Sunday, September 29, 2013
Colin Freeman profiles Ahmed Abdi Godane, the leader of the al-Shabaab Islamist movement believed to be behind last week's Nairobi mall attack.
WITH his background in accountancy and enthusiasm for poetry, Sheikh Ahmed
Abdi Godane is an unlikely candidate to be Africa’s most feared militant
leader.
But with the Nairobi shopping mall atrocity, the bookish 36-year-old leader of
Somalia’s al-Shabab Islamist movement has achieved a long-running ambition
to join the very top tier of global terrorism.
Last Wednesday, Godane promised more violence if Kenya refused to withdraw its
forces from neighbouring Somalia, where they have been fighting al-Shabaab
in its southern heartlands.
“You cannot withstand a war of attrition inside your own country,” he said in
an audio message posted on a website linked to al-Shabaab. “So withdraw all
your forces, or be prepared for an abundance of blood that will be spilt in
your country.”
Last week’s slaughter confirms what many in the region have long feared: that
Godane, who has imposed a Taliban-style regime in much of war-torn Somalia,
would one day begin exporting his brand of Islamist violence to the wider
world.
But his fondness for venting his hatred of the West through poetry − a mode of
expression that has a long political tradition in Somalia − also makes him
the direct descendant of another insurgent figure from Somali history,
Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, the so-called “Mad Mullah” who waged war against
the British colonial presence during the first two decades of the 20th
century.
Famous for an attack that killed 36 British troops in 1913, the Mullah was
also notorious for writing open letters to the British public, in which he
would boast: “I like war, but you do not.”
A century later he is still remembered in Somalia as a classic Muslim
resistance fighter, and during the US occupation of Mogadishu in 1993, which
culminated in the Black Hawk Down massacre of US troops, resistance leaflets
quoted verses from a mocking poem the Mullah wrote about a British commander
he killed, called simply “The Death of Richard Corfield”.
It is no surprise that Godane, whose bombastic internet broadcasts are the
modern-day equivalent, is understood to consider the Mullah a spiritual
hero.
Born in what is now the semi-independent republic of Somaliland, Godane was
considered a child prodigy, excelling at Islamic school and winning
scholarships to study in Sudan and Pakistan.
As an adult he became an accountant for an airline, but then joined al Itihad
al Islamiya, a now-defunct militant group, and went to Afghanistan to fight.
On his return, he and his followers splintered from Itihad’s leadership when
it mooted the idea of peaceful politics after September 11, producing the
nucleus of what would go on to become al-Shabaab today.
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Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, the so-called “Mad Mullah” (ALAMY)
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Their first taste of foreign blood was a decade ago, when the same splinter
group was responsible for a string of murders of Western aid workers,
including Richard and Enid Eyeington, a British couple who ran a popular
school in Somaliland.
He has since manoeuvred to become al-Shabaab’s overall commander, although
like Mullah Omar, the one-eyed ruler of the Taliban, he is somewhat
reclusive − mindful, it seems, of the fate of his comrade Adan Hashi Ayro,
who was killed by a US missile strike in 2008.
Under his leadership, during which more moderate rivals have been either
killed or sidelined, al-Shabaab has become one of the most brutal militant
groups in the world, with stonings and amputations for anyone who defies
Godane’s edicts banning music, dancing and even watching football.
It has also advertised Somalia as a base from which to wage global jihad, with
Godane using his background in finance and airlines to help recruit hundreds
of foreign fighters into the group’s ranks.
However, even its own volunteers faced the group’s wrath if they tried to
leave, according to two disaffected ex-Shabaab fighters interviewed for a
Panorama documentary to be broadcast on BBC One on Monday night.
The pair, both teenagers from neighbouring Kenya, told how they were horrified
to discover that despite
al-Shabaab’s professed moral piety, its foot soldiers raped and pillaged as
much as any other Somali militia. One claimed he saw children as young as
five being trained in how to wear suicide vests.
Both teenagers eventually escaped, but hundreds of other volunteers from
around the world − including Somalis from Britain − are thought still to be
swelling Godane’s ranks.