SIDRA researchers have interviewed respondents in seven regions . The geographical focus of the research on which policy brief is based — Bay, Hiiraan, Bari, Togdheer, Mudug, Lower Jubba and Banadir — betrays a tenuous grasp of the nature of youth radicalisation in Somalia.
The seven regions visited by SIDRA researchers are under different jurisdictions. Except for Togdheer, five of the regions are affiliated with a Federal Member State. SIDRA does not specify how it secured a clearance from Somaliland authorities to conduct a research in Burco. There are no reported Al-shabaab cells in Burco. Several years ago Al-shabaab assassinated a former Hizbul Islam member in Buuhoodle, a district under pre-1991 jurisdiction of Togdheer.
The causes of the failure of youth deradicalisation projects lie in the conflicting counter-terrorism initiatives developed with foreign countries involved in the stabilisation agenda for Somalia. This is the insight SIDRA policy brief accurately shares and stresses. Different radicalisation situations obtaining in different parts of Somalia make the formulation of national counter-terrorism and deradicalisation strategies a quixotic goal.
Sharing of experience from counter-terrorism initiatives in Somalia has yet to become a standard practice to deal with Al-shabaab. A study on a UK-funded deradicalisation project in several districts of Mogadishu found that some former Al-shabaab young operatives had redefected to the group.To explain why young Somalis join Al-shabaab SIDRA policy brief makes a fallacious distinction between “empowerment” and “ideological motivations”. In Southern regions of Somalia ( e.g. Lower Shabelle, Middle Shabelle, Hiiraan, Banadir, Bay, Bakool, Lower Jubba, Gedo and Upper Jubba), a young man joins Al-shabaab to benefit from “empowerment” opportunity afforded by membership in Al-shabaab whereas in Puntland a young man joins Al-shabaab for ideological reasons, argues SIDRA.
SIDRA policy brief points out that political injustice — under-representation and marginalisation of certain Somali clans — is a catalyst for Al-shabaab campaigns to recruit young men.
In parts of Somalia where people rely upon Al-shabaab justice system and where the legacy of post-1990 dispossession and displacement reflect the ineffectual Federal Government judiciary, many young men find Al-shabaab rhetoric persuasive. Youths in those parts of Somalia join Al-shabaab to help the group advance its ideological and governance goals. Al-shabaab expects recruits to commit themselves to the ideological and operational goals of the group.
© Puntland Post Monthly, 2020
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