Al Qaeda’s affiliate in East Africa, al Shabaab, has weathered intensified U.S. direct action operations to retain its area of operations in Somalia and eastern Kenya, as a new map by Analyst James Barnett demonstrates. Al Shabaab continues to undermine the Somali state, conducting twin suicide bombings this week to derail a contentious regional election in southern Somalia. The latest attacks come one year after the deadliest terror attack in Somalia’s history, in which al Shabaab killed nearly 600 people in Mogadishu. The Salafi-jihadi movement, which includes al Qaeda and ISIS, is growing in West Africa. The Mali-based branch of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is promoting its expansion into Burkina Faso, where attacks targeting security forces and the mining industry have escalated this year. Another group, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), has also expanded in Mali and Burkina Faso, as Senior Analyst Emily Estelle illustrates in a new graphic. In the coming weeks, Research Fellow Katherine Zimmerman will release a report on how Salafi-jihadi groups have adapted to U.S. counterterrorism policy. Revisit Zimmerman’s work in “America’s Real Enemy: The Salafi-Jihadi Movement,” in which she argues that the U.S. has misdefined its enemy in the war on terror. Unraveling the web: Dismantling transnational organized crime networks in the Americas
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