Al-Shabaab: the deadliest terror organization in Africa

While most of the world eyes the events unfolding in Iraq and Syria, surrounding the terrorist organization known as ISIS, al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based Islamic extremist group, has become the deadliest terror organization on the African continent.

While most of the world eyes the events unfolding in Iraq and Syria, surrounding the terrorist organization known as ISIS, al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based Islamic extremist group, has become the deadliest terror organization on the African continent. Though responsible for numerous terrorist attacks which has accumulated death tolls in the thousands, al-Shabaab’s horrific activities have gone largely unnoticed by most Westerners, and Western media. And even more frightening, their attack on the Jima Village in Lamu, Kenya last week, marks what could be a stark shift from their traditional tactics.

In the early morning hours of July 8, fifteen armed al-Shabaab fighters stormed a village in southeastern Kenya, dragging 10 non-Muslim men from their homes and attacking them with knives, and eventually beheading 9 of them. One of the victims managed to escape by playing dead. Many more fled the village to evade further violence. What makes this attack particularly unimaginable, was the relative shift from al-Shabaab’s usual brands of violence. Al-Shabaab, best known for acts of piracy, roadside bombs, and armed assaults, seems to have begun to add beheading attacks to their list of atrocities. There have been few, if any reports of al-Shabaab using this type of terror tactic in the past. As reported by the Daily Maverick, “The guerrilla attack has created a new face of terrorism in the volatile region, with the Somalia-based militia moving from their traditional Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and masked gunmen in their previous attacks.”

Despite the sheer brutality of this and other terrorist attacks by al-Shabaab, their ever-increasing violence has gone largely unnoticed as the appalling acts of ISIS and Al Qaeda seem to take center stage. In April of 2015, al-Shabaab gunmen stormed Garissa University in Kenya, where they conducted a virtual massacre of 147 students. Many were killed as they slept. A year later, al-Shabaab claimed the lives of 200 soldiers in ElAdde. And in one of the more noted attacks by the Somalia-based terror group, al-Shabaab also claimed responsibility for the Westgate Mall attack in September of 2013 in Nairobi, Kenyan, which took the lives of 67 people. They have also conducted numerous suicide bombings upon Kenyan and Somali military and security forces. According to a recent report by The Guardian, “In recent months al-Shabaab has increased attacks in Kenya with homemade bombs killing at least 46 people in Lamu and Mandera counties.” Al-Shabaab is closely tied to Al Qaeda, and as stated by James Ole Serian, who leads a task force combating the terror organization and who commented for The Guardian saying al-Shabaab, “became the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa last year.”

Analysts speculate that al-Shabaab has ratcheted-up their attacks in Kenya, due to the Kenyan military’s participation in Operation Linda Inchi, which sent 3,600 soldiers to Somalia to fight with the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) – a joint effort by several countries in the African Union to rid many of these war-torn areas of terrorist organizations like al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. However, this latest attack, and the earlier one at the Westgate Mall, shows that al-Shabaab’s motives are not only geared towards retaliation upon Kenyan military and security forces. The Al Qaeda-linked organization full intends to exact fear and horrific violence upon the Somalian and Kenyan Muslim and non-Muslim populations.

The violence of al-Shabaab has become so prevalent, in the wake of this latest attack Kenya’s Acting Interior Minister Fred Matiangi has issued a curfew for the Garissa, Tana River, and Lamu counties. This comes as the Kenyan presidential election approaches on August 8 of this year, and where Kenyan security officials already believe their forces will be stretched thin by the event itself.

In Somalia, al-Shabaab has been able to exploit the ongoing and devastating drought to maintain control of their territory there. According to Somali officials, al-Shabaab controls upwards of 10 percent of the nation’s land. This is in mostly Somalia’s southern and rural areas. Conor Gaffey writes for Newsweek in March of 2017, “Many Somalis suffering from the drought are living under al-Shabaab, which controls many rural parts of southern Somalia.” Earlier this year, the terror organization conducted a bombing of the Somali national theater killing at least 10 people. This came as the new Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, elected in February, was naming his first cabinet. The devastating drought has only strengthened al-Shabaab’s ability to control the areas they hold as clean water becomes scarce, and as government and international humanitarian aid stays out of reach by the area’s residents. The United Nations estimates at least 6.2 million people in Somalia are in need of humanitarian aid.

Weak governments in Somalia and in other surrounding African nations, can often create a breeding ground for terrorist organizations to thrive, and in some cases, win over the people, as they portend that their government’s officials are corrupt and that they alone can provide the assistance the people need. Somalia, Kenya, and Nigeria are only a few examples of how terrorist organizations operating in Africa, like al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, can capitalize on the desperation of others. However, it is becoming increasing evident that whatever aid al-Shabaab claims to provide, it can never overshadow the unthinkable brutality they are obviously willing to employ.