Rivalry erupts between militants
NAIROBI, Kenya — A bloody rivalry has emerged between extremist groups in Somalia as the al Qaeda-linked alShabab hunts upstart fighters allied to the Islamic State, who have begun demanding protection payments from major businesses, officials said.
The rivalry supports some observers’ suspicions that al-Shabab, now scrambling to defend its monopoly on the mafiastyle extortion racket that funds its high-profile attacks, is drifting from its long-declared goal of establishing a strict Islamic state.
The manhunt began in October with the killing of a top leader of the Islamic State-linked group by a suspected al-Shabab death squad in the capital, Mogadishu, according to several Somali intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
When the body of Mahad Maalin, deputy leader of the Islamic State-affiliated group, was found near a beach in Mogadishu, it set off a hunt for suspected Islamic State sympathizers within al-Shabab’s ranks, officials said. Maalin had been suspected of trying to extend his group’s reach into the capital.
Last month, the Islamic State’s Al Naba newsletter noted deadly attacks on its fighters in Somalia and warned that “when the time of response comes from the Islamic State, with God’s will, we will be excused.”
The Islamic Stateaffiliated group in Somalia, largely made up of al-Shabab defectors, first announced its presence in 2016 with attacks in the far north, far from Mogadishu and most al-Shabab strongholds. Though estimated at a few hundred fighters at most, their emergence in one of the world’s most unstable countries has been alarming enough that the U.S. military began targeting it with air strikes a year ago.
While al-Shabab and its thousands of fighters have hunted down suspected Islamic State sympathizers before, they had not taken the young group’s expansion seriously until now, observers say.
“Al-Shabab miscalculated IS’s organizational capability and ambitions to extend its reach beyond the north, having judged it by its handful of fighters there, and thus missed the bigger picture,” said Mohamed Sheikh Abdi, a Mogadishu-based political analyst.
The revelation by businessmen that Islamic State-linked operatives had begun making extortion demands took alShabab’s leadership by surprise, prompting the manhunt that has led to assassinations and the detention of over 50 suspected Islamic Statelinked extremists, including foreign fighters, two Somali intelligence officials said. One suspected Islamic Statelinked fighter from Egypt was shot dead on Nov. 18 in Jilib.
As members of the Islamic State flee shrinking strongholds in Iraq and Syria, fears have grown that the fighters will find a new and welcome home in parts of Africa.
Alarmed by al-Shabab’s deadly attacks, the Islamic State-linked group has expanded its own assassination campaign. The group’s Amaq news agency, turning its attention to the young affiliate, has released videos showing what it called killings by the group’s death squad.
Islamic State-linked fighters already had claimed responsibility for 50 assassinations in southern Somalia between October 2017 and August, often against federal government officials, according to a report released last month by the U.N. panel of experts monitoring sanctions on the country.