Displaying items by tag: AlShabaab

On 2 September, al-Shabaab terrorists killed 18 civilians and destroyed several relief trucks in central Somalia. Al-Shabaab has increased attacks over the summer. In August they killed several Somali soldiers and attacked military bases in Kenya, Mali, and Ethiopia. An attack on a Mogadishu hotel lasting 35 hours killed 21 people. Its leaders want to replace al-Qaeda and expand their reach. Al-Qaeda has not found a leader to replace Ayman al-Zawahiri. If one is not chosen soon, al-Shabaab could declare its East African government separate from al-Qaeda and hope to overthrow the government of Somalia itself. They are receiving resources through forcing people to pay taxes by threatening them, bombing their businesses, or kidnapping their daughters. Despite the danger, many continue to share the story of Jesus. These are not US or European missionaries; they are Muslim background believers living in close proximity in the same culture. World Mission sends them solar-powered audio Bibles in the local language.

On 15 May Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Somalia’s president from 2012 to 2017, won the election and has returned to the top job. He faces numerous tough challenges, from a devastating drought that risks pushing millions into famine to deep political divisions within the federal government and state authorities. Arguably his biggest task, however, will be to tackle al-Shabaab and a recent rise in attacks, including 48 deaths from suicide bombings in March.' The president’s new administration will need to contend with the Islamist militants’ use of children. They use boys as spies, logistics operatives, and combatants, and girls as cooks, cleaners, and ‘wives’ as well as to spy or move weaponry. The country has a bulging young population with limited or no opportunities. Trust in the government and its security institutions is low, which means that al-Shabaab can lure young recruits with promises of money, marriage, or power.

After almost a week of walking and sleeping rough, three young men arrived at Nacaca, a displacement camp in Cabo Delgado province. They fled as far as they could get from the gunmen who attacked their village. A jihadist conflict has shaken Cabo Delgado for five years; al-Shabab has routed an under-equipped army, decapitated civilians, abducted young men, and enslaved women. Last June a coalition of southern African countries scattered the insurgents, but now al-Shabaab units are re-terrorising communities. They have depopulated northern Cabo Delgado, with at least 730,000 people (1/3rd of the population) fleeing to safer southern districts. The uprising began in 2017 but its origins go deeper, growing out of fury over state corruption and opposition to establishment Islam. The displaced are settling in a poor region. The chance of these former farmers and fishermen finding work are slim. The World Food Programme is only able to deliver half rations to camps and registered displaced living in communities.

In Kenya a group of local Muslims alerted twenty, mostly Christian, construction workers to an attack by a jihadist fundamentalist group. The workers were building a hospital when the Muslims warned them to leave the site quickly and helped them do so. The area is usually very hostile towards Christians, and believers who come from other areas for work or ministry face harassment and are continuously targeted by al-Shabaab attacks. Pray for God’s protection over those who took this bold move.

Al-Shabaab fighters killed four Christian men in a village in Lamu county on 17 August. Three were hacked to death with machetes; the fourth was burned inside his home. Al-Shabaab surpasses Boko Haram as Africa's deadliest terror group. Christian pastors from the region revealed that the victims left the safety of camps to check on their homes and crops despite the warnings by Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s president. He had urged families to remain at displacement camps as the army attempts to eradicate the terrorist threat. The village chief admitted that the ‘desperation’ in the camps is making people return to their villages despite government orders. Christians in the camps are asking the global community to remember them in prayer. They need food, shelter, water, medicine, sanitary pads and soap.