Issue No. 552

Is it important to undermine Al-Shabaab’s ideology?
 

Upon assuming Somalia’s presidency for a second term, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) appointed former Al-Shabaab (AS) leader Mukhtar Robow to his cabinet as Minister of Endowment and Religious Affairs. A controversial appointment, Robow had been a leader in AS until his defection, which occurred after a failed assassination attempt against him on order of then-Al-Shabaab emir Ahmed Godane.
 
Robow’s appointment has formed part of a wider ideological prong of the Federal Government of Somalia’s (FGS) renewed offensive against Al-Shabaab, starting from August 2022. While significant attention has been placed on the FGS military campaign and its attempts to choke the militant group financially, far less attention has been paid to its ideological battle. In the context of the stalled military offensive against AS, it is especially important to examine the role of ideology in AS recruitment strategies and support networks.
 
Significant clan uprisings against AS in 2022 in central Somalia complicated the notion that the militant group holds a firm ideological grip on Somali society. The uprisings brought into question the widely-accepted understanding that most Somalis living in AS-held territory have been supportive because of shared Salafi-Jihadi ideology.
 
Early studies of AS recruitment strategies placed particular emphasis on their ideological elements. This may have been too simplistic, ignoring the degree to which AS instils fear amongst communities in Somalia’s rural areas where the group has been most dominant. Extreme displays of violence, including the execution of clan elders, forced disappearances, and enforced youth recruitment kept many in line.
 
Al-Shabaab has significantly invested in presenting itself as a force driven by Islamist ideology. Its media wing, Al-Kataib, has been crucial in manufacturing this image, and in AS recruitment outside of Somalia. The group has shown itself to be adept at drawing in fighters and supporters from across East Africa and the English-speaking Muslim world, especially amongst the Somali diaspora. In one early study of AS recruitment strategies, Roland Marchal argued that AS success in recruiting young Somalis came from its ability to manipulate religious sentiment, and to de-socialise or re-socialise disenchanted youth. Marchal noted that AS membership has offered more than just a salary and a weapon; it has offered a way for one to live according to (albeit extremist) faith in a  community of shared values.
 
Another scholar, Muhsin Hassan, has also stressed the significance of ideology in AS. Hassan argued that the success of AS recruitment has been in justifying that one’s struggle is a “valid jihad,” and that “paradise is waiting.” Hassan revealed that the majority of former AS members with whom he spoke were in fact not very well-versed in Islam; their radicalisation process largely focused on transforming “social outcasts” into “heroes” in the alternative world vision offered by Al-Shabaab.
 
Al-Shabaab emerged at a moment when many Somalis were fatigued by state failure, and the erratic violence of Somalia’s warlords. The Islamic Courts Union (ICU), from which Al-Shabaab emerged, was felt as a welcome relief for many, though for a brief period of time. Following the Ethiopian invasion that deposed the ICU in 2006, Al-Shabaab established itself across Somalia’s most rural areas, many of which were out of reach to the African Union-backed Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG).
 
To tighten its grip in these areas, Al-Shabaab struck agreements with marginalised Somali clans in central and southern Somalia. For well over a decade since, AS has collected taxes and recruited fighters from the local populations, administered its harsh interpretation of sharia law, and, on occasion, offered protection to local clans. These accommodations broke down in mid-2022 in large parts of central Somalia due to myriad factors.
 
This breakdown was largely driven by AS collection of exorbitant taxes, along with forcible youth recruitment in Hirshabelle and Galmudug States, coinciding with historic levels of drought placing untenable pressure on these communities. The uprising was soon seized on by the FGS as an opportunity to fight alongside the clan militias, known as Macawiisleey, to liberate a large swathe of AS-controlled territory.
 
Learning from its mistakes, Al-Shabaab has since regained control of some areas it lost in 2022, and reinstated some previous accommodations with clans in central Somalia. But in relation to its latest successes, its ideology appears less significant. AS has retained a potent ability to impose illicit taxation without going so far as to provoke local clans into violent opposition. It has likely learned from the 2022 uprisings, now more careful not to ‘over-exploit’ the communities on which it depends.

Still, the ideological element of AS recruitment of fighters and control of rural areas in southern and central Somalia remains complex. Mere contact with extreme Islamist ideology does not drive people towards extremist violence; this must be analysed in the context of wider political, social and economic contexts to understand the appeal. Steps taken by HSM’s administration, including Robow’s appointment, are therefore important in the wider struggle to prevent vulnerable and disenfranchised Somalis from joining and supporting Al-Shabaab.

 
The Somali Wire team