Issue No. 438

“Shedding his blood is permissible” – Decoding Al-Shabaab’s response to Roobow

Early this week, Al-Shabaab’s official spokesman, Ali Rage (aka Ali Dheere – “the tall one”), posted a 10-minute clip on Facebook. It was the first public reaction by the group to the appointment of Mukhtar Roobow ‘Abu Mansur’ as the Federal Government of Somalia’s countering violent extremism (CVE) czar. In the clip, Rage makes a chilling and explicit threat: “Roobow is an apostate. Shedding his blood is permissible.”

The threat on Roobow’s life comes against the backdrop of a heated war of words between the Somali government and Al-Shabaab, and growing signs of a looming showdown. On Wednesday, Somalia’s National Security Advisor (NSA), Hussein Sheikh Ali, and the Chief of the Somali Armed Forces, Gen Odowaa, accompanied by the US ambassador to Somalia, Larry Andre, paid a visit to a US Navy ship off the Somali coast. On his Twitter page, the NSA posted a picture: “Today with the CDF Odawa, I had the honour to board and be given an extensive tour of the US Navy Ship, the USS Hershel “Woody” Williams, invited by the @US2SOMALIA Suumanka Dhuuqsada.” The last two words mean “tighten your belts.”

Apart from responding to the Roobow appointment, the new message from Al-Shabaab is primarily a robust ideological and theological defence of its uncompromising refusal to engage with the Somali government. Rage’s speech, delivered in the style and tone of a traditional mosque sermon, is interspersed with Somali poetry (on the topic of treachery) and references to scripture. Broadly, it can be broken into three segments. First is the ‘verdict’ part that holds Roobow guilty of the crime of apostasy, for which the punishment is death. Second is the ‘charges’ part that highlights Roobow’s alleged treachery and provides Al-Shabaab’s version of the events and circumstances that led to his defection. The third part is a restatement of Al-Shabaab’s unbending attitude against talks with the Somali government.

The Ali Dheere clip, from an analytical point of view, is significant. The fact that Al- Shabaab chose Ali Dheere to launch the attack on Roobow is, in itself, interesting.

It follows several Al-Shabaab videos that have cast the spotlight on Mahad Karate, suggesting that Dheere feels the need to re-assert himself against a possible rival for the leadership. Dheere, as a long-serving Al-Shabaab spokesman, is considered one of the senior contenders for the post of Emir. By taking on the high-profile mission to openly challenge Roobow on ideological and theological grounds (and possibly arrange his killing at some point), Ali Dheere cements his hardline credentials and improves his chances of rising to the top. The Al-Shabaab spokesman comes from the Murusade sub-clan of the Hawiye; a significant number of Al-Shabaab members are Murusade. Ali Dheere has in recent years been sighted multiple times in Mogadishu’s Dayniile district, a predominantly Murusade locality on the edge of the capital.

The audio clip sheds some light on the internal ideological rifts within Al-Shabaab that came to the fore in 2013 and led to major splits. Crucially, it provides rare insights into the current thinking and mindset of Al-Shabaab’s hardline faction on the question of talks – perhaps the frankest articulation of the Salafi jihadi “logic” to date in defence of continued resistance and disavowal of any engagement with the Somali government.

In the first section, Ali Dheere focuses on Al-Shabaab’s indictment against Roobow.

The charge sheet includes claims Roobow sowed divisions, secretly consorted with external enemies of Somalia, and was recruited and armed by the US and Ethiopia to break up Al-Shabaab and that he cooperated with aid agencies “with covert aims and intent on spreading Christianity.” The latter allegation of Western aid workers as either spies or missionaries is familiar. It echoes an entrenched conspiracy theory among Islamist militants that gained currency after the killing of Usama Bin Ladin in Pakistan. The claim has even spread to ‘moderate’ segments of Muslim communities. In Somaliland, for example, reports of aid workers with bibles for distribution or institutions allegedly propagating Christianity appear in the press from time to time.

The last section of the clip is the most important because it provides the clearest inkling of Al-Shabaab’s disposition to the idea of talks with the government. “Many Muslim leaders often fall into this trap of talks,” Dheere says and warns that the end result is “humiliation, ignominy, and apostasy.” He says Western nations and the international community often coax and cajole Muslim leaders to engage and make compromises but the end goal is to prevent Islam from putting down solid roots. “Small concessions lead to big concessions and ultimately religion is abandoned,” says Dheere. “There is no compromise in Islam,” he insists.

Dheere makes some interesting excursions to press home his point about the futility of engagement. He cites two Western academic studies (without being specific) which recommend negotiations as a method to “fragment the mujahideen and identify those the West can work with.” Compromise and negotiations only benefit the “enemies of Islam” and never Muslims, he argues. “The enemy is still the same enemy...Ethiopia and the US did not compromise. It is Mukhtar Roobow who compromised, abandoned his faith, and became an apostate.”

It is clear that Al-Shabaab’s response was not only aimed at undermining Roobow and his brand of “moderate” Islam, but also at pre-empting any prospect of talks with the Somali government. The Hassan Sheikh administration appointed Roobow in the belief he is well-suited to challenge the ideology and theology of the hardliners, and, secondly, that he could help to initiate talks at some point with the leadership of the militant group. In its latest message, Al-Shabaab has poured scorn on the idea of talks and voiced its contempt for Roobow. But beneath the defiance and bravado, the sense of apprehension is discernible in Dheere’s audio clip. His screed sounded strident, even shrill at times. It sounded like a movement spooked by Roobow’s unexpected elevation and which senses that a major military and ideological showdown is looming.

The Somali Wire Team