September 2012 Briefs

September 2012 Briefs

TURKISTAN ISLAMIC PARTY’S ABDUL SHAKOOR TURKISTANI KILLED IN FATA AIR STRIKE

The amir of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), Abdul Shakoor Turkistani (see Militant Leadership Monitor, December 2011), was killed in an air strike on his training camp in the Shawal Valley of Pakistan on August 24, 2012. Turkistani, (a.k.a. Emeti Yakuf), became the leader of the TIP after the death of his predecessor, Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, who was killed in a Pakistani army raid on his compound in Mir Ali, North Waziristan in February 2010. Abdul Shakoor Turkistani’s death is not only a setback for the TIP, but also for al-Qaeda. Since 2010, Turkistani was the al-Qaeda chief for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan.

In addition to Turkistani, 17 other militants, including two Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistani (TTP) commanders, were killed in an air strike while they were conducting a firing training session (Dawn.com [Karachi], August 24). Turkistani’s death will be welcome by Chinese authorities, who as early as 2008 charged him with “participating in terrorist groups,” including receiving physical training and instruction on using weapons and making explosive devices in 2007, and “implementing terrorist activities,” including planning a suicide attack at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and on Chinese companies in Pakistan (China Daily, October 21, 2008). 

When Abdul Haq al-Turkistani was killed in 2010, Pakistan’s Interior Minister said that the TIP’s “back was broken,” but the TIP reemerged the following year under Abdul Shakoor Turkistani and carried out attacks in Hotan and Kashgar in July 2011 in which more than ten people were killed (Dawn.com [Karachi], February 15, 2010). Although Abdul Shakoor Turkistani was a uniquely important militant in that he led not only the TIP, but also al-Qaeda in FATA, there are an estimated 200-300 TIP fighters in Pakistan who can replace him in at least the position as leader of the TIP. Both the TIP and al-Qaeda in FATA should also be expected to continue to carry out attacks under new leadership, but there may be a lag before a new leader is found to replace Turkistani since a leader of his caliber is rare. As a measure of Turkistani’s high regard within militant ranks, he had been considered as a replacement for Osama bin Laden after his death in May 2011. 

MUSLIM YOUTH CENTER’S SPIRITUAL LEADER ASSASSINATED IN MOMBASSA 

The Lamu-born Shaykh Aboud Rogo Mohammed, who was the spiritual and ideological leader of the Muslim Youth Center (MYC) in Kenya, was shot and killed in a car driving near Jomo Kenyatta Public Beach in Mombasa on August 25, 2012. According to his wife, who was in the car, "A car behind us aimed at my husband, they shot him on the right side." (The Nation, [Nairobi], August 27, 2012). Although the identity of the assassins remains unknown, following his death Rogo’s supporters in Mombasa rioted and expressed their anger by burning a government van, attacking a Salvation Army church and another church and killing one person (Standard Media, August 28, 2012).  

The local Muslim Human Rights Forum suggested it was a government assassination, noting that others on the country’s “terrorism watch list” have been assassinated (Muslim Human Rights Forum, [Nairobi]). Similarly, the Muslim Youth Center announced on the blog platform Tumblr that “our beloved Shaykh Aboud Rogo (May Allah accept him as a martyr) was murdered by the Kuffar as part of Kenya’s policy of extra-judicial killings against prominent Muslim activists” (Tumblr, August 27, 2012). The MYC’s overall leader, Amir Shaykh Ahmad Iman Ali, issued a statement on Twitter saying “we are on the right track when our leaders get shahadah [martyrdom]." Days before the assassination Rogo claimed that ten men had attempted to abduct him at a bus station in the same way that other terror suspects, such as Shaykh Samir Khan and Shaykh Mohammad Kassim had recently been abducted. Khan’s corpse was later found in Tsavo West National Park, but at the time of this article’s publication Kassim’s body has not been found (The Star, [Nairobi], August 27, 2012). 

Rogo had also been on the U.S. Treasury Department sanctions list for "engaging in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Somalia," including fundraising and recruiting for al-Shabaab and rejecting the peace process in the country. He was also previously acquitted of involvement in the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa, which killed twelve Kenyans and three Israelis. He is alleged to have introduced Fazul Abdullah Mohammad, the late head of al-Qaeda’s East Africa cell who was shot dead in 2011 in Mogadishu, to at least one of the men who helped carry out the twin bombings in 1998 in Nairobi and Dar-as-Salaam at the U.S. Embassies that killed 224 people. 

It remains to be seen whether more assassinations like this one against Rogo will take place in Kenya and whether the assassination is, as local Muslim groups claim, part of a government campaign of extrajudicial killings of Islamist leaders in the country. Nonetheless, Rogo’s supporters appear to be radicalizing as a result of his assassination. According to reports in Mombasa, young claim to have no faith in the government investigating Rogo’s death and believe it is their duty to carry out jihad in Mombasa (The Star, [Nairobi], September 1, 2012).