Speaking to a crowd in Ufurow district in the Bakool region, Mahad Omar Abdikarin, Shabaab’s governor for the Bay and Bakool regions in southwestern Somalia, recently announced that the al-Qaeda-backed group will attack Puntland, the semi-autonomous state, and the breakaway republic of Somaliland. Abdikarin is a prominent leader who has publicly flaunted Shabaab’s link with al Qaeda and has urged foreign fighters to flock to Somalia.

Having consolidated its power in the Deep South along the Kenyan border, Shabaab has launched a terror offensive in the northern self-declared state of Puntland. It is a Mexican drug gang-style campaign, with an aggressive string of targeted assassinations and low profile bombings in a Somali region that had been relatively safe and prosperous.

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