As if to remind the United States —and the world— of the serious crisis still unfolding in the Horn of Africa, gunmen linked to the Islamist extremist al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab stormed a university in neighboring Kenya in early April, killing 147, after systematically determining which among the students were Christians.

It is the deadliest attack inside Kenya since the 1998 US embassy bombing carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden, and one that has many analysts worrying about the power of Islamic extremists in this impoverished corner of the world.

Somalia has been considered a failed state since the early 1990s. Armed opposition to the rule of longtime Marxist strongman Mohamed Siad Barre eventually exploded into civil war in 1986; the situation was exacerbated by food and fuel shortages and famine, which killed hundreds of thousands. The presence of UN and African Union peacekeepers has been largely unable to quell the ongoing violence between various warlords and armed factions.

The failed nation has proved to be fertile ground for hardline Islamist groups like the Islamic Courts Union —which briefly controlled southern Somalia before being driven out by Ethiopian troops— and al-Shabaab (“The Youth”), a jihadist group founded by Soviet-Afghan War veteran Aden Hashi Farah in 2006.

Though Farah was killed by a US airstrike in 2008 —a fate shared by many of al-Shabaab’s “emirs”— the movement continues on. While no longer at the height of its power, the group continues to control wide swaths of the countryside in Somalia’s south. Recent operations —including the Westgate shopping center attack in Nairobi in 2013— indicate that even a weakened al-Shabaab is extremely dangerous.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution’s Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, sees in al-Shabaab an increasingly dangerous and insidious threat.

“Compared to 2009, yes, Shabaab is weaker. But when I look at the issues in terms of security, it’s stagnating and at worst deteriorating,” she said.

Even though al-Shabaab no longer controls many major cities, Felbab-Brown said, the group’s influence is still widely felt. They control many small villages and roads and raise money by extorting travelers. Assassinations continue daily as al-Shabaab seeks to undermine confidence in the weak central government.

Asked about any potential links or similarities between a resurgent al-Shabaab and the more visible Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Felbab-Brown is quick to highlight their differences. While al-Shabaab and ISIS may share some superficial similarities, she says, the Somali group has more in common with the Taliban than the Islamic State. Afghanistan, like Somalia, is a deeply tribal society, and tribal affiliations give al-Shabaab the resources it needs to thrive. And like the Taliban, al-Shabaab practices a “politics of exclusion” meant to disempower certain clans and religious minorities, a practice that suggests a preoccupation with local politics, not global jihad.

While both al-Shabaab and ISIS operate like Islamic armies, their aims and ideologies are different. According to Felbab-Brown, al-Shabaab seems to limit its horizons to Somalia specifically. Unlike the Nigerian Boko Haram, the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah and the Filipino Abu Sayyaf, al-Shabaab has not pledged allegiance to ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and shows little enthusiasm for a unified caliphate in their propaganda videos.

“They are struggling with the relationship they have with ISIS and al-Qaeda,” Felbab-Brown said.

Though there is some fear that foreign fighters trained by al-Shabaab may launch attacks in the West, such instances are few and far between, with most international jihadis flocking to ISIS. The real danger of al-Shabaab, Felbab-Brown said, is the possibility that the group will extend its reach. From bases inside Somalia, the jihadi group has ready access to East African countries —many of them US allies— that have so far been spared from the scourge of Islamist violence. Western embassies might also find themselves targeted.

As al-Shabaab regroups, the international community seeking to rebuild Somalia faces new challenges. Beside Islamic extremists, the UN and AU must contend with widespread corruption, an unpopular leadership, militant separatist groups, Ethiopian and Kenyan proxy forces and an unstable economy. For its part, the US has limited its involvement in Somalia as of late. Though the United States occasionally conducts drone strikes against al-Shabaab, fear of upsetting the delicate peace process and killing civilians means that drones are used less liberally there than in Yemen and Pakistan.

Experts like Felbab-Brown are urging the international community to take a new approach: hold Somalia accountable for governmental failures, even if that means confronting allies. Such steps are needed, they say, if ordinary Somalis are to see the government as a legitimate alternative to al-Shabaab.

“They [al-Shabaab] are not good governors. But Somalis often choose between the lesser of two evils,” Felbab-Brown said.

From left, witnesses Seth G. Jones, Jonathan Schanzer and Juan C. Zarate testify before the Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing, part of the House Committee on Financial Services. (Tobias Burns/MEDILL)

As the number of terrorist groups around the world increases, so do the ways in which they’re raising money to fund their activities, experts say.

“The funding is more global and more diversified than ever before, and it’s interacting less with the financial system,” said Juan C. Zarate, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who spoke Wednesday at the first meeting of Congress’ Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing.

Funding for groups like al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and the Houthi in Yemen traditionally has come from wealthy donors and charitable organizations based in the Persian Gulf. U.S. counterterrorism officials within law enforcement and the Treasury Department have long had safeguards in place to identify those paper trails and trace their sources.

But with groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Boko Haram in Nigeria openly controlling large swaths of land, counterterrorism efforts in the U.S. now must account for a host of new revenue streams that are augmenting the more entrenched sources.

These include the oil trade, farming, taxation and antiquities smuggling in addition to the more established illicit trades of drug trafficking, bank robbery, and kidnapping and ransom.

As a result, counterterrorism experts are looking to the military for strategic and operational assistance in choking off terrorist funding.

“The military and counterterrorism are closer than ever before,” Zarate told the panel of about 20 members of the House Financial Services Committee. “These groups have grown more local in their ability to raise funds, so we have to dislodge them from territory if we want to starve them of funds.”

Also casting doubt on some of traditional U.S. allies within the region is the involvement of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in the oil trade, which accounts for around 30 percent of the militant group’s estimated $2 billion net worth.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said there are “trust issues” with Turkey in particular, which is thought to be one of the main consumers of the Islamic State’s stolen oil.

Speaking of a recent trip to the region, Lynch said, “When we confronted senior members of the Turkish government with aerial and satellite imagery of trucks crossing the border and selling oil in Turkey, there was serious denial.”

While oil and other territory-based revenue streams pose serious tactical questions for both lawmakers and the military, the task force acknowledged that they actually may be an indication of progress in the fight against terrorism.

“To an extent, we’re a victim of our own success,” Jonathan Schanzer, vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the task force. “We’ve been so effective at driving these groups out of the financial sector that they’re working more local and more underground.”

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Rep. Federica Wilson, (D) – Florida, is giving a speech Wednesday at the Capitol to remind people of the Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram one year ago. (Andersen Xia/MEDILL)

WASHINGTON — Marking the one-year anniversary of the abduction of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram, lawmakers spoke at the Capitol Wednesday. Two girls who escaped, along with some 50 others, attended the press conference. The House Foreign Affairs committee is considering funding to resettle some of the displaced people in the U.S., using some of millions of dollars seized by the United States from former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. The new Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said Tuesday in a statement that he cannot promise to find the remaining missing girls.

According to an article on vox.com, IS split from al-Qaida in early February of this year. Now, looking back at the way IS was able to gain strength in Iraq, it is easy to see where America’s counterterrorism strategy only gave IS an opportunity to expand. An article from The Hill says Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, pointed out how President Obama’s inaction in Syria led to further gains by ISIS in Iraq. His comments came just before reports of ISIS gaining control of a major military base in Syria, The Hill reported.

Washington’s failure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis in Syria under President Bashar al-Assad’s regime created a destabilized area, a perfect breeding ground for IS to gain support.

Peter Knoope, director of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in the Hague, Netherlands, explained that using non-violent counterterrorism tactics can actually be more beneficial than the way the U.S. looks to diminish the strength of terrorist groups. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, which is funded through the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a partnership of three institutions, focuses on preventing and countering violent extremism.

“Trying to understand why people feel attracted to violent extremist narratives and violent political action is an important strategic approach to counterterrorism,” Knoope said.

He explained that preventing the organization from gaining new members can reduce the size of the organization.

Knoope, a career diplomat who was posted as the head of mission to Afghanistan, said terrorist organizations can be looked at as a triangle, with the tip of the triangle being the main leadership. The “baseline” is where new people join, and by focusing counterterrorism efforts on understanding why young people join terrorist organizations, Knoope said, you can effectively shrink the triangle.

For example, the death of Osama bin-Laden in 2011 did not lead to the end of al-Qaida. Instead, it only provided the opportunity for a top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to rise up and take his place.

“In some cases decapitation of the triangle will only bring new leadership that is more aggressive, more military focused and more violent focused than the former leadership,” Knoope said.

He explained that we can see something similar happening in Nigeria with the Islamic group, Boko Haram. The death of leader, Mohammed Yusuf, only led to the rise of his more aggressive counterpart, Abubakar Shekau. With Shekau’s leadership, more Nigerians have been attracted to the organization.

IS growth in Iraq

In his book, “Globalization & Terrorism: The Migration of Dreams and Nightmares,” Jamal Nassar explained terrorism is often a reaction to injustice. Nassar, a political science professor at Illinois State University and authority on the Middle East, further explained that, “the terrorist often feels deprived of some rights or maltreated…”

Iraq was controlled on and off by a Sunni regime until Saddam Hussein’s government fell in 2003. In 2006, Nouri al-Maliki was appointed as prime minister – meaning a formerly Sunni-led state transitioned to a Shiite-led state.

A 2011 Pew Research poll found 51 percent of Iraqi Muslims identify as Shia and 42 percent identify as Sunni.

The transition left many Sunnis dissatisfied with the central government in Baghdad. In June, Iraqi pollster, Munqith al-Dagher, said IS is benefiting from Sunni dissatisfaction because they see the government depriving them of their rights and aligning too closely with the Shia-led state of Iran.

This goes along with Knoope’s explanation of why people join terrorist groups:

• Feeling like an outsider
• Being unaccepted in their environment
• A collective search for identity
• Lack of political influence

“Somebody comes along and tells that person you can be a somebody and have an important impact on a very important environment,” by joining a terrorist group, Knoope said.

Non-violent counter terrorism strategies, Knoope said, begin with knowing what’s going on in the community and who’s framing the dialogue to attract new members in religious or political terms.

From there, states can respond by helping to offer solutions for meeting those needs.