Sunni Islamist political and militant organization based in Somalia, formed in the mid-2000s as a youth militia within the Islamic Courts Union. It controls territory in south and southwestern Somalia, is allied with al-Qaeda, and has been designated a terrorist group by multiple countries. Active in the Somali Civil War, it has carried out high-fatality attacks and operates in neighboring East African countries.
CRIMENET has extracted 55 linkages for this organization, including 26 cooperative ties across 8 organizations, 12 conflicts across 4 organizations, 17 other connections and footprints in 8 countries.
Since 2013, Al-Shabaab has also established two external military units, on Godane's initiative: one, in Ethiopia, has struggled, but the other, in the Great Lakes region, has carried out several attacks in Kenya.
occasionally larger shipments from the Makran coast of Iran
Further defections in Al-Shabaab ranks occurred in the border region between Somalia and northern Kenya
our jihadists have arrived in Nigeria from Somalia where they received real training on warfare from our brethren
Most of those recruits are from East Africa – primarily Kenya, but also Tanzania and Uganda, all countries in which Al-Shabaab recruitment networks are well entrenched.
Non-Somali fighters have occasionally orchestrated high-profile Al-Shabaab attacks, notably the 2010 Kampala bombings and 2019 DusitD2 complex attack in Nairobi.
There was also evidence that the group had received funding from Somali residents in Britain.
In 2011, the House Committee on Homeland Security reported that more than 40 Muslim Americans and 20 Canadians had fought with Al-Shabaab, and that at least 15 of those volunteers had been killed in Somalia.