Somalia, Al Shabaab, and the Threat to the U.S.
There has been some excellent analysis online of the Al Shabaab attack in Uganda. Ultimately, there are two common motivations offered:
First, Shabaab had threatened both Uganda and Burundi over their provision of troop to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is supporting the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia — the weak authority put in place following the Ethiopian-led invasion that toppled the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in 2006. (As you will recall, the Bush Administration supported this effort, on the assumption that the ICU was a radical Islamist regime and hence an inherent threat.)
Second, Shabaab has been actively seeking al Qaeda recognition. As Leah Farrall notes:
While the attacks could have been targets of opportunity, to my mind it is starting to look like a formal AQ-al-Shabab merger could be on the way or at least greater efforts are underway by al-Shabab to secure this outcome for whatever reason is driving it to do so.
We’ll see shortly on that front.
There is a third dynamic that I have noticed anyone other than me mention, and that is the possibility that this reflects some sort of “out-bidding” dynamic. As Mia Bloom has noted, insurgent and terrorist groups in a competition for popular or financial support will adopt tactics that bolster their standing. She explains the use of suicide terrorism in several cases through this dynamic. Al Shabaab has indeed increased its use of suicide attacks over the past three years, with two in 2007, two in 2008, and at least six in 2009.
But the outbidding dynamic need not be solely related to suicide attacks. Al Shabaab has recently faced some competition in Somalia:
The militia, a Sufi group known as Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamaa, is posing the strongest challenge yet to al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked organization. The Sufis potentially offer an alternative strategy for the United States and its allies in the struggle to stem the rising tide of Islamist radicalism in this failed state on Africa’s east coast.
Obviously, if Al Shabaab is losing support for being too extreme in Somalia, suicide attacks would not be a good course of action. And indeed, until the recent attacks in Uganda, there had only been one Shabaab suicide attack this year. But if suicide terrorism is not an effective way to out-bid domestic competitors in the Somali context, a greater commitment to combating external enemies might serve the purpose effectively.
If we are seeing an out-bidding dynamic, and the out-bidding is focused on attacking external enemies, we may be seeing a dramatic increase in risk to the United States from Somalia and Shabaab. I’ve been warning about the Somalia risk for some time now, from November 23, 2009 (The Threat From Somali Islamists):
I think the most realistic scenario for an attack in the United States is probably something associated with Somalia. We have many legal Somalis in the country who can travel freely. Shabaab in Somalia is one of the few Islamist groups that is currently deepening its ties to al Qaeda’s global agenda rather than refocusing on local grievances. They’ve had significant success over the past year on the ground which may lead some Somali radicals to begin looking to widen the struggle.
As a practical matter, I don’t have any solutions to the problem. At this point, the best we can do is solid police work to track radicalism in Somali-American communities and ensure that people who travel to Somalia receive at least some scrutiny.
But the bigger issue is that we absolutely need to do a better job differentiating between radical anti-American Islamists and just plain old radical Islamists. What we had in Somalia in 2006 with the ICU was less than ideal, but it was not a threat to the United States. The removal of the ICU from power, with American support, followed by the use of U.S. special forces and airstrikes against al Qaeda targets in that country have turned an unpleasant situation into a genuine security threat. But the answer to having done too much is not necessarily to get even more involved. We’re at a point in Somalia where having dug ourselves into a hole, we ought to be very wary about continuing to dig further.
The problem is that we have an apparently irresistible impulse to do something, a position nicely demolished by Gulliver over at Ink Spots (though his colleague MK in the comments thread suggests some creative possibilities for action). Personally, I think this is a case where out best option is mitigation and reliance on defense-in-depth. I just don’t see how we can achieve strategic benefits in Somalia without some significant commitment, and I just don’t see how a significant commitment makes sense. That said, if I were allocating intelligence resources, I’d be shifting some significant manpower onto Somalia.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.
… [Trackback]…
[…] Read More here: americansecurityproject.org/blog/2010/somalia-al-shabaab-and-the-threat-to-the-u-s/ […]…