The Case of Faisal Shahzad

But even Hasan, who appears to have had closer ties to al-Awlaki, acted as a lone wolf and did not inform anyone of his intentions. In other words, despite some loose ideological affinity, the connection played no operational role in the attack, as the old apex leadership of al Qaeda prime did in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. What made Hasan an effective lone wolf was not his ideological connections, but his insider knowledge of a good location for an attack at Fort Hood, his professional and personal proficiency with small arms and an appropriate target selection commensurate with his skill.

Shahzad was more of a “Kramer” jihadist in the tradition of Richard Reid — an ultimately inept radicalized individual with no operational understanding of basic tradecraft, no self-awareness of that lack of skill and ambition to carry out an attack utterly beyond his capabilities. Shahzad’s skill set is strikingly similar to that of Najibullah Zazi or the Glasgow group — they were all failed bomb makers.
The ‘Walk-In’ Jihadist
About the only thing Shahzad brought to the table was the passport of a naturalized U.S. citizen and a willingness to carry out an attack on U.S. soil. However, that entails more problems than opportunities.

A militant group that U.S. and Pakistani intelligence are actively targeting has to be inherently skeptical of outsiders — especially if one shows up on their doorstep (as Shahzad did) with an offer that appears to be too good to be true. Any entity must balance operational security with the active pursuit of its goals and objectives. But the lack of tradecraft that Shahzad exhibited is only further evidence that if Shahzad interacted with the Pakistani Taliban meaningfully — and there is not yet much evidence either way about how far he made it up the chain of command during his visit – they did not help him attain any meaningful skills. Although subsequent events might have shown that the group — if it was behind the plot — missed a chance to strike at the U.S. homeland, the ensuing investigations and focus of both U.S. and Pakistani intelligence efforts will only make operational security all the more important and any Shahzad-like offers all the more difficult to trust.

Shahzad’s childhood in Pakistan afforded him both cultural and filial connections in the country. There are even reports that a childhood friend was behind the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. Childhood has little bearing on adult operational capability, though it did make it easier for Shahzad to travel outside Peshawar, where he once lived, and make contacts with innumerable individuals — some invariably with some degree of connection to the shadowy, amorphous world of the Pakistani Taliban and their local and transnational allies.

However, a naturalized U.S. citizen who had spent more than a decade in the United States — even one with some historical acquaintance among militants — is problematic. It is next to impossible for a jihadist group to have any confidence in the trustworthiness of an individual who walks in and volunteers in a scenario such as this. The potential for that individual to be a double agent is simply too high to meaningfully compromise operational security — especially as the United States and others are trying very hard to enhance their intelligence for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes in the region. The lack of tradecraft in Shahzad’s device is compelling evidence that whatever “contacts” or “training” he might have received in northern Pakistan was largely confined to physical training and weapons handling, not the far more sophisticated skill set of fashioning improvised explosive devices.

So whoever he did talk to in Pakistan — and the list of potentials is virtually endless for someone who grew up in the area — reveals almost nothing. More information may become available about whom he spoke with and what was discussed but there is no meaningful context for these conversations. Basic tradecraft and Shahzad’s Times Square device that make it clear that at most, the Pakistani Taliban sent a low-level representative to speak with him. It is unclear who provided the training, but it is reasonable to assume that he underwent basic guerilla training courses, but not advanced bomb-making courses. (Zazi received the bomb-making training but still failed in his attempt to attack New York’s subways because training without experience is insufficient.) However, the May 3 video of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakeemullah Mehsud claiming he had not been killed in a 2009 U.S. UAV strike probably gave the group an almost irresistible opportunity to claim credit for the May 1 attempted attack in the United States — even if it was an inept one — in order to bolster the larger movement’s standing (although the Pakistani Taliban is so fractious and diffuse, it can hardly be said that the claim was from “the group”).


Pakistani Taliban
The Pakistani Taliban is an outgrowth of the Afghan Taliban that Islamabad nurtured in the 1990s. The radical Islamist ideology and militant training that Pakistan (along with the United States and Saudi Arabia) had cultivated in Afghanistan during the 1980s war against the Soviets in order to consolidate control over the country eventually spilled back across the border. With a recent rise in attacks against Pakistani government targets, Islamabad began to grasp the implications and consequences of its existing policies. Consequently, in April 2009, it initiated an unprecedented counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the leading group in the amorphous and diffuse phenomenon that is the Pakistani Taliban (even though the TTP itself is fractious), certainly has had ambitions to attack the continental United States, a supporter of the regime in Islamabad that it opposes.

However, it is important to note that at its strongest, the TTP demonstrated the ability to strike at urban targets in Pakistan. It has never demonstrated the capability to strike far afield, much less on the opposite side of the world. Others, such as splinter factions of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Jihad al-Islami, have demonstrated that capability recently, but not the TTP. So while it has the intent, it has never had the capability to carry out an attack at that distance. The closest it has come to an international attack is the suicide bombing on the CIA facility in eastern Afghanistan across the border from the FATA, which for all intents and purposes should be considered a local operation given the close proximity and porous nature of the border. In that instance, the group got lucky in that the bomber had independent access to agency officials. And the ongoing campaign in FATA is only further pressuring the Pakistani Taliban. Facing both the Pakistani military and American UAV strikes, the group has seen its operational reach within Pakistan severely constrained. The idea that the group has sufficient capacity to plot and support a strike on the continental United States is increasingly far-fetched, despite its desire to do so. In any event, Shahzad’s actions were not only carried out ineptly by an untrained individual, but have no evidence of meaningful outside support.

So while there are links that should not be underestimated, the botched Times Square bombing is merely the latest in a now well-established trend of “grassroots” and “Kramer” jihadists. They absolutely pose a danger — and an ongoing one at that — but they must not be mistaken for the coherent, transnational phenomenon of al Qaeda 2.0.

Indonesia: Dismantling Another Militant Cell

Indonesian special counterterrorism forces carried out a raid in Central Java and arrested three suspected militants May 13. Authorities have not made a statement about the raid, but it likely is connected to a series of 15 or more raids that began at a camp operated by a new jihadist organization, Tanzim Al-Qaeda Serambi Mekkah, also called al Qaeda in Aceh (AQA).

Because the group has links to major figures from the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), AQA appears to be a splinter group formed by former JI operatives to re-establish their presence in Indonesia. However, Indonesia is a country where jihadist groups have never gained a significant following and where security forces consistently capture or kill militants.






Indonesian security forces led by the National Police counterterrorism unit Special Detachment 88 have conducted a series of raids targeting suspected militants throughout the country, mainly in northern Sumatra and near Jakarta, since Feb. 22. The Feb. 22 raid on an AQA camp near Banda Aceh provided a wealth of intelligence that led to more raids on associated militants. Of these raids — many of which resulted in firefights — the most notable occurred March 9 in Pamulang, when Dulmatin, a major Indonesian jihadist leader, was killed. Dulmatin and his associate Umar Patek (who is still being hunted) were both involved in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings associated with JI. The other raids have mostly occurred across the northern part of the island of Sumatra, where Aceh is located, but some have targeted locations in the Jakarta suburbs, the usual area of operations for Jemaah Islamiyah-linked militants.

JI has been divided since 2003, with factions disagreeing over the use of violence. The group faced a police crackdown as some of its leaders fled the country and created their own splinter groups. Dulmatin, an expert bomb maker, left for the Philippine island of Mindanao and trained militant groups there, while another leader, Noordin Top, formed Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad from Malaysia. It is not clear if Dulmatin was directly associated with Top’s group, but they were at the very least former associates and definitely agreed on using violence as a tactic.

Police pressure on these groups followed a series of bombings between 2003 and 2005. An intelligence break — possibly the result of the 2009 hotel bombings — resulted in Top’s death in September 2009. That began a roundup of associated militant operatives. Intelligence from the Top killing could very well have led to the AQA camp in Aceh, which in turn led to the raid in which Dulmatin was killed.

Tito Karnavian, Indonesia’s anti-terrorism police chief, claims Dulmatin is responsible for the new splinter group in Aceh. AQA — whose full name means “Organization of al Qaeda at the Window to Mecca,” since Aceh was the first part of Indonesia to convert to Islam — began making posts online claiming success in firefights against security forces and saying that they would continue to fight. The International Crisis Group speculated early on that AQA could have linked up with remnants of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). But now that GAM has a political stake in Aceh — it was given control of the territory’s government after a 2005 peace agreement — it would have little incentive to be involved in militant attacks. On March 9, the Aceh governor went as far as to call the new group “garbage sent from Java.” (Earlier jihadist groups operated on the island of Java rather than Sumatra.)

The devastation caused by the tsunami in 2004 and a change of government created the kind of instability in Indonesia that gave militants a safe haven for operations. These militant groups have been able to recruit and train enough members in Indonesia to carry out major attacks, but they have never been able to launch a broader movement. Jakarta’s aggressive policing, likely based on intelligence finds, has kept militant groups hunted and on the run and prevented jihadist groups from developing significant followings. Furthermore, as each new leader is captured or killed, militant groups lose experience needed for operational capability and charisma needed for recruitment, and thus are rendered less effective.

From Failed Bombings to Armed Jihadist Assaults

The most recent development is the interview with the American-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki that was released to jihadist Internet chat rooms May 23 by al-Malahim Media, the public relations arm of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). In the interview, al-Awlaki encouraged strikes against American civilians. He also has been tied to Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was charged in the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the perpetrator of the failed Christmas Day 2009 airline bombing. And al-Awlaki reportedly helped inspire Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested in connection with the attempted Times Square attack in May.

The second link in our chain is the failed Christmas Day and Times Square bombings themselves. They are the latest in a long string of failed or foiled bombing attacks directed against the United States that date back to before the 9/11 attacks and include the thwarted 1997 suicide bomb plot against a subway in New York, the thwarted December 1999 Millennium Bomb plot and numerous post-9/11 attacks such as Richard Reid’s December 2001 shoe-bomb attempt, the August 2004 plot to bomb the New York subway system and the May 2009 plot to bomb two Jewish targets in the Bronx and shoot down a military aircraft. Indeed, jihadists have not conducted a successful bombing attack inside the United States since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Getting a trained bombmaker into the United States has proved to be increasingly difficult for jihadist groups, and training a novice to make bombs has also been problematic as seen in the Shahzad and Najibullah Zazi cases.

The final link we’d like to consider are the calls in the past few months for jihadists to conduct simple attacks with readily available items. This call was first made by AQAP leader Nasir al-Wahayshi in October 2009 and then echoed by al Qaeda prime spokesman Adam Gadahn in March of 2010. In the Times Square case, Shahzad did use readily available items, but he lacked the ability to effectively fashion them into a viable explosive device.

When we look at all these links together, there is a very high probability that jihadists linked to, or inspired by, AQAP and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — and perhaps even al Shabaab — will attempt to conduct simple attacks with firearms in the near future.
Threats and Motives
In the May 23 al-Malahim interview (his first with AQAP), al-Awlaki not only said he was proud of the actions of Hasan and Abdulmutallab, whom he referred to as his students, but also encouraged other Muslims to follow the examples they set by their actions. When asked about the religious permissibility of an operation like Abdulmutallab’s, which could have killed innocent civilians, al-Awlaki told the interviewer that the term “civilian” was not really applicable to Islamic jurisprudence and that he preferred to use the terms combatants and non-combatants. He then continued by noting that “non-combatants are people who do not take part in the war” but that, in his opinion, “the American people in its entirety takes part in the war, because they elected this administration, and they finance this war.” In his final assessment, al-Awlaki said, “If the heroic mujahid brother Umar Farouk could have targeted hundreds of soldiers, that would have been wonderful. But we are talking about the realities of war,” meaning that in his final analysis, attacks against civilians were permissible under Islamic law. Indeed, he later noted, “Our unsettled account with America, in women and children alone, has exceeded one million. Those who would have been killed in the plane are a drop in the ocean.”

While this line of logic is nearly identical to that historically put forth by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the very significant difference is that al-Awlaki is a widely acknowledged Islamic scholar. He speaks with a religious authority that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri simply do not possess.

On May 2, the TTP released a video statement by Hakeemullah Mehsud in which Mehsud claimed credit for the failed Times Square attack. In the recording, which reportedly was taped in early April, Mehsud said that the time was approaching “when our fedayeen [suicide operatives] will attack the American states in their major cities.” He also said, “Our fedayeen have penetrated the terrorist America. We will give extremely painful blows to the fanatic America.”

While TTP leaders seem wont to brag and exaggerate (e.g., Baitullah Mehsud falsely claimed credit for the April 3, 2009, shooting at an immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y., which was actually committed by a mentally disturbed Vietnamese immigrant), there is ample reason to believe the claims made by the TTP regarding their contact with Shahzad. We can also deduce with some certainty that Mehsud and company have trained other men who have traveled (or returned) to the United States following that training. The same is likely true for AQAP, al Shabaab and other jihadist groups. In fact, the FBI is likely monitoring many such individuals inside the United States at this very moment — and in all likelihood is madly scrambling to find and investigate many others.

It is important to understand that most of the thousands of men who attend training camps set up by al Qaeda and other jihadist groups are taught the basic military skills required to fight in an insurgency. This means they are provided basic physical training to help condition them, given some hand-to-hand combat training and then taught how to operate basic military hardware like assault rifles, hand grenades and, in some cases, crew-served weapons like machine guns and mortars. Only a very few students are then selected to attend the more advanced training that will teach them the skills required to become a trained terrorist operative.

In many ways, this process parallels the way that special operations forces operators are selected from the larger military population and then sent on for extensive training to transform them into elite warriors. Many people wash out during this type of intense training and only a few will make it all the way through to graduation. The problem for the jihadists is finding someone with the time and will to undergo the intensive training required to become a terrorist operative, the ability to complete the training and — critically — the ability to travel abroad to conduct terrorist attacks against the far enemy. Clearly the jihadist groups are able to train men to fight as insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they have shown the ability to train terrorist operatives who can operate in the fairly permissive environments of places like the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area. They also have some excellent bombmakers and terrorist planners in Iraq and Pakistan.

What the jihadists seem to be having a problem doing is finding people who can master the terrorist tradecraft and who have the ability to travel into hostile areas to ply their craft. There seems to be a clear division between the men who can travel and the men who can master the advanced training. The physical and intelligence onslaught launched against al Qaeda and other jihadist groups following the 9/11 attacks has also created operational security concerns that complicate the ability to find and train effective terrorist operatives.

Of course, we’re not telling the jihadists anything they don’t already know. This phenomenon is exactly why you have major jihadist figures like al-Wahayshi and Gadahn telling the operatives who can travel to or are already in the West to stop trying to conduct attacks that are beyond their capabilities. Gadahn and al-Awlaki have heaped praise on Maj. Hasan as an example to follow — and this brings us back to armed assaults.

In the United States it is very easy to obtain firearms and it is legal to go to a range or private property to train with them. Armed assaults are also clearly within the skill set of jihadists who have made it only through basic insurgent training. As we’ve mentioned several times in the past, these grassroots individuals are far more likely to strike the United States and Europe than professional terrorist operatives dispatched from the al Qaeda core group. Such attacks will also allow these grassroots operatives to fight like they have been trained. When you combine all these elements with the fact that the United States is an open society with a lot of very vulnerable soft targets, it is not difficult to forecast that we will see more armed jihadist assaults in the United States in the near future.

In some instances — such as the December 1996 seizure of the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement — the objective of the armed assault is to take and intentionally hold hostages for a long period of time. In other instances, such as the May 1972 assault on Lod Airport by members of the Japanese Red Army, the armed assault is planned as a suicide attack designed simply to kill as many people as possible before the assailants themselves are killed or incapacitated. Often attacks fall somewhere in the middle. For example, even though Mumbai became a protracted operation, its planning and execution indicated it was intended as an attack in which the attackers would inflict maximum damage and not be taken alive. It was only due to the good fortune of the attackers and the ineptitude of the Indian security forces that the operation lasted as long as it did.

We discussed above the long string of failed and foiled bombing attacks directed against the United States. During that same time, there have been several armed assaults that have killed people, such as the attack against the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles International Airport by Hesham Mohamed Hadayet in July 2002, the shooting attacks by John Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo in the Washington area in September and October 2002 and the June 2009 attack in which Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad allegedly shot and killed a U.S. soldier and wounded another outside a Little Rock, Ark., recruiting center. The most successful of these attacks was the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting, which resulted in 13 deaths. These attacks not only resulted in deaths but also received extensive media coverage.

Armed assaults are effective and they can kill people. However, as we have noted before, due to the proficiency of U.S. police agencies and the training their officers have received in active shooter scenarios following school shootings and incidents of workplace violence, the impact of armed assaults will be mitigated in the United States, and Europe as well. In fact, it was an ordinary police officer responding to the scene and instituting an active shooter protocol who shot and wounded Maj. Hasan and brought an end to his attack in the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood. The number of people in the American public who are armed can also serve as a mitigating factor, though many past attacks have been planned at locations where personal weapons are prohibited, like the Los Angeles International Airport, Fort Hood and Fort Dix.

Of course, a Mumbai-like situation involving multiple trained shooters who can operate like a fire team will cause problems for first responders, but the police communication system in the United States and the availability of trained SWAT teams will allow authorities to quickly vector in sufficient resources to handle the threat in most locations — especially where such large coordinated attacks are most likely to happen, such as New York, Washington and Los Angeles. Therefore, even a major assault in the United States is unlikely to drag out for days as did the incident in Mumbai.
None of this is to say that the threats posed by suicide bombers against mass transit and aircraft will abruptly end. The jihadists have proven repeatedly that they have a fixation on both of these target sets and they will undoubtedly continue their attempts to attack them. Large bombings and airline attacks also carry with them a sense of drama that a shooting does not — especially in a country that has become somewhat accustomed to shooting incidents conducted by non-terrorist actors for other reasons. However, we believe we’re seeing a significant shift in the mindset of jihadist ideologues and that this shift will translate into a growing trend toward armed assaults.
Yemen: A New al Qaeda Video

May 27, 2010
Al-Malahim, the media branch of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) — the Yemen-based regional node of al Qaeda — released a new video May 26 alongside the 13th edition of its publication, Echo of Battle. Entitled “America, The Last Trap,” the video includes a lengthy statement from AQAP military commander Qasim al-Raymi. The well-produced, approximately one-hour video includes familiar faces along with less known individuals.

One such newcomer, Fahd al-Quso — wanted in connected with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole — threatened attacks against the continental United States, its embassy in Yemen and warships in the surrounding waters. This is the first unequivocal evidence of links between AQAP and the wanted militant, though his exact connection with the group is unclear. The imprisoned militant Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to destroy a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009, appeared in a clip speaking about jihad and the West and training in the Yemeni desert.

The video also eulogized Muhammad Umayr al-Awlaqi, well-known for an appearance on Al Jazeera threatening the United States in front of a large crowd, who died in a December 2009 airstrike against his hideout in Abyan. It also confirmed the deaths of Abdallah al-Mihdar, head of AQAP in the Shabwah governorate, who died in clashes with security forces in January, and the Afghan veteran Mohammad Saleh al-Kazimi, who also died in the 2009 Abyan strike and whose corpse was shown on the video.

Appearing for the first time was former Guantanamo Bay inmate No. 184 and current No. 85 on the Saudi most-wanted list, Othman Ahmad Othman al-Ghamdi. The 31-year-old Saudi-born militant fought in Afghanistan, where coalition authorities arrested him in April 2006. After four years at Guantanamo, al-Ghamdi was sent back to his homeland where he eventually enrolled in, and graduated from, Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation program. Shortly after his release, he traveled to Yemen, where he joined AQAP. The video revealed him as a new AQAP leader. Though his exact role remains unknown, he may have replaced a senior figure killed in recent strikes.

Al-Ghamdi’s newfound role raises some interesting questions about AQAP’s leadership. For instance, numerous rumors have referenced the mysterious absence and possible death of the group’s leader, Nasir al-Wahayshi. An unverified audio message purportedly from al-Wahayshi was distributed to jihadist/extremist websites May 16 in which he praised Anwar al-Awlaki and threatened reprisals if the U.S.-born cleric is killed. The absence of images of al-Wahayshi suggest he is either in hiding or was in fact killed, though sources in Yemen claim he remains alive. In any case, even though Yemen’s operations against AQAP continue, the group remains a credible threat to security in Yemen and perhaps beyond.
Somalia: Al Shabaab as a Transnational Threat

June 2, 2010
Omar Hammami, an American-born commander of the Somali jihadist group al Shabaab, was featured in a propaganda video released May 11 calling for jihadists to spread the battle around the world and specifically to “bring America to her knees.” Then on May 27, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a terrorism threat alerting local authorities to be on the lookout for Mohammad Ali, a suspected al Shabaab member allegedly attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. Finally, on May 30 an Aeromexico flight from Paris to Mexico City was forced to land in Montreal because a man on board, Abdirahman Ali Gaall, was on the U.S. no-fly list. Few other details are available at this time, but it appears so far that Gaall had connections to al Shabaab. This confluence of events has attracted STRATFOR’s attention to the Somali jihadist group. While al Shabaab remains focused on Somalia, it could pose more of a transnational threat, inspiring “lone wolf” and grassroots jihadists to hit back at the West.

In 2008, as foreign jihadists began their flight from Iraq, STRATFOR wrote that al Shabaab “had an opportunity to transform Somalia into a central jihadist theater. Growing its ranks with foreign fighters and enjoying the increasing support of al Qaeda sympathizers, the Somali militants could reach the tipping point in their insurgency against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu.”

Two years later, al Shabaab is putting up a consistent fight against Western-backed forces in central and southern Somalia, making significant gains in southern Somalia and even controlling large portions of Mogadishu, but it has been unable to completely defeat the TFG. The TFG, along with African Union (AU) peacekeeping forces and an array of allied militias, is managing to hold onto the most strategic parts of Mogadishu, namely the seaport. The United States is providing the TFG with arms, training and assistance in an effort to keep al Shabaab at bay.

The United States has pursued a strategy of fighting other regional al Qaeda nodes that pose a threat to the United States, such as in Yemen and Algeria, by supporting the local government forces with intelligence, training and supplies (with the occasional overt use of U.S. special operations forces or air power to hit specific high-value targets). U.S. forces target senior al Shabaab commanders with ties to al Qaeda, while lower-ranking al Shabaab fighters are left for local forces. These local forces are relied on as much as possible to avoid large mobilizations of U.S. troops.

This strategy has largely worked in areas like Indonesia and Algeria, where the governments (for the most part) control the territory and can command a competent security force to combat the militants. However, in Somalia, the TFG is struggling just to survive and cannot fight a serious counterterrorism campaign because it does not control large swathes of Somali territory. The TFG lacks a sufficiently sized and capable military force of its own, plus it is wracked by political infighting that limits its ability to go on the offensive against al Shabaab. Ethiopia withdrew its troops from Somalia in early 2009. The United States still relies on Ethiopia’s support for the Somali Islamist militia and TFG ally Ahlu Sunnah Waljamaah, and Ethiopian military operations meant to keep jihadists from spreading into Ethiopia. However, the TFG’s incoherence limits the United States’ ability to pursue its usual strategy of relying on the local government’s counterterrorism operations to contain a militant group.
This helps al Shabaab. As long as the United States is willing to maintain the current level of deterrence, al Shabaab will maintain its capability of long-term survival. If Washington does not view al Shabaab as a direct and imminent threat to U.S. security, the U.S. response to al Shabaab will be limited. Striking at the United States (or anywhere outside Somalia) would raise al Shabaab’s profile dramatically, risking increased U.S. involvement. Therefore, STRATFOR does not expect the group’s core leaders to adopt a transnational strategy anytime soon.

However, there exists in Somalia a tradition of violent and anti-Western jihadist ideology. Indeed, those responsible for the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, while not connected to al Shabaab, did have connections to Somalia. Furthermore, as expected, foreign jihadists have moved to Somalia from other theaters such as Iraq, the Caucasus and Pakistan as well as Western countries like the United States and Canada, bringing with them a broader jihadist mindset. These foreigners can basically be divided into two groups: trained and experienced militants looking for a fight, and inexperienced ideologues yearning to get into one. STRATFOR sources say that al Shabaab has a few hundred foreign fighters — among them many inexperienced ideologues — but only a couple of dozen more experienced foreign commanders. (Al Shabaab has an estimated overall force of around 4,000 fighters — both foreign and local — deployed in groups in southern and central Somalia and in Mogadishu.)

Hammami — who fights under the nom de guerre Abu Mansour al-Amriki — exemplifies the foreign born commander with aspirations beyond Somalia. In his video, he exhorted jihadists worldwide to spread the fight “from Spain to China” and to “bring America to her knees,” saying the “first stop” is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. These foreign, more jihadist-inspired fighters are crowding out the more nationalist-oriented and Islamist fighters like the splintered Hizbul Islam, whose focus was primarily on winning Somalia. Al Shabaab also exhibited an interest in foreign targets when it issued threats against Uganda and Burundi in October 2009. Neighboring Kenya constantly receives threats, and al Shabaab has been named as a potential threat to the upcoming World Cup in South Africa.

The devolution of al Qaeda has meant that the core group of jihadists who conducted the 9/11 attack does not have the same militant capability as before. However, the al Qaeda franchises in Somalia, Algeria and the Arabian Peninsula possess a growing militant capability, and the more publicity they get the more recruits they can attract — and the more people they can inspire to carry the fight beyond the region. Such lone wolf and grassroots jihadists do not have to be bona fide members of a militant group to carry out attacks. There is a lengthening list of jihadist operatives who have hit (or plotted to hit) Western targets, including U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who attacked troops in processing at Fort Hood, Texas, after being radicalized watching online videos of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); Najibullah Zazi (born in Afghanistan but a naturalized U.S. citizen), who attended a Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) training camp in Pakistan and returned to the United States with plans to attack New York’s subway system; and Omar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a Nigerian who traveled to Yemen to obtain an explosive device and be trained to use it in order to blow up a U.S.-bound airline.

While those members of al Shabaab’s leadership who are focused on the near enemy (the TFG and its AU supporters) may not have the strategic intent to carry out attacks against the West, conditions in Somalia allow for recruiting or even passively radicalizing and convincing outsiders to carry out attacks on their behalf. It is here that the law of unintended consequences comes into play. Al Shabaab is not a monolithic force that can control the actions of all of its commanders or members, many of whom operate with significant autonomy. Some of these commanders and members are known to harbor anti-Western sentiments and have even called for violence against the West. While this may not necessarily benefit the original purpose of al Shabaab (to take over Somalia), it appears that it is the intent of some of its members to strike out at the West.

The good news for the West is that most lone wolf and grassroots jihadists are untrained and inexperienced and end up failing to carry out their plots — either because they are detected by authorities before they are able to act or because they are tactically unable to carry out an attack. (One of the main reasons jihadist attacks fail is because they are overly complex). It is the simple attack — one involving firearms or a rudimentary bomb — that most likely will be seen in the West, conducted by a single operative (likely who already lives in the area) on behalf of al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab Threats Against the United States?

Gaall reportedly has U.S. resident-alien status and is apparently married to an American or Canadian woman. Media reports also suggest that he is connected with the Somali jihadist group al Shabaab. Gaall was reportedly deported from Canada to the United States on June 1, and we are unsure of the precise charges brought against him by the U.S. government, but more information should be forthcoming once he has his detention hearing. From the facts at hand, however, it appears likely that he has been charged for his connection with al Shabaab, perhaps with a crime such as material support to a designated terrorist organization.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a lookout to authorities in Texas, warning that another Somali purportedly linked to al Shabaab was believed to be in Mexico and was allegedly planning to attempt to cross the border into the United States. This lookout appears to be linked to a U.S. indictment in March charging another Somali man with running a large-scale smuggling ring bringing Somalis into the United States through Latin America.

Taken together, these incidents highlight the increased attention the U.S. government has given to al Shabaab and the concern that the Somali militant group could be planning to conduct attacks in the United States. Although many details pertaining to the Gaall case remain unknown at this time, these incidents involving Somalis, Mexico and possible militant connections — and the obvious U.S. concern — provide an opportunity to discuss the dynamics of Somali immigration as it relates to the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as the possibility that al Shabaab has decided to target the United States.