Is ISIS Allied to Or Influencing African Jihadi Groups?

In August 2014, Africa’s spy chiefs met in Nairobi as part of the African Union’s Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA). They expressed deep concern about the growing threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the likelihood that the radical outfit might influence the continent’s own jihadi groups. Areas of concern for the chiefs included an “alliance being built by terror groups worldwide, sophisticated sources of funding, and [Africa’s] porous borders.”

A major risk of ISIS establishing itself in Africa is through the continent’s organized jihadi groups. This begs the question: Does ISIS has a relationship with these groups?

Here is where major African groups stand:

Boko Haram

This Nigerian group is currently the most lethal of all African terror groups. Known for its bombings, bank robberies and kidnappings, the group has in the last 2 months captured a large swathe of territory – a tactic that is said to have been inspired by ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Abu Bakr Shekau, the then head of Boko Haram, boasted about the capture of Gwozo, calling it a “state among the Islamic states.”

In July, Shekau publicly declared support for ISIS. What is interesting about his declaration is that Shekau thanked, prayed for, and equally praised three famous jihadi leaders: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (ISIS), Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri (Al-Qaeda), and Mullah Omar of the Taliban.

A point worthy of further analysis is whether these three groups are perceived, by the group’s leadership, as having the same status as Boko Haram. Boko Haram however, seems to considers itself to be an independent jihadi group that shirks alliances and entanglements with global jihadi groups. The US State Department has ruled out any affiliation between Al-Qaeda central and Boko Haram. Shekau’s public support for ISIS can also be explained as simply being a demonstration of this erratic figure’s penchant for self-promotion.

ISIS’s current priority is strengthening its positions on the Levant and defending itself against American-targeted airstrikes. For ISIS’s leadership, the only de facto caliphate that matters is its own. Thus, all existing jihadi groups–as well as the territories they control, fall under its jurisdiction. According to a statement by ISIS: “The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations become null by the expansion of the khilafah’s [caliphate’s] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas.”

AQIM

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a branch of Al-Qaeda central under the leadership of Abdelmaled Droukdel and operating largely in Algeria and northern Mali, has rejected ISIS’s claim of being an Islamic caliphate. Last July, Droukdel emphasised that the group’s Bay’at (oath of allegiance) to Zawahiri still stands.

But several AQIM splinter groups have emerged lending their support to ISIS.  AQIM’s former judge of its central region, Abu-Abdullah Othman al-Asemi, is one notable figure to have come out in support. Another group, naming itself Jund al-Khilafah (Soldiers of the Caliphate), split with AQIM and pledged support to ISIS.

For the time being, Al-Qaeda loyalists are reigning in the Maghreb countries, particularly in Algeria and Mali, but the equation might change if ISIS expands outside the Levant. AQIM under Droukdel is a self-sufficient group and has, since 2003, amassed about $50M from kidnappings for ransom.

Tunisia

Tunisia has become an incubator for jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq. It is not entirely clear how many Tunisians are currently fighting along with ISIS but Abdel Bari Atwan, former editor of London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi and an authority on Arab jihadi groups, estimates the number of Tunisian fighters in Syria and Iraq at about 5,000 and Algerians at 2,000. Of the ten countries that have sent the most fighters to Syria and Iraq, according to a chart compiled by the BBC, three (Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya) are in North Africa, with Tunisia supplying around 3,000 men.

The latter is close to the conservative figure of 2,400 that Tunisia’s Interior Ministry has officially declared. According to Al-Shorouk, a Tunisian newspaper, the majority of Tunisians are with ISIS, whereas Algerians and Moroccans fight with the Al-Nusrat Front (an Al-Qaeda affiliate). The Tunisian government claims that 400 Tunisian jihadists have now returned to the country. What is interesting is that 9,000 young Tunisians have been prevented from going to Syria and Iraq by their government.

Recently, there have been skirmishes between Tunisian jihadists who had fought with ISIS and those who fought with Al-Nusrat Front within the country. A splinter group of AQIM called Uqba Ibn Nafi Brigade has declared its support of ISIS. There are fears that these armed clashes might lead to a bloody war between these two jihadi wings, similar to the battle brewing in Syria between ISIS and Al-Nusrat. This will place an extra burden on Tunisia’s security services, which are already overstretched in preventing unrest in Libya from spilling over into their country.

Libya

Thanks to Qatar’s massive funding of Libya’s jihadists and the militants’ inheritance of Qaddafi’s huge weapons stockpile, Libyan fighters are active in Syria and fight under the ISIS banner. What distinguishes Libya from other North African jihadists is its hardware. According to a UN report released in March 2014, Libya has become an important source of arms for the fighters in Syria. There are also reports that a Libyan militia named al-Battar Brigade has returned from Syria and established itself in Benghazi.

Al-Shabaab

In August 2014, Abu al-Ayna al-Khorasani, an ISIS leader, publicly asked Al-Shabaab to join what he called “the global fight against American interests.” Surprisingly, Al-Shabaab’s leadership ignored the plea. The African outfit is an Al-Qaeda affiliate and is unlikely to associate itself with ISIS’s caliphate in the foreseeable future. Unlike Boko Haram and ISIS, Al-Shabaab does not call itself a caliphate but instead has used the term ‘emirate’.

Ahmed Diriye ‘Abu Ubaidah’ the new emir wasted no time after his selection last month in declaring his allegiance to Zawahiri. Moreover, Al-Shabaab has close ties with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). While the relationship between these two groups is not operational, it does involve consultation, mutual moral support, and the transmitting of vital information between Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda central.

There are reports that some foreign jihadists have left, or attempted to leave, Somalia to fight with ISIS. These jihadists became disenchanted with the Al-Shabaab leadership and have been hiding in Somalia for fear of being hunted by Ahmed Godane, the group’s former emir. According to some sources, Kenya has arrested a small number of these foreign jihadists as they were leaving Somalia, but Nairobi has yet to issue a statement on this matter.

There are documented cases of a small number of young Somalis, men and women, in North America and Europe who have joined ISIS. The phenomenon of Somali women in the west joining ISIS is new. Even at the height of Al-Shabaab’s recruitment of Somalis in the west several years ago, no female recruits joined them. ISIS, however, targets these women from the West to marry its fighters. Al-Shabaab, on the other hand, prefers its female supporters in the West to raise funds for the group.

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For now, it appears that ISIS has some support among smaller splinter groups of existing African jihadi groups, mostly in North Africa. If the fortunes of the militant group change and the group expands, it might have serious repercussions for Africa. Several factors favor ISIS vis-à-vis Al-Qaeda central:

 

ISIS is no ordinary jihadi group. It has huge wealth at its disposal. An American intelligence official has told the Guardian that the radical group doubled its assets after it captured Mosul from $875M to $2B, making it the wealthiest jihadi group in the world. For instance, ISIS controls 6 of Syria’s 10 oil fields, not to mention other oil fields in Iraq. ISIS is consequently capable of financing Africa’s jihadi groups.

ISIS is winning its competition with Al-Qaeda central. ISIS’s ability to lead a standing army, its panache in the social media and propaganda, and its cruelty in dealing with what it perceives as “enemies of Islam” are helping it to win followers. Paradoxically, in comparison with ISIS, Al-Qaeda central now appears soft. Furthermore, Al-Qaeda neither has financial resources nor controls substantial territories. Worst of all, Zawahiri’s group has not carried out any spectacular terror act, in the eyes of global jihadists, since 2001.

 

Some of the Al-Qaeda affiliate leaders in Africa such as Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Abdelmaek Droukdel, and Mohamed al-Zahawi of Ansar ash-Sharia of Libya are veterans of jihad who fought with Osama bin Laden. Their loyalty is with Al-Qaeda and their colleague Zawahiri. However, these leaders lead a younger generation that has less attachment to Zawahiri, whom they see as not being inspirational or charismatic like bin Laden. The young North African jihadists are itching for action and are less interested in watching video tapes of Zawahiri hiding in the confines of Pakistan’s tribal areas.

 

ISIS is preoccupied with the Levant now but has ambitiously vowed to expand its caliphate to the rest of the world and certainly values the addition of more African fighters to this end. Mohamed al-Aroui, the spokesman of Tunisia’s Ministry of the Interior, has lamented that “the only way to deal with [jihadists] is with the stick.” Unfortunately, in their August meeting, Africa’s spy chiefs missed the point when they failed to address the options of fighting jihadists through social media, curtailing government corruption (a major recruiting tool for jihadists) and dealing with the root causes of the alienation of Africa’s youth.

 

(Reprinted with permission from African Arguments, October 28, 2014).

Deconstructing a Myth: How One Somali Woman Saved her Man

The following is a true story of a young man I met in California while doing research on Somali families in the U.S. His short but powerful story intrigued me because it debunks certain cultural myths, perceptions, and misperceptions about the role of women in Somali culture. I will let Dalmar (not his real name) tell you his account.

I was once a poor communicator, selfish, immature, and antisocial. Today, I can comfortably say I am a normal, happy person—thanks to a Somali woman who helped me undergo a transformation to become a better man. All the negative perceptions about Somali women engendered by our proverbs and cultures are bull. I can recite more than 20 proverbs that demean women and question their intelligence, character, and judgment. For instance, one Somali adage goes, “A man who follows a woman’s counsel is doomed.”

Rubbish!

Women are as smart, if not smarter, than men are. Furthermore, there are a lot of men who follow women’s advice. I am one of them.

I grew up in a family in which my father treated my mother like an appendage. He disrespected her, yelled at her, and made sure my siblings and I showed her no respect. My father’s putrefied view of women was—and, sadly, still is—contemptible. The fact that my siblings and I were all boys further isolated my mother in our household. Unfortunately, she had no support system, no allies, because her family lived several hundred kilometers away. 

My family settled in the United Sates when I was 15. I was always a serious student and made excellent grades. In high school, I liked some of the young Somali girls, but I was a bit insecure. In college, though, I met a young woman who had been raised by her mother and stepfather, but did not get along with her parents. Her mother always sided with her stepfather because she did not want to alienate him as the father of her five children.

Idil and I clicked. We became best friends and gradually fell in love. Initially, we were fine because I did not show her the real me. I was polite, courteous, and respectful. However, after a few months, I started dictating to her. It seemed I was dominating her every move and thought.

Though my family was dysfunctional, we were living in a middle-class home. I knew the basics of etiquette—table manners, how to dress properly and stylishly, and how to conduct myself. In reality, though, I had a limited emotional repertoire. Idil, on the other hand, had been raised in a poor household and her childhood had been one of scarcity.  A short window was allocated to meal times, and children ate anywhere but the dining table. If you were late for lunch, chances were you wouldn’t find any leftovers.

After almost a year of enduring my verbal abuse, Idil finally summoned the courage to split with me. It was a crushing blow for me because she occupied an indelible place in my heart. I missed her all the more because I had no one to pick on. My well-kept façade began to crumble. Suddenly, I became deflated, lonely, and emotionally devoid.

I graduated from college and found a good job as a social worker. It was at that time that I met Anisa. As a work colleague, she was petite, smart, steady, confident, and intensely single minded, and motivated by a bright future. She had a purity of heart that really attracted me to her.  I started talking to her and asking her out. She finally agreed to go out with me for lunch.

Anisa was a strong young lady who was opinionated and outspoken, a woman of steadiness and constancy. She would stop me if I made a sexist remark, or would constantly ask me the rationale for my actions. Like a teacher, she lectured me but in a gentler, kinder way. She never seemed overbearing because she mixed humor with her corrections of my faux pas. Instead of constantly complaining, I started expressing myself in a non-threatening way. Instead of pointing fingers at her, I began listening to what she had to say.

Anisa and I became an item and we decided to get married. She saw me as an ambitious young man with leadership skills. I saw her as a woman who made me a better man. I introduced her to my family.  Surprisingly, Anisa, connected with my mother. It was the first time I saw my mother relaxed and comfortable and was delighted to see her and my mother laughing, joking, and having a good time when Anisa was around.  Then, Anisa and my mother started shopping together. I was nervous because I did not want my fiancé to know the embarrassing details of my family life. I was, as I said earlier, insecure and ashamed of my family.

It was these social meetings between my mother and Anisa that opened my eyes to the extent of my family’s dysfunction. Anisa and I talked about my parents and the way I had been raised. It was like sitting in therapy sessions. For the first time, I started seeing my mother in a different light, as a victim of verbal and emotional abuse orchestrated by her husband and, to a lesser extent, her own children. I also saw myself as a survivor of an emotionally wrecked family environment. I felt pain for what my mother had gone through.

My mother was a 17-year-old girl from a rural area who got married to my father, an educated 26-year-old urban man with a good government job. My parents’ relationship was not only unbalanced but also toxic. She had to depend on him financially, and did not have anyone to lean on. Essentially, she was trapped in a bad marriage. When my mother decided to go to an adult school in our neighborhood, my father balked. He did not want her to learn.

I am getting married to Anisa very soon. I am fortunate to have met her because today I am a better man. Most of all, I am a better son to my mother. My mother and I are very close now and she has shown no evidence of a lingering grudge against me. I am lucky to have two beautiful women in my life. Unfortunately, the only person to whom I am not close is—you might have guessed right—my father. He never liked Anisa, nor is he happy with my close relationship with my mother. Truly, you can’t please everyone in this life. I saw an interesting quote somewhere that said, “Don’t dwell on who let you down. Cherish those who hold you up.”

End of the story.

In a nutshell, men do not have to go far to appreciate women or to realize that the myths perpetuated about them in Somali society are absolute nonsense; they can look at their mothers and sisters and realize that apart from often being smarter than their husbands, they play an invaluable role in sustaining and nourishing the family—sometimes against all the odds.

 

After Godane: Al-Shabaab's New Leadership Fights Internal Reform

A month has passed since the US Government killed Ahmed Abdi Godane, former emir of Al-Shabaab, with a targeted air strike. Godane’s replacement, Ahmed Diriye ‘Abu Ubaidah’, has yet to issue a statement about his intentions and vision for the militant group. His jihadi credentials, however, were recently enhanced when the United Nations placed him on its list of international terrorists subject to sanctions. Not to be outdone, the Somali government put a $2M bounty on his head.

Al-Shabaab vowed to retaliate for Godane’s killing and the group bombed Mogadishu two days after the new emir’s coronation – an incident that led to the deaths of 16 civilians. It is however, likely that planning for the attack was underway long before Godane was killed.

It is a challenging time for the new emir to come into power. Operation Indian Ocean; a joint military venture by the Somali National Army and the forces of the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), has slowly been pushing Al-Shabaab from territories previously under its control. The next major target is the strategic port city of Barawe, which was formerly the headquarters of the group and remains the locus of the highly profitable charcoal trade.

The loss of Baraawe would deprive Al-Shabaab of access to the sea, proximity to Mogadishu and tax proceeds. It will also force the group to relocate further inland and organize its headquarters either in Jilib or Jamaame, the latter of which is 363 km away from Mogadishu but only 53 km south of Kismayo, the third largest city in Somalia (currently controlled by Kenyan forces.)

Recently, Al-Shabaab has been losing fighters (Somalis and foreigners) to ISIS in Iraq and Syria with jihadists eager to relocate to the Middle East rather than Somalia. Moreover, Al-Shabaab has slowly been suffering desertions due to a 45-day amnesty the Somali government has extended to its members. Although the defection is slow, the amnesty program has diminished the likelihood that the government will punish many of the youngsters who had joined the group—willingly and unwillingly—becoming its foot soldiers.

After Godane’s death, the leaders of Al-Shabaab met for days in Baraawe to discuss the challenges faced by the group and to reorganize its power structure. Mahad Karate has been appointed deputy emir and Bashir Mohamed Mohamoud ‘Qoorgaab’ as the head of military operations. Karate was widely rumored to be taking on the top job after Godane, but the leadership opted for a conservative and smoother transition of power when it elected Ahmed Diriye, Godane’s deputy.

The new emir and his deputy, Ali Dheere (the official spokesman), form the nucleus of a faction in Al-Shabaab that adheres closely to Godane’s philosophy of governance. This faction was known for its brutality, selected assassinations of rivals and a general mistrust of foreign jihadists.

Another wing however, represented by Foud Mohamed Khalaf ‘Shangole, is calling for a change of direction. Shangole, on whom Washington had placed a $5M bounty, has started a campaign for internal reform. Immediately after Godane’s death, Shangole proposed changes that would make the group’s late leader turn in his grave. He called for the following:

·       1. Curbs to the powers of the ‘Amniyaat’ – a powerful branch of Al-Shabaab responsible for intelligence and assassinations which reported directly to Godane. Shangole proposed that the Amniyaat be brought under tighter control and that the number of the assassinations be limited. He also proposed that attempts should be made to limit civilian casualties during bombings.

       2. Make the Qur’an and the Sunnah (tradition) the ultimate arbiter in conflict resolution instead of the emir being the judge and jury.

·      3. Close all secret detentions operated by Godane. 
 
     4, Initiate reconciliation talks with those estranged leaders of the group, such as Mukhtar Robow, and others who are currently in hiding.

Al-Shabaab’s new leaders are likely to spend the next few months consolidating power rather than rushing to make drastic changes (such as those proposed by Shangole.) The loss of territories, while sizable, is unlikely to change the economic power of the group which relies, among other things, on extortion even in the areas controlled by the government. Many Somali merchants still pay monies to Al-Shabaab, euphemistically called zakat or ‘alms’, for fear of assassination.

The late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden once characterized his Sudanese host, the National Islamic Front, in the 1990s, as a “mixture of religion and organized crime.” Jihadi groups like Al-Shabaab are no different and see extortion as a means of survival.

Neither the Somali army nor AMISOM have an appetite for a long and sustained war with the group. Government forces are small, undisciplined, and haphazard, and the African forces prefer a slow and plodding approach to defeating Al-Shabaab – a campaign that is coupled with political and economic programs for liberated areas. Unfortunately, these liberated areas are more likely to return to the hands of Al-Shabaab because no effective administrative and economic programs have been put in place.

It seems unlikely that Al-Shabaab will disappear from the political scene of Somalia any time soon as it remains a force that stands against the legitimacy of the central government, the presence of foreign troops in the country and the absence of sharia. These are all powerful motivating factors for many Somalis.

 By Hassan M. Abukar (Reprinted with permission from African Arguments, October 1, 2014).