In recent past, militia has lost scores of commanders, and hundreds of foot soldiers to Amisom, US and Somalia troops –
By Dickens Njau – Year 2016 will go down on record as annus holibilis for the Somalia-based al-Qaeda affiliated militant group, alShabaab. The first quarter of this year, particularly last month, was the bloodiest for al-Shabaab in a long time.
It lost 10 commanders, and hundreds of foot soldiers and middle-level commanders to enemy forces including, American and African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom) troops as well as the Somali National Army in Somalia.
There are reports that an attack on the militants’ headquarters at Jilib last Thursday could have claimed a few more senior commanders.
Initial reports indicated that 20 were killed, but their identity and rank was not clear. The terror group is under intense military pressure from all sides—from the ground, the air and the sea and has very few options left for its survival. And given all these forces allied against it, it’s losing large swathes of territory in Somalia.
It is not surprising that things are getting tougher for al-Shabaab. An analysis of MEA Risk’s terror heat maps in East Africa between January and March shows a high concentration of terror events in Somalia.
The maps also show a high concentration of security and defence operations in the country. There were 138 security and defence operation in the quarter to March 31, last year.
Of these 74 or 54 per cent happened in Somalia, accounting for 94 per cent or 776 of the 823 deaths of insurgents caused by defence and security operations in East Africa during that period.
On the other hand, there were 115 terrorist events in East Africa, with 67 or 58.3 per cent of the activities occurring in Somalia. In terms of deaths caused by terror attacks, Somalia came second to the equally unstable Sudan. Sudan accounted for 479 or 64 per cent of the 753 deaths caused by terrorist activities while Somalia accounted for 229 or 30 per cent.
Shabaab besieged In the MEA Risk incidents index, terror related activities in Somalia were rated at 2.42/5.00 meaning that al- Shabaab is still packing hard punches in Somalia. However, security and defence-related events scored 2.45/5.00 meaning al-Shabaab is being outgunned.
That is not good news for the terror outfit, since it is losing both in territory, human resources and hardware. It appears besieged and left without elbow room. This feeling of being boxed in could be one of the reasons Shabaab attacks Puntland and Galmudug states in Somalia. The two states responded to this provocation with a sledge hammer, leaving hundreds of militants dead and others arrested.
Apart from the two states, al- Shabaab is also facing pressure in other quarters. For instance, in just one week in March , a report by the Uganda’s Daily Monitor says, Amisom forces put out the battlefield – military lingo for killed- seven Shabaab commanders, the latest being Abdurashir Bugdube, who was gunned down last week.
Bugdube led the September 2015 attack on Janaale Amisom camp in which 19 Ugandan soldiers were neutralised. Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) have also extracted their pound of flesh from the same group.
At least three top commanders, including Mohammed Karatey, who was blamed for the EL-Adde camp attack in which an unknown number of KDF soldiers were killed in January 15.
Karatey, who was officiating a graduation ceremony was decimated with 52 others including middle level commanders. A few days later, suspected IED expert, Maalim Sheriff was also killed alongside 20 others. The US forces struck Ramos killing 150 insurgents including senior officers last month.
Days later a US drone attack neutralised Hassan Ali Dhoore and two others at Jilib in southern Somalia not far from the Kenyan border, the officials said.
In total, in a space of six weeks al-Shabaab has lost 10 high-level human assets in addition to the rank and file soldiers whose death toll exceeded 300 in March alone.
The worst carnage happened in Suuj valley in Puntland where 167 militants were neutralised in four days of fighting to recover territory from al Shabaab. Also the fight in Galmudug state also claimed 115 of operatives and saw 100 others arrested.
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