Al-Shabaab resorts to new method to disperse army’s efforts after strike in southern Somalia

Ahmed Adel

A new method is being followed by the Somali Al-Shabaab movement, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, relying on dispersing the efforts of the Somali army forces with attempts to control villages and cities in the north of the country to reduce the burden on its elements in southern Somalia.

On Sunday, October 25, Al-Shabaab militants took control of the village of Guria Samu, located on the outskirts of the Las Khorey region in the Sanaag province in northeastern Somalia.

Terrorist barracks

According to the New Somalia website, nearly 50 members of Al-Shabaab arrived in the village of Guria Samu, where they set up terrorist barracks.

The terrorist group carried out a military operation against armed civilians in the region, where the elements of the movement also detained and arrested some civilians from different sectors of society.

The village of Guria Samu is part of a strategic area in the Al-Mado mountain range.

Sanaag is located in the far northeast of Somalia along the Red Sea coast. It is one of the disputed areas between the administrations of Somaliland and Puntland.

According to media reports, it is certain that the extremist movement has taken control of four villages in the Las Khorey area, namely Mari, Mash’alid, Habasha, and Markit.

The region is currently experiencing security tensions as residents fear a violent outbreak of fighting, while the authorities in the state of Puntland and Somaliland, which are in conflict over the region, have not commented.

Pressure relief

All the evidence indicates that the reasons for Al-Shabaab in the disputed Sanaj Governorate are between two administrations, and this comes at a time of military pressure from the southern provinces.

Observers believe that the terrorist movement’s focus on the Sanaag governorate is directly related, as it comes after military pressure on its militants in the eastern region of Bari, which is one of the strategic mountainous areas.

Al-Shabaab controls large areas in southern and central Somalia, where it carries out terrorist attacks, organized assassinations and guerrilla warfare against the army.

The movement of the group’s elements comes a day after the Somali parliament voted overwhelmingly to form the new government and its program of work presented by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble.

Roble’s mission is to organize elections, strengthen public security, fight terrorism, fight corruption, develop the economy and protect human rights.

In the same context, six elements of the Al-Shabaab movement, including a prominent leader, were killed during a military operation carried out by the Somali army forces in the south of the country.

According to what was reported by the Somali News Agency, the six elements were killed during an operation carried in areas in the provinces of Lower Shabelle and Central Shabelle in southern Somalia.

It added that the operation also resulted in the killing of a leader in the movement responsible for the financial side in the two governorates, as he was working to compulsorily collect money from civilians to use to harm them through bombings.

The agency indicated that the Somali forces destroyed the sites used by the movement to collect funds in the aforementioned areas and removed landmines from the roads.

It is noteworthy that the Somali army continues its military operations in the south of the country to eliminate the elements of the movement, which frequently carries out attacks on government buildings and hotels.

It is noteworthy that Al-Shabaab has been carrying out relentless terrorist operations against civilian and military targets for more than a decade, but its expulsion from the Somali capital Mogadishu in 2011 paved the way for paralyzing its military force and inflicting successive defeats on the security and military levels. The terrorist group follows a method of guerrilla warfare and organized assassinations in an attempt to return to the Somali scene, impose territorial control over most of the country’s provinces, and then fully dominate Mogadishu.