Terrorism
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Terrorism
Terrorism refers to the acts of instilling fear in people and intimidating them by use of violence unlawfully. The most targeted groups of people are civilians since they usually do not have ways to protect themselves against the terrorists. The Al Shabaab is a terrorist group based in Somalia founded in the early 2000s and aimed to form a state in Somalia and eliminate foreign influences. (Joseph, D. (2018). They have their headquarters in Kismayo, Barawe, and Jilib, which organize and coordinate their terror attacks. Their active regions include Kenya, Somalia, and Yemen, and they mainly target young youths and use them to continue with their terrorist attacks. The Al Shabaab also has a radio station that uses it to reach large numbers of an audience they later recruit. The Al Shabaab uses bombings and assassinations on their victims and has gained a large central and southern Somalia territory. The Al Shabaab get funds from other terrorist groups and kidnapping and extortion and facilitate their terrorism.
Terrorism brings about a sense of fear to a particular country’s citizens and a feeling of insecurity, especially when they feel like their leaders cannot protect them anymore. The economy is also affected by the ripple effects of terrorism. There is the destruction of property that costs millions of monies. The economy suffers when there is uncertainty in the markets, and there is no tourism since tourists will fear to visit a terror-stricken country. (Pratt, S. (2017) Terrorism also increases skepticism of foreign people living in that country. Businesses crumble, and immigrant workers are sidelined because people will associate them with terrorism even if they are not part of any terrorist group. Borders are eventually closed down due to fear of terror, and this closes doors to political dealings or other business transactions that would have otherwise taken place without terrorism.
Unrestricted war is a type of war that exceeds the military boundaries in a country, and the terrorists are willing to make any sacrifice to obtain the victory they desire. They use all the available resources in a community to fight a war. The Al Shabaab uses unrestricted terrorism to gain the satisfaction of the terror attacks that they undertake. They make demands that they need to be met, and even if those demands are not met, they get the satisfaction from causing panic and unrest to people in a country. Direct effects of their terrorist attacks may only affect a small number of people. Still, it will eventually erode the well-being and sense of security of a country at large. The Al Shabaab takes advantage of youths’ desperation to recruit them to make the terrorist attack for them. They utilize their availability by luring them using employment opportunities, and the youths agree so that they can earn an extra coin to feed themselves and their families.
The Al Shabaab have held on to a large capacity of media operations. They use their targets’ psychological weakness to get to them and propaganda messaging to take advantage of their opponents who lack transparency. Some countries claiming to have information on the ground about them do not usually have much details about them, which allows the terrorist group to use their lack of honesty and send messages to their supporters or other groups by using the several media outlets that they have. Despite the Al Shabaab being asked to pull out and cease their operations in the major urban centers in Somali, they have continuously managed to successfully plan their terror attacks in the capital city of Somalia, Mogadishu. Their media operations aim to promote their mass casualty attacks and spread propaganda to both East Africa and international viewers and listeners.
The psychological operations used are meant to target both the soldiers in higher ranks and the ordinary citizens all over their target countries. They control domestic politics in these countries and use it to gain an advantage during their terrorist attacks. (Sandler, T. (2019). Alternatively, they radicalize the youth in their target countries and make them feel that their religion is not recognized. Thus they become rebellious and resort to using terrorism to gain popularity and recognition. The Al Shabaab in their religion tells them that the more people they kill, the more they become braver and that once they get to heaven, they will be compensated well. They are also fond of taking photos and videos of their attacks then sending them on social media for other people to see. They continue to spread fear and panic to people, making it easier to execute other terror attacks when people are in panic mode.
Their media operations are the main reason why youth keep getting attracted to most terrorist groups. They are lured using large rewards and assurance of well-paying jobs, and they end up accepting them. Peaceful dialogues are now encouraged to be used when talking terrorists out of what they want to do. For youths to be open to terrorist recruitment, they are angry and feel like they are left out. They feel like their views are not heard, and the only way to be recognized is by joining terrorist groups. By joining terrorist groups, the youths are used as tools of terrorism while they feel like they are affecting real change and are fighting for social justice. The radicalization of young people makes it easier for them to accept recruitment into these terrorist groups, which will give an advantage to the terrorist group to go on with their total war.
Al Shabaab always wants its terrorism acts to be disclosed to the public. They take the vulnerability of media houses and threaten them of consequent attacks if they do not account for exactly what happened. By instilling fear in people, they try to prove that they are also powerful and can do what they want without anyone stopping them. Alternatively, the Al Shabaab also sends their loyal followers to spread the news that they plan other attacks shortly. This is done to make people panic and often live in fear since they do not know when or how they will happen. The countries that are at risk of being attacked should quickly recognize radicalization, especially youth, to prevent them from being targets of recruitment to the terrorist groups.
Examples of the terrorist attacks by the Al Shabaab include a car bombing and suicide attack by a man against the Ethiopian soldiers where 73 people were killed and a siege to DusitD2 hotel in Kenya where 21 people were killed. (Ruto Pkalya, D. (2019). In Lamu, Kenya, the Manda Bay attack was the latest attack where they executed a dawn attack at the airfield in Manda Bay and killed a U.S soldier, other contractors from the department of defense, and damaged aircraft vehicles that were at the base. They aided their attack by cutting off power in the area, making it easier to attack without being seen. To publicize their attack, they released statements to the public and photos taken previously during their attack. Making their actions public is the same strategy used during their attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013. They do so to notify the public of the actual situation on the ground and make them aware of what is happening if the media chooses not to disclose everything.
References Cannon, B. J., & Ruto Pkalya, D. (2019). Why Al-Shabaab attacks Kenya: Questioning the narrative paradigm. Terrorism and Political Violence, 31(4), 836-852.
Gaibulloev, K., & Sandler, T. (2019). What we have learned about terrorism since 9/11. Journal of Economic Literature, 57(2), 275-328.
Liu, A., & Pratt, S. (2017). Tourism’s vulnerability and resilience to terrorism. Tourism Management, 60, 404-417.
Maruf, H., & Joseph, D. (2018). Inside al-Shabaab: the secret history of al-Qaeda’s most powerful ally. Indiana University Press.