Making Terrorism Pay

Islamic terrorists cannot operate without supplies. They need weapons, ammo, vehicles, communications, and all manner of other supplies to operate and survive. While terrorist groups will accept contributions of goods, they prefer cash. Thus the most successful terrorist groups are the ones who can get their hands on the most cash. For a long time one of the easiest ways to obtain a lot of cash was to kidnap a Westerner (or anyone from a wealthy family) and hold them for ransom. This only works if the potential victims make themselves available to grab. In countries where law and order are weak, those worth kidnapping tend to take good care of their personal security. Western tourists or workers in Moslem countries used to be good targets, but all it took was a few kidnappings to halt the tourism and put tight security on Westerners who had to be there. Finally, many Western countries enacted “no ransom” policies. While not always enforced, this made it more difficult, sometimes impossible, to get a lot of money for Western hostages.

 

There were all manner of other criminal acts terrorists could, and still do, use to obtain cash. But these all entail the risk of getting killed or captured and the locals come to consider the Islamic radicals just another bunch of bandits, and this hurts recruiting and grassroots support. When desperate, Islamic terrorists will take from whoever they can find in order to survive. But if this means angering the people they depend on for new recruits and popular support, going the bandit route is usually a sign that the group is on its last legs. 

  

The most reliable source of funds is Islamic charities and foreign charities in general. The charity route sometimes involves deception, but often the donors know exactly where their money is going and approve of how it is used. Much of the charitable contributions come from private donations, NGOs, madrasas (Islamic religious schools), and businesses throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Most of it tends to come from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where many terrorist groups have considerable support not only among local and expatriate Moslems but also patronage of the royal families and other higher ups in both these countries. This allows some terror groups to solicit quite openly. Often in the country where the terrorists are operating they can raise cash from local businessmen, industry leaders, farmers, and others willing to donate freely. These donations are collected throughout the year, sometimes in the name of religion and often, openly, for jihad. 

  

Fund raisers will often issue receipts for donations. To placate Western nations trying to shut down Islamic terrorists the fundraisers often operate through front companies or Islamic charities and are registered as such with the local government. Donations are particularly heavy during the Hajj (the last month of the Moslem calendar when pilgrimages to Mecca are undertaken) and Ramadan (the 9th month of the Moslem calendar, when observant Moslems fast and pray a lot). The Islamic calendar is lunar, meaning it follows the phases of the moon and thus these dates move relative to the fixed calendar used in most of the world. People are much more likely to give during these two months.

  

Over the last decade Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states have been under increasing Western pressure to crack down on this terrorist fundraising. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has cracked down since 2003 (when al Qaeda began making attacks there), after denying that there was a big problem with wealthy, and generous, Islamic conservatives in the kingdom. In the United States several Islamic charities have been successfully prosecuted since September 11, 2001, for sending money to terrorists.

  

Terrorist organization prefer to set up support organizations in Europe and North America, as they can safely stash their families and key operatives there by having them all claim asylum. This, until recently, was something these nations were often quick to offer and were quite tolerant of terrorist activity. But these nations, especially the ones that were subjected to terrorist attacks since 2001, are much less accommodating these days. 

  

The terrorists constantly adapt. Decades of efforts to curb their fund raising have had an impact. It is much harder for terrorists to raise cash now, but they still do so. This has increased the importance of terrorists who specialize in fundraising. These men (and some women) develop lists of known donors, or potential ones, and assign other specialists to travel around and personally visit these donors. By way of introduction these visitors are authenticated by smartphone videos from some prominent cleric or terrorist leader, often in the presence of the visitor, saying that this man is authorized to collect funds for the cause. If a donation is forthcoming this brings into play another specialist who knows how to get the money safely from the donor to the terrorists. Meanwhile, yet another new fundraising specialist has come into play: the media advisor. Terrorists have learned that working the media (Western and in Moslem countries) is crucial for getting attention for specific terrorist groups in need of money. The media advisor recommends what types of attacks to make and what kind of press releases to put out afterward in order to get favorable attention from specific donors or groups of donors. The media advisors keep track of attitudes in countries or expatriate populations that are likely donors to identify individuals or organizations the fund raisers can approach and what types of terrorist actions will make such visits the most lucrative. 

  

Every terrorist organization has specific needs and donor communities most likely to give. Terrorist groups that survive and thrive are the ones that are most successful at raising cash. Western counter-terror operations now concentrate on all these fundraising specialists. These fellows are wanted alive, because of all the valuable things they know. But failing that, a Hellfire missile in their SUV will work too.

Counter-Terrorism ---- The Downside Of Victory

Even before September 11, 2001 counter-terrorism experts were becoming aware of how crucial money and other forms of material support are to even the most fanatical terrorist organizations. The intense scrutiny of Islamic terror groups in the last two decades revealed some other interesting angles to international terrorism. For example, after the Cold War ended many in the West were surprised to discover the extent to which the Soviet Union had provided support for terrorist groups.

 

There was not only an extensive network of terrorist training schools in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but also cash subsidies, weapons and specialized equipment as well as technical advisors for terrorists outside the Soviet controlled countries. Western counter-terrorism organizations knew this support existed but not, until the Soviet Union fell in 1991 and their archives were opened for a few years, the extent of that support.

 

Islamic radical terrorists did not get much support from the Soviet Union because these groups considered the Soviets anti-Islam and prime targets for Islamic terrorism. The Soviets managed to keep the Islamic terrorists out of the Soviet Union and cut off from any Soviet support. The Islamic radicals learned to adapt by relying on pious, newly rich, Arabs from countries with lots of oil to export. After the Arab led oil cartel was formed in the 1970s and forced up oil prices there was a lot more Islamic charity for Islamic terrorist groups to tap into.

  

This brings us around to Somali Islamic radical group al Shabaab. Originally the fanatic wing of a more moderate Somali movement trying to impose law and order after more than a decade of chaos, al Shabaab soon became a major law and order problem itself. There are still several thousand armed al Shabaab men in Somalia after several years of fighting and losing to African peacekeepers and Somali troops. Al Shabaab suffered major losses last year and has scattered into smaller groups that hide out in remote parts of Somalia. At the moment al Shabaab is more interested in raising cash as the group is broke following its expulsion from the lucrative cities of Mogadishu and Kismayo over the last two years. There are now fewer opportunities to kidnap foreigners and the pirates, who used to share ransoms with al Shabaab, have not taken a ransomable ship in over a year. In short, al Shabaab needs money.

  

The effort to further weaken (and eventually obliterate) al Shabaab has now shifted to the group’s finances. This is a battle that gets little publicity and is easy to keep out of the news because it is, well, stuff that mostly happens out of public view. Al Shabaab is believed to be seeking cash from wealthy Arabs in Arabia, These are men who like to donate to Islamic charities that support Islamic radicalism. For nearly a decade both oil rich Arab countries and their Western allies have been trying to stop this source of terrorist funding, but have only been able to reduce it. The money still gets through to Islamic terror groups that have lots of media coverage. For that reason it is believed al Shabaab will try to carry out more spectacular attacks outside Somalia. That way al Shabaab can gain more media coverage and easier access to wealthy donors. 

  

This strategy is easier now because a recent power struggle within the organization has left the “Foreign” faction in charge. For years al Shabaab had been divided as the “Somalia” nationalist faction opposed the foreign volunteers who were eager for al Shabaab to carry out more terrorism outside Somalia. The Somalia faction wanted to hold off on this until they had all of Somalia under their control. But the Foreign faction believed that would take too long, especially once the foreign terrorists came to understand how fragmented Somalia was by clan and warlord politics. The foreigners concluded that Somalia would never be united, because it had never been united (for long) in the past. This is something most Somalis do not want to dwell on. Meanwhile in the past year many prominent al Shabaab nationalist (keep operations inside Somalia) faction leaders were killed or driven away from al Shabaab, which now sees itself primarily as an international terrorist organization. Thus the eagerness of American, Israeli, British and other European countries to help destroy al Shabaab in Somalia once and for all. As long as al Shabaab survives in Somalia the organization can reach out to Somali communities in other countries, especially the West, for donations, new recruits and overseas targets.

  

The loss of Kismayo last year was a major blow to al Shabaab finances because that port could be used to smuggle illegal goods (especially ivory) out of the country. Al Shabaab also collected fees on anything leaving or entering via Kismayo. Now al Shabaab has limited, and irregular, access to smaller ports on the coast. The financial loss to al Shabaab has been huge. Al Shabaab charged fees (for protection from al Shabaab retaliation) to businesses in all areas it controlled. This covered an enormous amount of legal and illegal trade via Kismayo. Kismayo alone was worth over $50 million a year to al Shabaab. For every million dollars of income al Shabaab could keep 400-500 armed men in action. Major operations, like suicide car bombings, can cost several thousand dollars (to get the car, build the bomb and train the suicide bomber) and intelligence gathering costs money, if only because bribes are an easy way to find out things but that can be expensive, even in Somalia. 

  

With most of that income gone in the past year, al Shabaab has begun to unravel. The loss of income led to many desertions and the inability to make attacks within Somalia. This is a common pattern in Islamic terror organizations. The less cash they have the fewer senior staff they have. This group includes skilled leadership and technical experts (for building bombs, planning attacks and working the media). These core members usually have families to support and need cash to do their work. Without the spectacular attacks potential recruits and donors won’t know you exist and you will fade away. Counter-terrorism efforts now try to induce this form of natural selection and al Shabaab is one of the primary targets. Al Shabaab is adapting and trying to establish branches in nearby countries with ethnic Somali populations. Thus al Shabaab becomes a more widespread threat and it becomes weaker overall. When the rats abandon a sinking ship the rats show up somewhere else.

U.S. builds up military bases in Italy for African ops

Three P-3C Orion aircraft belonging to the Tridents of Patrol Squadron Two Six (VP-26) stand ready on a rain soaked airfield on board Naval Air Station Sigonella. in Sigonella, Sicily on Jan. 15, 2006. The U.S. Marines are being moved to the Naval Air Station at Sigonella on Sicily, which will eventually have a force of 1,000 Marines with its main focus Libya, 100 miles across the Med.

 

The U.S. deployment of 200 Marines to a naval base in Sicily for possible operations in Libya, a short hop across the Mediterranean, underlines how the Americans have been building a network of bases in Italy as launch pads for military interventions in Africa and the Mideast.

 

The signs are that 20 years after the American military's first, and costly, encounter with Muslim militants in Mogadishu, Somalia, U.S. operations in Africa are growing as the Islamist threat expands.

 

Another key factor is U.S. President Barack Obama's switch in his counter-terror strategy from drone strikes against al-Qaida to pinpoint raids by small Special Forces teams, as seen in Somalia and Libya Oct. 5.

These were triggered by Islamist violence in both countries, including the Sept. 21 seizure of the Westgate shopping mall inl Nairobi, capital of Kenya, by fighters of Somalia's al-Qaida affiliate, al-Shabaab, that left at least 67 people dead.

 

The U.S. SEAL Team 6 seaborne raid on the Somali coastal town of Barawe to capture al-Shabaab mastermind Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir,a Kenyan of Somalia origin, ran into heavier than expected resistance and had to be aborted.

 

But the U.S. Army's Delta Force had more success in its raid on Tripoli when they grabbed longtime al-Qaida fugitive Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, aka Abu Anas al-Libi, indicted by a U.S. court in 2000 for the August 1988 bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 224 people.

 

These raids reflect a U.S. move away from the kind of risk-averse operations the Americans have been mounting with missile-firing drones to on-the-ground raids against high-value targets.

 

The abhorrence of risk stemmed largely from of the psychological fallout over the October 1993 operation in Mogadishu to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid that went badly wrong and led to the downing of two U.S. helicopters and the deaths of 18 Rangers and Special Forces troopers.

U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Africa in June-July was widely seen as evidence of the White House's broader foreign policy objectives which have included an expansion of U.S. military operations across Africa.

 

Many of these involve small-scale "secret wars" against Islamists, mainly linked to al-Qaida and often carried out under the aegis of the U.S. Africa Command established in 2007.

 

"Both the number and complexity of U.S. military operations in Africa will continue to grow in the medium term," observed Oxford Analytica.

 

"Given the relatively high impact contribution they make to Washington's strategic goals, such military operations will also increasingly encroach on domains traditionally associated with development and diplomacy.

 

"However, they will also increasingly commit the United States to an 'intervention-led' foreign policy in Africa."

 

Although Africom and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command claim they have a small footprint in Africa, over the last year or so they've been increasingly active in building up a U.S. military presence -- and especially reach -- across the continent.

       

The United States has only one official base in Africa, the counter-terrorism facility at Camp Lemonnier, a former French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti, East Africa, where Special Forces, strike jets and armed unmanned aerial vehicles are based.

 

But small units are deployed across Africa. Meantime, the Americans have established a network of bases in Italy, involving a significant manpower shift southward from the old Cold War bastion of Germany.

 

The Marines moved to Italy from Spain this month are the vanguard of a larger force dubbed Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response.

 

It was established after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

 

According to U.S. security specialist David Vine, the Pentagon has spent around $2 billion -- and that's just construction costs -- "shifting its European center of gravity south from Germany" and transforming Italy "into a launching pad for future wars in Africa, the Middle East and beyond."

The U.S. Marines are being moved to the Naval Air Station at Sigonella on Sicily, which will eventually have a force of 1,000 Marines with its main focus Libya, 100 miles across the Med.

 

Vines estimates there are now 13,000 U.S. troops in Italy at Sigonella and some 50 other facilities like Vicenza, a former Italian air force base near Venice, with the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), a rapid response force.

Yemen - Death Squads Gone Wild

The government believes al Qaeda is increasing its use of assassinations and kidnappings to help rebuild. The killings, usually of police or intelligence officials, are meant to discourage the security forces from coming after al Qaeda members, especially those known to be hiding out in certain villages up in the hills (and protected by local tribesmen). The kidnappings are necessary to raise money to provide “gifts” to the tribesmen who are risking their lives to protect the terrorists. Many southern tribes still want to form a separate nation in the south and believe al Qaeda can help with that. Al Qaeda is currently playing down its ultimate goal of establishing a religious dictatorship that would rule all of Arabia and strictly control the lives of all its subjects. Meanwhile, the many captured terrorists and documents indicate that three al Qaeda men were involved with the attack in Libya last September that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The intel from Yemen apparently also revealed details of many other al Qaeda operations outside Yemen.

 

As desperate as Yemen is for foreign aid, delivering it is made much more difficult because of the local custom of kidnapping foreigners to use as a bargaining chip with the government. The dispute is usually over the government arresting a tribesman for a crime and his kin insisting they are in the right, the government is not, and any measures are justified to right this slight. This “tribe above all” attitude is common in many parts of the world and is reinforced in places like Yemen, where what passes for government is very corrupt. But these attitudes make it very difficult to do business in Yemen, be it aid programs or simply tourism. It’s another reason why Yemen is so poor and unpleasant a place to live. 

 

May 16, 2013: Three kidnapped Red Cross workers (two foreigners and one local) were freed after negotiations with the tribe that held them. Red Cross has 200 staff in Yemen, a quarter of them foreigners. Threats to stop aid shipments often persuade tribal elders to get involved and get aid workers freed. 

 

May 15, 2013: Near the southern port city of Aden, secessionist tribesmen clashed with police, leaving two dead and three wounded. 

 

May 13, 2013: Near the southern port city of Aden, armed tribesmen kidnapped three Red Cross aid workers in an attempt to get a fellow tribesman freed from jail (where he has been held on murder charges for a year).

One of the air force’s elderly Russian ground attack jets (an Su-22) crashed near the capital. The pilot died, mainly because the aircraft exploded in the air before crashing. Su-22s are useful for ground attack but they are elderly aircraft, difficult to maintain, and unreliable. Since they are cheap and Yemen is broke, the Yemeni air force has about 30 of them. 

 

May 12, 2013: Police raided a house in the southern port city of Aden and found four al Qaeda terrorists. There was resistance and one of the terrorists was killed before the other three surrendered. The police found weapons and documents indicating the four were planning attacks in the area.

Outside the capital police found a roadside bomb and disabled it. 

 

May 10, 2013: Tribesmen kidnapped a Turkish man some 300 kilometers east of the capital. This was to pressure the police to release several vehicles they had seized. 

 

May 9, 2013: In the south al Qaeda assassins killed a policeman near his home, using a silenced pistol. The dead policeman belonged to a special security unit. 

 

May 8, 2013: Al Qaeda released three captives (a Finn and two Austrians) after a million dollar ransom was paid. The government has been trying to free these three for months. Back in February the military believed it had located the three and launched a major operation to rescue them. That failed and the weeks of fighting left more than a hundred dead. Al Qaeda put up some major resistance but reduced their ransom demands from $50 million to $4 million. The Finnish government was willing to pay, but the Austrians were not. The U.S. and Britain have always refused to pay ransom to terrorists, knowing that this just encouraged more kidnappings and made possible more terrorist activity. More and more European nations are joining the “no ransom” camp but are doing so in the face of continuing popular willingness to pay. These kidnapping victims become major local news stories and that puts pressure on politicians to pay, no matter what the consequences. Al Qaeda says it paid $150,000 (to the tribal kidnappers) for the three captives (taken in December) and would kill them if the rescue force got too close. Hundreds of al Qaeda and pro-terrorist tribesmen joined the fight to stop the rescue effort. The Yemenis got tired of the losses (including at least 30 dead among the rescuers) and urged that some ransom payment be made. The three captives were taken from an Arab language school, of which there are several in Yemen and these depend on foreign students to survive. The tribes don’t care about anyone else and many tribesmen are willing to die to preserve their right to kidnap foreigners. The matter was finally settled when Omani negotiators got everyone to agree to a million dollar ransom and end the bloodshed. This was a rather tainted victory for the terrorists and the tribes, given the high death toll and other losses. This apparently persuaded the Austrians (who are very much in the “no-ransom” camp these days) to go along. 

 

In the south (Shabwa province) an al Qaeda death squad killed three senior air force officers near an airbase. 

 

May 7, 2013: In the south two Egyptians were kidnapped by tribesmen trying to get one of their kinsmen freed from prison (where he has been for several years, after being convicted of murder). 

 

May 4, 2013: North of the capital rival tribesmen fought, leaving four dead and six wounded. 

 

May 3, 2013: The army has a mutiny on its hands, as soldiers of the 3^rd brigade, stationed in the north, have gone vigilante in an effort to find and kill tribesmen believed responsible for killing four soldiers last month. The soldiers got upset at what they considered inadequate government response to those deaths. 

 

May 2, 2013: In the southern city of Taiz, police attempted to arrest the crew of a recently arrived ship that was carrying 20,000 illegal weapons (believed to be from Turkey) and ammunition. The ship was taken but all the smugglers got away except for the captain of the ship. Some of the smugglers were picked up in the next few days. This was the fourth illegal Turkish arms shipment to be seized in the last six months.

South Africa - Parliament must get answers on alleged al Qaeda camps in South Africa - DA

The Democratic Alliance party has called on Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa to provide parliament with answers to allegations that al Qaeda training camps have been operating in South for more than a decade.

Yesterday the Daily Maverick reported that South Africa was home to an alleged al Qaeda operation and that this had been under investigation for nearly ten years but was halted in 2010 without explanation.

According to the Daily Maverick, shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the South African Crimes Against the State (CATS) specialised unit of the South African Police Service and the State Security Agency began Operation Kanu to examine possible extremist Islamic terrorist activities in South Africa. The operation reportedly involved extensive surveillance of the South African Dockrat family and their associates and followed their movements for almost ten years.

In 2007 the South African government confirmed that Junaid and his cleric cousin Farhad Dockrat were put on a United Nations list of terror suspects because of alleged ties to al Qaeda. Papers submitted by the United States to the UN Security Council alleged Junaid was an al Qaeda financier, recruiter and facilitator who coordinated the travel of South Africans to Pakistan to train with the group. Both denied the allegations. Apart from a dental business, Junaid owned Sniper Africa, a camouflage clothing company.

The Daily Maverick report states that at least three training camps were monitored, outside Pretoria and in the Eastern Cape. Witnesses apparently saw people carrying weapons and conducting military-style training. However, the Daily Maverick alleges that police halted their surveillance operation in 2010 due to orders “from the top”.

“The Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, and the Crime Intelligence unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS) must urgently brief Parliament on these serious allegations and inform us as to why there has been no action and who gave the order to stop the investigation,” said Dianne Kohler Barnard, the Democratic Alliance’s Shadow Minister of Police.

“I will therefore be writing to the acting Chairperson of the Police Portfolio Committee, Annelize van Wyk, to request that the acting Head of Crime Intelligence, Chris Ngcobo and Minister Mthethwa brief the committee on this situation as a matter of urgency,” she stated yesterday.

Government officials have long said that South Africa’s non-aligned status and a lack of substantial local support for militant groups should insulate it from terror attacks. Nigerian oil delta militants and Congolese coup plotters have been caught in South Africa but al Qaeda style terrorism has largely eluded the country.

Somalia - Islamic Terrorists On The Run But Not Yet Done

Somalia has a population of about 11 million (including over half a million refugees in neighboring countries) but over 70 percent of those Somalis are not under the control of the new central government. The two statelets that comprise northern Somalia broke away from Somalia in the 1990s to form Puntland (2.5 million people) and Somaliland (3.5 million). The other half of the Somali population is in the south where the southernmost portion, containing 1.5 million people, is trying to establish itself as the independent statelet of Jubaland. Somaliland is suffering from increasing clan warfare while Puntland has been split between those who back (and profit from) the pirates, and those that don't. The pirates have become much weaker in the last year because the international pirate patrol has prevented most attempts to capture ships. Without the large ransoms, most pirate gangs have disbanded. While Somaliland has signed a deal for a foreign firm to explore for oil off the coast, all these independent minded parts of Somalia are interested in forming some kind of federation.

The Somali government has been negotiating with Puntland, Somaliland and the clans of Jubaland to establish a federal form of government where the regions would have a lot of autonomy. In return the central government would provide muscle to help control bandits and warlords throughout the country. The central government also controls most of the foreign aid coming in. All this is not that compelling for many clan leaders, who are accustomed to having no government at all ordering them around. For nearly all the last few thousand years the clans answered to no one except for the occasional empire builder. European colonial powers arrived in the 19^th century and established central government that didn’t really take; nor did similar efforts by previous conquerors. Once all the colonial powers were gone by 1960, the newly established Somali government began to come apart, a process that was complete by 1991 and no one has been able to get all the clans to submit to a new central government since. To make matters worse most of the educated Somalis fled in the 1990s and few have come back. Meanwhile public education has been absent in most of Somalia for two decades and the literacy rate is under 40 percent (and under 30 percent for women). Public health has been largely missing for two decades and life expectancy is about 52 years. Outside of Somaliland and Puntland it’s under 50 years. 

 

Getting foreign aid for Somalia is difficult, mainly because of the corruption and banditry. It is very dangerous for foreigners to supervise aid efforts inside Somalia and local hires are often corrupt or very vulnerable to threats by warlords, corrupt clan leaders or government officials. Because of this many donor nations will not provide cash or food for Somalia because they believe most of it will be stolen. Aid groups counter with sad tales of massive deaths from starvation and lack of medical care. But the donor nations have to cope with media stories of the huge amounts of aid that never reaches the needy once it enters Somalia. Until there is more law and order inside Somalia, getting more aid will be a tough sell. 

 

There is a growing consensus among clan leaders that some kind of government, as a way of maintaining law and order and getting economic growth going, is essential. This is a novel concept in Somalia and obtaining the needed cooperation and compromises has not been easy. Ancient traditions die hard in this part of the world. Foreign aid donor nations are willing to help build security forces and a judicial system, but only if the Somali leaders make an effort. 

 

The new government has made a deal to restore international mail service, which has been absent for 22 years. A more ambitious effort will try to restore local mail service, which has also been gone for over twenty years. In the large cities public health services, especially vaccination of children, is being restored. Out in the countryside al Shabaab and some Islamic conservative clan leaders still oppose vaccinations. For decades many Islamic clerics have preached against vaccinations, and many other aspects of Western technology (like music and video entertainment) as sinful. Young parents often figure out that the vaccination does work, but the penalty for opposing the anti-vaccination groups is often death. 

 

Low level fighting, mostly against al Shabaab remnants, continues in central Somalia. So far this year 100-150 people a month are dying because of this, most of them Islamic terrorists or the victims of terrorist violence. Al Shabaab is on the run but they are not yet done. As Islamic terrorist violence and pirate activity dwindle so does international media attention to what goes on in Somalia. 

 

April 25, 2013:  Islamic terrorists killed another senior prosecutor and al Shabaab announced that it would continue its attacks on the newly rebuilt judicial system. The goal is to make it impossible to prosecute Islamic terrorists inside Somalia. 

 

Britain reopened its embassy in Mogadishu. British diplomats were withdrawn in 1991 and have been gone ever since. 

 

April 24, 2013: The newly formed Puntland Maritime Police made its first major enforcement effort against poachers by arresting 78 Iranian fishermen (and seizing their five ships). Also arrested were twelve local Somalis the Iranians hired as security. The Maritime Police were financed by foreign aid and trained by a South African security company. 

 

April 21, 2013: Al Shabaab gunmen killed another journalist in Mogadishu, the fourth this year. The Islamic terrorists and some warlords regularly threaten any journalists who criticize them, especially by name. Somalis who can afford it hire bodyguards to protect them from these death squads but most Somalis, even those with jobs, cannot afford this degree of protection. 

 

April 19, 2013: The Somali government has told clan leaders meeting in Kismayo to organize the new statelet of Jubaland that the government will not recognize their independence as it does Somaliland and Puntland. Two years ago Kenya told local clan leaders that, in return for their cooperation in chasing al Shabaab out of the area, Kenya would support the formation of Jubaland. 

Kenyan troops subsequently joined the UN recognized Somali peacekeeping force and is now technically in opposition to any independence for Jubaland. But the local clan leaders are going ahead with it anyway. 

 

April 18, 2013: In northern Kenya, near the Somali border, a lone gunman, believed to be an al Shabaab man, entered a hotel and killed nine people. Local police believe this was retaliation for increasingly effective police and army operations against al Shabaab groups hiding out in northern Kenya. 

 

In Mogadishu an al Shabaab man apparently died when a roadside bomb he was burying went off accidentally.

‘Just been shot in neck by shabab assassin’: American jihadi in Somalia tweets attempt on his life

Omar Hammami posted on Twitter about what he labeled an assassination attempt late Thursday as he was sitting in a tea shop. He posted four pictures, one of which shows his face with blood on his neck and a dark blood-stained t-shirt.

A most-wanted American jihadi in Somalia said Friday that the leader of Islamic extremist rebels in Somali was starting a civil war, just hours after an assassination attempt left the Alabama native with a neck wound.

Omar Hammami posted on Twitter about what he labeled an assassination attempt late Thursday as he was sitting in a tea shop. He posted four pictures, one of which shows his face with blood on his neck and a dark blood-stained t-shirt.

Hammami, one of the two most notorious Americans in overseas jihadi groups, moved from Alabama to Somalia and joined al-Shabab in about 2006. He fought alongside the al-Qaida-linked group for years while gaining fame for posting YouTube videos of jihadi rap songs.

But Hammami had a falling out with al-Shabab and has engaged in a public fight with the group over the last year amid signs of increasing tension between Somalis and foreign fighters in the group. He first expressed fear for his life in an extraordinary web video in March 2012 that publicized his rift with al-Shabab. He said he received another death threat earlier this year that was not carried out.

“Just been shot in neck by shabab assassin. not critical yet,” Hammami tweeted late Thursday. On Friday he wrote that the leader of al-Shabab was sending in forces from multiple directions. “we are few but we might get back up. abu zubayr has gone mad. he’s starting a civil war,” Hammami posted.

Hammami has been a thorn in the side of al-Shabab after accusing the group’s leaders of living extravagant lifestyles with the taxes fighters collect from Somali residents. Another Hammami grievance is that the Somali militant leaders sideline foreign militants inside al-Shabab and are concerned only about fighting in Somalia, not globally. Hammami’s Friday comment about a civil war could refer to violence between those two groups.

Al-Shabab slapped Hammami publicly in a December Internet statement, saying his video releases are the result of personal grievances that stem from a “narcissistic pursuit of fame.” The statement said al-Shabab was morally obligated to stamp out his “obstinacy.”

Hammami has enemies on all sides. The U.S. named Hammami to its Most Wanted terrorist list in March and is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Al-Shabab fighters are not eligible for the reward.

Somalia - Terrorists Terrorize Each Other

Al Shabaab is still strong enough to plan and carry out terror attacks, but the Islamic radical organization is much weaker than it was two years ago and undergoing something of an internal civil war. Government security forces are also suffering from internal bickering. Most of this has to do with bad behavior. Soldiers and police have been accused of rape, robbery and extortion. Two weeks ago there were incidents of two groups of soldiers fighting each other over who should be able to extort money in an area. At least two soldiers were killed in that incident. Corruption has long been the major flaw in Somali culture and the inability to cope with this has turned Somalia into one of the poorest and violent countries on the planet.

 

The Somali pirates are also having a bad year. Pirate attacks were down 70 percent last year but all the security measures have increased global shipping costs by $18 billion. That’s a tiny slice of worldwide shipping expenses, but is a tax everyone who depends on maritime transportation pays. 

The final battles in the anti-piracy campaign must be fought on land, by creating police forces throughout Somalia that can shut down coastal towns that support pirates (most of these are now in Puntland) and keep the pirates from reestablishing these sanctuaries (that give the pirates a place to park the captured ships until a multi-million dollar ransom can be negotiated). Puntland is asking for help (from anyone, including the Somali government) in dealing with an al Shabaab infestation along its hilly southern border with Somalia. The Puntland government is less inclined to ask for help to deal with the pirate gangs, some of them run by local warlords with a reputation of taking bloody revenge on those that threaten their economic interests. Since 2005 the Somali pirates have captured 149 ships and obtained over $300 million in ransom. No ships have been taken this year and only one captured ship is still awaiting ransom. Many pirate gangs have disbanded in the last year, but several remain active. 

 

April 15, 2013: In the wake of yesterday’s terrorist attack in Mogadishu, police carried out numerous raids in the city and arrested over 400 suspects found in neighborhoods al Shabaab was suspected of having safe houses or supporters. 

 

April 14, 2013: Nine al Shabaab terrorists attacked a court compound in Mogadishu. While all the attackers were killed (six by their bomb vests, three by police), 29 civilians died before it was all over. 

 

April 8, 2013: The U.S. has agreed to resume military aid (equipment, weapons and training) to Somalia. 

 

April 7, 2013: In central Somalia al Shabaab killed a 22 year old woman after accusing her of spying on them. 

 

April 6, 2013:  Ibrahim Haji Jama Meeaad, a Somali Islamic terrorists who was a founding member of al Shabaab, posted an open letter to al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri asking for assistance in removing Ahmed Abdi Godane as leader of al Shabaab. Meeaad lists numerous mistakes Godane has made. The worst of these is running al Shabaab like a paranoid dictator, imprisoning or killing anyone who disagrees with him. Meeaad admits that al Shabaab has suffered massive defeats in the last two years and that this will not be reversed until Godane is replaced. Neither al Qaeda nor Zawahiri have responded openly. Pro-terrorist Internet sites, however, lit up with discussion of the criticism, with most fanboys (and a few fangirls) demanding that something be done (one way or the other). The impact of this al Shabaab collapse is being felt in the Somali exile community. Al Shabaab is no longer able to obtain much money, or recruits from these expatriate Somalis. Al Shabaab has lost its luster.

Mali – A Legend dies, or does he?

France will keep its troops in Mali a month later than planned, with withdrawal beginning in April. France is still not sure which senior Mali leaders were killed recently, because definitive identification of these senior but definitely dead men has proved difficult to confirm. In the last two weeks days France rapidly moved troops into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains near the Algerian border, where France already knew of al Qaeda had bases. French warplanes have been bombing these bases as more recon aircraft and UAVs are available to confirm al Qaeda targets. 

France and its African allies (especially the desert experienced Chadians) are making an effort to kill or capture as many veteran al Qaeda men before they can scatter to more distant sanctuaries. To this end the recent arrival of American UAVs and electronic intelligence collecting aircraft have proved crucial in detecting and tracking Islamic terrorists who attempt to leave the mountains and head for Libya, Algeria or more distant points. France would prefer to capture as many of these terrorists as possible, but second best is killing them and searching the bodies. French aircraft have to do the killing because the American UAVs are unarmed. The American aircraft have apparently provided target information for at least sixty of the French air strikes in the last few weeks. France is also seeking to rescue seven French civilians believes held captive in the Adrar des Ifoghas. So far the French force of 4,000 in Mali has lost four troops killed during eight weeks of fighting. There are 1,200 French and 800 Chadian troops in the mountains near the Algerian border and dozens of al Qaeda safe houses and weapons and ammo storage sites have been captured or destroyed from the air. 

An African peacekeeping force of about 5,000 troops is occupying the cities and large towns in northern Mali and fighting with al Qaeda men who did not make it to the mountains or across the border.  The destruction of so many al Qaeda bases in Mali, and the death of hundreds of hard-core Islamic terrorists there have demoralized Islamic radicals throughout North Africa. At the same time all counter-terrorism forces in the region are trying to take advantage of all this by seeking out Islamic terrorists fleeing Mali. 

In the end it may be that driving al Qaeda out of Mali was easy while dealing with the rebellious Malian Army proved to be much more difficult. At the moment the Mali Army has about 10,000 people on the payroll and about 6,000 of these are soldiers while the rest are support personnel. The army has always been more of a political than a military force. Jobs in the military are much sought after and those who get them are expected to bring the support of their family for whoever runs the military. Until last year it was senior politicians who controlled the military. Then a coup by junior officers, seeking better weapons and equipment for the army displaced the political control. 

Politicians are notoriously corrupt in Mali but the new army leadership, calling for clean government, has now become a force to contend with in Mali politics. To the foreign nations that supply much of the government budget (via foreign aid) the coup is not acceptable. The foreigners want the elections back, even though the elections were rigged by the corrupt politicians that the younger officers despise. Unfortunately, these officers are not immune to the endemic corruption and are turning into the kind of men they seek to replace. It’s a messy situation that mixes rebellious troops with corrupt politicians. While the EU (European Union) training force (220 military trainers and another to train civilian officials) is planning to train and equip four battalions (about have the troops in the Mali Army) to a higher standards, forcing out the officers who support the coup will be a lot more difficult. The training program begins on April 2^nd. 

March 6, 2013:  A French soldier was killed a hundred kilometers north of Gao in northern Mail while accompanying a force of one hundred Chadian troops that encountered some al Qaeda men. Four Chadians and an unknown number of terrorists were wounded. In the last few days over a hundred al Qaeda men have been killed or wounded. These men were part of a larger force (of several hundred al Qaeda) that were either trapped in Gao or entered from Niger, which is just across the Niger River. 

In the northern mountains 2,000 French and Chadian troops killed at least 15 Islamic terrorists in several clashes today. This fighting took place in the Ametetai valley, where over a hundred Islamic terrorists had taken refuge. The valley has water, as do many other valleys in these mountains near the Algerian border. The locals want no part of this fighting, but will provide information with the right incentives (cash will often work, as it worked for al Qaeda, which operated their lucrative and drug smuggling operations from bases in these mountains). 

March 3, 2013: Over the last three days more than fifty Islamic terrorists were killed during several clashes in northern Mali. Ten Chadian and one French soldier were also killed. Dozens of vehicles and large quantities of weapons and documents were captured. All this took place between Gao and the Adrar des Ifoghas Mountains near the Algerian border.

 

March 1, 2013: The Chadian government went public with the news that Chadian troops in northern Mali had killed two al Qaeda leaders on February 22^nd. 

Mali announced that presidential elections will be held in July. It’s still unclear if the army leadership will obey whoever is elected. 

February 28, 2013: France has spent $131 million for its Mali operations so far and some French officials want to keep French troops there until July. Other French leaders want to get the troops out beginning in March. Apparently a compromise on the withdrawal date is in the works. 

February 26, 2013: In the northern city of Kidal a suicide car bomber killed six armed Tuaregs manning a check point. The Tuareg rebel militias split with al Qaeda over eight months ago and shifted their allegiance to the French when French troops showed up in northern Mali. Kidal is the nearest city to the Adrar des Ifoghas Mountains. 

February 22, 2013: Chadian troops in northern Mali believed they killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar (the planner of the January natural gas facility attack in southern Algeria that got 37 workers killed) and Abdelhamid Abou Zeid (leader of the other al Qaeda group that was long based in these mountains. 

Al Qaeda later said Belmokhtar was still alive but offered no proof. The loss of Belmokhtar would be a major blow to al Qaeda morale as Belmokhtar had a reputation for always escaping the many efforts to kill or capture him. When a legend dies, it is always demoralizing for the followers. The supreme leader of al Qaeda in North Africa (Abdel Malek Droukdel) is believed to be still hiding out in northern Algeria and he would be the one to appoint a successor to Belmokhtar, who was number two or three in the North African al Qaeda organization. There has been no such announcement yet. 

The battle that got the two al Qaeda leaders cost the lives of 13 Chadian troops and over 40 other Islamic terrorists. 

The U.S. announced that it had set up a UAV and intelligence base in nearby Niger. About a hundred American troops were there to maintain several Reaper UAVs. 

February 21, 2013: Two suicide car bombers attempted to attack a French camp outside the northern town of Tessalit. In addition to the bombers, three others were killed.

Timbuktu: Revenge in the shadows in northern Mali

The fabled city of Timbuktu, in north-western Mali, was occupied by armed Islamist groups for almost a year. At the end of January, French and Malian soldiers retook control of the city. Since then, its people have been enjoying the taste of freedom again. But the light-skinned Arab and Tuareg communities are accused of complicity with the extremists and have already suffered revenge attacks

A crowd gathers outside the home of Ali Kabbadi, a 70-year-old herdsman and shopkeeper. Women are weeping. A young son doesn’t know who to turn to. His father was arrested and no one knows where he has been taken.

Neighbours say that men wearing green military uniforms driving a pick-up arrived early in the morning and forced Ali onto their truck.

“A military truck pulled up and they went straight into Ali’s house. They didn’t ask any questions, nor did they give him a chance to speak. He was so afraid he struggled to walk so they just pushed him violently onto the truck. Ali had nothing to do with the terrorists; if they came by he would be the one to tell them that he wanted to be left in peace. Seriously… if we could just come together as a people and stage a peaceful process to put an end to this confusion”, says a young woman who lives nearby.

Another man, a neighbour of Ali who came to defend the herdsman, was also bundled into the truck.

Around the corner it’s a similar scene. Two brothers, Danna and Mohammed Ould Dahmamma were both forced onto the same pick-up and taken away.

Mohammed’s 13-year-old son, Boucar, says they almost took him too. “They came and took my Dad away. Just like that, without any explanation. They wanted to take me too but in the end they told me to stay,” he says.

The Malian army denies that any of their men were involved in the arrests and say they do not have any of the men in question in detention.

In Timbuktu today, the departure of the radical Islamists has left several ethnic groups living in fear. Many assume they collaborated with the extremists who reigned over the town for almost 10 months.

In their bid to take control of towns in northern Mali, the radical Islamist groups Aqmi, Ansar Dine and Mujao allied themselves with another rebel movement, one calling for the autonomy of the north of the country, a region they call the Azawad. This rebel group was made up of a number of light-skinned Tuaregs and Arabs.

At the start of February, locals said that only three out of Timbuktu’s 500 Arab families were still living in the town. The majority having fled to refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Ali, Danna and Mohammed had refused to run, insisting that they had nothing to hide and saw no reason to leave their homes.

A week later, they were taken from their homes. The men are still missing.

Al-Qaida tips on avoiding drones found in Mali

One of the last things the bearded fighters did before leaving this city was to drive to the market where traders lay their carpets out in the sand. 

The al-Qaida extremists bypassed the brightly colored, high-end synthetic floor coverings and stopped their pickup in front of a man selling more modest mats woven from desert grass, priced at $1.40 apiece. There they bought two bales of 25 mats each, and asked him to bundle them on top of the car, along with a stack of sticks.

"It's the first time someone has bought such a large amount," said the mat seller, Leitny Cisse al-Djoumat. "They didn't explain why they wanted so many."

Military officials can tell why: The fighters are stretching the mats across the tops of their cars on poles to form natural carports, so that drones cannot detect them from the air.

The instruction to camouflage cars is one of 22 tips on how to avoid drones, listed on a document left behind by the Islamic extremists as they fled northern Mali from a French military intervention last month. A Xeroxed copy of the document, which was first published on a jihadist forum two years ago, was found by The Associated Press in a manila envelope on the floor of a building here occupied by al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb.

A young vendor in Timbuktu, Mali, waits for clients alongside woven reed mats of the type purchased by fleeing Islamists to apparently camouflage their vehicles.

The tipsheet reflects how al-Qaida's chapter in North Africa anticipated a military intervention that would make use of drones, as the battleground in the war on terror worldwide is shifting from boots on the ground to unmanned planes in the air. The presence of the document in Mali, first authored by a Yemeni, also shows the coordination between al-Qaida chapters, which security experts have called a source of increasing concern.

"This new document... shows we are no longer dealing with an isolated local problem, but with an enemy which is reaching across continents to share advice," said Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the CIA, now the director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution.

The tips in the document range from the broad (No. 7, hide from being directly or indirectly spotted, especially at night) to the specific (No 18, formation of fake gatherings, for example by using dolls and statues placed outside false ditches to mislead the enemy.) The use of the mats appears to be a West African twist on No. 3, which advises camouflaging the tops of cars and the roofs of buildings, possibly by spreading reflective glass.

While some of the tips are outdated or far-fetched, taken together, they suggest the Islamists in Mali are responding to the threat of drones with sound, common-sense advice that may help them to melt into the desert in between attacks, leaving barely a trace.

"These are not dumb techniques. It shows that they are acting pretty astutely," said Col. Cedric Leighton, a 26-year-veteran of the United States Air Force, who helped set up the Predator drone program, which later tracked Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. "What it does is, it buys them a little bit more time — and in this conflict, time is key. And they will use it to move away from an area, from a bombing raid, and do it very quickly."

The success of some of the tips will depend on the circumstances and the model of drones used, Leighton said. For example, from the air, where perceptions of depth become obfuscated, an imagery sensor would interpret a mat stretched over the top of a car as one lying on the ground, concealing the vehicle.

New models of drones, such as the Harfung used by the French or the MQ-9 "Reaper," sometimes have infrared sensors that can pick up the heat signature of a car whose engine has just been shut off. However, even an infrared sensor would have trouble detecting a car left under a mat tent overnight, so that its temperature is the same as on the surrounding ground, Leighton said.

Unarmed drones are already being used by the French in Mali to collect intelligence on al-Qaida groups, and U.S. officials have said plans are underway to establish a new drone base in northwestern Africa. The U.S. recently signed a "status of forces agreement" with Niger, one of the nations bordering Mali, suggesting the drone base may be situated there and would be primarily used to gather intelligence to help the French.

The author of the tipsheet found in Timbuktu is Abdallah bin Muhammad, the nom de guerre for a senior commander of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based branch of the terror network. The document was first published in Arabic on an extremist website on June 2, 2011, a month after bin Laden's death, according to Mathieu Guidere, a professor at the University of Toulouse. Guidere runs a database of statements by extremist groups, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and he reviewed and authenticated the document found by the AP.

The tipsheet is still little known, if at all, in English, though it has been republished at least three times in Arabic on other jihadist forums after drone strikes took out U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in September 2011 and al-Qaida second-in-command Abu Yahya al-Libi in Pakistan in June 2012. It was most recently issued two weeks ago on another extremist website after plans for the possible U.S. drone base in Niger began surfacing, Guidere said.

"This document supports the fact that they knew there are secret U.S. bases for drones, and were preparing themselves," he said. "They were thinking about this issue for a long time."

The idea of hiding under trees to avoid drones, which is tip No. 10, appears to be coming from the highest levels of the terror network. In a letter written by bin Laden and first published by the U.S. Center for Combating Terrorism, the terror mastermind instructs his followers to deliver a message to Abdelmalek Droukdel, the head of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, whose fighters have been active in Mali for at least a decade.

"I want the brothers in the Islamic Maghreb to know that planting trees helps the mujahedeen and gives them cover," bin Laden writes in the missive. "Trees will give the mujahedeen the freedom to move around especially if the enemy sends spying aircrafts to the area."

Hiding under trees is exactly what the al-Qaida fighters did in Mali, according to residents in Diabaly, the last town they took before the French stemmed their advance last month. Just after French warplanes incinerated rebel cars that had been left outside, the fighters began to commandeer houses with large mango trees and park their four-by-fours in the shade of their rubbery leaves.

Hamidou Sissouma, a schoolteacher, said the Islamists chose his house because of its generous trees, and rammed their trucks through his earthen wall to drive right into his courtyard. Another resident showed the gash the occupiers had made in his mango tree by parking their pickup too close to the trunk.

In Timbuktu also, fighters hid their cars under trees, and disembarked from them in a hurry when they were being chased, in accordance with tip No. 13.

Moustapha al-Housseini, an appliance repairman, was outside his shop fixing a client's broken radio on the day the aerial bombardments began. He said he heard the sound of the planes and saw the Islamists at almost the same moment. Abou Zeid, the senior al-Qaida emir in the region, rushed to jam his car under a pair of tamarind trees outside the store.

"He and his men got out of the car and dove under the awning," said al-Housseini. "As for what I did? Me and my employees? We also ran. As fast as we could."

Along with the grass mats, the al-Qaida men in Mali made creative use of another natural resource to hide their cars: Mud.

Asse Ag Imahalit, a gardener at a building in Timbuktu, said he was at first puzzled to see that the fighters sleeping inside the compound sent for large bags of sugar every day. Then, he said, he observed them mixing the sugar with dirt, adding water and using the sticky mixture to "paint" their cars. Residents said the cars of the al-Qaida fighters are permanently covered in mud.

The drone tipsheet, discovered in the regional tax department occupied by Abou Zeid, shows how familiar al-Qaida has become with drone attacks, which have allowed the U.S. to take out senior leaders in the terrorist group without a messy ground battle. The preface and epilogue of the tipsheet make it clear that al-Qaida well realizes the advantages of drones: They are relatively cheap in terms of money and lives, alleviating "the pressure of American public opinion."

Ironically, the first drone attack on an al-Qaida figure in 2002 took out the head of the branch in Yemen — the same branch that authored the document found in Mali, according to Riedel. Drones began to be used in Iraq in 2006 and in Pakistan in 2007, but it wasn't until 2009 that they became a hallmark of the war on terror, he said.

"Since we do not want to put boots on the ground in places like Mali, they are certain to be the way of the future," he said. "They are already the future."

Somalia - Better To Be Feared Than Loved

Al Shabaab is not only suffering from battlefield defeats but also from declining popularity. There are several reasons for this. The main problem is that al Shabaab is run by foreigners. The supreme leader is a Pakistani and most of his closest aids are Arabs or Pakistanis. This happened because the foreigners who joined al Shabaab over the last six years were more fanatic and ruthless. Many former al Shabaab leaders and members are now fighting against al Shabaab. Like a growing number of Somalis, these ex-al Shabaab see al Shabaab as a foreign organization. Somalis do not like foreigners, especially those who try to enforce unpopular lifestyle rules and, in general, are contemptuous of Somalis. The foreigners running al Shabaab consider themselves on a mission from God and ignore criticism. But when the criticism comes in the form of gunfire and general hostility, al Shabaab loses personnel, ground and reputation. The result has been the growing (over the last two years) inability to take on large numbers of peacekeepers, government troops and pro-government militia. That led to the loss of Kismayu this year and parts of Mogadishu al Shabaab had held for years. Reduced to the hard core, al Shabaab is now falling back on terrorism. Since this kills more civilians than armed opponents, al Shabaab becomes more hated. But as al Qaeda (which al Shabaab now considers itself part of) has demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other areas, the hard core can keep going for years if there are enough local civilians who will provide some support. Like al Qaeda elsewhere, al Shabaab murders those who criticize them, especially reporters and entertainers who work for radio stations. Because of low literacy rates, radio is the most popular media. Somalis are nothing if not bold and continue criticizing al Shabaab on the radio despite the very real death threats.

The American-French base in Djibouti (Somalia’s northern neighbor) now has eight Predator UAVs and eight F-15E fighter-bombers. There are 2,400 American personnel at the base, 300 of them U.S. Army Special Forces. The aircraft are used for operations in Yemen as well as Somalia. Al Qaeda in Yemen is considered more of a danger to the West, and are probably getting more attention from the Djibouti based aircraft.

Somali pirates currently hold for ransom eleven ships and 170 crew. Pirate attacks are down over 60 percent this year, to a level not seen since 2009.

October 28, 2012: Kenyan police released the photos of four Kenyan Moslems who have joined al Shabaab and are suspected of planning to carry out terror attacks in Kenya.

October 26, 2012: Somali pirates released an Arab (UAE) cargo ship after being paid $900,000 ransom. The pirates wanted much more but the ship owners would not meet those demands. The pirates killed one of the crew in August but the ship owners refused to give in.

October 25, 2012: In Mogadishu a roadside bomb killed six civilians.

October 24, 2012: Kenyan peacekeepers in Kismayu have arrested 72 al Shabaab suspects and seized weapons. Outside Kismayu a Kenyan soldier was killed during a clash with al Shabaab gunmen.

Off the north coast of Somalia a Dutch frigate sent a boarding party to investigate a suspicious dhow (wooden cargo ship). The boarding party boat came under fire from the dhow and the frigate returned fire. One man aboard the dhow was killed but another 24 were rescued and arrested.

October 22, 2012: Kenyan troops intercepted and arrested five al Shabaab men trying to enter from Somalia.

October 21, 2012:  In Kismayu two Kenyan soldiers were wounded and three al Shabaab men killed during a gun battle. In Mogadishu a gunman shot a journalist for Radio Shabelle. This is the fifth reporter for the radio station to be attacked this year.

October 20, 2012: A German court convicted ten Somalis of piracy, sentencing them to prison terms of between two and seven years. The pirates were captured in early 2010.  This was the first time in 400 years that a German court prosecuted anyone for piracy.

October 18, 2012: In Puntland police seized a shipment of weapons believed destined for al Shabaab.

Shutting Down The Shake Down

As the Somali Islamic terrorist group al Shabaab is taken apart by peacekeepers and local troops in Somalia, its overseas supporters (among Somali expatriates) are being arrested and prosecuted in larger numbers. This effort against al Shabaab supporters in Europe and North America cut off a major source of cash and recruits (usually to be suicide bombers) for al Shabaab. Young Somali men living outside the country were often easy prey for recruiters and older Somali exiles could be persuaded (sometimes with threats against kin still in Somalia) to be generous with cash contributions.

Because expatriate Somalis rarely discuss their business with non-Somalis all this al Shabaab activity did not become apparent until government officials began to notice that many of these young, male Somalis had disappeared. This caught the attention of police departments that were monitoring Somali gangs. These gangs tended to prey upon other Somalis, but sometimes went after non-Somalis as well. Investigating this gang activity revealed the missing Somalis and the al Shabaab fund raising methods.

Over the last few years, as investigations led to arrests, indictments, prosecutions and convictions a lot more detail of this al Shabaab activity came out. The al Shabaab network in North America and Europe was far more extensive than anyone suspected.