Event Summary
The Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen movement (HSM), remains far from a solution to its leadership and financial crises as it focuses its guns and frustrations on Kenyan fighters besides Tanzanian’s.
- Just a dozen past weeks, a Kenyan trainer cum commander was betrayed and killed; another was sent alongside children jihadists to Puntland and got killed while some of his Kenyan children soldiers were captured.
- In the 1st week of April 2016, HSM publicly executed Tanzanian jihadist, Issa Jemes Mwesiga, in Jiliib town square. Jemes was accussed of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ISIS in East Africa issued a statement on social media denying that Issa Mwesiga was a CIA spy, in what Strategic Intelligence viewed as affirmation of links with Issa besides secretly admitting that he was an ISIS operative.
- In mid April 2016, Abu Salim Al-Mujahir, a Kenyan commander based in southern Somalia was arrested and detained at the HSM headquarters in Jiliib.
- Just this past week, Daesh (ISIS) East African affiliate Jahba East Africa (JEA), issued a statement through social media claiming arrest and detaining of Kenyan and Tanzanian jihadists by the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen movement (HSM).
- Most notable of these events is the arrest of HSM senior field commander Maalim Kalamov Qudamo, a Kenyan who has been instrumental in battle planning, recruitment of fighters, particularly Kenyans, and logistics for attacks against AMISOM in Gedo and Juba regions.
Analysis; Will HSM & Its Ex-Generals Fight the Last War?
These events and developments are indicators of the growing possibility that fierce battles between “ISIS and Al-Shabaab” may soon be waged in Somalia. These events forecast besides validating facts that Islamic States/Daesh (ISIS) has made inroads infiltrating Harakat Al-Shabaab Mujahideen ranks and folds besides territory courtesy of Kenyan commanders who are pro-ISIS; a situation, HSM is depressed about.
In Somalia, a country that has been hard hit by waves of jihadist’s insurgency, drought, poverty, and political instability factored by clan differences, HSM influence is waning as it loses its Kenyan brigade to ISIS and political ideology differences.
Kenyan jihadist Generals in the HSM movement, particularly Muhamed Kuno Gamadheere, (suspected to be sympathetic to ISIS, and in fact, the 1st HSM commander to be reported by SOCMINT & OSINT sources to be pro-ISIS) have been significantly pivotal in making HSM what it is today. The ideological differences emanate from the political interests of the top Al-Shabaab leadership. These objectives don’t have a place for Kenyan fighters let alone the Tanzanians. The Al-Shabaab is no-longer financially rewarding, ISIS is. ISIS is expansionist and has a ‘fighters’ retention’ principle, Al-Shabaab is not.
ISIS already has 3 bases with an average of 60 fighters per base. The bases “Abu Numaan base” (the main base) in Puntland’s Galgaa mountains region, Mogadishu, and in Jillib are swelling with fighters including foreign jihadists. ISIS in Syria through its Yemeni cells has been channeling money and weapons to the Abu Numaan base commander and leader of ISIS in East Africa, Sheikh Abdikadir Muumin.
Al-Shabaab now views its “Kenyan” jihadist Generals as rivals. Driven by its dominance in East Africa, the HSM Shura council may have mulled waging a war against the Kenyan Generals in its ranks to decimate the division and keep its house in order. Killing the Kenyan’s and Tanzanian jihadists is an ideal strategy to end the rivalry besides end the rebellion; as the Amniyaat perceives.
ISIS has come out strongly condemning the killing, arrests, and unwarranted detention of Kenyan and Tanzanian fighters. “Our brothers joined the Mujahideen as free men, now they carry the flag of Tawhid in fear” an email seen by SIS agents reads.
Intelligence shows ISIS is planning a major attack against Al-Shabaab. Credible OSINT and SOCMINT intercepts from ISIS operatives in East Africa confirm a possible mutiny by Kenyan & Tanzanian jihadists at the headquarters of the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen movement (HSM). Currently, Al-Shabaab Amniyaat (intelligence wing), and military planners have turned their attention to deterrence measures; killing and detaining the Kenyan Jihadists and Generals. It is an easier way for them. The Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen movement (HSM), by eliminating the Kenyan Generals in their rank is seeking to prevent rather than fight a war with ISIS; for such an eventuality, would have catastrophic ramifications.
But as military historians and war planners would put it, the Kenyan & Tanzanians commanders in Al-Shabaab know they are marked for death, and as the proverb says, “generals have the tendency to fight the last war”.
