Strategic Thinking on East Africa

Militant Groups Compete for Notoriety in East Africa By JEFFREY GETTLEMANAPRIL 12, 2016 Members of the Kenya Defense Forces carried the coffins of soldiers killed during an attack by the Shabab on a military base in western Somalia. CreditThomas Mukoya/Reuters NAIROBI, Kenya — Apparently there is no brotherly love among East Africa’s Islamist militants. This […]

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By Abdi Guled | AP April 11 at 9:56 AM MOGADISHU, Somalia — A car bomb exploded on Monday outside restaurant packed with lunchtime customers in the Somali capital of Mogadishu killing at least five people, including school children, said witnesses. After the blast, a young girl was crying outside the restaurant screaming “where is my sister?” […]

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Foreign Policy One year after al-Shabab killed 147 people in cold blood, the Kenyan government has turned its back on the university where it happened. BY NANJALA NYABOLA GARISSA, Kenya — At approximately 5:00 a.m. on April 2, 2015, Sister Evelyn Ingoshe heard what sounded like a series of pops coming from the distance outside […]

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From Brookings Institution Editors’ Note: Al-Shabab’s operational capacities and intimidation power have grown in the past year, writes Vanda Felbab-Brown. Many of Kenya’s counterterrorism policies have been counterproductive, and counterinsurgency efforts by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have at best stagnated. This piece was originally published by The Cipher Brief. April 2 marked one […]

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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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