The Somalia based terror group al-Shabaab has “diversified its economy” to ensure a constant income, from kidnapping for ransom and confiscating food and aid sent to rural populations, to forcing households to have expatriate family members send remittances from abroad to al-Shabaab’s coffers. Some of the group’s most notable financial sources include the taxation of Somalia’s charcoal industry and currently the extortion of local farmers.
The terror group used its strong-arm tactics to extort around 30 percent of the charcoal trade while controlling the port city Kismayo from 2008 to 2012 and reaped the benefits of taxing charcoal transit routes and exports. Although an international coalition of forces have pushed al-Shabaab out of several Somali cities and ports, the group still retains a presence in approximately one-third of the country. .
In rural lands and villages, al-Shabaab extorts money from farmers the way it had previously done from Kismayo’s charcoal venders and from coastal pirates before the international naval flotilla moved in and scared off the machine gun welding Somali youth in fishing and motor boats.
While al-Shabaab’s financial sources wax and wane, they never entirely dry up as the group continues to adapt. Sources of finance have even been attributed to other countries. According to the UN, Eritrea financially supports al-Shabaab, a claim consistent with Eritrea’s cash-strapped dictatorship’s policy of seeking cheap ways to stir up the region.
In addition to financially sustaining itself through taxation and extortion, al-Shabaab recruiters have exploited Somalia’s economic ills to attract unemployed and embittered youths. Al-Shabaab specifically targets youths from Kenya and Somalia by using generational appeal (the name al-Shabaab means “The Youth”) and perhaps more importantly, cash.
As African Union (AU) forces push north from the buffer zone that imperfectly protects Kenya from al-Shabaab controlled Somalia, al-Shabaab’s sources of financing are due for a period of waning. However, al-Shabaab, like the pirates along the coast awaiting the international naval armada to sail away, can hibernate if necessary and forever exist as an idea appealing to the poor and disenfranchised Muslim youth of East Africa.
Somalia’s shift from an all-out failed state to a politically unstable country with areas now secured by AU troops does represent progress. If such advances continue, normal statehood, a strong central government, and a thriving economy will lessen al-Shabaab’s appeal to potential recruits.
