Al-Shabab's Leader--Complex, Erudite, and Murderous Thug

Al-Shabab's Leader--Complex, Erudite, and Murderous Thug

By Bruce Levine on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 8:15am |

URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/investigators-search-rubble-of-kenyan-mall-for-bodies-clues-to-bloody-massacre/2013/09/25/b9b383e2-25e5-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

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Equally interesting, maybe even more so; a little part of Minnesota is also al-Shabaab territory:

Al-Shabaab's American allies
By Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst, and David Sterman, Special to CNN, September 24, 2013

Of all al Qaeda's affiliated groups, the Somali terrorist organization Al-Shabaab has over the past several years had the deepest links to the United States. Some 15 Americans have died fighting for Al-Shabaab, as many as four of them as suicide bombers in Somalia, and an American citizen even took up a leadership role in the group.

Al-Shabaab has also found supporters in places as diverse as Seattle, St. Louis, San Diego, Minnesota, Maryland, Ohio and Alabama.

Al-Shabaab had particular success recruiting Somali-Americans to its cause after the Ethiopian army invaded Somalia in 2006, which Al-Shabaab cast as Somalia being taken over by a "crusader" army. Ethiopia is a majority Christian nation.

The largest group of American citizens and residents who have provided manpower and money to Al-Shabaab reside in Minnesota. According to a count by the New America Foundation, 22 residents of Minnesota have funded or fought with Al-Shabaab during the past four years [.....]

by artappraiser on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 8:27am

This part of the above article made me think of some past blogosphere ridicule I have read of FBI terrorism investigations as harassing and entrapping "just stupid kids doing what kids sometimes do":

The story of Minnesotan support for Al-Shabaab began in late 2007, when Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, an American citizen of Somali descent in his early 30s, and several other men met at a Minnesota mosque and discussed traveling to Somalis to fight for Al-Shabaab.

Faarax told the group that he had "experienced true brotherhood" while fighting in Somalia and that "jihad would be fun" and they would "get to shoot guns," according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Edit to add pre-emptive: not that I think the F.B.I. counter-terrorism is a whiz bang top shelf outfit as depicted on certain teevee shows....

by artappraiser on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 8:44am

No need to be preemptive. One can be wary of FBI abuses and still understand that there are dangerous people out there who would be more dangerous absent an FBI.

Black and White, more often than not, is for Crayola.

by Bruce Levine on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 8:54am

And for those interested in both American members of Al-Shabaab and in the disagreements within it, I recommend this recent piece by another terrorism specialist, specifically on Omar Hammami, recently killed, probably on Godane's orders:

Omar and Me
My strange, frustrating relationship with an American terrorist.
By J.M. Berger, ForeignPolicy.com, Septermber 16, 2013

I don't know exactly when I began to worry I had become friends with a terrorist. [....]

by artappraiser on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 8:53am

The first page of the link is frankly enough anyone needs to know about the late American Jihadist, Omar. (It apparently goes on for 5 pages.)

The article's link to 'Sheik' Omar's Shabob video of 'The Ambush at (somewhere)' with the cheesy swirling captions reminds one of kids playing cops and robbers, and making videos of it making them 'movie stars'.

Good riddance to the delusional psychopath, thanks to his Shabob buddies for saving us the cost of a guided missile.

by NCD on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 10:00am

with the cheesy swirling captions reminds one of kids playing cops and robbers, and making videos of it making them 'movie stars'.

I think it's kind of important for people to get that whole picture. That this is a lot of what we are dealing with now. (Not to mention the "Fame! I want to live forever!" factor is also a part of many mass shootings in the U.S.) For the same reason I picked out the quote about "you'll get to shoot guns" by the Al-Shabaab recruiter in Minnesota. There is manipulation of male teen dreams, and the appeal of gangs, and it is played by recruiters of suicide bombers as well.

by artappraiser on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 10:08am

....shoot a big gun, be a Sheik, and have a harem of wives. No wonder Arab tribal societies have over millennia been ruled by a single strongman, if they aren't, each and every male wants to be top dog.

by NCD on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 10:15am

I can't get this little story out of my head, along the lines of "what would Godane do?"

Kenya mall attacker reportedly apologized to, freed British boy, 4, who called him "a very bad man", CBS News, Sept. 24.

Was this one of those teen recruits getting guilty feelings? Another one to be put on the hit list for not being ruthless enough?

That and I just got a kick out of the story, especially since I had noticed and looked at the picture of him, his sister and his Mom before I knew that he was clutching candy bars the terrorist had given him. I wondered about the accuracy of the info. package here, though, because in the picture, Mom does not look like she had been shot in the leg, though she does look like she is trying to get over being frightened to death.

by artappraiser on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 10:11am

Important for perspective: approximately 20 Indian children from Gujarat who went to the mall for the cooking competition may not have been so lucky. That number is equal to the non-adult deaths at the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

by artappraiser on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 11:26am

...and Muslim nutcases are shooting at Muslim relief helicopters in the earthquake ravaged Muslim district of Muslim Pakistan.

by NCD on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 11:33am

There are splashes of red on her right sneaker and on the right side of her leg. Whether those are from her having been wounded or not is hard to say.

by Donal on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 11:40am

There's two more photos @ The Mirror. Kind of gruesome, I don't know how I feel about them. There's one of them standing next to a dead body at the bottom of the stairs and then her running down the stairs to them. The boy looks at the photographer like he might be thinking of saying "you're a bad man" again. Story says she grabbed two other kids to save on her way out.

by artappraiser on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 6:26pm

trained and fought in Afghanistan for the jihadist cause

From the WaPo article, describing Godane.

As the pesky alumni of our Mujaheddin version of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade continue to trouble the counsels of the great and wise, it occurs to wonder if anyone paused even for a moment (back when the idea arose) to reflect that harnessing religious fanaticism in the interest of Soviet defeat might not be the best idea in the world.

by JollyR (not verified) on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 11:36am

Shock and Awe by The Great White War President and Saddam Getter gave them a cause, a base of operations (al Qaeda was better off without Saddam), and a Terrorist University, complete with diploma's in IED manufacture, suicide bombing, target practice on US troops and general high explosive/ordnance use and handling.

by NCD on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 7:27pm

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Judging with the benefit of hindsight isn't that fair.

by Aaron Carine on Sat, 09/28/2013 - 9:07am

I used to think like Jolly but I am waaaay past that argument now. For me, it doesn't even apply anymore. I think history has shown that that little U.S. adventure wasn't the main thing that has caused much of anything in that vein, though it did contribute in a small way to the Soviet Union's downfall.

Plus it's questionable that most of the people we are dealing with now who say they have such experience are veterans of the Afghan jihad against the Soviets. It's more likely that most who say they were "there" were trained in the proliferated training camps during Osama bin Laden's time there under the Taliban.

In which case if you're going to blame American foreign policy, the action to blame is forcing Sudan to kick Osama bin Laden out. But one place (Sec. of State Albright called Sudan a "viper's nest of terrorism" at the time) or another (Taliban-led Afghanistan,) or another (he originally wanted Saudi Arabia to start jihad against both Saddam Hussein and America) But then, to what end? Osama bin Laden was bound and determined to train a lot of people to start jihad groups allover the world. From wherever he could manage to do it.

At this point in time, I think the only thing we can really blame on "Charlie Wilson's war" is a few very old Stinger weapons still handed down to other jihadis rather than ending up in other kinds of hands. And that Osama bin Laden as part of the original Afghan Arabs got the confidence to think he could accomplish something. But once he reached that point, he wasn't going to give up his dream of getting the west out of all Muslim lands, and he was going to set up a lot of terrorist training camps somewhere or another. Back then, we funded a motley crew that included the later Northern Alliance as well as many other warlords and Taliban and Afghan Arabs, a few other kinds of foreigners. . A lot of them are enemies of each other now and aligned with states and groups that compete. And they didn't all turn out to be Osama bin Laden's or his admirers. It was only during the Taliban period under Bin Laden that it really became a movement with foreigners from all over. If we had funded re-development of Afghanistan like Charlie Wilson wanted would it turned out this way? Well, like I said, Osama was willing to train anywhere.

Meanwhile, Osama's dream fulfillment is still ongoing, see below.

by artappraiser on Tue, 10/01/2013 - 1:12am

If these sources are telling the truth, little Elliott's "very bad man" was spot on:

Inside Kenya shopping mall, a house of horrors
Doctor describes al-Shabab's savagery: 'You find people with hooks hanging from the roof.'

By Gary Strauss, USA Today, Sept. 27, 2013

The al-Shabab terrorists who seized a Kenyan shopping mall for four days tortured, maimed and mutilated some of their 67 victims, leaving a tattered scene of ghoulish, gruesome remains that investigators likened to scenes from a horror movie.

Hostages were left hanging and had their eyes gouged, others were dismembered. Others had their throats slashed or were castrated and had fingers amputated, according to media reports quoting soldiers, medical personnel and investigators sorting through the rubble of the collapsed mall.

Kenya's The Star, quoting a forensics doctor, said all of the victims were mutilated. Britain's Daily Mail reported children stashed in refrigerators with knives in their bodies.

"You find people with hooks hanging from the roof. They removed eyes, ears, nose. Actually if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were escaping, fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers," said the doctor. The Star said he declined to give his name [....]

by artappraiser on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 3:33pm

Westgate Hostages Were Tortured
The Star (Kenya) via AllAfrica.com, Sept. 26, 2013

A doctor who has been working at the Westgate Mall has claimed that terrorists tortured their victims before killing them.

"Those are not allegations. Those are f****ng truths. They removed balls, eyes, ears, nose. They get your hand and sharpen it like a pencil then they tell you to write your name with the blood. They drive knives inside a child's body. Actually if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were escaping, fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers."

The doctor who wished to remain anonymous said what he saw was worse that the deaths from the Sachangwan oil tanker explosion that claimed 139 lives in Jaunaury 2009 and the Sinai fire tragedy that killed 101 people in September 2011.

"Sachangwan and Sinai is 50 percent of this. Sachangwan and Sinai you are sure of one thing...it is fire. And those people before they died they fell unconscious. Here it was pain. You find people with hooks hanging from the roof," he said.

The doctor was deployed to the scene yesterday morning.

"The bomb squad determines a lot because they have to move toe after toe, leg after leg (to ensure there are no bombs left behind)," he said.

"Chances of them finishing by 4am (this morning) as is being said is nil. They haven't covered half of basement. By the time I was leaving that place they had only checked 14 vehicles. They are in three groups. The first group goes in and clears, the second group [....]

by artappraiser on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 3:47pm

Militants 'hired Kenyan mall shop'
BBC News, 27 Sept., 2013

The militants who led the attack on a Kenyan mall hired a shop there in the weeks leading up to the siege, senior security sources have told the BBC. This gave them access to service lifts at Westgate enabling them to stockpile weapons and ammunition. Having pre-positioned weapons they were able to re-arm quickly and repel the security forces.

Sixty-seven people are known to have died in the four-day siege. Kenya's Red Cross says 61 others are still missing [....]

The BBC investigation has revealed how the Westgate gunmen were able to plan and carry out the siege, and how security breaches allegedly fuelled by corruption made it an attack waiting to happen. To rent a shop, the militants would have needed fake IDs supplied by corrupt government officials.

The BBC has also confirmed more details about how they executed their attack [....]

Security sources have also confirmed a change of tack by the militants late on Saturday.

They rolled out heavy calibre machine guns, exploiting the moment when control of the security operation switched from the police to the military [....]

by artappraiser on Sat, 09/28/2013 - 2:14am

Zawahiri's man in Shabaab's 'secret service'
By Thomas Joscelyn, Threat Matrix @ LongWarJournal.org, Sept. 30, 2013

Last week, we reported on a UN analysis warning that Al Hijra, Shabaab's ally, was planning "new and more complex operations" in Kenya. The warning was noteworthy given that it was published in a UN Monitoring Group report in July [....]

But the UN Monitoring Group's report contains several other interesting observations. Here is one concerning the Amniyat, which is Shabaab's "secret service" and is "structured along the lines of a clandestine organization within the organization with the intention of surviving any kind of dissolution of Shabaab." The UN report credits the Amniyat with serving Shabaab emir Ahmed Abdi Godane's interests and allowing Godane to maintain his grip on power despite serious infighting.

The report's authors say that a former Amniyat operative told them about a "50-year old Sudanese national" known as "Hassan," who serves "as a senior training instructor for Shabaab and who claimed to be formerly with the Sudanese military." Hassan's other aliases include "Jimale," "Yusuf" and "Abdi Madobe."

The UN's source says Hassan was "specifically tasked by" Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's emir, "to train in Somalia African jihadists who are unable to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan." Hassan "is reportedly in contact with al Qaeda operatives as well as Godane in order to plan training strategies and programmes for Shabaab and other al Qaeda affiliates in Africa." [....]

by artappraiser on Tue, 10/01/2013 - 12:39am

Extremist Group Gains Foothold Among Kenyans
By Nicholas Kulish and Josh Kron, New York TImes, Oct. 9/10, 2013

NAIROBI, Kenya — When the United States tried to capture a powerful militant in Somalia last weekend, it did not go after the leader of the Shabab extremist group, but a Kenyan national whose ties were as much in his native country as in the Horn of Africa.

Outside of Somalia itself, Kenya sends more fighters to the Shabab than does any other country, analysts say. Young Kenyan men have ridden buses to the border in large numbers for years, local Muslim leaders say, drawn by payments of up to $1,000 to cross into Somalia and fight for the group.

But ever since the Kenyan military stormed into southern Somalia two years ago, many Kenyan fighters have been coming back home, local leaders and experts say, creating a larger, increasingly sophisticated network of trained jihadists in a country where people from around the globe gather in crowded, lightly protected public places.
“The growing number of militants in Kenya,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, “is a serious concern — or ought to be — for both U.S. policy makers and their Kenyan counterparts [.....]

by artappraiser on Thu, 10/10/2013 - 1:58pm

Al-Shabab's Leader--Complex, Erudite, and Murderous Thug

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