Al-Shabab jihadism in Somalia turns 18
By Jonatán Soriano, Evangelical Focus. (Image credit: Radio al-Andalus/Wikimedia Commons)
Eighteen years have passed since 2006, when a group of radicals in Somalia influenced the regional courts with Sharia law and founded the paramilitary group Harakat Al-Shabab.
Since then, the jihadist organisation has gone through a journey of victories and defeats, like other jihadist groups. However, what is striking to international analysts is its good ‘health’.
Although the group somewhat went international by joining the Al-Qaeda network in 2012, it has remained one of the few jihadist groups focused on its particular fight with national and regional authorities, acting also in bordering countries, such as Kenya.
This, so far, makes them more durable than other cross-border organisations, such as Al-Qaeda itself or the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
Al-Shabab still has between 7,000 and 12,000 militia members, according to specialist on the Horn of Africa region Stig Jarle Hansen in an article for The Conversation.
The failure of the West
Hansen argues that al-Shabab’s survival is due to six factors.
The first has to do with the failure of the West in the country and the region. The failed presence of the United States and the United Nations, which withdrew in 1994, was followed by an unstable state and the urgency caused by a famine that was affecting more and more of the population. In its narrative, Al-Shabab has been able to remind Somalis that the democratic institutions created by the West are fallible and do not provide the security that the local population needs.
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