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New Strategy Needed for Somalia's Al-Shabaab?

The devastation caused by militant group Al-Shabaab continues despite more than 15 years of effort by successive federal regimes in Mogadishu and the international community to end its activities. These counter strategies included attacking them from the sky, and sending Somali and African Union forces to fight them on the ground.

Somalia's recently elected president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud and his inner circle argue that the organisation is a spent force. They say Al-Shabaab has been enfeebled and is now on the run.

However U.N. experts say the Somali Islamist militant group has widened its revenue stream beyond its traditional activities, like charging tolls at checkpoints, to illegally taxing properties and construction

Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, writing for The Conversation, says based on his extensive studies of Al-Shabaab since the time it was part of the Union of Islamic Courts which governed Somalia in the mid-2000s, this isn't true.

InFocus

Abdirizak Mohamud Tuuryare/AMA

Car bomb in Mogadishu (file photo).

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