UN: Al-Shabab remains ‘potent threat’ in Somalia and region

Al-Shabab extremists in Somalia remain “a potent threat” to regional peace and are w manufacturing home-me explosives, expanding ir revenue sources and infiltrating government institutions, U.N. experts say. panel of experts’ report to Security Council, circulated Tuesday, said a significant escalation of U.S. airstrikes targeting al-Shabab militants and leers has kept al-Qaida-linked group “off-balance” but has h “little effect on its ability to launch regular asymmetric attacks throughout Somalia.”

report said al-Shabab’s assault on Jan. 15 on a commercial business complex in Nairobi, Kenya, containing DusitD2 Hotel “illustrates danger group continues to pose to regional peace and security.” That attack killed 21 people as well as four gunmen.

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experts also cited “an unprecedented number” of attacks across Kenya-Somalia border by al-Shabab in June and July, “possibly in an effort to exploit strained relations between two countries.”

panel, which monitors sanctions against Somalia, also reported on arrest last Dec. 17 of a Somali national linked to Islamic State extremist group in Bari, Italy, in connection with a planned attack on Vatican and or targets to coincide with Christmas celebrations.

experts said plot by Omar Moshin Ibrahim, also kwn as Anas Khalil, to plant a bomb in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Christmas Day “was rudimentary and h little chance of success.” Intercepted communications indicated Ibrahim devised plan on his own and was t directly tasked by Islamic State operatives outside country, panel said.

Still, Vatican plan was first instance in which Islamic State elements in Somalia “were directly linked to an attempted terrorist attack outside country,” it said.

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After three deces of civil war, extremist attacks and famine, Somalia established a functioning transitional government in 2012 and has since been working to rebuild stability. But U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said it must still tackle violent extremism, terrorism, armed conflict, political instability and corruption.

panel stressed that while an African Union peacekeeping mission and Somali army hold majority of urban centers in Somalia, “al-Shabab maintains direct control or influence over vast swaths of hinterland and is able to cut off main supply routes” and isolate government pockets.

experts said that for first time y obtained “definitive evidence that al-Shabab has been manufacturing home-me explosives since at least July 20, 2017,” based on post-blast analyses carried out by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. data established that al-Shabab carried out at least 11 attacks with improvised explosive devices in Somalia using home-me explosives, y said.

Al-Shabab previously relied on military gre explosives, obtained mainly from remnants of war and munitions captured from AU peacekeeping mission, experts said.

“ manufacture of home-me explosives means that group may w have access to far more reily available inputs for construction of such devices,” y said.

During past year, panel ted, al-Shabab carried out “an unprecedented number of improvised explosive device attacks.” It said al-Shabab used improvised explosive devices to kill and injure civilians in restaurants, marketplaces, camps for displaced people, shopping centers, government offices and hotels.

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experts said al-Shabab’s infiltration of government institutions reached office of Mogishu’s mayor on July 24, when a female suicide bomber blew herself up and killed at least 10 people, including Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman and three district commissioners.

Al-Shabab said afterward that its target h been new U.N. envoy to Somalia, James Swan, who h left office minutes earlier.

experts said it later emerged that suicide bomber h been employed at office since May 2018 under an assumed identity. y said an accomplice, also employed in office under a false name, was still being sought.

panel said money is t a limiting factor for al-Shabab, saying its “taxation” of all aspects of Somalia’s ecomy “is undiminished, and has likely expanded.”

experts cited preliminary evidence indicating al-Shabab has started taxing imports into port of Mogishu.

“ group also continues to take vant of virtually unregulated mobile money and domestic banking services to collect and transfer revenues throughout country,” report said.

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