Brigade Combat Team Case Study

Somalia has been a land of strife since its modern history began in the early 1900’s, when British rule was challenged through constant attacks led by Mohammad Abdullah, AKA “Mad Mullah”, a folk hero amongst modern day Somalis (African Affairs, 2011). Conflict in Somalia continues to thrive thanks in large part to the terrorist group Al Shabaab (“the youth” in Arabic), a radical Islamic based organization that maintains control over a large portion of the central and southern part of the country. Al Shabaab has ties to Al Qaeda (AQ) with the main goal of installing a fundamentalist Islamist government in Somalia and is conducting an insurgency against both the UN-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the African Union

Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Joshua Adams (26) has been referred to the VA by his friend. Joshua has recently returned home from his second deployment. Returning back to civilian life has been challenging for Joshua and has begun to cause strain in his relationship with his long-term girlfriend, Melissa (24).

Al-Qaeda, which means “The Base” is a terrorist group based on extremist Islamic military. Al-Qaeda is an International Terrorist Organization and goal of this group is to make violence, damaged, and abolish no Islamic governments. The group was made by Osama Bin Laden in the late 1980s to throw the Soviets away from Afghanistan. In this mission, Al-Qaeda got a success and they were able to kick out all the Soviets from Afghanistan. This victory builds up a new confidence in this group and they started to grow up rapidly. Since the Al-Qaeda was made it was operating from Afghanistan but in 1991 Al-Qaeda transfer their headquarters to Afghanistan, and Peshawar Pakistan. “Al-Qaeda dedicated itself to further opposing non-Islamic governments in this region with force and violence.

In Kathy Gilsinan’s With World Focused on Boko Haram, al-Shabaab Steps Up Offensive (http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/13841/with-world-focused-on-boko-haram-al-shabaab-steps-up-offensive), the topic of al-Shabaab’s legitimacy and terror is discussed. As Boko Haram (another terrorist organization in Africa) has begin inflicting fear through the abduction of schoolgirls and other acts of terror, al-Shabaab has began to take up arms. Its acts of violence are beginning to spread outside the borders of Somalia.

Al Shabaab, an Al Qaida (AQ) affiliated, militant Islamic organization will remain the largest threat to the stability of Somalia. Starting as a national movement

The Al-Shabaab is regarded as one of the most dangerous African terrorist organizations. Al-Shabaab is a multiethnic militant group out of Somalia that uses many terrorist tactics in attempts to gain control over the country of Somalia. They use many forms of terrorism that include ideological revolutionary, dissident, and nationalist terrorism, as they have the motive to gain power over a territory by overthrowing the government. The Al-Shabaab is suspected to have taken part in many terrorist attacks, including the 1998 United States embassies bombings. The motive behind their violence is their goal of creating an Islamic state in Somalia, which they believe is morally justified by the ideological beliefs. An important psychological

Emergent Counterfeit Materiel Stock Screenings (IPV): The IPV Support Team identified 84 (DLA 79, Commercial 5) unique NSNs that support 348 IPV bin locations as potential counterfeit materiel. Troop Support (TS) is coordinating with Lockheed Martin to provide sourcing data on the commercially supported items but TS has not instructed Lockheed Martin to remove most of the materiel from the bins to date. One item identified as a Critical Safety Item (CSI) is removed from all locations and is in quality hold at the LDC pending further guidance from TS. Customers are able to continue using the other 83 suspect NSNs while TS makes a final determination. POC: Brenda

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, more commonly known as Al-Shabaab is a Somali jihadist terrorist group. The group started as the militant wing of the Somali Council of Islamic Court that took control over Somalia’s southern area in late 2006. The group was soon overcome by Ethiopian and Somali forces, but continued with its violence. Al-Shabaab recruited regional sub-clans and their militias. This group pledged allegiance to the well known Islamic militant organization Al-Qaeda in the year 2012.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Jayshree Bajoria and Greg Bruno examine Al Qaeda as an international terrorist network that seeks to free Muslim countries of profane influence, and replace governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Originating back to around 1988, Al Qaeda grew out of a Service Office, run by Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam. The Services Office would recruit international Muslims from more than fifty countries, training, and financing them into foreign mujahedeen and holy warriors. Although Al Qaeda does not operate at a single headquarters, the bases of all operations are constructed either within Afghanistan, Pakistan or along the boarder (par. 2, 3, 4). Known as one of the most notorious terrorist groups in the world, Al Qaeda is considered a terrorist group because of their ideologues and goals, along with their extreme use of violence.

With a consistent, grassroots based message and “unable to match AMISOM’s military superiority” (Anzalone, 2013, p. 13), al-Shabaab has waged a guerilla style war against AMISOM, Kenya and other interfering governments. Pushed out of Mogadishu and having lost much of its territory in the south and west Somalia, al-Shabaab has made several attempts, some successful, at instituting governance in previously ungoverned areas of Somalia. A series of al-Shabaab media releases depict life under insurgent rule as stable with many civilians expressing their happiness with al-Shabaab rule as well as “concern over the return of foreign troops and their Somali lackeys” (Anzalone, 2013, p. 15). As Christopher Anzalone (2016) notes, “this domestic focus has contributed to a pragmatic battlefield strategy of classic guerilla warfare interspersed with high-profile, well-coordinated attacks on “soft targets,” such as hotels and restaurants, in the Somali capital of Mogadishu” (p. 13) and

Al-Shabaab is an extremist group that was founded in 2006 after the overthrow of the Islamic Court Union. Since the groups establishment they continue to inflict carnage in its home country of Somalia. Somalia, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has seen a number of radical Islamist groups come and go in its decades-long political upheaval. Al-Shabaab is the latest group that is terrorizing the region. Al-Shabaab is associated with a number of terrorist attacks that’s resulted in the death of a number of influential personnel in the region. It is currently unclear the exact size of Al-Shabaab, but it is estimated that the group has between 7,000 to 9,000 active members. The group is suspect of having ties with Al-Qaeda and looks to establish an Islamist emirate in Somalia. This brief discussion looks at how Al-Shabaab is threats, structure and funding.

Al Qaeda is a global militant Islamist organization that was created by Osama Bin Laden and a few other militant men in the late 1980s. From its beginning, Al Qaeda was dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence. The name translates to “the Base of Operation” (Burke 18) and has been headquartered in numerous nations including Afghanistan, Sudan, and Pakistan since the early 1990s. There is some debate about a current headquarters but most intelligence personnel think the organization operates from numerous satellite locations across the Middle East and Africa. Al-Qaeda functions like a venture capital firm. It provides funding, contacts, and advice to smaller, Islamic militant groups under its umbrella (Burke 18).

Heightened attention is paid to terrorism since September 11, 2001 terror attacks on World Trade Center and the Pentagon by Al Qaeda terror network. The act of terror and terrorist groups however have existed for centuries. Terrorism as Ted Gur would explain is a tactic used by the weak to intimate the strong and by the strong to intimidate the weak (Gur in White, 2002, p.205). It is believed that when a group resorts to terror against its own citizens or another state, it is admittance that they do not have the power or strength to deal with the issue therefore results to use of violence, such as guerilla or unconventional warfare, to challenge the legitimacy or in Weber’s term legitimate, violence” (Couto 2010, P. 68). Irish Republican Army in the 1960s and 70s carried out various terrorist act in their demand for British withdrawal and unification of Ireland. They strategically attacked pubs, town centers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They also was involved in international terrorism because they strategically carried out attacks in England. Likewise, Palestinian Liberation Organization whose aim was to liberate Palestinians through arm struggle carried out terrorist activities in Israel, and against Israelis in Munich Olympics (Cristie, 2011).

3. (U) History. Al-Shabaab’s origins are linked back to the 1990s when a militant Salafist group called al-Itihad al-Islami (AIAI) was the opposition against Somali troops during the country’s civil war. Several of the younger members eventually left AIAI to join another organization called the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU started as an unsecured array of Sharia courts. By late-2006, the ICU had developed toward an influential Islamic militia that held control over the large majority of Southern Somalia. Al-Shabaab was the extremist wing within the ICU (Royce, 2013).

Terrorism security threats have covered the whole continent; East Africa is another epicenter of terrorism on African continent. For two decades, Somalia never had a national wide accepted leadership. The civil war in Somalia fueled by religious extremism has captured the attention of the African Union and the international community in general. The terror upsurge in Somalia greatly affected neighboring counties such as Kenya and Ethiopia and eventually forced those states involve in conflict. Al Shabab, a Somalia based terrorist organization not only undermined Somalia security but also terrorized the East African region. In July 2010, Al Shabab suicide bombers killed 73 people in Uganda (BBC News, 2010 Jul 12). This terror group with its Pilates, restricted freedom of movement in international waters of Indian Ocean and claimed lives of many innocent travelers. The United States categorized Ugandan and Rwandan armed rebel groups known as the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) and the Front Democratiqe pour Liberation Rwandes (FDLR) respectively as terrorist organizations because of their role in instability of the Great Lakes