Despite the salience of terrorism in East Africa the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, al-Shabaab has not achieved its objective in over a decade now.
The group engages in terrorism because it frequently delivers desired responses (largely short-term and easily reversed by counter-terrorism operators).
However, there is no empirical evidence that these responses turned around into long-term sociopolitical success, confirming terrorism despite its salience is not a means to achieve sociopolitical and economic hegemony as desired by terrorists.
Strategic Intelligence CT Analysis team critically reviewed the Principal Strategic Logic of the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia along the border with Kenya and within the North Eastern Province in an effort to help Counter Terrorism units design better anti-terrorism policies and operations.
Al-Shabaab strategically calculates and assesses how Kenya and the civilian constituents in North Eastern Prefecture react to acts of terrorism.
The objective is always to identify vulnerabilities and exploit them as a means of challenging authority and subsequently make government components sensitive to civilian, security, and infrastructural losses and therefore likely make concessions in response to terrorism.
There are five principal strategic logics of al-Shabaab terrorist activities/campaigns in North Eastern Kenya and along the border with Somalia, namely attrition, intimidation, provocation, spoiling, and, outbidding.
Data on the nature and magnitude of terror attacks in NEP Kenya show the group considers the sociopolitical costs of violence in the area, largely factored by its civilian constituency characteristic (ethnoreligious characteristic).
The terror group has a broad yet vulnerable civilian constituency.
Notable is the low-scale attacks on this constituency’s social aspects (non-locals of non-Muslim faith), and this correlates with the scholarly view that terror groups with broad civilian constituencies select low-scale and casualty civilian targets to minimize public backlash.
1. In the strategy of attrition the terrorists persistently seek to persuade the local authority and the civilian constituency that they, ‘the terrorists’ are strong enough to impose considerable costs if the Government component in the area continues a particular policy and if the civilian constituency offers sociopolitical support to that government component subsequently eroding the partnership between Gov. and public.
2. Exploitation of the “strategy of intimidation” features convincing the Civilian constituency that the terrorists are strong enough to punish disobedience (Ref threatening civilians, preaching to civilians, constant sighting of terrorists in military uniform sporting heavy weapons in villages and town centers, etc. to create an atmosphere of dominance) and that the government is too weak to stop them so that people behave as the terrorists wish.
3. The Strategy of provocation attempts to induce the Government security teams and Counter Terrorism units to respond to terrorism with indiscriminate violence (arbitrary arrests of persons for bearing close semblance with the terror group’s ethnoreligious constituency, knee-jerk and non-proactive Counter Terrorism measures) which radicalizes the ethnoreligious constituency and moves them to support the terrorists.
4. The Strategy of ‘Spoiler Attack’ (targeting of contractors and their equipment, destruction of critical infrastructure such as communication masts in areas where the civilian constituency is moderate, attacking non-local-non-Muslims working for moderate businessmen) by Al-Shabaab in NEP and border areas are aimed to persuade both the Government component that the moderates on the terrorists’ side are weak and untrustworthy, thus undermining attempts to use these moderates to reach a peace settlement.
5. The ‘Strategy of Outbidding’ remains the most dangerous of all. Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen continues to orchestrate violence and fear to convince the civilian constituent in the general area and the country-public that the terrorists have greater resolve to fight government security forces further strengthening the terrorist’s grip on the local civilian constituent, national conversation on terrorism, and the psychological atmosphere in the area and nationally.
Counter Terrorism units should understand these strategies and how they are distinct from each other but relate in all aspects.
This understanding is crucial not only for understanding terrorism but also for designing effective counter-extremism and insurgency strategies.
