The week of June 19th
was a bloody milestone for the course of jihad in Somalia. Al-Shabaab leaders
clashed in Barawe, a coastal city in the south. That conflict led to the
killing of some of the top echelon of the terror group and the escape of others.
What this violent encounter portends for the future, however, is far more
serious than it appears at first glance.
In a single stroke, Ahmed Abdi Godane,
the emir of Al-Shabaab who goes by the nom de guerre of “Abu Zubeir,” managed to
re-align the radical group’s leadership dynamics and further consolidated his power
by getting rid of his major detractors. His loyalists killed two co-founders of
Al-Shabaab, including his former deputy and longtime friend, Ibrahim Al-Afghani,
and chased away Hassan Dahir Aweys and Mukhtar Robow, the former spokesman for
the terror group. Aweys is now in custody in Mogadishu, as the government
decides his fate. Robow, on the other hand, is believed to have fled to the Bay
and Bakol region where his Rahanweyn clan is based. Al-Afghani, Aweys, and
Robow have complained about Godane’s authoritarian tendencies and the
heavy-handed approach in dealing with foreign jihadists. On April 26th,
an Al-Shabaab assassin loyal to Godane attempted to kill the American jihadist and
Alabama native, Omar Hammami, after the latter had gone public in criticizing
Al-Shabaab.
Godane’s latest attempt to finish
off his rivals in the movement has paved the way for his sole leadership of Al-Shabaab
which has historically been ruled instead through collective leadership. The clash offers a blunt assessment of what
went wrong in the jihadi group leadership and how conflicts are resolved.
Godane has opted for a violent method of conflict resolution which will likely
lead to questions about his legitimacy as the supreme leader of jihad in
Somalia. However, it is too early to gauge the impact this conflict may have on
the young fighters of the militant group. At least currently, Godane has the
support of Shaikh Hassan Hussein Adam, an influential young cleric based in
Kenya and a sympathetic supporter of Al-Shabaab.
A month ago, “Shaikh Hassan,” as he is popularly known, issued a fatwa (religious edict) that permitted the
extermination of Godane’s rivals because they were sowing discord and
dissension in the ranks of the mujahidin in Somalia.
The escape of Mukhtar Robow also poses
a serious problem for Godane. Most of Al-Shabaab’s foot soldiers belong to the
Rahanweyn clan. In a country where clan loyalty sometimes supersedes religious
loyalty, it is not clear what Robow’s influence will be on his fellow Rahanweyn
fighters. Hassan Dahir Aweys’ surrender to the Somali government is not likely
to cause any ripple effects for the Al-Shabaab fighters because the
septuagenarian radical leader and his group, Hizbul Islam, only joined Al-Shabaab in 2009. Robow, however, has
been a major leader of Al-Shabaab since its formation a decade ago and, hence,
his loyalty remains unquestioned.
The recent clash is likely to
dampen and perhaps even rupture Godane’s ties with Al-Qaeda central and further
cements the perception in some Al-Qaeda circles that Al-Shabaab is interested in
a local jihad rather than a global one. Two months ago, Ibrahim Al-Afghani wrote
an open letter to Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, in which he
criticized Godane for targeting foreign jihadists, imprisoning them in secret detention
centers in the areas the terror group controls, and even killing them. For the
last several weeks, reports that are critical of the course of jihad in Somalia
have appeared on websites sympathetic to Al-Qaeda. The American jihadist,
Hammami, was most vociferous in his lashing out at Godane and publicly
requested that Al-Qaeda intervene. There were even unconfirmed reports that
Al-Qaeda had asked Al-Shabaab to appoint Ibrahim Al-Afghani as its emir but Godane
maneuvered to block that al-Qaeda instruction. At any rate, the recent
upheavals in the Somali branch and the purging of some of its leaders will not
endear Godane to Al-Qaeda central. In addition, the marginalization and hunting
down of foreign fighters, such as Omar Hammami, will also soil the reputation
of Al-Shabaab as the main attraction for global jihad.
For the last few weeks, Al-Shabaab
has increased its attacks in Mogadishu delivering the perception that the
militant group is still a force that can destabilize the nascent government of
President Hassan Mohamoud. To the contrary, the recent spike of violence in the
capital is an indicator that the group is far weaker than it was thought to be earlier.
The group has been successful in attacking soft targets, such as the UN
compound, perhaps to distract its fighters from debilitating fragmentation
among its leaders. It is unlikely that this terror group will vanish from the
political scene in Somalia in the near future, Godane and his followers will continue
to exploit the government’s inability to exert its control outside Mogadishu.
Godane’s coup, while in essence, a movement that is eating its own children, may,
indeed, pave the way for the fragmentation of the militant group along clan lines.
The nagging question then will be to what extent Godane, a northerner operating
in the deep south of Somalia, is able to remain head of what is generally a
southern jihadi phenomenon? Moreover, the influx of foreign jihadists into
Somalia has, for all practical purposes, decreased and further eroded the place
of that country in the annals of global jihad.
Hassan M. Abukar is a Somali writer and a political analyst.
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