Somali Al-Shabaab makes up for lost ranks by bringing in foreign fighters

Ahmed Adel

The terrorist Al-Shabaab movement is working to introduce new elements into the Horn of Africa after the recent killing of a large number of its members, taking advantage of the state of tension in Somalia.

The Qiraat Somali website reported on Friday, May 14 that Al-Shabaab called on foreigners to migrate to Somalia and join its ranks, according to what was published by the movement’s media arm, Shahada News Agency.

The terrorist movement’s al-Kata’ib Foundation media organization broadcast a video clip that lasted for an hour and fifteen minutes in which Abdirahman Mohamed Warsame, known to the movement as Sheikh Abu Abdirahman Mahad Warsame, appeared in the video, as well as the leader of the movement in Kenya, Amed Iman Ali.

The video was broadcast in four languages, namely Somali, Arabic, English, and Swahili, and it displayed non-Somali elements receiving advanced military training, in a significant step that indicates the ISIS branch in Somalia has declined, while Al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, attempts to regain its previous position associated with foreign fighters.

The clip aims to attract foreigners to the movement after some of them joined the ISIS branch in 2015, while others were killed or arrested on charges of sympathizing with ISIS. Others had chosen to stay away from the movement due to the assassination of some of its figures in 2013, most notably Ibrahim al-Afghani, the number two man in the movement at the time.

Kenyans make up the majority of foreigners who join the movement and fight in its ranks, and Ahmed Iman Ali’s appearance in the video reinforced the hypothesis that he is the leader of the migrants in the movement.

The appearance of Ali highlights a message to Kenya that the movement is determined to continue fighting within its territory.

In May 2021, a Crisis Group report confirmed that the security risks facing Mogadishu go beyond Somalia, where Al-Shabaab has launched bloody raids in neighboring countries in the past, like Kenya and Uganda. For its part, Kenya closed one of the largest refugee camps in the world, near the border with Somalia, due to security risks. The Kenyan authorities also accused asylum seekers of covering up for people linked to terrorist attacks in Kenya, including the attack that targeted a university in 2015, which killed 147 people.

The report stated that these risks come while the number of foreign forces that help contain the threat of militias has decreased. Former US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw American forces from Somalia and transfer them to Kenya and Djibouti. In November, Ethiopia also withdrew some of its forces deployed within the peacekeeping mission in Somalia, in order to focus on its internal war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that he had discussed the security situation with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. He said, “We absolutely support and stand in solidarity with Kenya when it comes to the danger of the Al-Shabaab movement, and we and Kenya share the vision that it is one of the biggest risks facing us.”

It should be noted that Al-Shabaab, which is linked to Al-Qaeda, poses a threat to Somalia, Kenya and the interests of Western countries, especially the United States.