Al Shabab: A Militant Group Analysis

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Al Shabab is an Islamic militant group and U.S designated foreign terrorist organization. They are also, known as The Harakat Al Shabab Al Mujahedeen meaning “the youth.” According to the U.S. State Department’s 2013 terrorism report, “Al Shabab has several thousand active members.” This group has connection with Al Qaeda terrorist group. As per, David Shinn (Al Shabaab’s foreign threat to Somalia), Al Shabab has learned their strategies from Al Qaeda. However, their relation is still not strong enough for Al Qaeda to control Al Shabab. There is a long history of Al Shabaab’s origin. As indicated by Abdisaid 2008, “Al Shabab formed when Somali Transition federal Government vanquished Islamic Courts Union or ICU with the help of Ethiopian …show more content…
They have diverse layers of leadership. Each of the leaders plays a significant impact around taking Al Shabab one-stage further and keeping them alive. Some of the top leaders of the group are Ibrahim Jama, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Sheikh Mohammed Abu Faid, and Abu Musa Mombasa. There are some foreigner leaders involved too.
Every terrorist organization that is alive today around the world is because of their financial supporters. Each terrorist group has an income or gets fiscal supports from distinctive source, for example, the government, charity, robbery, furthermore, different terrorist groups. However, most of the time these information stay hidden from the citizens mainly if the support is from the government or some other official groups. Similarly, many organization, country officials, kidnapping, charity etc. support Al
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Later on, when ICU came to power, terrorist from numerous countries started to join, for training such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Chechnya, and the Arabian Peninsula (Daveed Ross). According to a U.N. report, “foreign volunteers have also joined in significant numbers and provided training in guerrilla warfare to give military strength to the ICU.” Western world were more alert during ICU’s rise, because by late 2006 they had control over most strategic points. They forced Shari’a law on some of the territory they controlled. The Shari’a law resulted in a huge arreets of citizens for watching movies, soccer, and playing live music at weddings.
Although ICU had very strict Shari’a laws, as time passed they gained mass supporters. They won the sympathy of business owners because the strict law reduced the security cost. Their excessive checkpoint lowered business expenses and towns were more safe and secured. Finally, After Somali Transition Federal Government defeated ICU with the help of Ethiopian military force, ICU spilt into small groups of Islamist organization from which Al Shabaab