East Africa: 'Civil War' Breaks Out Within Al-Shabaab

22 October 2013

Nairobi — For years the Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab was seen as the most cohesive, united and powerful force in the failed state of Somalia. But it is now disintegrating like a house of cards because of internal divisions and power struggles within its leadership, according to Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad, a history and political science professor at Kenya's Kenyatta University.

"They [the militants] are transforming into warring mini-groups, hunting each other due to their deteriorating ideological differences, and of course [the group is] on the brink of civil war within itself," Abdisamad told IPS in Nairobi.

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