Al-Shabaab In Somalia Research Articles

From ‘Roving’ to ‘Stationary’ Actors: Understanding the Territorial Logic of Al Shabaab in Somalia

ABSTRACT Non-state armed actors’ (NSAAs) control of territory is not a completely new phenomenon in international politics. However, NSAAs resurgence in the conceptualization and demarcation of both physical and imaginary territorial space has raised the need for a further understanding of their territorial logic. Non-state armed actors continue to seize, occupy, and control territory in a manner that undermines Westphalia tenets of statehood, including sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence. This article attempts to shed some light on the understanding of the territorial logic of NSAAs by innovatively combining three independent and interrelated components that have emerged from NSAAs territorial control. These components include NSAA territorial governance, relations with local civilian populations and ideology guided territorial tactics and strategies. We apply the results to the typical and contemporary case of Al Shabaab in Somalia to generate critical insights into NSAA conceptualization, control and demarcation of physical and imaginary space.

Al Shabaab and its Violent Extremism in Kenya

The purpose of this paper on “Al Shabaab and its Violent Extremism in Kenya” aimed at exploring the dynamics of al Shabaab in Somalia as it affected Kenya. This descriptive research adopted judgmental sampling technique and relied mostly on secondary source (books, journal articles, monographs, internet materials etc) of data collection which were sourced in Nigerian libraries, subjected to content validity before analyzing qualitatively. Results of the findings revealed that the spillover of al Shabaab’s violent extremism to Kenya was caused by porous borders as well as local forces such as historic marginalization, propaganda technique and the presence of al Hijrah sect in Kenya. Al Shabaab has impacted negatively on Kenya’s security, diplomacy, economy as well as humanitarian services. Kenya has responded through the creation of Operation Linda Nchi and Operation Usalama Watch while United States, Africa Union Mission in Somalia, United Nations and European Union also assisted in fighting the dreaded sect according to findings. The contribution of these findings to the explanation of Rosenau’s linkage theory is excellent thereby deepening the understanding of its basic assumptions. Regrettably, Al Shabaab is still a potential threat to Kenya and the entire Horn of Africa, therefore, the paper recommends inclusive dialogue, national integration and constructive engagement as panacea for al Shabaab violent extremism.

The Efficacy of National and International Accountability Mechanisms in Combating the Al-Shabaab in Somalia

Decades of power struggles among political rivals have resulted in Somalia being regarded as a ‘failed state’. The absence of a central government has allowed Al-Shabaab to take control of parts of Somalia and commit war crimes as well as crimes against humanity. Despite compelling prima facie evidence of these crimes, Al-Shabaab has not been held sufficiently accountable, leaving many victims without redress. This is due to the shortcomings of existing national and international accountability mechanisms. Somalia’s judicial branch faces significant capacity challenges that prevent it from adequately investigating and prosecuting war crimes. Countermeasures by religious fundamentalists and excessive reliance on informal dispute-resolution methods further frustrate the justice system’s efforts. Peacekeeping missions by international bodies such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have also been ineffective. In addition, there are growing fears that the group’s reach will grow due to an increase in the revenue that it is able to generate. This article examines the shortcomings of the aforementioned accountability framework and offers solutions to address the gaps to ensure justice for the victims of Al-Shabaab.

Economic and peace effects of terrorism in the 21st century

Terrorism remains a severe threat to the global economy as well as global peace and security, given its destructive nature. Therefore, this study examined the economic and peace effects of terrorism in the 21st century. This study showed that the four deadliest terrorist groups are Taliban in Afghanistan, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko-Haram in Nigeria and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq and their activities have had huge economic costs for the global economy. Specifically, this study showed that terrorism has led to several deaths and injuries as well as huge economic losses in trillions of dollars across the world. Accordingly, various efforts have been put in place by national and international bodies, government and non-governmental organisations to nip terrorism in the bud but terrorism still persists. Hence, this study recommended that efforts should be intensified to counter terrorism and make the world more peaceful.

Wildlife Security and International Relations

Kenya is endowed with an enormous biodiversity of ecosystems and wildlife species. This rich wildlife together with other attractions has for decades made the country an important tourist destination and hub for the lucrative tourist industry. Nonetheless, wildlife species continue to face threats such as commercial poaching for trophies and human wildlife conflicts that hinder their survival. It is important to mitigate these threats to ensure wildlife species do not go extinct and Kenya continues to pull tourists into the country. The absence of wildlife security poses a threat to international relations. This is because wildlife crimes increase global crime rates that often lead to instability in the global arena. Furthermore, wildlife crime has, throughout history, been a source of funding for rebel groups, militias and extremist groups like the Alshabaab in Somalia. These groups undermine good governance and development efforts of states. This study aims at analyzing the key threats to wildlife security in Kenya and international relations, examining the severity of wildlife threats both locally in Kenya and globally and establishing probable solutions that can be tailor-made to address threats to wildlife security in Kenya and international relations

Piracy and Maritime Security in the North-Western Indian Ocean: From the Gulf of Oman to the Waters off the Somali Coast

There are a daunting number of maritime security threats and challenges in the north-western Indian Ocean region, both extant and potential. Indeed, the mere fact that the Indian Ocean constitutes the world’s largest swath of maritime space that is prone to the major menace of piracy (in the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden and in the waters off the north-east African coastline), as well as the sporadic threat of terrorism (by Islamic militias of Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen), signifies that the region will arguably remain the maritime area with the greatest array of security challenges. However, while anti-piracy measures ought to have shaped regional policymaking, and the resources that a large and diverse group of states has devoted to addressing these maritime challenges have never been adequate to the task, largely successful coalition-building exercises and joint naval task-force operations have been encouraging. The transformation of Somali piracy from a haphazard activity into a highly organised, professionalised criminal enterprise is briefly elucidated by greed-grievance theory and supplemented by the theory of crime, also known as routine-activity theory.

Fighting a losing battle? Countering terrorism financing in Nigeria and Somalia

ABSTRACT In the past decade, terrorist attacks in Africa have increased in frequency and lethality. Cutting off funding to terrorist groups is one important way to reduce these attacks. This research focuses on Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia. A historical overview of terrorist financing and a current outlook of the methods used by both groups are followed by a review of the literature on countering the financing of terrorism (CFT). This provides a lens through which specific government responses to financing terrorism in Nigeria and Somalia are examined. The research found that although Nigeria has made strides toward targeting terrorist funding, it is still far from cutting Boko Haram’s revenue streams. In Somalia, a ‘failed state’, until an effective government can be put in place it seems that al-Shabaab will operate relatively unaffected. The study concludes with recommendations to improve current CFT measures in Nigeria and Somalia.

More attacks or more services? Insurgent groups’ behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia

ABSTRACT Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, service-providing insurgent groups have responded differently, with some initiating more attacks amid ongoing destabilisation while others have immediately veered towards precautionary measures such as initiating public awareness campaigns and setting up quarantine centres. What drives these divergent responses? Relying on publicly available and semi-private sources, this article examines how the Taliban in Afghanistan, Ha'ayt Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia have operationalised their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that the divergent responses are rooted in the framing of the pandemic discourse. The Taliban and HTS both interpreted it as a calamity that needs responding to and repurposed their activities accordingly by stepping up their attacks against combatants while concomitantly exploiting the humanitarian vacuum created by the pandemic by delivering health services. However, as the pandemic surged, the two groups gradually scaled down their combatant targeting and prioritised delivering health services to bolster their legitimacy and build popular support for their proto-states. By contrast, Al-Shabaab labelled the pandemic as a Western and Chinese ‘problem’, and made no visible changes to their operations in response to the crisis, only belatedly beginning to offer health services as the pandemic worsened.

A New Direction for U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa

A New Direction for U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa Zachariah Mampilly (bio) and Jason Stearns (bio) President Trump's approach to Africa rightly elicits outrage. His conception of the continent ranges from disinterest—he has only mentioned it three times out of around 20,000 tweets—to outright contempt, such as when he referred to African nations as "shithole countries." For eighteen months, the office of the assistant secretary of state for African affairs was empty or occupied by a temporary official. Almost two years into his administration, there was no ambassador deployed to twenty of Africa's fifty-four countries. Trump has only met with two heads of state from sub-Saharan Africa in the White House. He has proposed large budget cuts for humanitarian funding—including for the flagship President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and UN peacekeeping operations—although these attempts were mostly foiled by bipartisan efforts in Congress. In January, he extended his travel ban to four additional African countries, including Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation and its largest economy, affecting nearly a quarter of the 1.3 billion people on the continent. Appearances, however, are deceptive. While Trump's Africa policy may seem to be a departure, its broad contours have changed little from recent administrations. Since the end of the Cold War, both Republican and Democratic administrations have embraced a mixture of military intervention, free trade, and humanitarian aid on the continent. As a result, Washington has often ended up backing authoritarian regimes, all the while halfheartedly projecting democratic values. Meanwhile, the continent is undergoing transformative changes. Much like Latin America during the 2000s, many African countries once drawn into the U.S. orbit are drifting out of it. With COVID-19 threatening to destabilize African economies and political systems, now is the time for a progressive reset in relations with the continent: a new foreign policy, centered on economic justice and the democratic aspirations of African youth. With the presidential election looming and Joe Biden, the Democratic Party nominee, expected to place Obama-era stalwarts such as Susan Rice and Samantha Power in top foreign policy positions if he wins [End Page 107] Click for larger view View full resolution A Nigerien soldier wearing a U.S. military uniform waits during a training exercise in 2004 in Samara, Niger. (Jacob Silberberg/Getty Images) [End Page 108] in November, progressives must push for a new direction for U.S.–Africa relations or risk entrenching the problematic policies of the past. Beneath the Turmoil, Continuity U.S. foreign policy in Africa has its roots in the Cold War, when it was dominated by fears of communist encroachment. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the continent was viewed as peripheral to core U.S. interests. As a 1995 Defense Department assessment summarized, "Ultimately we see very little traditional strategic interest in Africa." The same dismissive attitude held in the economic sphere. By 2017, exports to the continent stood at just above 1 percent of the U.S. total and direct investment by U.S. companies was even lower. Disengagement was also spurred by missteps and the thorny realities of local politics. In 1993, the deployment of Army Rangers to Somalia in support of a UN peacekeeping intervention ended when eighteen U.S. soldiers were killed and some of their mutilated bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. This influenced Bill Clinton's refusal to back a more robust UN engagement to prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. His administration instead enthusiastically supported a new generation of rebels-turned-rulers in Rwanda, Uganda, and Ethiopia, only to see them entrench themselves as authoritarian leaders. This trend of opportunistically backing authoritarian regimes solidified after 9/11, when African countries came to be key, albeit secondary, battlegrounds in the global War on Terror. During the 2000s, several militant groups emerged on the continent that were eventually designated as errorist organizations by the Bush and Obama administrations, including the predecessors of al Shabaab in Somalia and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the Sahel. In 2002, to combat this perceived threat, the United States set up the Combined Joint Task Force...

Book review: Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The history and ideology of a militant Islamist group, 2005–2012

This review provides a succinct summary and critical examination of Stig Jarle Hansen's work on Al-Shabaab. It points out the book's strengths and weaknesses, and demonstrates that Hansen not only offers useful insights into Al-Shabaab but also helps readers understand the security landscape in Somalia.

Efficacy of African Union’s actions to fight terrorism in Africa. The cases of Somalia and Nigeria

This article deals with the problem of terrorism in Africa. It parts from thebackground of this phenomenon in the continent, and then it presents twocase studies, the terrorist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia and the group BokoHaram in Nigeria. The aim of this article is to analyze the efficacy of theAfrican Union in the fight against terrorism, starting from the its actions inthe two case studies, and it seeks to demonstrate the high incidence of extraregionalactors in the continent.

· Unpacking the Socio-Political Background of the Evolution of Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria: A Social Movement Theory Approach

In the last decade, Boko Haram (BH) has become notorious across the world, because of its militancy and ultra-fundamentalist activities. Its violent activi-ties have in many ways surpassed other similar African Salafi-oriented organizations, such as the AQIM in Algeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia. This article traces the socio-political and organizational background upon which this organization evolved in Northern Nigeria. Drawing from the social movement theory, it harnesses data, collected mostly from semi-structured interviews on some Salafi leaders, security personnel, politicians, and ordinary civilians who worked in the area. The study explains how the evolu-tion of such an organization is rooted in context-specific political structures within Northern Nigeria. The argument is that these are enabling mobilization resources and political opportunities upon which initial BH activists established the organization in the region. Keywords: Armed violence, Boko Haram, Northern Nigeria, Salafi-oriented movement organizations, Salafism, Social movement theory

Social media warfare and Kenya’s conflict with Al Shabaab in Somalia: A right to know?

Social media warfare and Kenya’s conflict with Al Shabaab in Somalia: A right to know?

Fighting the Hydra

In the past 25 years, the United Nations has sanctioned 28 rebel groups in 13 civil wars. Have the UN sanctions been effective in meeting the goal of conflict reduction? In this article, we argue that UN sanctions are effective to the extent that they can constrain and weaken some rebel groups. But this constraining effect can only occur when UN sanctions curtail rebel groups’ ability to adapt. For less adaptable groups, UN sanctions can trigger a causal chain of depressed rebel income, territorial losses, and battlefield defeats that leads to conflict reduction. This adaptability is the key to the understanding of UN sanctions’ effectiveness in conflict reduction, as rebel groups often engage in illegal and criminal economic activities and many of them are ‘Hydra-like’, being able to shift their income sources in response to sanction measures. As evidence of how UN sanctions can trigger these conflict dynamics, we first perform negative binomial regression on all civil war cases. We then proceed to provide more detailed evidence for our causal chain by conducting time-series intervention analysis on two sanctioned rebel groups: UNITA in Angola and al-Shabaab in Somalia. Our work is the first systematic quantitative analysis of UN sanctions’ effects on rebel groups, and the results have implications for the viability of economic coercion as a means to intervene into civil conflicts.

The invention of Al-Shabaab in Somalia: Emulating the anti-colonial dervishes movement

Despite the growing body of academic literature that seeks to explain the evolution of Al-Shabaab, the movement remains one of the least understood on the continent. This article explores the relationship between the militant movement and the twentieth-century anti-colonial Somali insurgency movement of the Dervishes, examining the extent to which Al-Shabaab imitates the Dervishes. It argues that Al-Shabaab is not unique when considered as a contemporary re-incarnation of the Dervishes. Approaching Al-Shabaab as a heterogeneous insurgency movement established and sustained by emulation, the article compares Al-Shabaab to the Dervishes in terms of their leadership characteristics, war strategies and ideological foundations. In doing so, it uses interviews and focus group discussions carried out in Mogadishu and Afgooye (Somalia) as well as a variety of under-explored sources such as visual data. It concludes that Al-Shabaab draws directly and indirectly from the Dervishes in crucial ways, but that there are also differences between the two movements in terms of mobilization and utilizing political and cultural dynamics.

Book Review: Stig Jarle Hansen (Ed.), Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group

Stig Jarle Hansen (Ed.), Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, Oxford University Press, New York, 2013, 208 pp., $37.50, ISBN: 978-0-199-32787-4.

Book Review: Stig Jarle Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group

Book Review: Stig Jarle Hansen, <i>Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group</i>

A Sectarian Jihad in Nigeria: The Case of Boko Haram

Boko Haram is an Islamic sect turned terrorist group. Despite its ethnic leaning, it is not a liberation front, and it does not advocate a people’s revolution. From an ideological point of view, it is a jihadist movement because it fights for full implementation of strict sharia law which would require a change of political regime and the establishment of an Islamic state. But it does not really follow the Wahhabi model of Al Qaeda or Daesh, unlike AQIM in Northern Mali or Al Shabaab in Somalia. In the region of Greater Borno, which encompasses parts of Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, the sect remains embedded in local dynamics which this article explores through an analysis of the mobilization of its members.

Why Victories in Battle Have Not Yet Finished the War Against al-Shabaab

There have been victories in the fight against al-Shabaab in Somalia, but claims of major success are belied by the group’s persistent presence throughout the country.

Book Review: Stig Jarle Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005–2012

Book Review: Stig Jarle Hansen, <i>Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005–2012</i>