Posts Tagged ‘al shabaab’
 
February 26, 2013 0

Al Shabaab Highlights Global Role in New Video

Al Shabaab, the Soma­lia branch of Al Qaeda, released a new English-language and English-subtitled video yes­ter­day directed at West­ern audiences. 

The video, “Mujahideen Moments,” high­lights the role of for­eign fight­ers in the ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, fea­tur­ing state­ments and speeches by two Kenyans and an Amer­i­can, iden­ti­fied only as “Abu Ahmed al-Amriki.”

Abu Ahmed’s face is obscured in the video and it is impos­si­ble at this point to ver­ify his true iden­tity.  Abu Ahmed urges lis­ten­ers to join the bat­tle­fronts “whether it’s here in Soma­lia, whether it’s in Mali, whether it’s in Afghanistan, whether it’s in Iraq, or whether it’s in Al-Maghrib Al-Islami [North Africa],” say­ing that they should fight because there are no excuses from the oblig­a­tion of jihad.  He also promises vic­tory and that “Amer­ica is going down, and the Khi­lafah [Caliphate] is rising.”

The video encour­ages for­eign­ers to join jihad, or if they can­not travel, to “fight the ene­mies of Allah where you find them.”

While Al Shabaab has long used for­eign fight­ers in its pro­pa­ganda to attract West­ern recruits, the video seems to be, in part, a response to its for­mer Amer­i­can spokesper­son, Omar Ham­mami. Ham­mami appar­ently split with the group over his belief that it was inter­ested only in local pol­i­tics and the fight in Soma­lia, rather than the cause of a global ”jiahd of the entire Ummah [Mus­lim nation].” In mes­sages released late last year, Ham­mami high­lighted the ten­sions between “the muha­jireen [Arabs and for­eign fight­ers] and the Ansar [local sup­port­ers of Al Shabaab].”

By fea­tur­ing for­eign fight­ers in the video, espe­cially Abu Ahmed, Al Shabaab may be try­ing to counter Hammami’s alle­ga­tions and show that it main­tains a sig­nif­i­cant inter­na­tional sup­port base.

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December 12, 2012 0

Shabaab Spokesman’s “Close Friend” Arrested

Two Amer­i­can cit­i­zens resid­ing in Alabama were arrested yes­ter­day in Geor­gia on sus­pi­cion of terrorism-related activity.

Randy “Rasheed” Wil­son was arrested in Atlanta attempt­ing to board a flight to Morocco. Wilson allegedly claimed to be a close friend of Omar Ham­mami, the Alabama native who became the pub­lic face of Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda-affiliated Somali ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. His co-conspirator, Moham­mad Abukhdair, was arrested at a bus sta­tion en route to Canada from where he report­edly planned to join Wil­son.  Both were charged with con­spir­ing to pro­vide mate­r­ial sup­port to ter­ror­ists in an Alabama fed­eral court on Monday.

Accord­ing to court doc­u­ments, Wil­son and Abukhdair expressed their admi­ra­tion for rad­i­cal American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden, as well as repeat­ing their com­mit­ment to carry out vio­lent jihad, to an under­cover FBI employee.  They even turned over a cache of jihadist pro­pa­ganda, includ­ing Awlaki lec­tures, to the under­cover employee for destruc­tion. Wil­son, who is 25, appar­ently believed that “one way or another everyone’s gonna have to fight… there’s no deed bet­ter than jihad,” accord­ing to the tran­scripts of recorded con­ver­sa­tions sub­mit­ted to the court.

Wil­son had pre­vi­ously report­edly con­spired with another mutual friend of Hammami’s (who later became a con­fi­den­tial infor­mant) to travel to Soma­lia to join Al Shabaab. Abukhdair had been detained by Egypt­ian author­i­ties on sus­pi­cion of involve­ment in ter­ror­ist activ­ity and was deported back to the United States.  He appar­ently admit­ted to the under­cover FBI employee that he had jihadist mate­r­ial on his lap­top at the time and believed that “Allah pro­tected him” because Egypt­ian intel­li­gence had not found it.

The two men, who met online in 2010, sup­pos­edly dis­cussed sev­eral pos­si­ble des­ti­na­tions, includ­ing trav­el­ing to Soma­lia via Sudan, where they report­edly expected spe­cial treat­ment because of Wilson’s rela­tion­ship with Ham­mami. Abukhdair alter­na­tively pro­posed that they carry out attacks in the United States because he feared he would not be allowed to travel inter­na­tion­ally after being turned away from a flight to Jor­dan ear­lier this year.  Accord­ing to the charges, Abukhdair allegedly sug­gested engag­ing in hostage-taking oper­a­tions in the U.S. and demand­ing the release of Mus­lim ter­ror­ists being held in Amer­i­can pris­ons in exchange.

The court doc­u­ments assert that Wil­son and Abukhdair made def­i­nite travel arrange­ments to go to Mau­ri­ta­nia via Morocco in October. The two also report­edly dis­cussed trav­el­ing to Mali from Mau­ri­ta­nia where Islamic mil­i­tants are active in the north of the country.

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November 20, 2012 0

Militant Organizations Weigh In On Operation Pillar Of Defense

Has­san Nas­ral­lah speaks about Oper­a­tion Pil­lar of Defense

In response to Israel’s mil­i­tary oper­a­tion against key Hamas and Islamic Jihad tar­gets in Gaza, Hezbol­lah, Al Shabaab and the Tal­iban have issued state­ments con­demn­ing Israel and Jews for the renewed violence.

Al Shabaab, Al Qaeda’s branch in Soma­lia, has con­demned “in the strongest pos­si­ble terms, the sav­age Jew­ish assault on the inno­cent Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion of Gaza.” Al Shabaab issued a state­ment on Twit­ter call­ing “on all Mus­lims, par­tic­u­larly those liv­ing near Gaza, to answer the call of the oppressed & come to the aid of their brothers.”

Although Al Shabaab is geo­graph­i­cally removed from the con­flict, it has pre­vi­ously declared an “open bat­tle” against Jew­ish inter­ests in Africa and against Israel, which it has described as the “oppress­ing Zion­ist entity.” In Novem­ber 2009, it announced the estab­lish­ment of Al Quds Brigade, a mil­i­tary unit specif­i­cally tasked with attack­ing Israel and free­ing “Islamic holy places” from the Israelis.

Al Shabaab appears to be the only affil­i­ate of Al Qaeda to have issued a pub­lic state­ment on the con­flict so far. Since mes­sages from the senior Al Qaeda lead­er­ship rou­tinely take time to reach the pub­lic, offi­cial state­ments are likely to be made in the com­ing weeks.

Hezbol­lah, the Lebanese For­eign Ter­ror­ist Orga­ni­za­tion (FTO), has also con­demned Israeli actions and expressed its sup­port for the Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant fac­tions via its satel­lite tele­vi­sion sta­tion, Al-Manar. While Hezbol­lah has not yet entered the fray, Lebanese secu­rity forces report that they dis­man­tled two rock­ets aimed at Israel from south­ern Lebanon on Monday.

Has­san Nas­ral­lah, Hezbollah’s leader, encour­aged Arabs to “open bor­ders to Gaza and deliver more mis­siles to the resis­tance,” adding that “Arab coun­tries are required to sup­port and arm Gaza and not to work as inter­me­di­aries between the Israeli enemy and Gaza.” Nas­ral­lah also said “the Zion­ists returned to their crim­i­nal nature with killing large num­bers of chil­dren, women and civilians.”

Hezbollah’s Al Manar also reported on state­ments made by Ziad al-Nakhala, the Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­eral of PIJ, that “the weapons which the resis­tance uses to fight, includ­ing those of Hamas, are Iran­ian weapons, from the first bul­let to the mis­sile; even the locally man­u­fac­tured ones are Iranian.”

The Tal­iban in Afghanistan issued a state­ment con­demn­ing “the bru­tal attacks on the land of Palestine.” The mes­sage calls on “the Islamic peo­ples and espe­cially the lead­ers of the Islamic world… to take a stand… to put an end to the Israeli injus­tices.” The state­ment also high­lights Amer­i­can sup­port for Israel, which it claims demon­strates “sup­port for inter­na­tional terrorism.”

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