Inside Al Shabaab. The secret history of Al-Qaeda’s most powerful ally

Harun Maruf and Dan Joseph provide an insightful account of Al-Shabaab, the Somali extremist organization fighting in Somalia and conducting terror attacks in the country and beyond, in the Horn of Africa. The authors embed the group’s history into the larger history of political Islam in Somalia and beyond. They also clearly show Al-Shabaab’s relevance within the global jihadist scene. More specifically, they follow the biographies of several men, some rank and file, some leaders of Al-Shabaab, to shed light on different aspects of the Islamist spectrum in Somalia. The text outlines they journey of Dalha Ali, a young student in a Tabliq madrassa in Mogadishu, into the group until he, after four years, dies in an aborted suicide mission in the middle of Villa Somalia, the presidential compound in Mogadishu. Dalha Ali and some others represent ordinary, very often quite young, Somali men who are caught in the mayhem of Somali civil war and military interventions. They search for orientation in the midst of violence, insecurity, corruption and harsh survival conditions for most Somalis. One strength of the book is the manner in which it explains how at certain moments, like when Ethiopian forces brutally intervened in Somalia end of 2006, it can seem the best choice for intelligent, sensible young men to exchange books with Kalashnikovs to defend their beliefs and their people.

Criminology · French horn · Islam · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Somali · Spanish Civil War · African history and culture analysis · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law

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