Somalia”s terrorist group Al Shabab executed 418 attacks of different types in the last six months, a local publication reported today.
Seventy percent of the actions from October 2017 to April 2018 of that organization allied to Al Kaeda were in the south of the country, 26 percent in this capital and four percent in neighboring Kenya, the main target of those militias after their country of origin.
Al Shabab’s targets are especially the local army (54 percent) and its main support force, the African Union Mission to the country (AMISOM, 28 percent), as well as government and civil facilities in Mogadishu and Nairobi.
The study reports 16 attacks in Kenya during the period, most of them in the border county of Mandera.
Al Shabab (‘young people’ in Arabic) emerged in 2006 as a radical wing of the former Council of Islamic Courts. In 2012, it was linked to Al Qaeda and now struggles to overthrow the government to impose a caliphate based on Islamic law or Sharia.
The group controls territories of the center and south of Somalia, from where it attacks civil and governmental installations that extend towards Kenya in retaliation because Nairobi’s army has been fighting its militias in Somali territory since 2011.
