WASHINGTON — In the wake of the deadly mall shooting in Nairobi, Kenya, last month, experts told the House Committee of Foreign Affairs Thursday that al-Shabab, the militant group responsible for the tragedy, poses a credible, and increasingly dangerous, threat to the U.S.
More than 70 were killed and 200 injured during the attack at the Westgate Nairobi mall on Sept. 21.
Seth Jones, associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center, told the committee that al-Shabab should be perceived as a significant terrorist threat to the U.S. and other countries because it is capable of mounting significant operations abroad.
He said that mall attack was a “stark reminder that this Somalia-based group and al-Qaida affiliate remains lethal.”
Recruitment of vulnerable youth
Mohamed Farah, executive director of a Somali-American youth organization – Ka Joog – said that the top issue that the U.S. should deal with regarding al-Shabab is the recruitment of American youth in personal meetings and through social media sites like Twitter.
He said disenfranchised, uneducated youth are targeted. There now have been a number of American recruits eventually traveling to Somalia to become suicide bombers for the group, he said.
Ironically, al-Shabab translates to “youth” in Arabic.
“Sure, any of us sitting here would not dream of strapping explosives on let alone fight along side extremists for whatever glorified cause,” Farah said. “But why? Because we have all been educated, well-educated, to understand that our human potential is worth far more than an explosive vest and that our human purpose transcends the agenda of extremists.”
Farah said Somalia’s government should do more to protect its youth and “illuminate the cancerous ideology” of al-Shabab.
“We have to treat al-Shabab like a gang, that’s what they are,” Farah said.
Turning a profit
Al-Shabab seems to be getting its funding from kidnapping and charcoal smuggling, Jones said.
“Kidnapping can be quite profitable,” he said.
Richard Downie, deputy director of the Africa program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at johns Hopkins University, added that the group is not only profitable but extremely dangerous.
“Whether this attack involves al-Qaida funding or blessing of al-Qaida I certainly am not aware of that,” Downie said. “But certainly the two groups have been moving closer together.”
Don Borelli, former FBI official and chief operations officer of The Soufan Group, emphasized the impeding threat of al-Shabab.
“Their intention is to fight more abroad, but with the fear of the global Jihad mentality, the fear is that they could be turned to come back here,” Borelli said.
Borelli, using al-Qaida as a model of a terrorist organization whose strength ebbed and flowed but eventually changed to become the number one terrorist enemy of the U.S., said that al-Shabab could also “morph and become more of a global threat than it is now.”
