X Close

Will a new generation of jihadis flock to Somalia? British counterterrorism has failed to learn its lesson

Al-Shebab militants perform drills outside Mogadishu (ABDURASHID ABDULLE/AFP via Getty Images)

Al-Shebab militants perform drills outside Mogadishu (ABDURASHID ABDULLE/AFP via Getty Images)


September 16, 2024   5 mins

On 14 July 2024, as football fans gathered to watch the Euro 2024 final, a fireball ripped through a café in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, later claimed responsibility for the blast and the five lives it extinguished. It was a message to the Somali government — and to the West as a whole — that the past decade’s attempts to defeat the terror group had stalled.

But it was also a threat. In 2007, 22,000 African Union (AU) troops were brought into Somalia to support Mogadishu’s fragile government. But at the end of this year, they are scheduled to leave. And there’s every reason to believe that al-Shabaab could take over and destabilise neighbouring nations with a large Somali diaspora. Indeed, there are already reports that al-Shabaab is in contact with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. Such an alliance would further imperil international shipping routes and have enormous consequences for the world economy.

It could also spark more serious threats closer to home. After all, in the aftermath of 9/11, it was in Somalia — not Iraq or Afghanistan — that a new generation of Western jihadists were spawned.

By the turn of the century, London had already become a haven for dissident preachers and jihadi ideologues: Abu Qatada, Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, Hani al-Sibai and Abu Hamza al-Masri. But it also produced its own English-speaking radicals, who coalesced in a square mile known as Lisson Green, in the very same borough as the Houses of Parliament.

Many of the youngsters who grew up in the area had been too young to be meaningfully aware of the recent conflicts in Afghanistan or Bosnia, but they swam in the ideological currents of the aftermath. Sheikh Abu Qatadah, a top jihadi ideologue, used to deliver sermons there on Fridays. As did Anwar Awlaki, a firebrand preacher who openly gave jihadist talks and was a favourite of Mohammed Emwazi, the man who would later become known as “Jihadi John”. Just down the road, Muhammad al-Rifai, a man who claimed to be the Caliph of the whole Muslim world, lived in a council flat.

A few years ago, one of those who heard their sermons agreed to speak to me using the pseudonym Abdullah. Abdullah grew up in Lisson Green and attended the youth club where I worked for one summer in 2003. He told me about the Islamist currents that dominated the area: even the local five-a-side soccer team was named the “Shishanees” (the Chechens). Abdullah became devout during his teenage years and joined Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist organisation that called for the return of the Caliphate. As an activist, he invited many of its members to his secondary school to give speeches to the Muslim pupils.

The youngsters stewed in this ideological cauldron when a new conflict emerged in Somalia. The fall of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre’s government in 1991 created a power vacuum and a decade-long civil war. Eventually, the Somali people’s desire for peace and order resulted in the rise of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). This group, founded by religious scholars, established a semblance of law and order in the capital Mogadishu and succeeded in pushing out the nation’s CIA-backed warlords by 2006. In Lisson Green, this was a cause for celebration. A new generation of British Muslims had grown up with tales of Western jihadis and their spirited adventures in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, and they were eager to emulate them. Suddenly, they saw their opportunity in Somalia.

They were encouraged in this by Abdul Majid, an outspoken Somali-British local who drew many youngsters into his orbit, especially Bilal Berjawi, who attended the same youth club as Abdullah. Berjawi was a pug-faced bruiser with a Beckham-like voice and a reputation as a fighter. He attracted a circle of boys from the youth club and they travelled to Somalia in 2007.

Some described the times under the ICU as idyllic. Some, such as Mohammed Ezzouek, went there claiming to want to study Islam and live under Islamic law. But the good times did not last. The Ethiopian government, alarmed by the presence of the ICU on its border, pushed them out of Mogadishu and rearmed the warlords who were back in the capital by the end of the year. This attack on the ICU radicalised its youth wing and it later split off as a separate organisation known as Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen — the Young Mujahideen Movement, or al-Shabaab for short. And as they embarked on a war against the Ethiopians, al-Shabaab declared allegiance to al-Qaeda.

Faced with this threat, the young men from Lisson Green fled Somalia trying to reach safety in Kenya. Once there, some were detained and interrogated, while a handful returned to the UK having turned their back on both Somalia and Islamist ideology. Others, however, became more radicalised. And chief among them was Berjawi, who became a full member of al-Shabaab and was purportedly trained by Harun Fazul, the man behind the 1998 terrorist bombings in East Africa. Indeed, Fazul chose Berjawi as the leader of the London network. Over the next few years, Berjawi came in and out of the UK to fundraise for the group.

After proving himself, Berjawi went on to become an important commander for al-Shabaab, until he was killed in 2012 by the US in a drone strike, reportedly with British complicity. But Berjawi left behind those he recruited: in particular, Mohammed Sakr, Mohammed Emwazi and Alexanda Kotey. Sakr and Emwazi tried to enter Somalia again in 2009, using a cover story that they were going on safari in Tanzania. In Syria, Emwazi and Kotey would become the Western faces of the Caliphate.

Meanwhile, those who could not take part in jihad in Syria were recruited to carry out terror attacks in the UK. Michael Adebolajo, an associate of Berjawi who had tried to join al-Shabaab, murdered British soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in 2013. Three years later, two promising university students, Tarik Hassane and Suhaib Majeed, were convicted for their part in an Isis terror plot in West London; both men were from Lisson Green or nearby. They had been acting under Kotey’s instructions.

“Those who could not take part in jihad in Syria were recruited to carry out terror attacks in the UK.”

This was the effect of the rise of al-Shabaab. At the time, policymakers appeared to be more preoccupied with threats emerging from Afghanistan and Iraq, or dealing with the aftermath of major terror attacks such as the one that took place in London on 7/7, to appreciate the presence al-Shabaab had on a small but significant number of young Muslims in the West. Somalia appeared distant and war-torn.

Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation, with a turbo-charged jihadi discourse heightened by the horrific situation in Palestine. Young disaffected Muslims watch as the media appears outraged by Russian targeting of hospitals in Ukraine but relatively indifferent when the IDF targets hospitals in Gaza. They see themselves as othered, devalued and forgotten. Spurred on by social media and Telegram groups, they see the likes of the Taliban defeating the Americans or the Houthis doing something for Gaza while the rest of the Muslim world appears impotent.

For them, al-Shabaab offers an animating force. If its flags rise in Mogadishu, a new generation of Western jihadists could return to the Horn of Africa.


Tam Hussein is an award winning investigative journalist and writer. His work has been recognised by the Royal Television Society Awards.

tamhussein

Join the discussion


Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber


To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.

Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.

Subscribe
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

23 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Bret Larson
Bret Larson
24 days ago

Good, when they out themselves and group up they are easier to deal with.

Moshe Simon
Moshe Simon
24 days ago

Israel does not target hospitals, or schools, or mosques. We target war rooms, command centres and terrorist units that commandeer such places. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad criminals who surround themselves with non-combatant human shields are entirely responsible for the casualties that inevitably are sustained by their helpless victims.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
24 days ago
Reply to  Moshe Simon

Let us make no excuses for Israel, their conduct is horrible. This awful nation needs to learn human rights from the muslim world, and start treating the Palestinians exactly like the Turks treated Armenians/ Christians (20% of population to 0.2% over the past decades) or how Pakistanis treated Hindu / Sikhs (15% to 1%).

That’s the only way to peace, stop the genocide of the muslim population that has resulted in 7x population growth in Gaza, and start treating them like Jews are in Iraq or Algeria. That’s the only route to ensuring minority rights the halal way, no minority = no more problems.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
24 days ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

If you can’t live together you can’t live together.

Nick Faulks
Nick Faulks
24 days ago
Reply to  Moshe Simon

Yes, that hideous comment immediately made me wonder about the value of the whole article.

Seb Dakin
Seb Dakin
23 days ago
Reply to  Nick Faulks

In fairness I think he’s phrasing it to show how young disaffected moslems see things, and why they might thus become tomorrow’s jihadis, rather than stating a personal opinion.

Dylan Blackhurst
Dylan Blackhurst
24 days ago

“the media appears outraged by Russian targeting of hospitals in Ukraine but relatively indifferent when the IDF targets hospitals in Gaza”

What utter rubbish. What media seems indifferent to the bombing of hospitals by the IDF?

I could argue that our MSM has tired of the war in Ukraine. Its attention is firmly on the war in Gaza and its condemnation of the IDF is pretty transparent.

Maybe I’m watching the wrong channels.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
24 days ago

You could also wonder why muslims in the West, mostly from other parts like Pakistan or Turkey, care so much about “Gaza” but seems to be quite happy with what happened with Hindus in Pakistan or Christians in Turkey, or happily overlook terror attacks or grooming gangs by their own community in their own countries…not that they consider Britain, France etc to be “their” countries.

Harry Phillips
Harry Phillips
24 days ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Yet.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
24 days ago
Reply to  Harry Phillips

Ha!

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
24 days ago

Also… deathly silence from the media about Hamas collocating HQs and military forces in hospitals and schools, using their countrymen as human shields.

Russia is deliberately targeting civilians in Ukraine. Israel tries very hard to limit collateral damage.

Chalk and cheese.

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
24 days ago

The very fact there still is a “muslim world” that remains “theirs” makes muslims othered. Conformance to an absolutist monotheism and continued displacement of non-believers from muslim spaces is the definition of being other: sectarian, resolutely standing apart, refusing reformation of identity and religion.

The rise of the influence of Al-Shabaab amongst young muslims in the West has nothing to do with what non-muslims do or don’t do. It is entirely correlated with the simple increase of there being young muslims in the West. It is an imported problem, a fundamentist problem that has impaired the development of muslim countries. The fight for dominance and purity is baked into an unreformed Islam and we now all know its name: jihad. Al-Shabaab are just yet more jihadis doing what jihadis have done for 1400 years across Africa, Asia, the Middle East – and Europe before they were removed. Now its followers are back in Europe jihad too has returned.

Robert
Robert
24 days ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

It is an imported problem
As I was reading the article it occurred to me that not only is it an imported problem as you say, but it has been going on for centuries. One doesn’t have to be a historian to look at maps of the world and which religions were/are dominant in the past to see how Christianity and Islam have been advancing and retreating for a very long time. It’s as if we, who barely live a century, cannot see the forest for the trees.
This conflict is not new and it’s never going to stop. This struggle of cultures has been around a long time. A large chunk of Islam, from what I have learned, isn’t interested in peaceful coexistence and they’re not shy about saying so.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
24 days ago
Reply to  Robert

Absolutely, to which i’d add: the answer to Islamism isn’t to increase Christianity, because both sects are part of the same ‘religiosity’ problem; two sides of a coin, if you like.
There’s only one useful answer, and that’s the banishment of religiosity from human thought. This will take many more centuries – unless we annihilate ourselves in the meantime – but at least a start has been made in some sections of the world. I can hear the cries from the “god-fearers” that that’s what’s making the West weaker. It’s absolutely not – it’s tolerance of religious fanatics that’s making it weaker – tolerance, of course, being a Christian ‘virtue’. Why “be kind” to those who’re trying to destroy very hard-won democratic freedoms?
There is a distinction to be drawn between religion and human spirituality, an intuitive understanding of how precious life is and ever greater insights into the cosmos which surrounds us, of which we’re an infinitesimally small part; of how courage, generosity and yes, love, are entirely human inclinations and need no religious underpinning.
Organised religion was a serious mis-step in early civilisational development, arising out of both a misunderstanding of the cosmos and a desire to control populations. Be gone, and a plague on all your houses.

PAUL SMITH
PAUL SMITH
24 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

If you ban religion you’ll just get people clustering fervently around other extreme views such as the extreme Trans rights activists. They are the new Puritans.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
24 days ago
Reply to  PAUL SMITH

No. The change of mindset would require an understanding of how we can be ‘captured’ by other similarly restrictive ways of thinking. Transactivism is just one of the current manifestations.

Anyone who (for instance) believes in transubstantiation as a matter of ‘faith’ is of entirely the same mindset.

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
24 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

The New Atheists believed that an increasing secularization in society would naturally be accompanied by a decrease in the irrational behaviours they associated with organized religions.
Society is increasingly more secular, but the NA’s have been proved emphatically false in a short space of time.
Some NAs haven’t even noticed. Shows how rational they are.

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
24 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

The ‘banishment if religiosity from human thought.’
This kind of hubrustic secular fundamentalist sounds exactly like a religious fanatic.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
24 days ago

Nonsense. It’s the antithesis of fanaticism.

It’s about the ability to think for oneself. I entirely understand why religionists wouldn’t understand that, just as you haven’t.

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
24 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Assuming that religion is an expression of many evolved human traits, then religiosity is also an evolved characteristic innate in humans. And the idea that it can simply ‘be banished’ over a period of ‘many centuries’ would involve a disbelief in the normal processes of Darwinian evolution, which are kind of random and unpredictable.
It’s an idea which bears more in common with religious faith in human perfectibility and purification than a scientific understanding of Darwinian evolution.
And it’s also comically similar to the sort of rhetoric used by secular fanatics– e.g.–Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin.

Tony Plaskow
Tony Plaskow
24 days ago

You almost got through the writing without showing your true face there! So close – the IDF targets places where terrorists have taken over civilian infrastructure, like schools and hospitals, so they legitimately become military targets at that point, often using their civilians as human shields for maximum ‘civilian deaths’. You rather missed those facts there, can’t imagine why????
You use lies and misinformation to spread anti-Israel, antisemitic propaganda. You are a liar, defending and supporting genocidal barbaric terrorists.

Nick Faulks
Nick Faulks
24 days ago
Reply to  Tony Plaskow

Exactly my reaction.

William Amos
William Amos
24 days ago

Say: “Like the war leaders of old,
I cherished great plans for victory.”
Britain has been fighting this same battle, in the same place, with effectively the same people since we first intruded ourselves into the Horn of Africa in the 1870s – ironically to protect Somali independence from Ethiopian Imperialism.
Who now reads about the Dervish war, about Muḥammad ibn ‘Abdallāh Hassan, ‘The Mad Mullah’? Who has read his poem (quoted above) of 1913, The Death of Richard Corfield, about the Jihadist killing of the commander of the Somaliland Camel Constabulary
“You have died, Corfield, and are no longer in this world,
a merciless journey was your portion.
When, Hell-destined, you set out for the Other World,
tell them how God tried you.”
I assure you, the Somali remembers, ‘with advantages’, so to speak, both in the Ogaden and North London. Just because we say history is finished and the old legers are wiped does not make it so.
The choices that present themselves now are precisely the same which presented themselves in 1870, 1890. 1915 etc etc. We must either police the interior – too costly then and now – or we must contain the violence by locking up the Jihadists in their fastnesses – then the interior desert, now simply keeping them ‘out’ of Britain.
Essentially the choice is between exercising mastery abroad or secure borders at home. WIthout borders, however there is no such thing as ‘foreign policy’ because there is no distinction between Home and Abroad.