Inside Al-Shabaab

Harun Maruf, Dan Joseph

Description

One of the most powerful Islamic militant groups in Africa, Al-Shabaab exerts Taliban-like rule over millions in Somalia and poses a growing threat to stability in the Horn of Africa. Somalis risk retaliation or death if they oppose or fail to comply with Al-Shabaab-imposed restrictions on aspects of everyday life such as clothing, media, sports, interpersonal relations, and prayer. Inside Al-Shabaab: The Secret History of Al-Qaeda's Most Powerful Ally recounts the rise, fall, and resurgence of this overlooked terrorist organization and provides an intimate understanding of its connections with Al-Qaeda. Drawing from interviews with former Al-Shabaab militants, including high-ranking officials, military commanders, police, and foot soldiers, authors Harun Maruf and Dan Joseph reveal the motivations of those who commit their lives to the group and its violent jihadist agenda. A wealth of sources including US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, letters taken from the Pakistani hideout of Osama bin Laden, case files from the prosecution of American Al-Shabaab members, emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, and Al-Shabaab's own statements and recruiting videos inform Maruf and Joseph's investigation of the United States' campaign against Al-Shabaab and how the 2006 US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia gave the group the popular support it needed to radicalize ordinary citizens and become a powerful movement.

The audio book is narrated by Nicholas Smith. Produced by Speechki in 2021.

Part 1: Origins and Rise
1. Jihad Arrives in Somalia
2. The CIA, Warlords, and Ethiopia
3. "The Real Jihad Has Just Started"
4. Godane
5. American Al-Shabaab
6. Radical Organization

Part 2: The Battle for Mogadishu
7. "TFG IN GRAVE JEOPARDY"
8. "We Want Anyone"
9. Zenith and Stalemate
10. The Ramadan Offensive
11. Withdrawal

Part 3: On the Run
12. Divisions and Purge
13. The Road to Westgate
14. No Place to Hide

Part 4: Resurgence
15. Arresting the Decline
16. The ISIS Incursion
17. The Future of al-Shabab

Sujets

• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Histoire
• Talibán
• Al Qaeda
• África
• List of terrorist incidents
• Al-Shabaab
• History of the Middle East
• General officer
• Terrorism
• Somalia
• Osama bin Laden
• Middle East
• History of Africa
• Taliban
• Al-Qaida
• Al-Shabbaab
• WikiLeaks
• General
• Somalie
• Islam
• Africa
• Hillary Rodham Clinton
• Oussama ben Laden

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9780253037503
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

INSIDE AL-SHABAAB
HARUN MARUF and DAN JOSEPH
INSIDE AL-SHABAAB
The Secret History of Al-Qaeda s Most Powerful Ally
Foreword by Christopher Anzalone
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2018 by Dan Joseph and Harun Maruf
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Maruf, Harun, author. | Joseph, Dan (Journalist), author.
Title: Inside al-Shabaab : the secret history of al-Qaeda s most powerful ally / Harun Maruf and Dan Joseph ; Foreword by Christopher Anzalone.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018019388 (print) | LCCN 2018032045 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253037510 (e-book) | ISBN 9780253037480 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253037497 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Shabaab (Organization)| Terrorism-Somalia. | Insurgency-Somalia. | Islam and politics-Somalia. | Somalia-Politics and government-1991-
Classification: LCC HV6433.S582 (ebook) | LCC HV6433.S582 S53 2018 (print) | DDC 303.625096773-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019388
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Christopher Anzalone
Sources and Acknowledgments
Prologue: Birth of A Militant
PART ONE: ORIGINS AND RISE
1 Jihad Arrives in Somalia
2 The CIA, the Warlords, and Ethiopia
3 The Real Jihad Has Just Started
4 Godane
5 Al-Shabaab Americans
6 Radical Organization
PART TWO: THE BATTLE FOR MOGADISHU
7 TFG IN GRAVE JEOPARDY
8 Send Troops Within 24 Hours
9 Zenith and Stalemate
10 The Ramadan Offensive
11 Withdrawal
PART THREE: ON THE RUN
12 Divisions and Purge
13 The Road to Westgate
14 No Place to Hide
PART FOUR: RESURGENCE
15 Arresting the Decline
16 The ISIS Incursion
17 Al-Shabaab s Future
Notes
Index
FOREWORD
Christopher Anzalone
BEFORE THE RISE OF THE Islamic State and its pretensions as the new caliphate, Al-Shabaab ran a multitiered governing administration over vast swaths of central and southern Somalia, threatening the very existence of Somalia s internationally recognized government. The militant organization recruited hundreds of foreign fighters from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa and established itself as a key regional ally and, later, affiliate of Al-Qaeda. Through its civil and political administrations, Al-Shabaab collected taxes and extorted protection money from locals, made alliances with businessmen engaged in the illegal charcoal trade, ran Sharia courts, and imposed a harsh form of law and order through its Hisbah police force. The United States, European Union, and Somalia s African neighbors had good reason to be alarmed.
Indeed, Al-Shabaab was a pioneer in jihadi-insurgent governance, building itself from the ashes of the Islamic Courts Union following the December 2006 Ethiopian invasion and ensuring its primacy over Somalia s insurgency through the ruthless use of coercion and outright violence. From its setup of a robust machinery for territorial control to its use of public events like communal prayers and outdoor executions, Al-Shabaab blazed a path for Sunni militants that would later be built on and scaled up massively by the Islamic State. The Somali jihadi group was also a trailblazer in the use of media, establishing a strong presence on Twitter and other social media platforms, and running a multilingual foreign propaganda campaign along with a domestic messaging operation aimed at Somalis. Most recently, Al-Shabaab deployed its media tools in the run-up to the 2017 Kenyan elections, releasing a string of propaganda videos in English, Swahili, Somali, Cushtic, and other regional languages.
Al-Shabaab represents a hybrid form of militant political Islam that is transnational in its ambitions while remaining, thus far, primarily local and regional in its core strategic operations. Although many analysts have predicted that the group s internal divisions and clashing personalities would result in an organizational split, Al-Shabaab has weathered leadership decapitation by US drone strikes and bouts of severe internal discord and infighting that claimed the lives or forced the flight of several of its founding leaders, as well as a sustained challenge from Islamic State. Despite suffering significant territorial, personnel, material, and financial losses since 2011, the group today remains a capable and resilient insurgent force. The presence of more than twenty thousand African Union troops in Somalia has not impeded the militants ability to attack targets in that country or in Kenya, where Al-Shabaab has set up a network of cells and regularly conducts hit-and-run attacks on police and military targets.
Harun Maruf and Dan Joseph bring their years of experience in reporting on African politics and affairs for Voice of America to tell the story of the founding, rise, decline, and rebound of Al-Shabaab. Utilizing an array of sources, including interviews with Somali politicians and government officials, current and former insurgents, and Somali Islamists from Al-Shabaab, its predecessor Al-Itihad, and its onetime partner Hizbul Islam, Maruf and Joseph document in fascinating and extensive detail how the founding cadre of Al-Shabaab met and formed what would become one of the most formidable jihadi organizations in modern history, which would include the former ice cream server and US-educated university student Ibrahim al-Afghani, the rigid and slightly built Afghanistan-trained commander Aden Hashi Farah Ayrow, and the utterly ruthless emir of the group, Ahmed Godane.
Written with the flair and engaging prose of an action novel but with keen attention to sourcing and detail, the book documents Al-Shabaab s evolution from its days as the most radical faction within the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union to the bitter street fighting that wracked Mogadishu in 2009 and 2010, when it threatened the survival of Somalia s fledgling federal government. It also covers the transition back to asymmetric warfare following the group s loss of major urban centers such as Mogadishu, Baidoa, and Kismayo. Maruf and Joseph uncover new information about the organization s inner workings and divisions and take readers through key events in its history, such as the meeting in September 2014 to replace Godane after he was killed in a US drone missile strike and the group s heavy crackdown on Islamic State sympathizers and defectors.
The result is a gripping narrative account of the history and evolution of one of the deadliest and most successful jihadi organizations not only in Africa but in the world. The book, which is accessible to general readers while also containing new insights for scholars and other specialists, is a must-read for those interested in global affairs, contemporary conflicts, African politics, and political Islam.
C HRISTOPHER A NZALONE is a research fellow with the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a PhD candidate (ABD) at McGill University. He has written extensively on political Islam, jihadist movements and organizations including Al-Shabaab, Shi ite Islam, and Islamic visual cultures and new media.
SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
W E WROTE THIS BOOK TO lift the veil on one of the most secretive, deadly militant organizations in the world. Several books and hundreds of articles have been written about Al-Shabaab or its role in Somalia s long-running cycle of violence. Many of these works are informative and insightful. But as reporters and editors who cover the events of the country on a daily basis, we felt uniquely well-positioned to write a detailed, comprehensive history of the group.
Gathering inside information about a US- and UN-designated terrorist group with a ruthless internal police force and a reputation for assassinating its critics is a difficult task but not an impossible one. We were able to interview more than a dozen former fighters and high-level officials who have defected from Al-Shabaab, most notably Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansour, the former deputy leader of Al-Shabaab, and Zakariye Ismail Hersi, the former Shabaab military intelligence officer, who gave us a small part of their vast knowledge about the group. We also interviewed dozens of people who fought against the group, including Somali government officials, military officers, and intelligence personnel, as well as many doctors, journalists, and ordinary civilians who were up-close witnesses to Al-Shabaab s violence. Their insights into Al-Shabaab and how the group has shaped or impacted people s lives were vitally important to telling this story.
Special thanks goes to a few people who were especially generous with their time and help, including former Somali defense minister Abdihakim Mohamud Haji Fiqi, former intelligence officers Ahmed Moallim Fiqi and Abdi Hassan Hussein, and expert analysts Matt Bryden and Roland Marchal. We greatly appreciate them and t