Al-Shabaab: The slippery militia that Kenya has had to deal with

What you need to know:

  • For the first time since independence, Kenyan forces have occupied part of a neighbouring country not as peacekeepers, but to protect a substantive national interest. The incursion into Somalia dominated news reports for the last three months of 2011. JOHN NGIRACHU was among the journalists who covered the war for this newspaper. Here, he takes us through the religious militancy of the Al Shabaab militia — which provoked Kenya into action— the strength of the Kenyan forces in Somalia, and the future of the Horn of Africa nation once the Kenyan Defence Forces, now enlisted into Amisom, eventually pull out

If it existed in a setting where English were the dominant language, Al-Shabaab would simply be known as “The Youth”, for that is the translation of the Arabic moniker Shabaab. The group existed as the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union before the invasion of Somalia by the Ethiopian forces, who worked with the Americans to drive the fundamentalists out, in 2006.

Its designation as a terrorist group by the US State Department in March 2008 marked its emergence as a significant player in the country, but its first leader, Aden Hashi Ayro, was killed by a US air strike two months later.

Others — Abdelkadir Yusuf Aar Al, Hassan Abdurahman and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed — were killed in March, April and June respectively.

After its growth out of the dismantled ICU, Al-Shabaab quickly set about establishing its interpretation of Islam in the areas under its control. Its stated aim, fuelled by the influence of Al-Qaeda and headed by men who had undergone training in Afghanistan, was to turn Somalia into an Islamic nation.

This included encouraging men to grow beards and applying the harshest interpretation of Sharia, which entails cutting off limbs as punishment for law breakers. There were also a few bizarre interpretations, such as the ban on women from wearing brassieres and an outlawing of the triangular samosa on the basis that it resembled the Christian doctrine of trinity.

The group maintained a hold over several parts of Mogadishu until August last year, when it withdrew in what it called at the time “a tactical retreat”.

However, many believe that they were at the time weakened by the drought that had led to a humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa and the constant fighting with forces of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom).

It is understood that the militia moved south, closer to the border with Kenya, and got more engaged in piracy and collecting taxes from the local population. They also established training camps from which they are believed to have organised and made the bombs used in their first major attack in Kampala in July 2010.

The Kenyan government blames Al-Shabaab for a number of attacks inside the country, but the ultimate motivation for Operation Linda Nchi was the kidnapping of two tourists and the murder of another in Lamu and Kiwayu.

Kenyan troops had been stationed at Ishakani at the south eastern tip of the country since 2006 to prevent the terrorists from crossing over into the country, but, after the attacks, more soldiers were deployed to the camp, which has become the launching pad for the operation in the Southern Sector in Operation Linda Nchi.

Given its hasty retreat from Ras Kamboni, Bur Gabo and Kolbio in the Southern Sector, there has been little suggestion that Al-Shabaab is the kind of enemy that stands and fights. It could be part of their guerilla warfare strategy: The group seems more prepared for ambushes and roadside bombs than for conventional combat in trenches and defined fronts.

They are armed with the ubiquitous AK47 assault rifles, machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, with the latter two mostly mounted on modified pick-up trucks called “technicals”.

But do not underestimate Al-Shabaab. According to this year’s UN Monitoring Group report on Somalia, the militia carried out 130 sniper and 155 grenade attacks on Amisom forces in Mogadishu between April 2010 and April 2011.

At the start of the operation, the militants had promised swift retaliation inside Kenya, and there were two grenade attacks on a downtown pub and a bus stop in Nairobi. But those attacks have fizzled out since the arrest and conviction of Elgiva Bwire, who was found with 13 grenades at a house in Kayole.

In battle, Al-Shabaab is known to prefer ambushes, which are mostly carried out with the help of suicide attacks that, in extreme cases, involve driving a vehicle loaded with explosives into the enemy’s camp.

Suicide bombers are largely the seekers of martyrdom; people who have been indoctrinated to believe that the afterlife would offer better opportunities for pleasure and repose than being really alive.

KDF reckons that taking control of the port town of Kismayu would be the ultimate tool to strangle Al-Shabaab economically as the port is their main source of revenue. To achieve that target, the forces will have to enforce a naval blockade as well as an assault by the army overland.

Once Kismayu is secured, the forces will then give Somalis the opportunity to map out a political strategy to free the country from the yoke of sectarian and clan rivalries that have made denied Somalia peace for two decades.

But the future of the area in Southern Somalia that the Kenya Defence Forces aim to liberate from the grip of Al-Shabaab could rest on only two men.

Ahmed Mohammed Islan aka General Madoobe and Mohamed Abdi Mohamed Ghandi are central to the politics of the area known as Jubaland, which the KDF and the Transitional Federal Government forces have taken.

Gen Madoobe, a trained civil engineer, was the governor for Jubaland when Somalia was under the control of the Islamic Courts Union.

Gandhi, a Somali anthropologist and historian, was last April named the president of the proposed semi-autonomous region of Jubaland, the area KDF aims to liberate.

Gen Madoobe’s troubles began after the ICU was pushed out of power by the combined force of the United States and the Ethiopian army, which moved into Somalia in 2006.

The 48-year-old, who describes himself as a businessman with an interest in fish export, told the Nation he was the sole survivor of an attack in January 2007 in Kismayu, after which he spent two years in hospital and jail in Addis Ababa.

He left jail after the Djibouti Agreement was signed, by which time Al-Shabaab had consolidated and taken control of Southern Somalia. Gen Madoobe then began putting together the Ras Kamboni Brigade, which worked with the TFG forces in unsuccessful attempts to remove Al-Shabaab from power.

The elimination of the militia has been Ghandi’s first priority since the creation of the semi-autonomous state, referred in various Internet sources as Azania.

Given that Gen Madoobe’s Brigade is recruiting in areas that have been shorne of the militants, and the status enjoyed by Ghandi, the two could determine the political direction of the area if Operation Linda Nchi succeeds.