Everything You Have Told Me Is True, page 10
The ban provoked much mockery on social media, with people comparing lists of things banned by Al Shabaab, such as cinemas, music, satellite dishes, smartphones, plastic bags and humanitarian agencies, with those it permitted, such as bombings, assassinations and the killing of civilians. Some described it as ‘surreal’ and ‘weird’ that Al Shabaab could express concern about human welfare when it had carried out so many brutal acts. One asked how the group could ‘kill 500 people with a single truck bomb in 2017’ yet find the time or inclination to ban single-use plastic bags. Another person said they could not understand how a movement that had no qualms about ‘bombing people while they lie on the beach, work in government offices or shop in busy markets’ could care about the environment.
In its film Stone Stoves and the Development of Society after the Deception of the Agencies, Al Shabaab shows in great detail how people make stoves out of soft stone. The video also focuses on the production of local food such as beans, maize, sesame and sorghum, contrasting them with the imported staples of rice and pasta. It speaks of how food aid has destroyed the local market, and criticises Somalia’s dependency on food imports. The film extols the benefits of local fruit juice over imported soft drinks, which it says are full of harmful chemicals.
For their part, the Somali government and its international partners also present an unrealistic picture of life in the country. They produce glossy images and videos of relaxed, happy boys playing football on the beach, people eating ice cream in outdoor cafés, and cars driving at night under solar-powered street lights, all under the slogans of ‘Somalia Rising’ and ‘Mogadishu Rising’. These give the impression that the country is some kind of tourist paradise rather than a broken conflict zone.
The information I have received about life under Al Shabaab is highly contradictory. At times Al Shabaab says one thing and people living in areas it controls say the opposite. Sometimes people living in one area controlled by the group say something different from those in another. Some women have described being brutalised and humiliated by the Islamists, while others have said they are treated with respect. This makes it virtually impossible to set out any hard-and-fast, universal truths about the reality of life in areas under Al Shabaab control. Rather, I have obtained a series of snapshots from people who are or have been active in the group, or those who live or have lived in areas under its control.
Violence
Al Shabaab is most visible when it perpetrates acts of violence. This can take spectacular form, such as the September 2013 siege of the luxury Westgate mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in which sixty-seven people died, or the slaughter of 148 people, mainly students, in April 2015 at a university in Kenya’s eastern city of Garissa. There have been enormous truck bombs in Mogadishu, the worst of which exploded near a fuel tanker that then ignited, killing more than 500 people and injuring hundreds more. The incident, which took place on 14 October 2017, has become known as Somalia’s 9/11. The lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris were turned off in memory of those who died. The Somali government marked the first anniversary of the explosion by executing by firing squad a twenty-three-year-old man, Hassan Adan Isaq, who was convicted of masterminding the bombing. The judge, Hassan Ali Nur, said, ‘He has killed hundreds as an Al Shabaab member and today he was rewarded with a painful death.’
Although the October truck bombing bore all the hallmarks of an Al Shabaab attack, the group remained uncharacteristically silent about the incident. Its usually ruthlessly efficient press office failed to issue any statements about the bombing. When I called an Al Shabaab official to ask about the attack, he was reluctant to speak. He said he was travelling and we would have to talk another time. This had never happened before, as Al Shabaab is usually more than happy to tell me about the acts of violence it has perpetrated or to deny the ones it says it has had nothing to do with. I said I needed just a few seconds of his time and a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. I asked him again whether Al Shabaab could confirm it carried out the attack. ‘I told you, I am travelling,’ he said firmly. ‘I cannot speak to you now.’ I persisted, repeating my question. This time he said simply that he had heard about the bombing and that he would get back to me another time. Then the line went dead. He did not call me back.
It appears that Al Shabaab was embarrassed about the killing of so many civilians, and that they were not the intended target. The group repeatedly warns civilians to stay away from government buildings and military bases. It tells them to avoid restaurants, cafés and hotels frequented by government workers, the military and employees of international organisations, and not to associate with these people in any way. Al Shabaab insists it does not target civilians directly, and that it is entirely their fault if they ignore its warnings and get killed by venturing near government buildings, sewing uniforms for Somali soldiers, selling tea to civil servants or otherwise having a connection with the ‘apostate’ authorities.
I have had numerous conversations with Al Shabaab about the killing and injuring of civilians, all of which follow a twisted kind of logic. Al Shabaab says the civilians know perfectly well that they are supposed to avoid restaurants, hotels and other places frequented by government officials, and that they are not supposed to work for or otherwise have links with the ‘apostates’.
On one particularly chilling occasion, I asked a member of Al Shabaab how the group could justify pulling Kenyan teachers out of a minibus and killing them one by one. ‘Oh, that is easy to explain,’ he said casually. ‘The Kenyan government declared war on Al Shabaab when it invaded Somalia in October 2011. It is doing everything it can to destroy us. But who voted in that government? Who is ultimately responsible for its existence? It is the Kenyan people. As they are responsible for choosing that infidel government, it is actually the Kenyan people who declared war on us. Therefore every single one of them is a legitimate target. It is entirely logical.’ When I said I could not understand this line of argument, the Al Shabaab official became highly irritated. He repeated again and again that, as Kenya was a democracy, its people were responsible for the government they had. It was perfectly reasonable to attack and kill them all, he said, regardless of whether they were civilians or not.
Although they often require significant planning and preparation, most Al Shabaab attacks are carried out by a small number of people. Just four men strolled casually through the marble corridors of the Westgate shopping centre, shooting people dead as they went. On 15 January 2019, five men stormed the luxury hotel complex on Nairobi’s Riverside Drive, one blowing himself up as he entered the lobby.4 In Somalia, hotels, government buildings and the African Union’s AMISOM bases are usually attacked first by vehicles laden with explosives, then stormed by a small group of armed men on foot. They know they will never come out alive. As one senior Ugandan AMISOM commander said: ‘The fact that certain death and the promise of paradise are part of the deal for these attackers makes it much harder for our troops to fight them. Even the best-trained AMISOM soldier has an instinct for self-preservation, whereas Al Shabaab militants seem to go towards their deaths joyously, with no fear whatsoever. This makes them terrifying battlefield adversaries.’
Most attacks by Al Shabaab do not make the headlines, even in Somalia. These are the routine incidents, including shootings, the planting of explosive devices in people’s cars and the throwing of grenades. They are simply part of everyday life in some parts of Somalia. Most people I speak to who live in these areas have stories about how the violence has affected them personally. Then there are the friends who can no longer tell me their stories because they are dead, killed in a targeted assassination or during an attack on a building.
I have a Somali friend who went back to Mogadishu for a holiday after twenty years working as a security guard in London. He was walking through the car park of a restaurant after having lunch with friends when he saw a man collapse on the ground and begin to writhe around as if he were having a fit or a seizure. He rushed to help the man, as did several other people nearby. As they gathered around him, there was an enormous explosion. This was no sick man in need of assistance. He was a suicide bomber who only detonated his vest once he had drawn in enough people within striking distance. My friend survived as he was still some way away, but he was badly wounded by flying metal. He lifted up his shirt to show me the livid scars where the shrapnel had lacerated his chest and stomach. ‘This is my Somali holiday souvenir,’ he said. ‘These scars and the flashbacks and the nightmares. I won’t be going back there in a hurry.’
Another friend, who left the UK to work for the Somali government, has a long list of Al Shabaab stories and narrow escapes. In one incident he was sitting in a café in a busy Mogadishu street when a young man in a red shirt approached him. The man was sweating profusely and holding a laptop. He veered from table to table, attracting the attention of everybody in the place. Then there was a loud bang and a fizz, as smoke poured out of the laptop. This was an improvised explosive device gone wrong.
There was also the day the same friend came back from work to the hotel where he was living. His room was gone, blown up in an Al Shabaab attack. The desk where he normally sat had been reduced to a small pile of ashes and burnt, splintered wood.
The first time this friend was caught up in an attack was in October 2011, shortly after he arrived in Mogadishu. A truck bomb smashed into a government building where Somali students were registering to apply for scholarships to study in Turkey. Seventy people were killed. My friend was passing by when the explosion occurred. He was not injured but was badly shaken. His first instinct was to call his mother in the UK to tell her about what had happened and how terrifying it was. ‘I have learned not to call my mother for comfort after attacks anymore,’ he said. ‘She is worried enough about my being here and I don’t want to scare her even more. Also, after that first blast, I became more acclimatised and desensitised to the violence in this city. I am not sure that’s a good thing.’
Journalists, ambulance drivers and members of the security services are more vulnerable than most to Al Shabaab attacks because it is their job to rush to the scene to help the injured and to bear witness. A journalist friend once sent me a photo of his car after its windscreen had been shattered by the force of an Al Shabaab explosion. On the roof of the vehicle was a severed arm and part of an upper torso. Another time, he was sitting in his favourite seaside restaurant when Al Shabaab militants came in quietly from the beach and took over the building. They went from room to room shooting as many customers as they could. My friend lay down amongst the bodies and played dead. He described how the Al Shabaab fighters went from person to person, kicking them to see if they moved, and shooting them if they did. He managed to stay still. When the militants moved on to a different room, my friend crawled to the door and started running for his life. As soon as he was outside, he heard AMISOM soldiers shouting that he was a suicide bomber and should be shot immediately. He stripped, ripping off his shirt to show he was not wearing a suicide vest. He heard people shouting out his name, and pleading with AMISOM not to shoot him as he was a well-known journalist, not an Islamist militant. My friend now has scars all over his face, especially around his eyes, from where shrapnel hit him during the attack.
When Al Shabaab called me to boast about the beachside restaurant attack, I lost my temper. I said my friend the journalist had always reported the news in a fair and balanced way. He correctly attributed attacks to Al Shabaab, and gave an accurate picture of what was going on in the country. My contact gave a chillingly cold response. ‘We know this journalist and we respect him. But we have warned him to stay away from places frequented by the apostates. He knows full well that government officials sometimes eat at that restaurant. We have no regrets about what happened to him. We do not feel guilty. It is his fault for ignoring our advice.’
Although it no longer engages in conventional warfare, Al Shabaab remains one of Africa’s deadliest terror groups. This is largely through its use of improvised explosive devices, many of which are put into vehicles and driven directly into buildings. Its use of such devices has increased over the years. In 2016, the UN recorded 395 attacks using improvised explosives, eleven times more than in 2010.5 Between 1 January and 12 October 2018, 334 IED incidents and nineteen more complex attacks were recorded in the parts of Somalia where AMISOM operates, the majority of them targeting African Union troops and the Somali security forces.6 Some 400 kilogrammes of military-grade and home-made explosives were used in the massive truck bombing in Mogadishu in October 2017.7 The increased use and sophistication of such devices comes at a time when Al Shabaab has become more insular, with fewer foreign fighters in its ranks. It is debateable whether it has imported expertise from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) or whether its knowledge is home-grown. The equipment to make such devices is certainly available locally as Somalia is awash with arms and ammunition, and Al Shabaab regularly replenishes supplies during raids on AMISOM and Somali army bases. The group is also internet-savvy so will be able to access online guides of how to make instruments of destruction.
Al Shabaab says it has no problem planting devices and carrying out attacks wherever it chooses: ‘We manage to drive cars past dozens of checkpoints in cities like Mogadishu. We have our way of doing things but I am not going to give you further details. The presidential palace is one of the most well-guarded places in Somalia but how many times have we blown up cars at its front and back gates? How many times have our men stormed the place and entered far inside? Of course, not all of our attacks succeed but I would say about 80 per cent of them succeed and 20 per cent fail.’
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The most expensive hotels in Mogadishu are like fortresses, surrounded by a double layer of thick, high, concrete walls, some piled up with sandbags to absorb blasts. You must pass through a series of metal gates to enter them, plus have a patting down from a security guard, with all bags thoroughly searched and scanned. All of this with good reason, for every few months one of these hotels is attacked by Al Shabaab and sometimes besieged for hours.
Al Shabaab views some hotels as legitimate targets, and warns civilians to stay away from them. ‘We consider five, six or seven hotels in Mogadishu as prime targets,’ said one member. ‘I forget the exact number … Everybody knows which hotels I am talking about as they provide lodgings for members of the apostate government, certain members of the diaspora, foreigners and other infidels.’
The group employs a strange logic to justify attacks on hotels, in some instances describing them as military bases. A Somali television interview with Al Shabaab’s spokesman, Ali Dheere, illustrates how this line of argument works. In the clearing of a heavily wooded area, Ali Dheere and the journalist sit opposite each other on green plastic chairs. Ali Dheere is dressed in camouflage and wears khaki boots. His head is wrapped in a black scarf, his beard streaked with grey. ‘We have to ask ourselves, are these so-called hotels really hotels or are they army bases? Al Shabaab has never targeted ordinary hotels where Muslim civilians stay. The ones we attack are surrounded with huge concrete walls. They have security guards to protect them. This shows that they are not hotels because normal hotels where Muslim civilians stay do not have concrete barriers. We are fighting the infidels and we do not care what they call the places they live in. Whether they say it is an army base or a hotel, it all means the same to us. Therefore all the hotels that we attack are army bases. They serve as ministerial offices for the infidels and apostates. The finance ministry is operating from a hotel, the so-called transport ministry is operating from a hotel, and the ministry of education is operating from a hotel.
‘We warn people day and night to stay away from these places. Not a single person who does not support the infidels goes to these hotels. One hundred per cent of the people who go to these hotels are connected with the leadership, the intelligence and security services. We do not deliberately kill our fellow Somali Muslims or any other Muslim. In fact, we prefer to let an infidel escape than to let a fellow Muslim die. We are very careful about the areas we target. It may take months to monitor a place before we carry out the attack.’8
It is indeed the case that some hotels in Somalia serve as the homes and offices of senior Somali politicians, foreign diplomats and other prime Al Shabaab targets. I have spent long evenings in such places, pacing up and down the courtyards with government ministers and other officials as they try to get some exercise and walk off the stress of living and working in Mogadishu. It is like being a caged animal. I have sipped coffee in hotel foyers that weeks later have been attacked by Al Shabaab, the friends I was drinking with blown up or shot dead in a siege. Even though these hotels are unable to protect themselves from Al Shabaab, they somehow succeed in creating a false sense of security for those inside. People noticeably relax once they enter hotels, despite the fact that they are key targets for the militants.
When I hear a hotel is under attack in Somalia, I dread the almost inevitable phone call that comes from Al Shabaab. On one such occasion, on 1 November 2015, I received a call to say that the Sahafi hotel was under attack.
‘Our men are inside as I speak. They are really enjoying themselves. There is an apostate army officer in there, General Abdikarim Dhagabadan. We have been after him since August 2011 because he is the man who commanded the operation that forced us out of Mogadishu. Now we have him, that infidel creature.’ At least twelve people were killed in the attack, including the general and two members of parliament. An acquaintance, the Sahafi’s owner, Abdirashid Mohamed, also died. The attackers were said to be wearing Burundian army uniforms, perhaps seized during an Al Shabaab raid on an AMISOM base in the town of Leego in June of the same year.
