Al-Shabaab (from its full name Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, or ‘Mujahideen Youth Movement’) is a very singular case among the movements that have made the headlines since the rise of violent transnational Islamism. From 2007 to 2014, the organization could sway and control a majority of Southern Somalia, including numerous urban centers, despite the presence of conventional forces protecting the transitional federal government in the capital. Still relevant to this day, Al-Shabaab is an important reminder that terrorist and insurgent organizations can endure terrible military hardships and continue fighting until the root social and political problems that seeded their rise are addressed.

A world audience for a very local movement

Al-Shabaab is one of the children of the few Wahabist Islamist groups (such as Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya) that survived through the turbulent political history of Somalia described in the previous article in this series. The victory of the Islamic Courts Union over the Mogadishu warlords in 2006 allowed Al-Shabaab cadres to become prominent public figures and secure key positions in the ICU-led administration. After the fall of the short-lived Islamic Courts Union, Al-Shabaab leaders refused to give up the fight and quickly turned to guerrilla tactics against the Ethiopian troops and the few government-aligned militias.  

Taking advantage of new channels such as Youtube or Twitter, the group would “advertise” their resistance movement by reaching the Somali diaspora across the globe. In addition to expatriates, this campaign would also attract international mujahideen when other jihad theaters (such as Afghanistan) were stalled. Al-Shabaab also applied this intricate public relations strategy to massively reach the local population through the widespread use of radio stations, online magazines, and public preaching. The Ethiopian invasion also provided additional fuel for the jihadist propaganda, as the indiscriminate use of artillery in urban centers, lack of peace-building policies, and inexperience in counter-guerrilla tactics did not help the Ethiopians gain the sympathy of the occupied Somalis.

Al-Shabaab used these tactics to gain both local and international support, and continued finding new topics for propaganda after the Ethiopian forces withdrew in 2009. A tight administration of the territories under their control (by Somali standards), the exploitation of clan grievances, and the ability to pay their soldiers regular wages (at least compared with the Somali National Army) did much to help to keep the flow of recruits coming. The above points are crucial if one wishes to understand why Al-Shabaab survived so long. Beyond its religious branding, the group successfully exploited the social, political, and economic fields to remain relevant. Other actors, including the international community, would fail to consider such areas and factors in their efforts to end the war.

This key feature of Al-Shabaab translates in-game to the “Broadcast” Special Activity. This action allows the Islamist faction to avoid relying too heavily on the Rally Operation, allowing them to recruit in key locations while maintaining momentum. Broadcast may target varying locations depending on the Ethiopian and Kenyan intervention status, the presence of Clan Trouble markers (usually created by other Somali factions’ adverse decisions), and which areas they control. This Special Activity captures the unique propaganda edge that Al-Shabaab benefited from and which would inspire future jihadist groups, such as the Islamic State.

An earlier version of this feature was kindly suggested by Stephen Rangazas (designer of The British Way and Sovereign Of Discord) while we were exploring the facets of the organization that could help make them distinctive and unique to play. I simply could not pass on this opportunity to implement a recruiting operation that translated some of the less-known motives and goals for agents to join a group such as Al-Shabaab. Furthermore, this Activity was easy to modulate, with some Events or board effects able to modify its intensity, hence depicting the varying levels of esteem and attraction the group gathered over the years. For example, a ‘Mujahideens’ Event allows Al-Shabaab to attract more Al-Qaeda veterans or diaspora members, while losing ground in Mogadishu may on the other hand further isolate the group from the global jihad discourse.

Centralization and adaptive tactics

One might ask how the movement kept its unity over time if the recruitment motives were so broad. Here, we touch on another feat achieved by Al-Shabaab: transcending the usual clan politics of Somalia through centralization and adaptive tactics. A central executive council (the Shura) held the group together despite military defeats, mutinies over the group strategy, and targeted killings of its leaders. The council was notably led until 2014 by the “Emir” Ahmed Abdi Godane and his ring of trusted lieutenants, whose zeal would violently crush any form of opposition within the organization. While regional administrations ran the day-to-day routines in controlled territories, the Shura worked towards anticipating the enduring challenges the group would face. It built long-term strategies against the TFG and AMISOM forces, merged other Islamist groups under a unique banner, and made sure to upscale or downscale its operations depending on the group situation.

Hence Al-Shabaab successfully climbed the “insurgency ladder”, from being a hit-and-run guerrilla organisation during the Ethiopian occupation, to openly challenging conventional AMISOM forces during the 2010 Battle of Mogadishu. Also known as the Ramadan Offensive, this attack saw Al-Shabaab throwing almost all its available troops against the African Union forces. The Offensive nearly succeeded, but an underestimation of the AMISOM resolve prevented its ultimate success, which would have had a dramatic political consequence. The impressive level of logistics, preparation, and the overall scale of the confrontation had no precedent in the whole Somali Civil War.

This episode is depicted in A Fading Star through a small hand of four ‘Ramadan Offensive’ pivotal Events from which the Al-Shabaab player may choose only one to play over the course of the game. Each card provides the Islamist faction with a specific set of actions and an objective, unknown to the other players, which they’ll need to fulfill once the card is revealed from the deck. This strategic agency embodies the organization’s edge in the intelligence and military planning departments, as opposed to the heterogeneous national HQs that composed AMISOM, or the disjointed Somali clan militias.

The Ramadan Offensive also encompasses another aspect of this era of the Civil War: the insurgent or clan warlords’ ability to sweep in and control major population centers, and the subsequent urban warfare that would usually ensue. In a new twist in the COIN Series, we added a layer covering this aspect by dedicating an important area of the game map to the capital city Mogadishu. While clashes or fights in urban areas such as Saigon or Kabul were depicted in previous volumes through a single important board space, the 6-year-long siege that occurred in the Somali capital justified a more intricate development. The Mogadishu ‘mini-map’ consists of five different District spaces, and controlling a majority of these will grant Al-Shabaab or the COIN factions (AMISOM and TFG) some enhanced capabilities. The competition to control Mogadishu will therefore be especially fierce and critical, as befits the important role that this city played in the conflict.

Lethal tools and a bumpy road ahead

Al-Shabaab is also known for their merciless internal intelligence service, the Amniyat (‘Security’). Targeted assassination of officials, extortion, and blackmail have been the tools of the trade for these agents,  who targeted all layers of the Somali population. In addition to the Amniyat, the group made extensive use of explosive specialists, Al-Qaida operatives who assisted in carrying out deadly ambushes or the overrun of AMISOM forward operating bases (represented in the game by a ‘Shockpoint’marker system that allows Al-Shabaab to trigger out-of-turn ambushes on LoCs when the COIN factions are on the move).

In A Fading Star, the use of Terror Operations allows Al-Shabaab to undermine local clan elders’ support for the “federal member states” (FMS) model, prepare the ground for future attacks, and even extort protection money in areas Al-Shabaab does not control.  However, unlike insurgent factions in many other COIN volumes, these operations and ambushes will not improve their local standing to a point where it actually benefits the organization (in game terms, Terror will never increase Opposition). Their primary focus for victory is to establish control of territory in order to ensure that sharia courts and decentralized administrations (“wilayas”) can provide the local population with a level of governance and services that the federal government cannot match (in game terms, Al-Shabaab requires Control in order to increase Opposition). Resources, enough fighters to hold the ground, and specific turns dedicated to governance will be required for that process, similar to the FLN in Colonial Twilight.

Al-Shabaab must also deal with a limited number of fighters (the group peaked at around 15,000 able men during its golden age), which can quickly cause an operational overstretch if the faction focuses on both fighting in the capital and protecting their territory elsewhere. Capturing and maintaining dominance over Mogadishu will prove a complicated task, with the AMISOM troop-contributing countries and their regional allies gradually joining the fray. In the next article, we will look into the two COIN factions and how their historical characteristics shaped the conflict and the game.  

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