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Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 23-6-Africa-23

While we all are looking somewhere else; It’s still Africa but creeping close…

Previous: Across a swath of North Africa and beyond, militant groups are rebranding themselves as local affiliates of the Sunni Muslim extremist group that controls a large, scythe-shaped section of Syria and Iraq. One of the world’s most bloodthirsty and attention-getting terrorist organizations appears to be expanding; Daesh (ISIS). “Considering the scale of what [Islamic State] is facing in Syria and Iraq, it is really hard to believe that the central leadership is actually coordinating operations in multiple countries,”

Asked if relatively smaller terror groups like al-Shabaab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria have become more brutal because they are competing with ISIS to remain relevant to their supporters, Marshall said competition with ISIS is a factor "but its (al-Shabaab's) ideology would lead it in this direction anyway, especially as it has suffered defeats in Somalia itself where it has tried to act in a more military fashion." Asked about the al-Qaeda-affiliated group's ambitions outside of Somalia, Marshall said its attacks in Kenya are partly in revenge for Kenyan troops fighting its militants in Somalia, "but its ambition goes far beyond that." "Its ideology is a religious one, as is shown by its singling out of Christians for killing – not for the first time," "It wants to gain control of Somalia, but if successful in that, it will seek to expand control to its neighbours—parallel to ISIS." -- religious freedom scholar Paul Marshall of Hudson Institute the author of Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking.

Ethiopia has begun three days of mourning, with joint Christian and Muslim prayers, for around 30 Ethiopian Christians believed to have been killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Libya. The apparent murders, shown in footage released by ISIL on Sunday, have horrified Ethiopians and sparked global condemnation, including from Pope Francis who expressed his "great distress and sadness". "They are animals, they are outside of all humanity," said Tesfaye Wolde, who saw his only brother Balcha Belete executed in a video released by ISIL. "I saw him kneeling, a masked man pointing a gun to my brother and his friend, with a knife to their throats." Abune Mathias, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, called the killings "repugnant". "We have a duty to raise our voice to tell the world that the killing of the innocent like animals is completely unacceptable," he said. "If ISIL were religious, they would never have killed human beings," said Kedir Hussein, a Muslim who attended the joint prayers. "The death of these young people is like someone was killed in my family."

LWJ 22 April. The State Department today added two senior officials in Shabaab, al Qaeda’s official branch in East Africa, to the US government’s list of designated terrorists. One of the two, Ahmed Diriye, is Shabaab’s overall leader. Diriye rose to that position after Ahmed Abdi Godane, Shabaab’s previous head, was killed in a US airstrike in September 2014. Shabaab quickly reaffirmed its allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri after Diriye, who is also known as Sheikh Ahmad Umar and Abu Ubaidah, was named as Godane’s successor. In its announcement today, State notes that Diriye “shares Godane’s vision for al Shabaab’s terrorist attacks in Somalia as an element of al Qaeda’s greater global aspirations.” Godane and al Qaeda publicly announced their merger in February 2012, but declassified documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound, as well as other evidence, show that the two had a close working relationship well before then. Shabaab remains openly loyal to Zawahiri despite recent suggestions that the group is going to leave al Qaeda’s ranks and join the

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Islamic State. Propaganda videos released by the terrorist organization this year are littered with images of Zawahiri and other senior al Qaeda leaders.

Al-Shabab claims attack April 20 2015. Al-Shabab military operations spokesman Abulaziz Abu Mus'ab told Al Jazeera that his group was behind the attack. "We carried out the attack in Garowe. We targeted our enemy the UN. We killed and injured many in the attack."

• C remembers: 2007, September 19, Al Qaeda's Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri also released a video calling for Jihad in Pakistan and around the world. The video was called “The Power of Truth” – Video Documentary from as-Sahab on the War Between Islam and the United States and the West. Also, Zawahiri pointed out some of his targets that Al-Qaeda and the global Jihad movement would certainly take on in near future : - The United Nations (as it's a tool of ‘western crusaders') –Zawahiri: Bitter Harvest published in 1991 and the other was Knights under the Prophet's Banner in 2001.

C: In conventional military terms, al-Shabaab is losing. They have been routed from many areas, and are no longer able to rake in millions of dollars by shipping out mountains of charcoal or importing cars, as they did just a few years ago. But al-Shabaab attacks, as shown by the university massacre in Kenya, continue to grow in scope and ambition, raising the question: how exactly can they be stopped? "It’s not an easy game," says Stig Jarle Hansen, a Norwegian professor who has written a book about al-Shabaab. "You have to have a people-centric strategy. You have to bring security to the villages in Somalia and stop corruption within the Kenyan security services. "I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard over the past five or six years, ‘The Shabaab is dying, the Shabaab is dying’. The Shabaab is not dying. Case closed." Its evolution provides a daunting lesson in the battle against extremists. At the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya, they asked shoppers questions about Islam to separate Muslims from non-Muslims. They did it again in the attacks at the Mandera quarry, shooting many Christian workers in the back of the head, at close range. And al-Shabaab spared Muslim students — most of the students at Garissa University College, where they struck, were from other parts of Kenya, the majority Christian.

ON THE other side of the continent, Nigeria and its neighbours are fighting Boko Haram, retaking towns and villages in an effort to stop the group from dominating large stretches of Nigerian territory. In Iraq, the government and its allies, backed by US air strikes, are battling the Islamic State for control of Tikrit. In Yemen, there is concern that a feared branch of al-Qaeda will consolidate even more territory and influence amid a chaotic and expanding civil war. Al-Shabaab fighters once aspired to rule Somalia, and nearly did. They eagerly fed off the bitterness and anger many Somalis felt towards an Ethiopian force that was occupying their country.

Three months before the recent storming of Garissa University College in Kenya by al-Shabaab militants, Jamestown analyst Muhyadin Ahmed Roble wrote that the Somali terrorist group was still capable of mounting devastating attacks and remained a viable threat in regional security. In light of recent events, Jamestown announces the release of its first Quarterly Strategic Review (QSR) for 2015 on the Kenyan face of al-Shabaab. Despite the loss of territory and setbacks with the loss of its key leader Ahmad Abdi Godane, al-Shabaab remains resilient and has maintained a steady eye on Kenya since the Westgate Mall attack in September 2013

THEY have lost their leader, their ports, their checkpoints and their territory. They have lost thousands of men and much of their money. They do not have armoured personnel carriers

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like Boko Haram’s. Or poppy fields like the Taliban. Or oil fields like Islamic State’s. In the pecking order of the world’s leading terrorist groups, al-Shabaab militants, based in Somalia, operate on a shoestring budget. But as the attack on a Kenyan university two weeks ago showed, they have become proficient in something terrible: mass murder on the cheap. In the past two years alone, bare-bones al-Shabaab teams of young gunmen have struck across Kenya, at a mall, on buses, at a quarry, in a coastal village and at a university, where four militants with rudimentary assault rifles killed 147 students. In all, they have slaughtered hundreds of people and shaken Kenya, an economic powerhouse and cornerstone of stability in East Africa, with just a few men and a handful of light weapons. "I call it the dumbing down of terrorism," says Matt Bryden, a researcher in Nairobi who has been working on Somalia for more than 20 years. "They keep it simple. They’re lightly armed, highly disciplined and relatively well trained. "They’ve definitely lost some of their major revenue flows, but they’ve managed to survive a lean season." Despite a major international military effort in recent years to retake Somalia and push al-Shabaab out of its strongholds, especially ports on the Somali coast, al-Shabaab fighters are proving to be frighteningly resilient.

"Stopping the Shabaab is going to be tough," Bruton says, adding that the region’s security services desperately needed reform, and "that will take years". Bryden, the Nairobi researcher, says al-Shabaab has made enormous strides in recruiting youths in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Djibouti, and many hardly fit the stereotype of marginalised or poor recruits. Kenyan officials said that one of the gunmen from the attack on the university was a young, bright, privileged Kenyan who wore 200 suits and whose father was allegedly a local chief. "The Shabaab is becoming more decentralised," Bryden says. "That makes it more resilient to decapitation strikes." Bryden, like several other analysts, does not believe firepower will be successful in destroying al-Shabaab. "There has to be a political vision across this region to tackle the Shabaab. Right now, that doesn’t exist," he says.

Asked if relatively smaller terror groups like al-Shabaab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria have become more brutal because they are competing with ISIS to remain relevant to their supporters, Marshall said competition with ISIS is a factor "but its (al-Shabaab's) ideology would lead it in this direction anyway, especially as it has suffered defeats in Somalia itself where it has tried to act in a more military fashion." Terrorist groups, including al-Shabaab, follow different kinds of interpretations of the Quran, "but they are similar to the Wahhabi school in Saudi Arabia."

• The presence of 2.5 million ethnic Somalis in Kenya’s chronically underdeveloped northeast region can no longer be ignored by Nairobi if it is to deal with the terrorist threat from al-Shabaab, which is also eager to recruit non-Somali Muslims in Kenya.

• Recidivism is a common theme in al-Shabaab ideology (ethnic-Somalis are currently spread across several countries) and remarks made by the attackers at Garissa indicate the movement may have greater aspirations in northeastern Kenya than merely putting pressure on Nairobi

• Deep corruption in the security services, especially the police, has produced a certain lethargy in Kenya’s response to terrorist activity.

• Though the Kenyan government continues to treat al-Shabaab as an external threat, there is evidence that the radical Islamist threat is an internal problem, albeit one inspired by al-Shabaab.

• For al-Shabaab, direct confrontations with Somali security forces or the much stronger AMISOM deployment are out; a greater focus on terrorist tactics (including bombings, assassinations and assaults on soft targets by well-armed gunmen) is in.

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• Created by late al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane “Abu Zubayr,” Amniyat is a secretive unit within al-Shabaab that acts as the organization’s intelligence unit while also providing internal security, operational planning and bodyguard services for al-Shabaab’s leader.

• “Tell your President to withdraw KDF from Somalia and ensure that North Eastern [province] belongs to Muslims. Garissa must also be part of Somalia and not Kenya”

• This suggests that Kenyan authorities have not absorbed the lessons of the 2013 attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall

Flaunting the Tunisian's government achievement in the fight against militant Islam, on Saturday Tunisia's Interior Minister claimed that his government has prevented some 12, 490 nationals from "leaving Tunisian territory to combat zones" in Iraq, Libya and Syria in the last two years.

Deadly attack targets UN staff in Somalia's PuntlandAl-Shabab claims responsibility for attack on UN vehicle in Garowe, capital of Puntland, killing at least seven people. 20 Apr 2015 At least seven people have been killed in an attack on a UN vehicle in Garowe, the capital of Puntland in northeastern Somalia, local security sources told Al Jazeera. Four UNICEF staff members were among the dead and four other staff members were in a serious condition, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a statement on Monday. Abdiwali Hirsi, Puntland's Information Minister, told Al Jazeera that two other victims were Somali security guards. The seventh victim was yet to be identified. UNICEF said the attack occurred when the vehicle travelled from a guest house to the UN agency's office in Garowe in the autonomous Puntland region, adding that the UN was presently contacting families of the staff and airlifting the injured. The victims were an integral part of UNICEF’s work in Somalia, "dedicated to improving the lives of others", the statement said. Al-Shabab claims attack Al-Shabab military operations spokesman Abulaziz Abu Mus'ab told Al Jazeera that his group was behind the attack. "We carried out the attack in Garowe. We targeted our enemy the UN. We killed and injured many in the attack."

Tunisian official: 12,000 militants blocked from joining jihadist groups abroad According to Tunisian authorities, the small North African state has been the origin-point of 2,000-3,000 foreign fighters who have joined the ranks of jihadist groups.

Supporters of the Islamist Ennahda movement wave party flags during a campaign event in Tunis. (photo credit:REUTERS) Flaunting the Tunisian's government achievement in the fight against militant Islam, on Saturday Tunisia's Interior Minister claimed that his government has prevented some 12, 490 nationals from "leaving Tunisian territory to

combat zones" in Iraq, Libya and Syria in the last two years. According to AFP, speaking to a parliamentary committee, Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli also told Tunisian officials that in the first quarter of 2015, some 1,000 suspects have been tried in courts for alleged links to terrorist organizations. While Gharsalli stopped short of providing any figures regarding sentences doled out, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Sofiene Sliti, explained that 83 verdicts had been delivered out of 124 actual court cases. He too however, did not go into detail as to the nature of these verdicts or whether anybody was actually charged. In March, Tunisian militant believed to belong to the Islamic State group assaulted the Bardo Museum in the capital of Tunis, killing 24 people including 20 foreign tourists and sparking what one Interior Ministry spokesman called a "large-scale campaign against the extremists." Tunisian

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authorities imitated a widespread crackdown after the attack, detaining 20 suspects and plunging the country into a nation-wide state of increased security. Tunisia has played a central if not ambiguous role in shaping the post Arab-Spring period. The wave of political and societal reform, marked by mass protests and violent government crackdowns, even revolutions in various Arab capitals, initially began in Tunisia after the self immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a disenchanted fruit-seller. Under immense pressure from popular demonstrations, Tunisia's own political strongman, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was ousted in 2011. Yet according to Tunisian authorities, the small North African state has also been the origin-point of 2,000 to 3,000 foreign fighters who filled the ranks jihadist groups like the Islamic State group.

UN base in Mali hit by deadly suicide bombing15 April 2015 A suicide attack on a UN base in northern Mali has killed three civilians and wounded nine peacekeepers, the UN has said.The bomber attempted to drive into a UN camp in Ansongo town when his explosives detonated, it added. At least 35 UN troops have been killed and more than 140 wounded in Mali since July 2013. The UN took charge of security after French-led forces seized northern cities from Islamist militants. The al-Qaeda-linked militants fled into the vast Sahara desert, and have since carried out suicide bombings and hit-and-run attacks on UN troops. Secular Tuareg rebels had initially been allied with the Islamists, but the two groups later fell out. 'Cowardly' The UN's chief in Mali, Mongi Hamdi, condemned the attack as "cowardly and odious," the AFP news agency reports. "I am shocked that valiant peacekeepers are again being targeted, as well as innocent civilians. This attack will not deter Minusma [the UN peacekeeping force] from its mission of restoring peace and security in Mali," he was quoted as saying. The peacekeepers, from Niger, were seriously wounded, UN spokesman Olivier Salgado said, Reuters reports. Northern Mali has been a flashpoint of conflict since Mali's independence from France in 1960, with Tuareg rebels campaigning for independence or more autonomy. The emergence of jihadist groups in recent years has made the conflict even more complex. The 9,000-strong UN force took over peacekeeping operations in July 2013.

Al-Shabab launches deadly attack on Somali ministryAt least 10 people killed after fighters set off bombs and storm government building in centre of Mogadishu. 14 Apr 2015 At least 10 people have been killed in an assault on Somalia's Higher Education Ministry in the centre of the capital Mogadishu. The attackers stormed the ministry after a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the gate of the office complex, opening the way for gunmen to enter, police said.Al Jazeera's Mustaf Abdi Nor Shafana, reporting from the scene, said he counted the bodies of eight civilians and two soldiers after Tuesday's assault. Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, an al-Shabab spokesperson, told the Reuters news agency that the armed group was behind the attack. Gun battles between African Union forces and fighters erupted as several gunmen were holed up inside the building. The ministry, located in K5 district of Mogadishu, is adjacent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has been has been hit by a string of similar attacks in recent months. Al-Shabab continues to wage a deadly campaign against Somalia's government and remains a threat in Somalia and the East African region.

13 April, A message purported released by the Islamic State claimed responsibility Monday for twin attacks on diplomatic compounds in Libya’s capital in the latest apparent strikes by the militants in North Africa. Groups pledging loyalty to the Islamic State have taken advantage of Libya’s internal political chaos to gain new footholds, including stepping up attacks on foreigners. The claim by Islamic State, which appeared on Twitter and militant

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Web sites, did not give a specific reason for the embassy attacks. Its authenticity could not be independently verified, but the Islamic State has carried out previous attacks in Libya’s capital. On Sunday, gunmen fired on the South Korean Embassy, killing two guards, officials said in Seoul.

Scholar Paul Marshall: Al-Shabaab's Religious Ideology Similar to ISIS; Brutality Natural Direction, Not Only Due to Competition

BY ANUGRAH KUMAR , CHRISTIAN POST CONTRIBUTORApril 7, 2015| Senior Al Shabaab officer Mohamed Mohamud alias Sheik Dulayadayn addresses a news conference during clashes between Ismalist fighting and Somali government in Somalia's capital Mogadishu this file picture taken on January 1, 2011. The death toll in an assault by Somali militants on a Kenyan university is likely to climb above 147, a government source and media said on April 3, 2015, as anger grew among local residents over what they say was a government failure to prevent bloodshed. Within hours of the attack, Kenya put up a 20 million shillings (5,000) reward for the arrest of Mohamed Mohamud, a former Garissa

teacher labeled "Most Wanted" in a government poster and linked by Kenyan media to two separate al Shabaab attacks in the neighboring Mandera region last year. The Somali terror group al-Shabaab, which killed nearly 150 students in a targeted attack on Christians at Kenya's Garissa University College last week, is rooted in a religious ideology and is not too different from the Islamic State in its ambition, said religious freedom scholar Paul Marshall of Hudson Institute

in an interview. Terrorist groups, including al-Shabaab, follow different kinds of interpretations of the Quran, "but they are similar to the Wahhabi school in Saudi Arabia," Marshall, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C., told The Christian Post.Asked about the al-Qaeda-affiliated group's ambitions outside of Somalia, Marshall said its attacks in Kenya are partly in revenge for Kenyan troops fighting its militants in Somalia, "but its ambition goes far beyond that." "Its ideology is a religious one, as is shown by its singling out of Christians for killing – not for the first time," added the author of Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking. "It wants to gain control of Somalia, but if successful in that, it will seek to expand control to its neighbors—parallel to ISIS."Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda and wants to establish a caliphate in the Levant region and beyond. It has gained control over large swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq. A gunmen from al-Shabaab told students during last week's attack in Garissa that they were "here to make your Easter holidays better" and warned of further attacks to come, according to The Telegraph. "If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot," Collins Wetangula, the vice chairman of the student union at Garissa, told FOX News.

It is estimated that al-Shabaab killed at least 400 people and injured over 1,000 in more than 100 attacks between 2011 – when Kenya sent its troops to Somalia – and 2014. On Sept. 21, 2013, al-Shabaab attacked Nairobi's Westgate Mall, leaving at least 68 dead and 175 wounded. Asked if relatively smaller terror groups like al-Shabaab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria have become more brutal because they are competing with ISIS to remain relevant to their supporters, Marshall said competition with ISIS is a factor "but its (al-Shabaab's) ideology would lead it in this direction anyway, especially as it has suffered defeats in Somalia itself where it has tried to act in a more military fashion."

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Governments and groups from around the world condemned al-Shabaab's attack on Christian students in Garissa last Thursday. Pictures of students lying in a pool of blood at the site of the attack where they had gone to pray went viral on social media and people expressed their anger against terror groups. However, the number of youth from Western nations joining groups like ISIS is growing. ISIS is believed to have hundreds of foreign fighters, including those from the United States and Europe. Asked to explain this phenomenon, Marshall said,

"For a young Muslim, feeling uprooted in the West, a group claiming to represent 'true Islam' and to provide exciting prospects can be a draw." It's not the poor that are drawn to ISIS but "the dislocated, the alienated," added Marshall, author and editor of more than 20 books on religion and politics. "There are similar draws to gang warfare or soccer hooliganism," he said, quoting Christopher Caldwell, senior editor at The Weekly Standard, who suggests that much of the draw is not to Islam but to "team Islam" – our team.The United States gives millions of dollars in military and financial aid to Kenya and Nigeria to help fight terrorism, and an international coalition, led by Washington, has been launching airstrikes on ISIS bases in Syria and Iraq. World leaders need to provide military, anti-terrorist and security training – with a human rights component – and support, Marshall said. But not just that, the world also needs to ensure that there is "economic development and exposure to alternative Muslim teaching" in terrorism-torn nations and regions, he added.

After Garissa: Kenya Revises Its Security Strategy to Counter al-Shabaab’s Shifting TacticsPublication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 8 April 17, 2015 By: Andrew McGregorMohamed Kuno was named the mastermind of the Garissa University College Attack in Kenya (The Nation). Al-Shabaab’s April 2 attack on Kenya’s Garissa University College that killed 147 non-

Muslim students was the latest installment in al-Shabaab’s campaign to force Nairobi to order a withdrawal of the Kenyan Defense Force (KDF) from the Jubaland region of southern Somalia. So far, the Kenyan government has presented an uncoordinated response that has largely focused on Islamist militancy as a foreign problem that is being imported (along with hundreds of thousands of unwanted refugees) across Kenya’s porous border with neighboring Somalia.

Background The KDF moved into southern Somalia in 2011 as part of Operation Linda Nchi, designed to deter cross-border infiltration of radical Islamists, create a Kenyan-controlled buffer zone in southern Somalia and establish suitable conditions for the return of the massive Somali refugee population dwelling in Kenya’s largely ethnic-Somali North Eastern Province. KDF troops in Somalia joined the larger African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in February 2012. In military terms, the KDF presence has exerted a slow but ultimately relentless pressure on Somalia’s al-Shabaab movement. The seizure of the port at Kuday Island (southern Juba region, south of Kismayo) by KDF and Somali National Army (SNA) forces during an amphibious operation on March 22 drove al-Shabaab from its last access point to the sea, dealing the organization a severe blow and leaving it effectively surrounded by hostile forces (Raxanreeb, March 22). Military pressure from AMISOM and financial pressures created by the gradual loss of access to every port prompted a strategic overhaul of the group’s activities. For al-Shabaab, direct confrontations with Somali security forces or the much stronger AMISOM deployment are out; a greater focus on terrorist tactics (including bombings, assassinations and assaults on soft targets by well-armed gunmen) is in.

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Expelling the KDF is a priority, and the movement is willing to exploit ethnic tensions in Kenya’s North Eastern Province to achieve this goal.

The region’s ethnic-Somali population (belonging largely to the powerful Ogadeni clan) was geographically divided in 1925, when Britain gave the northern half of the region (modern Jubaland) to Italy. The southern half of the region is now Kenya’s North Eastern Province. The division was massively unpopular with the region’s ethnic-Somalis, leading the British to close the region from 1926 to 1934. Dislike of the Kenyan government (dominated by the Kikuyu tribe) erupted into the Shifta War of 1963-1967. Dissatisfaction with the administration has been punctuated by sporadic political violence in the region ever since, the worst example being the 1984 Wagalla Massacre of thousands of ethnic-Somalis by Kenyan security forces. [1]

The Assault on Garissa College University Kenya’s security forces may have relaxed prematurely after seizing Kismayo, al-Shabaab’s largest port, in 2012. While taking Kismayo fulfilled Nairobi’s objective of creating an autonomous buffer zone (“Jubaland”) between Kenya and the rest of Somalia, it only intensified al-Shabaab’s hatred of Kenya and its determination to retake Somali-inhabited areas of Kenya, even if it means the use of terrorist atrocities targeting Kenyan civilians. The border became no less permeable with the creation of a Kenya-reliant Jubaland administration, yet the Kenyan government continued to neglect border security in the North Eastern Province, where roads and other infrastructure are few and far between. The attack at Garissa appears to have been well-planned—university administrators said two of the terrorists had posed as students while using a room on campus as a “command center,” complete with food and supplies that appeared to be intended for a long battle (Standard [Nairobi], April 10). Survivors described the attackers as speaking Swahili (Kenya’s main language) rather than Somali (Mail & Guardian [Johannesburg], April 4). Militants told at least one survivor of the attack: “Tell your President to withdraw KDF from Somalia and ensure that North Eastern [province] belongs to Muslims. Garissa must also be part of Somalia and not Kenya” (Standard [Nairobi], April 11).

While helicopters were made available to take the Interior Cabinet Secretary (who routinely assures Kenyans the government is keeping them safe) and the Inspector General of Police to Garissa, the elite counter-terrorist Recce company of the paramilitary General Service Unit (GSU) got stuck in traffic on their way to the airport, where they were transported to Garissa by fixed wing aircraft while their equipment travelled by road (Star [Nairobi], April 11). The aircraft that should have been available to transport the Recce unit was unavailable as it had been used that morning to fly private individuals to Mombasa and pick up the daughter-in-law of police air-wing chief Rogers Mbithi (Daily Nation [Nairobi], April 13; Star [Nairobi], April 15).

This suggests that Kenyan authorities have not absorbed the lessons of the 2013 attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, particularly in regard to having transport available for its rapid response units. In the Westgate incident, Kenya’s elite 40 Rangers Strike Force arrived at the mall from their base at Gilgil (roughly 75 kilometers north of Nairobi) 12 hours after the attack began, and promptly engaged in a gunfight with members of the General Service Unit (GSU), a paramilitary wing of the National Police Service. Action against the terrorists still inside the mall was confused as many members of the police and military devoted themselves to looting the mall rather than rescuing hostages. In response to the resulting public outrage, the Kenyan military sacked and jailed two members of its elite 40 Rangers Strike Force and declared the matter finished (Standard [Nairobi], October 30, 2013).

Though the Kenyan government continues to treat al-Shabaab as an external threat, there is evidence that the radical Islamist threat is an internal problem, albeit one inspired by al-Shabaab. The alleged planner of the attack, Mohamed Kuno (a.k.a. Mohamed Dulyadin; a.k.a. Gamadhere; a.k.a. Shaykh Mohamud), has strong connections to Kenya’s ethnic-Somali

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community. Kuno worked as a teacher and principal of a madrassa in Garissa from 1997 to 2000, where he is remembered for his religious radicalism before his departure for Somalia (Daily Nation [Nairobi], April 2). Once in Somalia, Kuno acted as a commander in some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu, and, for a time, even served in the al-Shabaab-allied Ras Kamboni Brigade under Shaykh Ahmed Mohamed Islam “Madobe,” who ironically is now the Kenyan-backed “president” of Jubaland (Mail & Guardian [Johannesburg], April 4). The former teacher is the prime suspect in the massacre of 28 Kenyan Christians in Mandera County in November 2014 and the killing of a further 36 Christian quarry workers in Mandera in December 2014. At present, Kano is responsible for al-Shabaab operations in Jubaland and Kenya. In the wake of the attack, opposition leaders continue to demand a KDF withdrawal from Somalia in order to concentrate on border security, suggesting that the United States try to persuade other nations without a common border with Somalia to replace the Kenyan troops (Standard [Nairobi], April 11).

A Failure of Intelligence? In the border regions, there are few Kenyan intelligence officers from the local ethnic-Somali community, contributing to Kenya’s continued inability to secure its border with Somalia (Standard [Nairobi], April 12). In addition, Kenyan authorities appear to have ignored foreign intelligence reports passed to them: · Three weeks before the Garissa attack, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned that Kenya was not acting on intelligence information regarding possible terrorist activity—only a day before the Garissa attack, President Kenyatta called British travel advisory warnings on Kenya an attempt “to intimidate us with these threats” (Standard [Nairobi], April 5). · Iran is reported to have supplied information on March 22 of pending attacks on Kenyan Christians in university areas of Garissa, Nairobi and Mombasa prior to the assault on the Garissa University, where Christians were singled out (Standard [Nairobi], April 12). · On March 27, Australia issued a warning of an impending terrorist attack in Nairobi (Reuters, March 28). · According to a student interviewed by Reuters, whose account was corroborated by northern Kenyan MPs, the administration of the Garissa Teacher’s College closed the school days before the attack, telling students that strangers had been spotted in the college and that a terrorist attack might be imminent. This action was not followed by the rest of the campus, which remained open. According to one MP, “Some of us have seen the intelligence reports, and I can assure you they were specific and actionable” (Reuters, April 3).

The Kenyan Response The KDF’s immediate reaction to the Garissa massacre was to bomb al-Shabaab camps in Somalia, including Camp Shaykh Ismail, Camp Gondodwe, Camp Bardheere and what was described as a major camp in Gedo Region where some 800 militants were based. Though the KDF claimed each base was completely destroyed (unlikely considering that only ten aircraft were used and the cloudy conditions at the time), al-Shabaab made the equally unlikely claim that all the bombs had fallen harmlessly on farmland (Star [Nairobi], April 6).

Inside Kenya, critical assessments of Kenya’s response to terrorist threats posed by al-Shabaab and its Kenyan allies tend to be treated as unpatriotic outbursts that identify the holder of such sentiments as potential terrorist-sympathizers. Deputy President Ruto (the government’s point-man on the Garissa issue) recently demanded that some Kenyan leaders should stop “cheering” al-Shabaab attacks inside Kenya (Capital FM [Nairobi], April 12). Beyond the military response, focus has concentrated on the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya’s North Eastern Province. The camp, the largest refugee center in Africa with between 350,000 to 500,000 Somali residents, was set up in 1991, and its population (mainly women and children) has grown every year despite claims from many Kenyan politicians that the facility harbors terrorists. Following the Garissa attack, Deputy President Ruto demanded that the

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UNHCR close Dadaab in three months’ time, or Kenya would relocate the refugees itself (BBC, April 12).

Recent remarks by former deputy prime minister Musalia Mudavadi (in which he was supported by several MPs) gave some indication of the political mood regarding the continued existence of the Dadaab camp and its alleged threat to Kenyans: The camp accommodates Somalia terrorists who disguise themselves as refugees. They use the camp as a base to collect intelligent information about Kenyan institutions and relay back to their accomplices in Somalia… The refugees stay in the country, seek assistance from us, mingle with our people freely yet they gather information on how to lay a trap on us. They hide their true colors and plan on how to kill us. They need to move out immediately (Star [Nairobi], April 6). Kenyan officials insist that KDF operations in southern Somalia have now created safe spaces suitable for the return of the refugees (BBC, April 11). However, a UNHCR spokesman cited a tripartite treaty with Kenya and Somalia specifying that any return by refugees to Somalia must be voluntary, adding rather bluntly that “moving that number of people [in an unsystematic fashion] will not be possible” (RFI, April 12).

Big Fences Make Good Neighbors? While spectacular attacks such as that on Garissa University make international headlines, there is also a daily war of attrition going on in the border counties of northeastern Kenya. According to Kenyan anti-terrorism police, there has been a terrorist attack every ten days (135 in total) since the KDF deployment in Somalia began in 2011. Most of these attacks, killing over 500 people in total, occurred in Kenya’s North Eastern province. (Mail & Guardian [Johannesburg], April 10). Ali Roba, governor of Mandera County, said in March that up to 90 people had died from terrorist activity in Mandera in the previous seven months alone, adding that he himself had survived six assassination attempts (Standard [Nairobi], March 22).

Most of this activity is blamed by the authorities on the infiltration of al-Shabaab terrorists across the poorly defended border. Nairobi’s solution, despite Somali objections, is to build a massive wall of concrete and fencing along the border, separating the ethnic Somali residents of Kenya’s North Eastern Province from their fellow Ogadeni clansmen in Somalia’s Kenyan-occupied Jubaland State (Standard [Nairobi], March 22), The hastily-implemented “Somalia Border Control Project” will cost an estimated $260 million. The porous border with Somalia is 680 kilometers long, but it is still unclear if the project will cover that entire distance. (Mail & Guardian [Johannesburg], April 10). Defending the wall will require an enormous and expensive permanent deployment of police or troops whose supplies will need to be trucked in despite a general absence of roads in the region.

Police Recruits Deep corruption in the security services, especially the police, has produced a certain lethargy in Kenya’s response to terrorist activity. Unsurprisingly, the Garissa massacre is now being used to legitimize corrupt police hiring practices that were recently the subject of an unfavorable ruling by Kenya’s High Court, which still maintains a reputation for honesty and independence from the executive branch. The ruling cancelled the 2014 recruitment of 10,000 police recruits who had paid substantial bribes for a place on the police force. Despite the ruling, the president issued a directive that the 10,000 police recruits should report for training immediately to protect the border with Somalia. This led to a flurry of contradictory statements from various government and oversight sources that pointed to a severe breakdown between the executive branch and the judiciary. The president’s directive constitutes a violation of the Kenyan constitution, an offense for which the president could be impeached. Kenyatta, however, has the support of a majority of parliament, making impeachment proceedings unlikely (Standard [Nairobi], April 12).

Amniyat on the Ropes? Created by late al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane “Abu Zubayr,” Amniyat is a secretive unit within al-Shabaab that acts as the organization’s intelligence unit while also providing internal security, operational planning and bodyguard

Cees Page 10 of 12 22/04/2015

By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence

services for al-Shabaab’s leader. In Godane’s hands, Amniyat was used to crush internal dissent through a string of assassinations and to orchestrate ruthless attacks on civilians both inside Somalia and beyond in AMISOM-member nations like Kenya and Uganda. Godane used Amniyat to consolidate his control of al-Shabaab by suspending the al-Shabaab Shura and making Amniyat the most powerful force within the organization while reporting directly to him. Amniyat has been particularly successful in infiltrating the Somali security forces and even the highest levels of the Somali Federal Government, enabling the group to carry out brazen attacks within Mogadishu and other cities before melting back into the population (Raxanreeb.com, October 22, 2014). Nonetheless, with massacres like Westgate and Garissa to their credit, Amniyat’s leaders have become targets for Somalia’s central government and its ally, the United States: · In January 2014, a U.S. drone strike killed Sahal Iskudhuq, a senior Amniyat member. · In late December 2014, a U.S. drone strike killed Abdishakur Tahlil, the new Amniyat commander, only days after he succeeded Zakariya Hersi as leader of the unit (BBC, December 31, 2014). · Former Anmiyat leader Zakariya Ahmed Ismail Hersi defected from al-Shabaab to the government in January. The former al-Shabaab intelligence chief renounced violence at a government-sponsored news conference, but his defection may have been due to a feeling of insecurity due to tensions within the group’s leadership (Business Insider, January 28). · In early February of this year, a U.S. drone strike in Dinsor killed Yusuf Dheeq, a senior Amniyat member, and several other al-Shabaab fighters (Dalsan Radio [Mogadishu], February 6). · In late March, high-ranking Amniyat operative Mohamed Ali Hassan surrendered to Somali National Army forces in the Bakool region of southern Somalia (Garowe Online, March 30). · Adan Garaar, believed to be the head of Amniyat’s external operations, was killed in a U.S. drone strike at Bardhere in mid-March. Garaar was a leading planner of the September 2013 Westgate attack in which 70 people were killed, as well as being especially active in organizing a wave of terrorist attacks and massacres in northeast Kenya’s Mandera County (Star [Nairobi], March 14; Standard [Nairobi], March 22). Amniyat appears to have responded to these relentless attacks on its leadership by mounting ever more spectacular attacks on civilian soft-targets, especially within Kenya, where it operates with little local interference.

Conclusion The presence of 2.5 million ethnic Somalis in Kenya’s chronically underdeveloped northeast region can no longer be ignored by Nairobi if it is to deal with the terrorist threat from al-Shabaab, which is also eager to recruit non-Somali Muslims in Kenya. President Kenyatta appears to have accepted the internal nature of the Islamist threat on April 4, when he told the nation: “Our task of countering terrorism has been made all the more difficult by the fact that the planners and financiers of this brutality are deeply embedded in our communities” (Guardian, April 5). At the same time, however, Kenya’s efforts are likely to be in vain so long as Kenya’s security forces fail to learn from or even acknowledge past mistakes in order to protect their reputation. In addition, Nairobi’s larger strategy of creating a buffer-state in Jubaland must also be regarded as a financially and diplomatically expensive failure in terms of ending the cross-border movement of terrorists and refugees. Though the KDF is now in control of southern Somalia, the question is how long it would take after a KDF withdrawal for al-Shabaab forces to begin rebuilding their movement by retaking important ports like Kismayo. Recidivism is a common theme in al-Shabaab ideology (ethnic-Somalis are currently spread across several countries) and remarks made by the attackers at Garissa indicate the movement may have greater aspirations in northeastern Kenya than merely putting pressure on Nairobi. Kenya’s incursion into Somalia may have locked the nation into a long and costly struggle, pitting a government, which is determined to hold onto northeastern Kenya, against radical Somali Islamists who are intent on reversing the colonial division of 1925. Andrew McGregor is

Cees Page 11 of 12 22/04/2015

By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence

Director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based agency specializing in security issues related to the Islamic world. Note 1. The number of dead ranges from 380 (a government estimate) to 5,000. The victims were members of the Degodia, an ethnic-Somali clan resident in Kenya that is part of the larger Hawiye confederation. Files:

TerrorismMonitorVol13Issue8_03.pdf

Kenya orders UN to move massive Somali refugee campNairobi has given UN three months to move the camp over the border into Somalia.11 Apr 2015 Kenya has urged the United Nations to remove a camp housing more than half a million Somali refugees within three months, as part of a response to the recent killing of 148 people by Somali gunmen at a Kenyan university.Kenya has in the past accused fighters of hiding out in Dadaab camp which it now wants the UN refugee agency UNHCR to move across the border to inside Somalia. "We have asked the UNHCR to relocate the refugees in three months, failure to which we shall relocate them ourselves," Deputy President William Ruto said in a statement on Saturday. "The way America changed after 9/11 is the way Kenya will change after Garissa," he said, referring to the university that was attacked on April 2. Al Jazeera's Mohamed Adow, reporting from Garissa in Kenya, said that Ruto warned that if the UN fails to remove the camp, the government would do so itself. He also quoted Ruto as saying that the move was necessary to secure its border with Somalia, which Kenya has failed to do so because of the camp's impediments. The complex of camps hosts more than 600,000 Somali refugees, according to Ruto, in a remote, dry corner in northeast Kenya, about an hour's drive from Garissa town.

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