The Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen (HSM) capability to dominate large swathes of the unstable country of Somalia and expelling the Somali Government Forces SNA from more areas seem to be declining based on a review of its activities in the past 1 year. The terror group advance towards Mogadishu has stalled and its cells inside the capital have been busted. The group’s plan was to overrun Mogadishu before mid-2019 but this seems to have stalled. Throughout the 1st half of 2019, the United States has ramped up precision airstrikes targeting the group’s core logistics and intelligence capabilities subsequently nipping HSM tactical leadership and tradecraft assets. The group is seemingly suffering from a military flat foot and battle field lethargy. However, the group has occupied Gedo region after Kenya defense Forces (KDF) withdrew from 4 operating bases in the prefecture. SNA was unable to take control of the FOB’s due to lack of capability and capacity allowing Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen to dominate the region and perhaps re-establish previous camps like Gododwe, El-Adde, and El-Wak.
Al-Shabab, which has nearly 9,000 fighters, provides social services in an effort to generate support among Somalis, often going as far as constructing infrastructure and collecting money to be redistributed to the poor. Al Qaeda blends into local communities to make it a lot easier to win support and gain a foothold. On the ground, they assure people that they will not be harmed in the territories they are seeking to control, provided locals do not cooperate with the military and government officers. Instead of carving out claims to territory at the expense of the population who lives there, shabaab has attempted to co-opt rather than coerce. In fact, rather than fighting to gain territory and attempting to hold on to it by governing with brutality the terrorist group has placed great emphasis on cultivating relationships with local communities and taking advantage of those strong ties to exert great influence on how they function. This connotes establishment of a sociopolitical order and that is worrying. The group’s hegemony will be too deeply embedded in populations and a government may be unable to challenge their authority.
