Story highlights
Al-Shabaab chief Mukhtar Abu Zubayr has a reputation for being secretive, merciless
Zubayr, 36, wants his group to be able to deliver devastating attacks beyond Somalia
Last year, he formally declared Al-Shabaab an affiliate of al Qaeda
Zubayr's harsh tactics have led to dissent in his group, which he has ruthlessly suppressed
Zubayr, who is also known as Ahmed Abdi Godane, already has a price on his head. In 2012, the U.S. State Department authorized a reward of up to $7 million for information on his whereabouts. But he has 15 years on his terror resume, and according to information provided by a well-placed source in Mogadishu who has extensive knowledge of Al-Shabaab, he “is ruthlessly eliminating real and imagined rivals” within the group.
Zubayr, who is also known as Ahmed Abdi Godane, already has a price on his head. Last year, the U.S. State Department authorized a reward of up to $7 million for information on his whereabouts. And Saturday, his compound in the Somali port city of Barawe was the target of a raid by American commandos, according to local residents. The SEALs withdrew after a fierce firefight, and it was unclear whether their target – still unidentified by U.S. officials – was dead or alive.
Zubayr’s vision has been to transform Al-Shabaab from an insurgent outfit focused on Somalia into a terrorist group capable of devastating attacks beyond its borders. He has already directed two – suicide bombings against bars in Uganda’s capital Kampala in 2010, and September’s Westgate mall siege in Nairobi, Kenya.
READ: Al-Shabaab’s American allies
In an audio statement released after the siege, Zubayr noted the attack took place “just 10 days after the anniversary date of the blessed 911 operations” and called it an “epic battle” launched to punish Kenya for the 2011 invasion that drove Al-Shabaab out of much of southern Somalia.
“We tell the Kenyan public: You have entered into a war that is not yours and is serving against your national interests. You have voluntarily given up on your security and economy and lost many of your sons,” Zubayr said. He warned Kenyans that they face “a war of attrition inside your own country” unless their government pulls its remaining forces out of Somalia. He added that “it was also a retribution against the Western states that supported the Kenyan invasion.”
Experts who track Al-Shabaab communications say there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the recording.
Uganda, meanwhile, has more than 6,000 troops in Somalia as part of the African Union peacekeeping mission supporting the transitional government in Mogadishu. After the 2010 bombings, which killed more than 70 people, Zubayr warned: “What happened in Kampala was just the beginning.”
And with a terror resume that now spans 15 years, he has been “ruthlessly eliminating real and imagined rivals” within the group, according to a well-placed source in Mogadishu with extensive knowledge of Al-Shabaab.
“Zubayr is creating Al-Shabaab 2.0,” the source said.
Read: Al-Shabaab grew amid Somalia’s lawlessness
For Zubayr, the struggle has always been a global confrontation with “disbelievers” rather than just about Somalia. He also vowed that his group would launch a direct attack against the United States.
Zubayr is 37, according to most accounts, and originally from Somaliland, now a vaguely autonomous part of northern Somalia. He is slim to the point of wispy, as shown in the few photographs of him, and prefers recording audio messages to appearing in public.
Read: Al-Shabaab breaks new ground with complex Nairobi attack
Among his close associates in Al-Shabaab’s early days was Aden Ayrow, a towering force in the group and a ruthless and mercurial pro-al Qaeda hard-liner. After Ayrow’s death in May 2008 in a U.S. strike, Zubayr asserted his leadership of Al-Shabaab and immediately pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks in 2009, he once refused to discuss a military offensive against government forces in Mogadishu with Al-Shabaab’s allies until one of them apologized for remarks he had made critical of bin Laden.
But bin Laden was wary of an al Qaeda merger with Al-Shabaab. About a year before his death, he wrote to Zubayr that enemies would “escalate their anger and mobilize against you. This is what happened to the brothers in Iraq or Algeria.”
Bin Laden’s deputy at that time, Ayman al-Zawahiri, took a different view. A letter dated December 2010, which was recovered from bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and was thought by researchers to have been written by al-Zawahiri, was critical of bin Laden’s decision to rebuff entreaties by the Somali militant group.
“I see it to be very essential for al Qaeda to confirm and declare its linkage with its branches. … Please reconsider your opinion not to declare the accession of the brothers of Somalia,” the author wrote.
In February 2012, Zubayr formally declared Al-Shabaab an affiliate of al Qaeda with a long message to al-Zawahiri in which he said: “We will go with you as loyal soldiers until doom and injustice disappear from Islam.”
Zubayr has always rejected any negotiations with Somalia’s transitional federal government. According to another U.S. diplomatic cable unearthed by WikiLeaks, Zubayr rejected an initiative in 2009 by Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi to mediate in Somalia, telling him that once a true Islamic government was established in Somalia, he would move on to other countries, including Libya.
As Al-Shabaab came under greater pressure from the African Union force stationed in Mogadishu, Zubayr turned to suicide bombings against civilians. In December 2009, an Al-Shabaab bomber killed 23 people at a university graduation ceremony in Mogadishu.
Read: How Al-Shabaab picks its targets
Zubayr’s rejection of negotiations, poor management of military campaigns and the clan system soon led to dissent in Al-Shabaab. According to diplomatic cables in 2009, Zubayr wanted to declare an Islamic caliphate in areas controlled by Al-Shabaab, which included much of central and southern Somalia.
One prominent Al-Shabaab member, the American Omar Hammami, said in a video in 2012 that other elements in the group were trying to kill him. He followed up with a series of tweets attacking Zubayr.
Zubayr responded by ordering the killing of Hammami, who was wounded by a gunshot in April 2013. His intelligence wing caught up with Hammami months later and killed him, just days after he told the Voice of America that Zubayr had “turned Al-Shabaab into an organization that oppresses Muslims in an effort to win control of Somalia.”
Even longtime supporters and friends, such as Ibrahim al Afghani, turned against Zubayr, and paid with their lives. Al Afghani was killed in a shootout in June 2013 in the southern town of Barowe.
After a Kenyan-led military operation pushed Al-Shabaab out of population centers in 2011, pro-al Qaeda hawks within the group gained the upper hand. The loss of the port city of Kismayo, the source of much of Al-Shabaab’s income, weakened arguments that the group had too much to lose by embracing al Qaeda’s global jihad.
One reason Zubayr has emerged triumphant in these internal battles is that he controls Al-Shabaab’s intelligence wing, known as Amniyat, a ruthless entity organized in cells and commanded by Mahad Mohamed Ali, also known as “Karate.”
Zubayr’s reliance on force in an organization that has long worked as a loose collective has made him a legion of enemies inside Somalia, and even led to criticism on some jihadist forums sympathetic to al Qaeda.