| Al-Qaeda involvement in Africa | |||||||
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| Part of the War on Terror | |||||||
 Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (formerly GSPC) area of operations | |||||||
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|  Al-Qaeda | ||||||
Al-Qaeda has conducted operations and recruited members in Africa. It has included a number of bombing attacks in North Africa and supporting parties in civil wars in Eritrea and Somalia. From 1991 to 1996, Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were based in Sudan.
An insurgency is being waged by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (which is called today as the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb) against the Government of Algeria. It is a spin-off to the Algerian Civil War that ended in 2002, and has been linked to bombings in Algiers, Batna and Dellys in 2007.
The group has declared its intention to attack Algerian, French, American and Spanish targets. It has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State, and similarly classed as a terrorist organization by the European Union.
As soon as the allied Somali and Ethiopian forces drove the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) out of Somalia in January 2007, U.S. accused Eritrea of providing safe haven for some of their leadership. [1] America also condemned Eritrea since it continued to "fund, arm, train and advise the insurgents" attacking the Somalia government. [2] [3] According to a regional Somali government, some Eritrean soldiers were also sighted working with Arab and al-Qaeda fighters against the Somali government, and the foreign alliance attacked government positions. [4]
In 2007 there were reports that the Eritrean government is sheltering the leadership of the insurgency in Somalia. [5] The United Nations continued to report of Eritrean assistance to Somalis with alleged links to al-Qaeda. Accordingly, the UN Security Council said that Eritrea has secretly supplied "huge quantities of arms" to a Somali insurgent group with alleged ties to al Qaeda, in violation of an international arms embargo and despite the deployment of African peacekeepers" adding that it has been "provided to the al-Shabaab (an extremist group which emerged within the ICU’s armed forces and is led by a kinsman and protégé of the ICU council leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, Aden Hashi Farah "Eyrow", who trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda before returning to Somalia after 9/11 [6] ) by and through Eritrea" since December 2006. [7] Sheikh Aweys himself and other members of the Islamic Courts Union who are wanted by the U.S. over suspected links to al-Qaeda (the UN has Sheikh Aweys on a list of individuals "belonging to or associated with" al Qaeda, which he denies [8] ) organized a congress in Eritrea to strengthen their militant opposition to the Somalia transitional government. [9] In 2017, United Nations experts wrote: "Given that the Monitoring Group has been unable to find conclusive evidence of Eritrean support for Al-Shabaab in Somalia for four consecutive mandates, the Group recommends that the Security Council consider disassociating the sanction regimes for Eritrea and Somalia.”
In 2002 another successful terrorist attack in Kenya after the U.S. embassy bombing, a car bomb attack on a Mombasa resort hotel popular among Israeli tourists claimed the lives of 15 people. The hotel bombing occurred 20 minutes after a failed attack on an airplane, when a terrorist fired an SA-7 man-portable air-defense system against an Israeli airliner carrying 261 passengers, which was taking off from the airport; the missile seemingly failed to track its target, nor did it detonate, and landed in an empty field.
On 3 November 2007, al-Zawahiri claimed in a 28-minute recording posted on an Islamic website that "... members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group announce that they are joining the al-Qaeda group ..." According to Al Jazeera, Abu al-Laith appeared to be the leader of the new Libyan wing. Fighting Islamic Group first announced its presence in 1995, vowing to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader. In 2001, the group was added to a UN list of individuals and institutions "belonging to, or associated with, al-Qaeda". [10]
Abdelhakim Belhadj, a prominent rebel commander during the 2011 Libyan civil war, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore admit that many of his recruits had al-Qaeda links. [11] One of the major factions within the Libyan National Liberation Army was the Libyan Islamic Movement. The group, formerly known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is well known to have had links to Maghreb faction of al-Qaeda.
On 1 November 2011, less than a month after the death of Muammar Gaddafi, the al-Qaeda flag was seen flying off the roof of a courthouse in Benghazi's city center. [12]
The extent of al-Qaeda's involvement is not yet known. Concerns have been voiced about what role MI6 played in collaborating with the Libyan Islamic Movement. [13] The White House Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said "I'm concerned about what is going on inside of Libya because there's been a fair amount of disorder and upheaval in the country", "The weapons stock piles - whether we're talking about missile systems or we're talking about automatic weapons - these are things that we and our European allies are working very closely with the TNC [Transitional National Council] and Libyan authorities to get some control over. It's a big country, there were a lot of weapons depots that were scattered throughout the country and we're working again with the TNC and Europeans as well as the regional states. [...] (we are) very concerned about making sure that we do everything possible to prevent al-Qaeda from acquiring these weapons and threatening them.". [14]
In February 2012, al-Shabaab officially pledged loyalty to Al-Qaeda. In an audio message to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Shabaab leader said: "On behalf of the soldiers and the commanders in al-Shabaab, we pledge allegiance to you. So lead us to the path of jihad and martyrdom that was drawn by our imam, the martyr Osama." [15]
Activities of al-Qaeda in Somalia are alleged to have begun as early as 1992. [16] The organization's role during the course of the 1992–1994 UN missions was limited to a handful of trainers. Ali Mohamed and other al-Qaeda members purportedly trained forces loyal to fraction leader Mohammed Farah Aidid. [17] Osama bin Laden himself claimed in an interview with ABC's John Miller to have sent al-Qaeda operatives to Somalia. One of the al-Qaeda fighters present during the interview claimed to have personally slit the throats of three American soldiers in Somalia. [18] Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down , states the terrorist organization did train some of Aidid's men, but they were not personally part of the fight with US forces in the 1993 battle of Mogadishu. [19]
Al-Qaeda was also linked to militant Islamic Courts Union (ICU) front in Somalia. It is believed several terrorist attacks were orchestrated from Ras Kamboni, in the extreme southern tip of Somalia adjacent to Kenya, including the 1998 United States embassy bombings and the 2002 Mombasa hotel bombing. [20] On June 22, 2006, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer announced the U.S. was seeking the assistance of the ICU in the apprehension of suspects who carried out attacks against its East African embassies and a hotel in Kenya. She listed the following persons as suspected of being in Somalia (name and nationality): Fazul Abdullah Mohamed (Comoros), Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan (Kenya), and Abu Taha al-Sudan (Sudan). When the ICU did not cooperate, the U.S. first financed the rival factions, and then followed with limited air strikes as the ICU rule in Mogadishu fell in the face of Ethiopian Army assault. The Pentagon said a high level al-Qaeda member from the ICU was captured in Somalia and transferred to the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. [21] [22]
After the dissolution of the ICU, Al-Qaeda reportedly established strong ties with the Al-Shabaab splinter group. [23]
In September 2009, it is thought that the Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed during a military raid in Somalia. He was a top Al-Qaeda suspect and was thought to be responsible for attacks on a hotel in Kenya and on an Israeli airliner in 2002. [24] [25]
In 1991, Sudan's National Islamic Front, an Islamist group that had recently gained power, invited al-Qaeda to move operations to Sudan. [26] For several years, al-Qaeda operated several businesses (including import/export, farm, and construction firms) in what might be considered a period of financial consolidation. The group built a major 1200-km (845-mi) highway connecting the capital Khartoum with Port Sudan. [27] However, they also ran a number of camps where they trained operatives in the use of firearms and explosives.
In 1996, Osama bin Laden was asked to leave Sudan after the United States put the regime under extreme pressure to expel him, citing possible connections to the 1994 attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak while his motorcade was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.[ citation needed ]
Osama bin Laden finally left Sudan in a well-executed operation, arriving at Jalalabad, Afghanistan by air in late 1996 with over 200 of his supporters and their families.
Al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian, economic and military targets of America and its allies; such as the USS Cole bombing, 1998 US embassy bombings and the September 11 attacks. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by NATO, UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was a Comorian-Kenyan member of al-Qaeda, and the leader of its presence in East Africa. Mohammed was born in Moroni, Comoros Islands and had Kenyan as well as Comorian citizenship. He spoke French, Swahili, Arabic, English, and Comorian.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys (English: Hassan Dahir Aweys (Somali: Xasan Daahir Aweys, is a Somali political figure from the Habargidir/Ayr subclan within the Hawiye clan. During the regime of Siad Barre, Aweys was a colonel in the Somali National Army during the 1977 Ogaden War against Ethiopia. He was decorated for bravery for his part in 1977 the war.
The Ethiopian Occupation of Somalia, also called the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia or the Ethiopian intervention in the Somali Civil War, was a conflict largely involving Ethiopian forces and the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), supplemented by troops from Puntland. The initial weeks of the conflict focused on deposing the Somali Islamist group, the Islamic Court Union (ICU), but the hardline militant group Al-Shabaab soon took center stage as an insurgency intensified in the wake of the ICU's collapse.
The 2006 Islamic Courts Union offensive is the period in the Somali Civil War that began in May 2006 with the Islamic Courts Union's (ICU) conquest of Mogadishu from the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) and continued with further ICU expansion in the country. Following the outbreak of the war on December 21, 2006; by December 24, direct Ethiopian intervention in the conflict in support of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was no longer denied by the Ethiopian government. The Eritrean government denied any involvement despite Ethiopian claims to the contrary.
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly known as al-Shabaab, is a Sunni Islamist military and political organization based in Somalia and active elsewhere in East Africa. It is actively involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War and incorporates elements of Somali nationalism into its Islamist cause. Allegiant to the militant pan-Islamist organization al-Qaeda since 2012, it has also been suspected of forging ties with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Sheikh Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki was a Somali Islamist leader of al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI) and later of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).
Aden Hashi Farah Aero was the military commander of the Al Shabaab. He was from the Ayr sub-clan, part of the Habar Gidir, which is a branch of the Hawiye clan. He was reportedly married to Halima Abdi Issa Yusuf. He was among several militants killed in a U.S. airstrike on 1 May 2008.
Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA) is a component of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) is the primary military component assigned to accomplish the objectives of the mission. The naval components are the multinational Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) and Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) which operates under the direction of the United States Fifth Fleet. Both of these organizations have been historically part of United States Central Command. In February 2007, United States President George W. Bush announced the establishment of the United States Africa Command which took over all of the area of operations of CJTF-HOA in October 2008.
Yusuf Mohammed Siad Indhacade, aka "Inda'ade" was a Somali and former Minister. In 2011 he was a General in the Somali National Army. He hails from the Ayr sub-clan, part of the Habar Gidir, which is a branch of the Hawiye clan. For a short period he was Somali Minister of Defence (Somalia).
Abu Talha al-Sudani, was a Sudanese member of Al Qaeda terrorist organization, an explosives expert and a close aide Osama bin Laden.
The timeline of events in the War in Somalia during 2007 is set out below.
The Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) was political party formed in Eritrea during September 2007 as the successor to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). It served as the principal political opposition to the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG). The organization would also participate in the 2007 and 2008 years of the insurgency during the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia.
The Somali Civil War (2009–present) is the ongoing phase of the Somali Civil War which is concentrated in southern and central Somalia. It began in late January 2009 with the conflict mainly between the forces of the Federal Government of Somalia assisted by African Union peacekeeping troops and al-Qaeda aligned al-Shabaab militants.
The Battle of Mogadishu (2009) started in May with an Islamist offensive, when rebels from al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam attacked and captured government bases in the capital of Mogadishu. The fighting soon spread, causing hundreds of casualties, and continued on at various levels of intensity until October. The battle's name usually includes the year, when referenced, in order to distinguish it amongst the nine major Battles of Mogadishu during the decades long Somali Civil War.
A series of battles in Hiraan, Shabeellaha Dhexe and Galgudug, between rebels of al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam and Somali government forces and ICU militants loyal to the government, erupted during spring 2009. The fighting led to al-Shabaab capturing major government strongholds and Ethiopian forces re-entering Somalia and setting up bases in Hiraan. There was a halt in fighting during a government offensive in Mogadishu, which started on May 22.
Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubair, was the Emir (leader) of Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group based in Somalia with ties to Al Qaeda. Godane, who received training and fought in Afghanistan, was designated by the United States as a terrorist. The exact date of Godane's rise to al-Shabaab's Emir is debated, although it seems he ascended to this position in December 2007. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike on 1 September 2014 in southern Somalia.
The War on Terror is the campaign launched by the United States of America in response to the September 11 attacks against organizations designated with terrorism. The campaign, whose stated objective was eliminating international terrorism, began in 2001. The following is a timeline of events linked to the War on Terror.
This article contains a timeline of events for the Somali jihadist group al-Shabaab.
al-Qaeda has five distinct phases in its development: its beginnings in the late 1980s, a "wilderness" period in 1990–1996, its "heyday" in 1996–2001, a network period from 2001 to 2005, and a period of fragmentation from 2005 to 2009.
