The Islamic State vs. al-Qa'ida in Somalia

Report in Islamic State's Weekly Newsletter

While following the Islamic State’s daily claims of operations can be useful in giving an overview of the group’s activities on weekly, monthly and annual bases, there are cases where the group’s affiliates have little to say on a daily basis about their activities but are then subsequently revealed to be engaged in operations and/or military campaigns that are retroactively claimed and reported in the weekly Arabic-language al-Naba’ newsletter. This is what we see with the Islamic State’s ‘Somalia province’ affiliate, which has not claimed any operations since early February but is in fact engaged in a sustained campaign against al-Qa‘ida affiliate Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin (al-Shabaab for shorthand) in eastern Somalia. Like other al-Qa‘ida affiliates, al-Shabaab is deemed ‘apostate’ by the Islamic State, not only for rejecting the Islamic State’s Caliphate project but also actively fighting against the Islamic State. Indeed, some biographies of Islamic State ‘martyrs’ I examined as part of my doctoral thesis included members who had been assassinated by al-Shabaab.

The latest report in al-Naba’ documents the ‘second’ phase of the Islamic State Somalia province campaign against al-Shabaab. This phase began on 28 January and ended on 9 April.