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Stratfor June 2, 2010 ABDIRASHID ABDULLE ABIKAR/AFP/Getty Images Somali militants patrol a street in Mogadishu Summary Two figures from the Somali jihadist group al Shabaab — Omar Hammami, an American-born commander in the group, and Mohammad Ali, a suspected member of the group thought to be trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border — have drawn attention to the group lately, giving voice to ambitions of transnational militant attacks. Al Shabaab is not likely to go global itself, but it could well inspire “lone wolf” and grassroots jihadists to strike the West. Analysis Omar Hammami, an American-born commander of the Somali jihadist group al Shabaab, was featured in a propaganda video released May 11 calling for jihadists to spread the battle around the world and specifically to “bring America to her knees.” Then on May 27, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a terrorism threat alerting local authorities to be on the lookout for Mohammad Ali, a suspected al Shabaab member allegedly attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. Finally, on May 30 an Aeromexico flight from Paris to Mexico City was forced to land in Montreal because a man on board, Abdirahman Ali Gaall, was on the U.S. no-fly list. Few other details are available at this time, but it appears so far that Gaall had connections to al Shabaab. This confluence of events has attracted STRATFOR’s attention to the Somali jihadist group. While al Shabaab remains focused on Somalia, it could pose more of a transnational threat, inspiring “lone wolf” and grassroots jihadists to hit back at the West. In 2008, as foreign jihadists began their flight from Iraq, STRATFOR wrote that al Shabaab “had an opportunity to transform Somalia into a central jihadist theater. Growing its ranks with foreign fighters and enjoying the increasing support of al Qaeda sympathizers, the Somali militants could reach the tipping point in their insurgency against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu.” Two years later, al Shabaab is putting up a consistent fight against Western-backed forces in central and southern Somalia, making significant gains in southern Somalia and even controlling large portions of Mogadishu, but it has been unable to completely defeat the TFG. The TFG, along with African Union (AU) peacekeeping forces and an array of allied militias, is managing to hold onto the most strategic parts of Mogadishu, namely the seaport. The United States is providing the TFG with arms, training and assistance in an effort to keep al Shabaab at bay. The United States has pursued a strategy of fighting other regional al Qaeda nodes that pose a threat to the United States, such as in Yemen and Algeria, by supporting the local government forces with intelligence, training and supplies (with the occasional overt use of U.S. special operations forces or air power to hit specific high-value targets). U.S. forces target senior al Shabaab commanders with ties to al Qaeda, while lower-ranking al Shabaab fighters are left for local forces. These local forces are relied on as much as possible to avoid large mobilizations of U.S. troops. This strategy has largely worked in areas like Indonesia and Algeria, where the governments (for the most part) control the territory and can command a competent security force to combat the militants. However, in Somalia, the TFG is struggling just to survive and cannot fight a serious counterterrorism campaign because it does not control large swathes of Somali territory. The TFG lacks a sufficiently sized and capable military force of its own, plus it is wracked by political infighting that limits its ability to go on the offensive against al Shabaab. Ethiopia withdrew its troops from Somalia in early 2009. The United States still relies on Ethiopia’s support for the Somali Islamist militia and TFG ally Ahlu Sunnah Waljamaah, and Ethiopian military operations meant to keep jihadists from spreading into Ethiopia. However, the TFG’s incoherence limits the United States’ ability to pursue its usual strategy of relying on the local government’s counterterrorism operations to contain a militant group. This helps al Shabaab. As long as the United States is willing to maintain the current level of deterrence, al Shabaab will maintain its capability of long-term survival. If Washington does not view al Shabaab as a direct and imminent threat to U.S. security, the U.S. response to al Shabaab will be limited. Striking at the United States (or anywhere outside Somalia) would raise al Shabaab’s profile dramatically, risking increased U.S. involvement. Therefore, STRATFOR does not expect the group’s core leaders to adopt a transnational strategy anytime soon. However, there exists in Somalia a tradition of violent and anti-Western jihadist ideology. Indeed, those responsible for the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, while not connected to al Shabaab, did have connections to Somalia. Furthermore, as expected, foreign jihadists have moved to Somalia from other theaters such as Iraq, the Caucasus and Pakistan as well as Western countries like the United States and Canada, bringing with them a broader jihadist mindset. These foreigners can basically be divided into two groups: trained and experienced militants looking for a fight, and inexperienced ideologues yearning to get into one. STRATFOR sources say that al Shabaab has a few hundred foreign fighters — among them many inexperienced ideologues — but only a couple of dozen more experienced foreign commanders. (Al Shabaab has an estimated overall force of around 4,000 fighters — both foreign and local — deployed in groups in southern and central Somalia and in Mogadishu.) Hammami — who fights under the nom de guerre Abu Mansour al-Amriki — exemplifies the foreign born commander with aspirations beyond Somalia. In his video, he exhorted jihadists worldwide to spread the fight “from Spain to China” and to “bring America to her knees,” saying the “first stop” is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. These foreign, more jihadist-inspired fighters are crowding out the more nationalist-oriented and Islamist fighters like the splintered Hizbul Islam, whose focus was primarily on winning Somalia. Al Shabaab also exhibited an interest in foreign targets when it issued threats against Uganda and Burundi in October 2009. Neighboring Kenya constantly receives threats, and al Shabaab has been named as a potential threat to the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. The devolution of al Qaeda has meant that the core group of jihadists who conducted the 9/11 attack does not have the same militant capability as before. However, the al Qaeda franchises in Somalia, Algeria and the Arabian Peninsula possess a growing militant capability, and the more publicity they get the more recruits they can attract — and the more people they can inspire to carry the fight beyond the region. Such lone wolf and grassroots jihadists do not have to be bona fide members of a militant group to carry out attacks. There is a lengthening list of jihadist operatives who have hit (or plotted to hit) Western targets, including U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who attacked troops in processing at Fort Hood, Texas, after being radicalized watching online videos of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); Najibullah Zazi (born in Afghanistan but a naturalized U.S. citizen), who attended a Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) training camp in Pakistan and returned to the United States with plans to attack New York’s subway system; and Omar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a Nigerian who traveled to Yemen to obtain an explosive device and be trained to use it in order to blow up a U.S.-bound airline. Like AQAP and the TTP, al Shabaab has the capability to train would-be militants to conduct simple attacks against soft targets in the West. Al Shabaab also has a sizable group of American recruits, indicating that the group has significant pull in some Somali communities in the United States. The FBI has investigated dozens of cases in which U.S. citizens (often first- or second-generation immigrants from Somalia) have returned to the Horn of Africa to fight for al Shabaab. Al Shabaab operatives need not do this themselves; they need only to find a willing sympathizer to do it for them. Individuals who have traveled to Somalia from the United States likely would not be able to sneak back into the United States, but they do have connections with people still in the United States who could be radicalized and convinced to act out their ideological support for al Shabaab in the form of an attack. Recruits from the Somali diaspora in Europe and Canada will also be susceptible to al Shabaab recruiting. While those members of al Shabaab’s leadership who are focused on the near enemy (the TFG and its AU supporters) may not have the strategic intent to carry out attacks against the West, conditions in Somalia allow for recruiting or even passively radicalizing and convincing outsiders to carry out attacks on their behalf. It is here that the law of unintended consequences comes into play. Al Shabaab is not a monolithic force that can control the actions of all of its commanders or members, many of whom operate with significant autonomy. Some of these commanders and members are known to harbor anti-Western sentiments and have even called for violence against the West. While this may not necessarily benefit the original purpose of al Shabaab (to take over Somalia), it appears that it is the intent of some of its members to strike out at the West. The good news for the West is that most lone wolf and grassroots jihadists are untrained and inexperienced and end up failing to carry out their plots — either because they are detected by authorities before they are able to act or because they are tactically unable to carry out an attack. (One of the main reasons jihadist attacks fail is because they are overly complex). It is the simple attack — one involving firearms or a rudimentary bomb — that most likely will be seen in the West, conducted by a single operative (likely who already lives in the area) on behalf of al Shabaab.