Al-Shabaab Attacks in Somalia Suggest New Hardline Strategy

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Al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist militant group, has conducted a range of attacks during the last few weeks, significant both in their scale and their increasingly direct targeting of civilians that suggest the group may be undergoing a strategic shift.

In the first attack, five al-Shabaab militants attacked the popular Lido beach area in Mogadishu with bombs and guns on January 21, killing at least 25 people. The majority of the victims were ordinary Somalis enjoying their day off; the beach area is often visited by local families (Horseed Media, February 13). The attack reportedly prompted a surge in anger towards al-Shabaab and sparked demonstrations against the group (Horseed Media, February 1). Dutch media later reported that the attack had been "masterminded" by Ismail Muse Ahmed Guled, a Netherlands national of Somali origin, who is also believed to have organized other al-Shabaab attacks (NL Times, January 22).

In the second large-scale attack to occur in recent weeks, on February 2, an al-Shabaab militant smuggled a bomb onto a Daallo Airlines passenger jet at Mogadishu's airport. The bomb, hidden in a laptop, exploded shortly after take-off. The blast blew a small hole in the fuselage and killed the attacker, although the plane was able to land safely. After a ten-day delay, al-Shabaab issued a statement claiming credit for the attack, saying that it had been targeting Western intelligence officials and Turkish soldiers who were on the plane and that the bombing was "retribution for the crimes committed by the coalition of Western crusaders and their intelligence agencies against the Muslims of Somalia" (Horseed Media, February 13). However, it later emerged that the attacker had been checked into an earlier Turkish Airlines flight, and when this flight was cancelled, decided to bomb the Somali airliner instead after being offered a seat on the flight (Al-Jazeera, February 7). In a further development, al-Shabaab militants briefly captured the southern port town of Merka on February 5, before being ejected by Somali and African Union forces the following day (Horseed Media, February 6). The attack was an unusual departure from the group's usual hit-and-run guerrilla tactics.

Although al-Shabaab has never shied away from killing civilians, the vast majority of its attacks have targeted the military, government, or perceived 'spies' and 'apostates' rather than ordinary Somali civilians. The latest attacks therefore mark a substantial departure from this trend; Al-Shabaab's increased focus on maximizing civilian casualties is likely driven by a range of factors. These include rising competition from the Islamic State's local Somali affiliate, whose growth and increasing prominence has the potential to lead to al-Shabaab factions breaking away, affecting al-Shabaab's supply of recruits and funds. Al-Shabaab remains a loyal affiliate of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State's key jihadist rival. The latest attacks by al-Shabaab may be seen as an attempt to compete with the more extreme Islamic State for radical audiences, even at the expense of more mainstream Somali public opinion.

It is possible that the shift in targeting may indicate increased radicalization within al-Shabaab, perhaps driven by hardliners and more ideological foreign fighters who have less hesitations about attacking Somali civilians. Underlining this potential new trend is that the airline bomb plot originally targeted a Turkish airline; if the attack had succeeded this would have also been perceived as a significant assault by al-Shabaab on Turkish interests. Given Turkey's ambiguous attitude toward other al-Qaeda regional franchises, notably its tolerance of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, such an attack would have doubtlessly prompted Turkey to take action against the group. The original plot, had it been executed successfully, may have even sparked Turkish action against al-Qaeda more widely, and could have exacerbated tensions between al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda's leadership, indicating an arguably new trend of recklessness in al-Shabaab's targeting strategy.