Al-Shabaab Violence in Somalia and Kenya Underscores Group's Resilience

A series of fresh low-level attacks by the al-Shabaab militant group in parts of southern Somalia and northern Kenya underline that the group, while under pressure from a range of counter-insurgency measures by local and international forces, remains active and resilient in both countries. For instance, on May 25, 13 Kenyan police officers were reported missing and presumed dead after being caught in a complex al-Shabaab ambush, which involved the use of landmines and a subsequent gun attack, in the north of the country, near Yumbis in Garissa County (Standard Digital [Nairobi], May 26). Earlier, on May 12, a Kenyan soldier had been killed in a gun attack by suspected al-Shabaab members, in a town some 30 kilometers south of the Somali border (Shabelle Media Network, May 13). Separately, in an attack in Somalia on May 22-23, at least 24 people were killed after al-Shabaab fighters attacked government troops in Awdigle district and Mubarak village in the Lower Shabelle region, located to the south of Mogadishu (Standard Digital [Nairobi], May 26), In the capital, meanwhile, sporadic low-level attacks have also continued. For instance, gunmen killed a transport official in a drive-by shooting in Mogadishu on May 23 (Midnimo, May 23).

The developments, which illustrate the group's continuing but relatively reduced tempo of attacks in Somalia and a relative uptick of attacks in northern Kenya, show how al-Shabaab is being squeezed in its homeland and is accordingly shifting instead toward conducting attacks in Kenya, while retaining some operational capability in Somalia. The above attacks, like others in recent months, also suggest a relative decline in the group's capabilities, with previous tactics such as the frequent use of suicide bombers being replaced by less sophisticated, opportunistic gun-attacks. The group, nevertheless, also retains the ability to conduct large-scale attacks such as its April 2 attack on Garissa University in Kenya. In a further recent set-back for the group, Shaykh Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki, one of the group's veteran leaders, died in southern Somalia of natural causes at the age of 73 on May 27 (Shabelle Media Network, May 28). Al-Turki had been one of the group's longest-standing leaders, having been active with the Islamic Courts Union (al-Shabaab's predecessor), and he had been designated as terrorist financier by the U.S. government in 2004. Although al-Turki was reported to have been suffering from a long-term illness that likely reduced his active involvement in the group, his death is nonetheless likely to damage the group's morale at a time when it has already been driven out of most of its strongholds in southern Somalia.

Much of the recent relative decline in al-Shabaab's activity in Somalia is due to the increasingly sophisticated humanitarian and counter-insurgency work being undertaken by a range of regional and international actors, particularly in the capital, which buttress the kinetic military actions being undertaken by the African Union and Somali government forces. For example, in early June, the United Arab Emirates opened a public hospital in Mogadishu that will provide free medical care to local people (Somali Current, June 4). Such initiatives-which have also notably been undertaken by Turkey-have the potential to help address some of the grievances that have previously driven local people to support al-Shabaab, whose initial popularity was partly driven by its promises to restore a measure of normality to Somalia. Supporting such efforts are two camps in Baidoa and Mogadishu that aim to rehabilitate and de-radicalize former al-Shabaab members and are funded partly by the German and British governments respectively (BBC, May 24). At the same time, however, Kenya is taking more concrete steps to protect itself against al-Shabaab incursions, notably pressing ahead with plans to construct a border wall with Somalia, although this has recently provoked strong opposition from Somalia politicians (Horseed Media, June 5). However, al-Shabaab is far from defeated, and also it increasingly relies on supporters inside Kenya, notably among the Somali refugee population, which mean that attacks on both sides of the Somali-Kenyan border are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

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