[AlAhram] The leader of Somalia's Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab rebels on Friday issued an Eid message calling for a wave of new recruits in order to "lift the pain of Moslems" across East Africa.
 In a statement that underscored the group's ambition to expand its operations, Shabaab leader Ahmed Diriye, also known as Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaidah, took aim at Kenya, Æthiopia, Djibouti and Uganda.
"The sword of the Mujahedeen is drawn and attacks against the enemy are ongoing countrywide and we are calling them to increase their attacks on the infidels," he said in a statement posted on an Islamist website.
"We say to our beloved brothers living in territories under Kenyan colonisation that your brothers will never stop coming to your assistance," he said.
"You have to know that Jihad is the only way you can free yourselves from the oppression and humiliation you are now facing, so rush and join in the Jihad... and liberate your territories from the Christians."
Diriye praised the April massacre at Garissa University in northeastern Kenya, in which four Shabaab gunnies killed 148 people, most of them students. The attackers were mostly Moslems from Kenya.
"We congratulate you and the rest of the Moslems in the world on the heroic Garissa university operation," the Shabaab leader said, saying the massacre was retaliation for "organised extrajudicial killings against holy mans and kidnappings of Islamic youth" along Kenya's Moslem-majority coastline.
"The time for the Christians to engage in atrocities without accountability is over," he said. "We pray to God to lift the pain of the Moslems in the whole of eastern Africa -- Æthiopia, Uganda and Djibouti."
"We will not spare any effort to assist you, and the doors of our training camps are open to receive you and our houses are open to welcome you."
The Shabaab, meaning "youth" in Arabic, emerged out of a bitter insurgency against Æthiopia, whose troops entered Somalia in a 2006 US-backed invasion to topple the Islamic Courts Union that was then controlling the capital Mogadishu.
Shabaab rebels continue to stage frequent attacks, seeking to counter claims that they are close to defeat after losing territory in the face of an African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
and Somali government offensive, regular US drone strikes against their leaders and defections.
Currently affiliated to the Al-Qaeda franchise, there has been mounting speculation that the group could shift its allegiance to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group.
The Shabaab were once a magnet for foreign volunteers, but their capacity to recruit has in recent years been eclipsed by the rise of Islamic State gunnies in Syria and Iraq, while several foreign Shabaab members have fallen victim to in-fighting and purges. 
|
