Strategic Thinking on East Africa

Al-Shabab is waging an armed insurgency in Somalia The US military says it has targeted a vehicle carrying three al-Shabab militants in a drone strike in Somalia. A Pentagon spokesman named the main target as Hassan Ali Dhoore, accused of organising recent bomb attacks in which US personnel were killed. US officials say they are […]

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Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 1 By: Sunguta West Abdirahim Mohammed Abdullahi (source: YouTube) Al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based Islamist militant organization, is still actively recruiting from neighboring Kenya even as the group suffers major setbacks in southern Somalia. Underpinning the group’s notable success in recruitment is the radicalization and indoctrination of young men in order to […]

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Matt Bryden at CSIS The 2013 Somali Compact agreed between the Somali Federal Government and international donors set ambitious deadlines for the delivery of a new constitution, electoral laws, and national elections, all by late 2016. Since then, optimism that Somalia’s perpetual transition might be ended has been undermined by the familiar themes of missed […]

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By Phil Stewart . Al Shabaab militants parade new recruits after arriving in Mogadishufrom their training camp south of … By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has carried out an air strike in Somalia, killing more than 150 fighters with the al Qaeda-linked Islamist group al Shabaab, following U.S. intelligence on preparations for a […]

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Civilians die in bombing claimed by armed group of traffic junction and restaurant in city 245km northwest of Mogadishu. Somalia’s al-Shabab says it has bombed a busy traffic junction and a nearby restaurant in the city of Baidoa, killing at least 17 people. The attacks on Sunday were part of the armed group’s campaign of […]

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The African Union’s (AU’s) counter-terrorism policy isn’t working. Looking back at 2015 and the many terrorist incidents that punctuated news headlines in Africa, it is difficult to escape this conclusion. There was the attack by al-Shabaab gunmen on Garissa University in Kenya in April, which killed 148 people – mostly students. There was the Boko Haram […]

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International Crisis Group By Abdul Khalif & Cedric Barnes | @CedricHoA This year, the armed Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab has notched up a series of bloody successes against both Somali targets and the African Union peace-enforcement mission AMISOM. Meanwhile, the international community has been busy cajoling principals of the Somali federal and state governments into […]

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African Union says armed group is hoping to stage attacks disguised as AMISOM troops, using uniforms it took from them. Hamza Mohamed | The African Union said the uniforms were taken from its army camps [File: AP] The African Union (AU) says the al-Qaeda-linked armed group, al-Shabab, is planning attacks in Somalia using AU troop uniforms […]

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Bloomberg News Samuel Gebre Eritrea’s president reiterated his support for Saudi Arabia’s battle against militants, without commenting on a United Nations report that said the kingdom and the United Arab Emirates were paying the African country to help their military campaign in Yemen. “The Saudi government has declared to combat terrorism, and that is something […]

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BBC Image copyrightAP Image captionAl-Shabab went into the town soon after African Union forces retreated Islamist militant group al-Shabab has taken control of the port city Merca, residents say. However the African Union force insists it still has control of the town. The governor of Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region Ibrahim Adam told the AFP news […]

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