Al-Shabaab exploits corona, targets Somali army and ISIS

Ahmed Adel

The Al-Shabaab terrorist group started by Mohamed Yusuf has been working to inflame the situation in the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia and Kenya, and targeting local and international forces in that region to prove its presence, whether to the army or other terrorist organizations such as ISIS.

The website New Somalia reported on July 13 that General Odowaa Yusuf Rageh, commander of the Somali army, escaped an assassination attempt after his convoy was targeted with a suicide car bomb in the capital, Mogadishu.

Rageh said in an interview with the media after the incident that he was the target, but stated that his guards responded to the suicide bomber, adding that the attack resulted in unspecified losses.

Abdulaziz Abu Musab, spokesman for the military operations of Al-Shabaab, said in a statement on one of the group’s media platforms that the terrorist organization, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, that Al-Shabaab had carried out the terrorist operation, noting that the target was a military convoy accompanying senior leaders of the Somali army.

The terrorist incident came at a time of increasing security problems in Mogadishu in recent weeks and the involvement of local forces in the process of securing federal elections for early 2021. The terrorist movement wants to put the government in a tense security impasse in front of international public opinion with the approaching presidential election. Terrorist operations are prominent in the capital, where most of the government departments are located.

Corona exploitation

As well as exploiting the process of securing the country by the Somali army and police in the face of the spread of the corona virus, the movement is working to prove its presence as stronger than the government and even ISIS, which are competing for a presence in Kenya and Somalia.

Al-Shabaab is trying to inflict economic losses on the government as it tries to tamper with the security and stability of the country, as well as to show the weakness of the security forces before international and local public opinion and before the elections in 2021.

Conclusion

Al-Shabab is an extremist movement that first appeared in 2006 as one of the military arms of what was known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia, which then controlled Mogadishu, where it seeks to establish an Islamist caliphate there.

At its beginning, the movement supported the ICU, as it fought against government forces backed by Ethiopian forces, which were forced to withdraw at the end of 2008. It was also closely linked to al-Qaeda since 2009 and officially announced its loyalty to the organization in 2012. It includes in its ranks about 9,000 elements.

In 2019, the Swedish Nordic Monitor, which tracks extremist movements, explained that the US government had discovered information of funds transferred from Turkish intelligence to Al-Shabaab.

In July 2013, the Global Economist organization confirmed that Al-Shabaab also obtained funds from Qatar in previous years, and thanks to this support, it collected large quantities of weapons and ammunition. The report also revealed that the movement obtains funds from Turkey indirectly, and the Turkish government sometimes sends weapons and ammunition so that the movement does not face any weapon deficit.

Al-Shabaab enjoys a widespread presence in Somalia, where it is spread in nearly 18 regions, including nine regions in southern Somalia. While it frequently evacuates some of these regions, it always returns again soon after.