Sheik Hassan Yacquub Ali, Shabaab’s spokesman in Kismayo.

A senior leader of the radical Islamist group Shabaab in the southern city of Kismayo has welcomed Osama bin Laden’s call to overthrow the government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, and also said Shabaab would maintain its contacts with al Qaeda.

Sheik Hassan Yacquub Ali, the Information Minister for the Shabaab-controlled administration in Kismayo, said bin Laden’s latest message was proof that al Qaeda and other Islamist groups continue to support the Islamist groups in Somalia, Shabelle reported. Yacquub made the statements during a press conference in southern Somalia.

Bin Laden released an audiotape late last week where he urged Shabaab and other Islamist groups in Somalia to overthrow President Ahmed, who was described as an “infidel.” Bin Laden called Ahmed and other Muslim leaders cooperating with the West “the surrogates of our enemies” a who “must be removed by armed force.”

Yacquub also chastised Sheihk Hassan Dahir Aweys for rejecting bin Laden’s latest tape and said it was not helpful to oppose bin Laden’s message.

“Somalia knows [its] future and who can involve, but it is not something for Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda either,” Aweys reportedly told an Arabic television station last week. Aweys is the leader of the anti-government Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia-Eritrea and has direct links to al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda has devoted considerable propaganda resources to Somalia over the past two months. Bin Laden’s tape is the third message from al Qaeda’s senior leadership since Feb. 13.

Abu Yahya al Libi, a senior al Qaeda spokesman and religious and ideological leader, called for Somalis to fight the Ahmed government, in a video released on Feb. 13.

Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second in command, praised Shabaab for the capture of Baidoa, the former seat of the Transitional Federal Government parliament, during a videotape released at the end of February.

Shabaab’s longtime links to al Qaeda

The senior leaders of Shabaab have had close ties to al Qaeda for years, and Shabaab and its predecessor have been al Qaeda affiliates in all but name.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, Aden Hashi Ayro, and Hassan Turki have trained in al Qaeda camps during the 1990s.

Ayro was the leader of Shabaab before he was killed in a US airstrike on May 1, 2008. Turki continues to serve as a military commander and senior trainer for the terror group. Turki currently commands the Shabaab-linked Ras Kamboni Brigade, one of four groups in the Hizbul Islam alliance. Aweys, the former leader of the Islamic Courts, was identified by the US Department of State as a Specially Designated Global Terrorists in November 2001. Aweys participated in the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident in Mogadishu in 1993.

Shabaab spokesman and military commander Sheikh Mukhtar Robow admitted that many Shabaab leader have trained with and take instruction from al Qaeda. “Most of our leaders were trained in Al Qaeda camps,” Robow told The Los Angeles Times last August. “We get our tactics and guidelines from them,” he continued. “Many have spent time with Osama bin Laden.”

Robow admitted Shabaab formally seeks to merge with al Qaeda. “We are negotiating how we can unite into one,” Robow said, told The Los Angeles Times. “We will take our orders from Sheik Osama bin Laden because we are his students. Al Qaeda is the mother of the holy war in Somalia.”

Robow, Turki, Sheikh Yusuf Indha’adde, have appeared on al Qaeda propaganda tapes training and fighting with foreign fighters. Both Turki and Indha’adde admitted to foreign al Qaeda involvement in Somalia in the summer of 2006. Indha’adde served as the defense minister for the Islamic Courts prior to its fall in 2007 and is currently a Shabaab commander in Mogadishu.

Shabaab and the Islamic Courts have been sheltering of three senior al Qaeda operatives behind the 1998 attack on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, and Abu Taha al Sudani have sought shelter with both Shabaab and the Islamic Courts.

Fazul served as the intelligence chief for the Islamic Courts and is believed to hold the same portfolio for Shabaab. The US has targeted Fazul, Sudani, and Nabhan in multiple strikes in late 2007 and 2008. Sudani was killed during fighting in early 2007.

Recently, the US Treasury Department applied financial and travel sanctions on three top leaders of Shabaab. The sanctions target Shabaab founder and emir Ahmed Abdi Aw Mohamed, recruiter Issa Osman Issa, and Robow.

Al Qaeda has helped produced propaganda for the Islamic Courts and Shabaab and has even praised the group in its own propaganda tapes years ago. Osama bin Laden endorsed the Islamic Courts during a speech back in 2006. “We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Somalia and Sudan until we waste all your money and kill your men and you will return to your country in defeat as we defeated you before in Somalia,” bin Laden said.

In September of 2008, Shabaab formally reached out to al Qaeda’s senior leadership in an effort to better integrate with the network and its strategic nodes across Africa and the Middle East. The effort came in the form of a 24-minute video that featured Nabhan.

In the tape, Nabhan declared an oath of bayat (loyalty) on behalf of Shabaab to bin Laden and al Qaeda and encouraged fighters to train in Shabaab-run camps and participate in the fight against the transitional federal government, Ethiopian forces, and African Union peacekeepers.

The response to Shabaab’s declaration came on Nov. 19 when al Qaeda operations chief Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledged the group in a propaganda video by calling them “my brothers, the lions of Islam in Somalia.”

“(R)ejoice in victory and conquest,” Zawahiri said in an official transcript acquired by The Long War Journal, “and hold tightly to the truth for which you have given your lives, and don’t put down your weapons before the Mujahid state of Islam and Tawheed (oneness with god) has been set up in Somalia.”

For background on the Islamic Courts and their time in power, see The Rise & Fall of Somalia’s Islamic Courts: An Online History.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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