Strategy of Somalia’s Islamists Survives Death of Militant Leader

Anti-terrorism officials in the Horn of Africa are on high alert following the killing of Shaykh Aden Hashi Ayro, the military leader of al-Shabaab, the youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia, in a May 1 strike by U.S. ship-launched Tomahawk missiles (SomaliNet, May 2; Daily Nation [Nairobi], May 2). Shaykh Ayro, trained in terrorist and insurgency methods in Afghanistan and believed to have been in his 30s, was killed in a house together with another five insurgents in the small central Somalia town of Dusamareb, 250 miles north of Mogadishu (al-Jazeera, May 2). Those killed included Ayro’s brother, another commander, Muhiyadin Muhammad Umar, and several other insurgents. At least a dozen civilians in neighboring houses were also killed by the missiles. Soon after the attack, Shaykh Muqtar Robow Adumansur, the group’s spokesman, vowed the group would retaliate, setting off an alert in the Horn of Africa: “This does not deter us from continuing our holy war against Allah’s enemy; we will be on the right way, that is why we are targeted” (The Standard [Nairobi], May 2). Thousands of people took to the streets of Dusamareb on May 4 to protest the attack (AFP, May 4). Anti-terrorism officials fear the insurgents in Somalia—who are alleged by the United States to have close links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network—could be planning to stage revenge attacks on American interests, especially in Kenya. In mid-April, two Kenyans and two British nationals were killed when the Islamists carried out overnight attacks in a school in central Somalia (Sunday Nation [Nairobi], May 4).The United States classifies al-Shabaab as a terrorist organization. Several months before the killing of Shaykh Ayro, its fighters intensified their daily attacks on Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is backed by Ethiopian army soldiers. These attacks yielded the control of substantial territories in central and southern more..http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2374150