al Shabaab Assassinates Ugandan Prosecutor of 2010 World Cup Bombing Case

Ugandan prosecutor Joan Kagezi was in her car with her children when men tailing her by motorcycle drove by and shot her twice.  She was the chief prosecutor in the al Shabaab case involving 13 men connected to the 2010 suicide bombing that killed 76 people who were watching the World Cup.  One American was killed by the al Shabaab attack.  The U.S. has recently shared intelligence with officials in Kampala about fears of an attack.  Security precautions are being taken for the coming Easter holiday.  Citizens are being warned to be vigilant and avoid large crowds.

It is important to understand that al Shabaab is almost always identified in media as ‘al Qaeda linked’ because of training by al Qaeda veterans who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as formal allegiance.  Al Shabaab represents the same threat as al Qaeda but more importantly, they are significant players in the global jihad movement for several reasons.  First, al Shabaab is wired in to al Qaeda’s networks across Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Asia.  Second, al Shabaab has been highly successful in recruiting from the United States and has threatened the U.S.  That means they have trained fighters with U.S. passports that can travel internationally.  Third, their North American training capability is useful to IS as well.  Finally, al Shabaab was the first group to receive and train the Boko Haram faction Ansaru which connects them to the most deadly jihadist sub-group in the world.

In a recent interview, CIA director, John Brennan, committed to the narrative created during the 2012 presidential campaign that this is the season of al Qaeda’s demise.  The interviewer, Chris Wallace pushed director Brennan on the question citing that groups like IS are symptoms of al Qaeda.  Wallace suggested that groups like IS are merely offshoots with different names and to pretend that tactical victories against ‘al Qaeda central’ meant an end to the threat of militant Islamists was misleading.   Further it ignores the connections, relationships, goals, and ideals that al Shabaab, IS, AQIM, AQAP, Boko Haram, and the Taliban all share with al Qaeda. Brennan did not use the opportunity to correct the record.

To downplay the threat of al Qaeda ‘central’ as being largely defeated is no comfort to the family of prosecutor Joan Kagezi.  Mrs. Kagezi fought terrorism as the head of Uganda’s directorate of public prosecution’s anti-terrorism and war crimes division.  The battle space in combating terrorism in East Africa is unique because of this specific type of attack.  Global jihadist groups hold territory nearby, recruit in, and conduct small attacks and assassinations within civil Western societies fighting to build judiciaries with rule of law to uphold Western values.  How would the U.S. administration understand and characterize Islamist jihadi threats if American prosecutors faced the same risks as our partners in Uganda and Kenya?