Godane on top-eight terror list
AHMED Abdi Godane, whose alShabaab group has said it carried out a deadly raid on a Nairobi mall, has transformed chronically unstable Somalia into one of alQaeda’s main global hubs.
Reportedly trained in Afghanistan with the Taliban, Mr Godane — often known by the name Abu Zubayr — took over the leadership of al-Shabaab in 2008 after then leader Adan Hashi Ayro was killed by a US missile attack.
Al-Qaeda chief Ayman alZawahiri has recognised Mr Godane as the head of the “mujahedeen” in East Africa, although letters released after Osama bin Laden’s death show the late Saudi Islamist leader had a lower regard for the Somali’s abilities.
The camera-shy extremist, a slightly built man who is known to enjoy writing poetry and is said to have worked as an accountant for an airline company, espouses the language of global jihad.
Mr Godane claimed responsibility for the July 2010 bombings in the Ugandan capital Kampala that killed 74 people. In 2010, he was rumoured to have been pushed out of this post as top leader, but the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia said he has managed to hang on by developing al-Shabaab’s internal secret service.
However, the same report noted that Mr Godane had faced discontent from several of his top commanders, notably over his open threats to Omar Hammami — the Alabama-bred public face of al-Shabaab who was killed by fellow fighters earlier this month — and for unjustly detaining newcomer foreign fighters.
“Al-Shabaab is not divided into several factions but is one body ruled by Ahmed Godane,” one of his aides said.
Rather than leading troops in the field, Mr Godane often communicates through audio recordings, a leadership style that garners little respect from those Somali fighters who want a leader to fight on the battlefield. Instead Mr Godane, educated at an Islamic school in Pakistan, enjoys reading, listening to and reciting Somali poetry, especially those verses that chronicle resistance to British and Italian colonial rule.
He is wanted in his homeland, Somaliland, for murder and an attempted bombing attack.
The US state department lists Mr Godane as one of the world’s top eight terror fugitives.
He is included in a third category of men on whom information warrants a $7m reward, alongside Nigeria’s Boko Haram leader, but under the Taliban’s Mullah Omar, for whom a tip is worth up to $10m, and Mr Zawahiri, who fetches $25m.