Post-Mortem Analysis: Key Kenyan al-Shabaab Commander Shaykh Iman Ali Killed in Airstrike

Post-Mortem Analysis: Key Kenyan al-Shabaab Commander Shaykh Iman Ali Killed in Airstrike

A military airstrike in southern Somalia on March 22 killed Shaykh Ahmed Iman Ali, a.k.a Zunira, a deadly and influential Kenyan-born al-Shabaab militant leader.

Ali, who was a fast-rising militant leader within al-Shabaab, or Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, died alongside another 40 middle-level commanders. The strike is believed to have been carried out by the U.S military, targeting a building in the town of Bu’aale in the Middle Juba region. The commanders had assembled for a planning meeting in Bu’aale, which is located north of Jiliib—the current headquarters of al-Shabaab (Strategic Intelligence, March 25; Nairobi News, March 25).

For several years, al-Shabaab has used Bu’aale as a base for logistical planning and training. The town is the traditional capital of the Middle Juba region. The group has built a large prison there, where it detains captured African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) soldiers (Strategic Intelligence , March 25).

The Significance

The killing of Ali is a significant development in the battle against al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s terror network affiliate in East Africa, which, under AMISOM, has been the target of a campaign involving the militaries of multiple African nations.

His death is another in a long line of recent blows to the militant group, which has been weakened following the recent killings of key leaders by U.S airstrikes. In September 2014, an airstrike near the town of Barawe killed Shaykh Ahmed Abdi Godane, one of the group’s emirs who had attempted to shape al-Shabaab into a regional jihadist group. Godane, a.k.a Abu Zubeyr, had replaced Shaykh Adan Hashi Ayro, who also died in another airstrike in the town of Dhusamareeb.

In the case of Ali, the militant leader played a key role in the group’s expansion since 2012, establishing jihadist cells in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and most recently in Mozambique (Daily Nation, March 27).

These actions earned him a position as the de facto leader of the foreign African fighters within al-Shabaab. As a commander of the Jayshi al-Ayman—a deadly wing of al-Shabaab that had been operating from Boni, a forest in Kenya’s Lamu County—he acted as the bond between foreign fighters. His killing will limit the operations of the group.

Reports say that his death has triggered chaos within the groups of foreign fighters who were under his command. Looking at past patterns, many of them fear they will be executed by the group’s top leaders who have been using killing, beheadings and torture to enforce loyalty (Standard Digital, April 6).

Early Life

Born in either 1973 or 1974, his parents saw Ali acquire a good education, completing his university studies with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). Some sources say he graduated around 1997 or 1998, while others say it was 2001. He was later employed by the international oil and gas companies Shell and Mobil as an engineer (Daily Nation, January 30, 2012).

In Majengo, a slum near Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighborhood—popularly known as Little Mogadishu due to its many ethnic Somali residents—Ali grew up as an ordinary and polite slum youth. During that time, he participated in religious, social and political activities through the slum’s Pumwani Riyadha Mosque. Those who heard him preach describe him as a persuasive cleric. As a Muslim youth leader, he led the Muslim Youth Center (MYC), a community based organization attached to the mosque. He founded MYC in 2006, with the slogan, “preference for others.” The organization’s main objective was to provide religious counseling to youth in the slum (Daily Nation, January 22, 2012).

Ali also took up roles as a community mobilizer and within a short period he became well-known due to the vigor with which he carried out his duties. At some point, the young shaykh started offering bursaries, paying schools fees for needy children, and funding funeral expenses. He would also provide financial support to a long list of needy slum residents. One of his roles as a youth leader was to oversee the construction of the new mosque for the Pumwani slum as a secretary of the planning committee (Daily Nation, January 30, 2012).

When he was not in the mosque, Ali would also join other youth in football practices or in matches against other teams.

Turning Point

But the shaykh’s turning point was in 2007, when he led youths in a violent ouster of the Pumwani Riyadha Mosque Committee (PMRC). He had accused the committee of pocketing the mosque’s income, which the mosque generated from, among others sources, storage facilities for market goods for the nearby Gikomba market.

Al-Shabaab leadership allegedly took notice of Ali’s violent overthrow of the PMRC and declared him the leader of the militant group’s cell in Kenya. His actions and the MYC drew the attention of security agencies. The mosque and the youth center would later come under the sharp focus of local and international security agencies following findings that the two religious institutions were being used by jihadists to radicalize and recruit youth for al-Shabaab (Standard Digital, August 29, 2011).

Ali had been introduced to Islamic extremism by a radical Muslim cleric, the late Aboud Rogo, while a university student. Rogo was shot to death on August 12, 2012, after a van he was traveling in was fired on by unknown gunmen. He was allegedly taking his wife to the hospital (Hiiraan Online, August 18, 2015).

In 2009, Ali fled Kenya to al-Shabaab bases in southern Somalia after frequent visits by police. In 2012, the militant group elevated Ali as a commander to lead attacks against Kenya. His elevation was made public through a statement posted on MYC’s website which has since ceased operations (Capital News, January 17, 2012).

Accelerating Jihad

While in Somalia, his familiarity with the East Africa region resulted in his rise as the group’s media face. One of his early responsibilities included preparing and producing propaganda messages for the group. In Somalia, he produced jihadist videos through al-Kataib, the group’s media wing, calling for more recruits and attacks throughout East Africa. This is a key strategy al-Shabaab uses to recruit, reaching jihadists and sympathizers beyond Somalia.

In a video in 2016, he emerged, celebrating the killing of Kenyan soldiers in the El Adde camp attack. In that attack, which took place on January 15, 2015, al-Shabaab forces overran Kenya Defense Forces soldiers taking part in AMISOM and killed an unspecified number of soldiers. In the video, Ali promised to turn the Kenyan flag red and threatened more attacks. His last video was in 2017, when he threatened Kenyan Muslims serving as soldiers in Somalia under AMISOM (Standard Digital, February 28, 2016; Daily Nation, March 27).

The Indictment

In August 2015, Ali and two other hardline jihadists were named as the top Somalia-based recruiters for Kenyans who join the ranks of al-Shabaab. His recruitment tactics included offering large sums of money and rewards to desperate youths, including university students.

That same year, he was cited along with Mohammed Kuno, an ex-teacher from Garissa County in the northeastern region of Kenya, as one of the masterminds of the Garissa University College attack, in which 148 students were killed. The government ordered a freeze of his accounts in Kenya. Kuno was later killed in a special forces operation in Farwamo, 30 kilometers north of Mogadishu (Daily Nation, April 2, 2015; Standard Digital, June 2, 2016).

Months before, in December 2014, the police had placed a bounty of 2 million Kenyan Shillings (approximately $20,000) on Ali’s head for the massacre of 64 people in Mandera county.  He had produced yet another video, saying the killing of the 28 bus passengers and 36 quarry workers was revenge for the killing of Muslim clerics in the coastal city of Mombasa—including the late Sheikh Aboud Rogo, Abubakar Shariff Ahmad, a.k.a Makaburi, and Samir Khan.

He was named as the mastermind of the Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi, in which 67 people were massacred in September 2013. In January 2012, Ali declared war on Kenya on behalf of al-Shabaab (Daily Nation, January 9, 2012).

Ali, a terrorist recruiter and trainer, had been on the radar of international security agencies, including the FBI. The United States declared him a Specifically Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2018. According to the U.S. State Department, Ali had been an al-Shabaab leader since 2012, was the director of the group’s Kenyan operations, which have targeted AMISOM troops, and was responsible for propaganda targeting the Kenyan government and civilians. The chief recruiter also fundraised in mosques in Kenya to support al-Shabaab activities.

Last Turn

After falling out with the top leadership of al-Shabaab, Ali had allegedly been on the run since 2017.  According to news reports, he had become a target for execution due to actions which the top leaders perceived as too ambitious. One of the key accusations was that he had failed to remit to the organization money he had fundraised through mosques that was intended to fund the group’s activities. They also accused him of harboring ambitions of becoming the emir of al-Shabaab.

Also in 2017, he reportedly sent emissaries to Kenyan authorities, seeking a pardon alongside a group of militant youths who had joined al-Shabaab. In return, he has offered to cooperate with the Kenyan government in fighting al-Shabaab in Kenya and Somalia. What happened to these advances remains unclear (Standard Digital, September 6, 2017).

Conclusion

The killing of Shaykh Ahmad Iman Ali is a major blow to al-Shabaab, which has been struggling to regain territory after being routed by AMISOM. Ali was key in planning attacks outside of Somalia, especially in his home country of Kenya, where he was linked to several major terror attacks. But while his demise may limit the group’s operations, especially in Kenya and East Africa, it must be understood that he left behind a number of protégés who will not hesitate to take up his role. This is a fact security services should be cognizant of, as the battle against al-Shabaab continues in Somalia.