Al Shabaab Leaders Targeted in US Airstrike

On July 16, a US drone strike killed over thirty members of Al Shabaab near the town of Bardhere in the southern Gedo region of Somalia. Among the dead were two commanders, Ismael Jamhad and Jama Dere.

Kenyan Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka originally stated that the strike killed Mohammed Kuno (alias Gamadheere), the mastermind of Al Shabaab’s April massacre at the Garissa University in Kenya. He has since retracted his statement, saying he had mistakenly believed that the name Jama Dere referred to Gamadheere.

The US has been targeting Al Shabaab leadership for months. In January, Yusef Dheeq, the “chief of external operations and planning for intelligence and security” was killed. In March, a strike targeted Adan Garar, who helped plan the Westgate mall attack that left 67 people dead. Last year, a number of top officials died in airstrikes, including the group’s leader Ahmed Godane last September.

Al Shabaab is an Al Qaeda-affiliated group fighting in Somalia to install an Islamist regime. Al Shabaab was previously part of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which ruled most of Somalia under Sharia law until it was ousted by Transitional Federal Government, backed by Ethiopian troops.

Al Shabaab has a decentralized structure, comprised of many different clans and networks that operate somewhat independently within the overarching structure of the organization. Research suggests that organizations like Al Shabaab, which do not rely on a strict hierarchical chain of command, are difficult to destroy with decapitation of leadership because their fluid nature allows them to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. As a matter of fact, Al Shabaab has recently shown signs of a resurgence in southern and western Somalia. Just this month, the group has seized five different military bases and towns after troops from African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) fled, and they appear to be slowly acquiring territory near the capital of Mogadishu. In late June, three Al Shabaab units coordinated a deadly attack on an AMISOM base in Leego manned by Burundian soldiers. That attack followed up the group’s threat in May to target foreign nations with a military presence in Somalia.

As evidenced by the present resurgence in Al Shabaab activity and violence, airstrikes are effective in decapitating leadership but do not successfully destroy decentralized terrorist organizations. They cannot be considered a counterterrorism strategy on their own; instead, they need to be immediately followed up by attacks on the ground. Without direct intervention, Al Shabaab will be impossible to destroy.