Highlight
Al Shabaab resorting to attacking residential areas is a clear indication of their bending to defeat in the actual battlefield.
The above are remarks by the Somali head of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) Gen. Abdirahman Mohamed Tuuryare.
Summary and Analysis
The recent course of the fight against Somali based militant group, the Al Shabaab has revealed the group’s weak points that are possible advantages to the overall war against terror.
It has revealed the group’s choice of soft targets instead of their facing real opponents in the battlefield. A clear indication is the Sunday 1st November, 2015 militant attack on Sahafi hotel in Mogadishu where the Al Shabaab gunmen killed 15 people among them senior officials and politicians.
The latest attack from the Al Shabaab militants affirms the militants’ strategy to sway any anti-terror operations geared to finish them off.
Al Shabaab militants have increased their attacks, targeting both civilians and officials even as they continue to lose ground tactically and materially to SNA and AU troops. The militants continue to experience increased infighting within its ranks coupled with lack of finances so that they resort to fighting over taxes.
There is also unrest within the group and its ranks that surrounds the shifting of alliances between militants who want to join the Islamic State and those who would rather stick with the former ally, the Al Qaeda.
All the same, this renders the group weak and vulnerable to the rebuffed anti-terror operations.
With the above intelligence, NISA has classified strategies in store to take advantage of the weakening militant group to finish it off. In a nutshell, SNA troops, with the able backing of African Union mission will ensure that the militants find no easy opportunity to attack soft targets.
