Al-Shabaab Terrorists Seek Successor to U.S-Killed Leader
For the second time in six years, there’s a vacancy at the top of the radical Islamist al-Shabaab group inSomalia after a U.S. airstrike killed its leader.
The Pentagon yesterday confirmed the death of Ahmed Abdi Godane, 37, who led the group since U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles killed his predecessor, Aden Hashi Ayro, in May 2008.
Just as Godane replaced Ayro, there may be another al-Shabaab leader ready to step up, limiting the operational setback for the al-Qaeda affiliate that was declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2008. The U.S. had offered a $7 million reward for help locating Godane, who claimed responsibility for the attack last year on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, in which at least 67 people died.
“It is highly likely, given multiple targeted strikes against al-Shabaab senior leadership, that the group has a succession strategy in place, which will lower the likelihood of a power vacuum and succession battle within the group,” Natznet Tesfay, head of sub-Saharan Africa analysis at IHS Country Risk in London, said by e-mail.
Godane’s death is significant because he concentrated power around himself over the last year, allowing no other leader to stand out as a potential heir, said Stig Jarle Hansen, associate professor at the University of Life Sciences in Oslo and author of “Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group.”
Dangerous Elements
Without Godane’s tight grip, tensions may reignite between al-Shabaab’s Islamist nationalists and those with ambitions for global jihad.
“This strike could harm the organization seriously and lead to fragmentation,” he said in an e-mail. “Elements of the Shabaab might still be dangerous, and its destruction could potentially lead to more destruction if its foreign fighters return to the west or to Kenya.”
U.S. special operations forces targeted Godane in southern Somalia in a Sept. 1 attack using manned aircraft and drones to destroy an encampment and a vehicle. It took several days to confirm initial reports that he died in the attack.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest yesterday called Godane’s death a “major symbolic and operational loss” to the largest al-Qaeda affiliate in Africa. The successful attack reflects “years of painstaking work by our intelligence, military and law enforcement professionals,” he said in a statement.
Meeting Attacked
Godane was among a number of high-ranking al-Shabaab officials who were meeting at Dhaytubako, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, when this week’s attack occurred, Lower Shabelle Governor Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur said in a phone interview on Sept. 2.
There’s been no public information about whether the attack killed key deputies who might have been in line for succession.
“The death could slow them down,” Ken Menkhaus, a professor of political science at Davidson College in North Carolina, said in a phone interview. “They could break up. They could regroup. We are going to learn a lot about the organization in the next few months.”
Godane’s death creates an opening that will be closely watched by U.S. intelligence officials.
‘Important Event’
“We don’t have a specific sense of who will succeed him,” Nick Rasmussen, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told reporters yesterday.
A cadre of people have been involved in plotting attacks and have the capability to step into Godane’s shoes, Rasmussen said. “There are a number of possibilities,” he said.
Still, his death is “an important event” because the U.S. has been concerned about a resurgence of al-Shabaab attacks in Kenya and elsewhere, said NCTC Director Matthew Olsen.
President Barack Obama yesterday cited Godane’s death as a message to the leaders of Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria, referring to them as ISIL, an acronym from an alternative name for the group.
“We are going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, the same way that we have gone after al-Qaeda, the same way we have gone after the al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, where we released today the fact that we have killed the leader of al-Shabaab in Somalia,” he said at a news conference at a NATO summit in Newport, Wales.
Internal Tensions
Godane, who was born in Hargeisa in the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland, may have been responsible for the death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the leader of al-Qaeda in East Africa, in June 2011, according to Austin, Texas-based Stratfor Global Intelligence. The killing was organized after Godane was alerted to a plan by al-Qaeda to have Abdullah Mohammed or other foreign fighters lead al-Shabaab, Stratfor said in a March note.
There has been tension within al-Shabaab between fighters predominantly interested in the nationalistic battle in Somalia and those, such as Godane, supportive of global jihad, according to an NCTCreport.
In June 2013, Godane carried out a purge of dissident leaders to tighten his control over the group, assassinating Ibrahim al-Afghani, a senior al-Shabaab leader who had criticized his leadership, according to Stratfor.
‘Wide-Scale Attacks’
“He was responsible for transitioning the militant group away from Somalia nationalists and more towards extremists that were looking to have wide-scale attacks in the region,” according to Ahmed Salim, a senior associate at Teneo Intelligence in Dubai.
In recent months, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Djibouti that killed a Turkish national and wounded several Western soldiers as well a car bomb at the Mogadishu airport that targeted and killed members of a United Nations convoy, according to the statement.
Al-Shabaab was responsible for twin suicide bombings in Kampala,Uganda, on July 11, 2010, that killed more than 70 people, including one American. The group also has been responsible for the assassination of Somali peace activists, international aid workers, numerous civil society figures, and journalists.
Al-Shabaab has suffered losses in Somalia since being forced to withdraw from Mogadishu in August 2011. Kenyan forces invaded the neighboring country two months later, after accusing the militants of attacking tourists and aid workers.
Kenyan soldiers now form part of an African Union-led force that has been deployed in Somalia since 2007 to try and help stabilize the country, which has been mired in conflict since the ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Most of the 22,000 troops in the force, known as Amisom, come from Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopiaand Sierra Leone.
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