Burundi, Amisom, and al Shabaab

There is an interesting piece at BBC by Rachael Akidi that looks at the participation by East African leaders in the struggle against violent jihad in partnership with the West and it’s bearing on the degree to which democratic term limits are, in turn, emphasized or not by the West.  Akidi mainly cites the Ugandan case where she asserts that president Yoweri Museveni used participation in African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) and the fight against al Shabaab there as a way to restore support from the West he had lost when he refused to step down after his constitutional second term in office.

Freefire blog has early and yet unconfirmed intelligence that Burundi will be pulling out of Amisom.  Akidi  raised the question of timing with the back drop of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza’s recent press conference on the al Shabaab threat awkwardly held after an attempted coup for which reporters were more interested in asking about.

The casual observer is in their rights to be suspicious of the timing but beyond the politics, Freefire blog is concerned with the security issues and al Shabaab is not a fictitious issue for Burundi.  Burundian soldiers have suffered major losses to al Shabaab in Somalia.  Al Shabaab has made threats to all countries participating in Amisom.

What is less clear is al Shabaab’s current capability to strike Burundi.  There are early signs of of an increasing capability for staging from Tanzania.  One could also speculate that the Islamist rebel leader of the ADF, Sheik Jimil Mukulu, who was recently captured in Tanzania could not have made it that far south from where his forces were routed in Congo near the DRC/ Uganda border without networks and resources in DRC, Rwanda, or Burundi.   That would be significant because ADF is al Shabaab’s client and partner in Uganda and was believed to have helped facilitate the 2010 al Shabaab bombing in Kampala.  Mukulu was a companion of Osama Bin Laden and he was Bin Laden’s choice for spreading jihad in Uganda and Congo.

If true, the idea of Pierre Nkurunziza pulling out of Amisom does not really fit Akidi’s model of alienating the West and then winning them back by fighting terror.  As far as al Shabaab attacking Burundi goes, the intent is there.  The threats have been made.  The capability is yet unknown.