Al-Shabaab targets local youth

Kenyan anti-terrorism officials are analysing information about the alleged recruitment of local youth to fight alongside the al-Shabaab militia in war-ravaged Somalia.

A few of them were traced to the village of Liboi, 150 km east of Garissa in northeastern Kenya, on their way to the missions into which they had been secretly recruited by al-Shabaab.

The youth, who are smuggled into Somalia, do not talk about their parents, who may never see them again, or the homes they have left behind forever.

Instead they repeat, as if by rote, the lessons drummed into their heads by al-Shabaab radicals. They talk about the “triumphs” of al-Shabaab, and they talk about the coming battles as al-Shabaab prepares to expand its activities into the Horn of Africa region.

Al-Shabaab is the most virulent of the militant groups destroying Somalia and threatening regional security.

One of the Kenyan ethnic Somali recruits said that at first he did not want to go with the al-Shabaab recruiters, but they forced him. Over time, the trainers persuaded him to join the jihad, or holy war.

Other forced recruits were not so taken in by the militant propaganda, and they dropped out as soon as they could do so safely to return to their previous lives. One of those who left al-Shabaab said he is “steering away from trouble”.

He said he was recruited in Nairobi’s Eastleigh Estate but then discovered the recruiter was lying about the benefits.

“He had promised 15 of us money, but he gave us barely half the amount and vanished the moment we landed in Somalia,” the ex-recruit told investigators.

Kenyan ethnic Somali parents have long blamed Islamist radicals for the disappearance of their sons. Some of the extremist recruiting went on in the schools where the young men were supposed to be educated for a peaceful productive life.

In October last year, residents of Nairobi’s Pumwani Estate attacked teachers at a madrassa, accusing them of being part of a human trafficking ring that stole their sons.

The parents said many of their children who attended the madrassa had been smuggled out of Kenya to be trained as terrorists.

“Let the anti-terrorist police come and investigate whether it is true that they take the children to Somalia where they are killed,” the parents said.

The madrassa teachers, according to the parents, had been using the school to hide their real business, smuggling youths as young as 15 to Somalia to train with the militia.

“There was this sect which came here slightly over a year ago. They took our children abroad. Although I cannot speak for others, I can state that they took mine abroad. I don’t know where. He was with these people with whom we have been scuffling. In the end I received a telephone call telling me that my son had died. I don’t know where he died. I have not received his body,” one distraught parent said.

In abducting youths and training them to be terrorists and suicide bombers, al-Shabaab is following in the footsteps of al-Qaeda, the international terror group.

Al-Shabaab has sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda and pledged to do whatever al-Qaeda commands. Al-Qaeda has established an extensive network for recruiting boys as young as 12, operating mostly in Asia and the Middle East.

In East Africa, al-Shabaab is the terrorist recruiting arm. In May 2008, a senior Pakistani security official discovered a video clip of the al-Qaeda training programme for children.

A boy of about 12 years old was shown using a machete to cut off the head of a middle-aged man whom the militants tied hand and foot for this gruesome display. Al-Qaeda fighters are training young children to be gunmen, kidnappers and bombers.

Videos show these youngsters being trained by adult militants to stop people on the street and abduct them. The boys held a pistol to the back of one victim’s head, tied his hands and took him away.

The boys also practise stopping a car and kidnapping its occupants. In another scene, they practised an armed assault on a village house and ran around waving weapons.

Al-Qaeda uses children and mentally deranged adults to perform suicide bombings. The training of al-Shabaab’s kidnapped recruits takes place deep in terrorist strongholds in Somalia.

There can be no doubt that after the young Kenyan boys are smuggled across the border into some remote location, they are subjected to the same traumatic and degrading exercises seen in the al-Qaeda videos.

The extremists do not stop at that. They are preying on Somali children to further their cause. The artillery shell that slammed into a school building in southern Mogadishu on February 24, while the children inside were focused on their day’s studies, killed two of the young students and injured four others.

That tragedy in Somalia, creating a familiar aftermath of chaos and pain, also involved Islamic Party insurgents proudly taking credit for the attack, which took place during their battle with African Union peacekeepers.

The deaths of the students -- and the crowing of the extremists about the deed –- are an example of the little regard the militants harbour for the lives of children.

Even in Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighbourhood, radical Islamists are preying on the anger and confusion of the youth. They have established madrassas to indoctrinate them.

Al-Shabaab and other extremist groups present a primitive interpretation of Islam, and young people – many of whom are orphaned – are attracted to the false sense of law and justice extremist Islam – practised only by a minority – provides.

At the radical madrassas, investigators have found that the extremists employ a systematic process to transform their recruits into cold-blooded killers. They use a mixture of deception, control and brainwashing in an effective and often deadly way.

Some of the Somali children have admitted being tricked into becoming bombers. One 14-year-old youth told investigators that recruiters lied to him. He said they told him it was his mission as a Muslim to kill soldiers.

They told him that once he detonated himself he would not die; God would save him because he had proved himself to be a true Muslim.

“I didn’t want to do it,” the boy said, “but he forced me to go.”

That young recruit, like many others, was selected at a madrassa where his father sent him to learn more about Islam and the Koran.

Many parents, lacking the ability to read and write, entrust their children to such teachers without knowing that extremists sometimes run these schools.

At the madrassas, the young people are indoctrinated in extremist interpretations of the Koran. Eventually some are selected to become bombers. Then they are taken away, without a farewell to their families, to embark on their suicide missions.

Suicide attacks by children began to occur with disturbing frequency in Iraq in 2005. Al-Qaeda would recruit children as young as nine to pose as beggars and flower vendors and to assume other, seemingly innocent behaviour in order to breach security checkpoints that adults could not overcome.

At training camps, extremist operatives assembled orphans, the handicapped, the unemployed and others who had been kidnapped and began indoctrinating them. The brutal religious zealots needed the innocent children, but in using children for evil purposes, the extremists stole innocence from Iraqi youth.

The practice has since spread, with extremist recruiters preying on what one observer called “the outrage of the immature.” The extremists encourage them to attack the forces of order and liberation, which they portray as infidels deserving to be slaughtered.

They offer the prospect of relatively large amounts of money to the children; in effect, buying their lives. The recruiters show videos about previous suicide attacks and instruct the children how to cross security checkpoints and deliver their deadly packages. The night before a designated attack, the extremists hold a hero’s party, praying for the child and offering congratulations.

But if the child somehow resists going through with the mission, the mood quickly turns. Then the jihadists apply forceful measures, including threatening to harm the child’s family.

Kenyan officials worry that the displaced Somali youth here could be recruited in similar fashion. The al-Qaeda-supported al-Shabaab group already has recruited the children of Somali refugees in other countries, including the United States, bringing them back to Somalia for training.

Investigators who are piecing together this information obtained by the Sunday Nation worry that this practice by al-Shabaab poses a threat to Kenya and other countries with large Somali immigrant populations. They worry that these young recruits could become mere cannon fodder in terror operations.

Facing this threat, officials are working to win the battle for the minds of Somali children. Sheikh Mohammad Moallem Hussein, an Islamic cleric in Nairobi, runs Fathu Rahman, a school that teaches Somali children the true meaning of Islam and explains how suicide bombing is wrong -- for them and for anyone.

Sheikh Hussein warns that such a death is a great offence in Islam.