group was on display in July 2024, when a fireball ripped through a cafe full of football fans in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab later claimed responsibility for the blast and the five lives it took. The attack posed a particular threat because the 22,000 African Union troops that have been stationed in Somalia since 2007 to support Mogadishu’s fragile government are scheduled to leave at the end of the year. “And there’s every reason to believe that al-Shabaab could take over and destabilise neighbouring nations with a large Somali diaspora…It could also spark more serious threats closer to home. After all, in the aftermath of 9/11, it was in Somalia—not Iraq or Afghanistan—that a new generation of Western jihadists were spawned,” Hussein writes. The revival and spread of al-Shabaab is linked to the same dissident fervor that led young Muslims in Islamic societies and their diasporas to fight in Chechnya or join organizations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir that called for a return of the caliphate in Syria.
Source: The Jamestown Foundation, https://jamestown.org/program/perspectives-on-the-future-of-the-somalijihad/members-of-hizb-al-islam-patrol-southern-mogadishu/
During that time, “policymakers appeared to be more preoccupied with threats emerging from Afghanistan and Iraq or dealing with the aftermath of major terror attacks such as the one that took place in London on 7/7, to appreciate the [influence] al-Shabaab had on a small but significant number of young Muslims in the West. Somalia appeared distant and war-torn.” But today, Hussein writes, “we find ourselves in a similar situation, with a turbo-charged jihadi discourse heightened by the horrific situation in Palestine. Young, disaffected Muslims watch as the media appears outraged by Russian targeting of hospitals in Ukraine but relatively indifferent when the IDF targets hospitals in Gaza. They see themselves as othered, devalued and forgotten. Spurred on by social media and Telegram groups, they see the likes of the Taliban defeating the Americans or the Houthis doing something for Gaza while the rest of the Muslim world appears impotent. For them, al-Shabaab offers an animating force. If its flags rise in Mogadishu, a new generation of Western jihadists could return to the Horn of Africa.”
