Amplifying Al-Shabaab: Economic Interests, Political Agendas and Psychological Warfare

By Aw Dacar
For more than a decade, some security analysts based both inside and outside Somalia have consistently underestimated the resilience of the Somali people and the capabilities of the country’s security forces. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, they have embraced and, in some cases, become part of Al-Shabaab’s narrative by repeatedly predicting that the Somali capital, Mogadishu, would fall to the militant group.
The clearest example can be found in reports published and widely circulated during Al-Shabaab’s major offensive in the holy month of Ramadan in 2010. On the morning of August 23, 2010, the group launched a large-scale operation it called Nihayatul Muctadiin. Somalis commonly remember it as the Ramadan Offensive because it took place on the twelfth day of Ramadan.
At the time, Al-Shabaab controlled roughly 70 per cent of Mogadishu, while the Transitional Federal Government led by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed held only Villa Somalia, the airport, and the road connecting the two.
Western media outlets and policy research centres responded with a series of reports and assessments that largely favoured the militants’ narrative, arguing that the Somali government was on the verge of collapse.
On August 24, 2010, The New York Times published a widely read report by veteran journalist Jeffrey Gettleman under the headline, “At Least 30 Killed in Attack on Hotel in Somalia.”
In his article, Gettleman analysed the deadly Al-Shabaab suicide assault on Hotel Muna, located near the presidential palace. He argued that the attack had exposed the city’s true vulnerability and demonstrated how fragile the Somali government had become, describing it as only a few steps away from total collapse.
Gettleman was among the journalists and analysts who accepted Al-Shabaab’s claim that the group needed only one week to seize Mogadishu.
Similarly, Reuters and the BBC published several reports stating that the Transitional Federal Government had been confined to only a handful of locations. Their reporting relied heavily on assessments by the International Crisis Group (ICG), which predicted that the capital was close to falling completely under Al-Shabaab’s control.
Likewise, the intelligence analysis firm Stratfor issued a security assessment arguing that Al-Shabaab’s Nihayatul Muctadiin offensive represented the final blow that would remove the government based in Villa Somalia.
However, after nearly a year of intense fighting, on August 6, 2011, the same Western media organisations and correspondents—including Jeffrey Gettleman, who had earlier predicted the city’s fall—reported that Al-Shabaab had completely withdrawn from Mogadishu.
Since then, little appears to have been learned from that episode. The same pattern has continued, with analysts returning every few years to predict that the group is on the verge of taking over the country.
For example, in August 2021, after the Taliban seized full control of Afghanistan, several international media outlets and policy institutions published articles directly comparing Kabul to Mogadishu. Those reports suggested that Somalia could face a similar collapse if international forces withdrew.
Again, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria in December 2024, Western think tanks, including The Horn Institute, published analyses comparing Somalia to Syria. These reports argued that if international forces left Somalia, the government could collapse just as rapidly as the Syrian government had in Damascus.
Similarly, after Al-Shabaab captured Aadanyabaal during its offensive in early 2025, fresh predictions emerged claiming that the Somali government would not survive the year.
For years, the narrative that Somalia would fall within days if foreign troops withdrew has been promoted by Al-Shabaab itself and amplified by sections of the Western media.
However, this narrative was disproved by the Somali government’s military campaign against Al-Shabaab in the central regions during 2022–2023, an offensive carried out without the participation of a single ATMIS soldier. Although the campaign had significant strategic and organisational shortcomings, it nevertheless inflicted serious damage on the group. Large areas were recaptured, and many senior commanders were killed.
The campaign’s greatest achievement was not only the territory regained, but also the collapse of the long-standing narrative that the Somali government could not survive after the AU forces’ eventual departure, and the breaking of the widespread belief that Al-Shabaab was an unstoppable force.
The question worth asking, therefore, is this: Who benefits from these repeated predictions, and whose interests do they serve?
It is evident that such predictions primarily serve economic and political interests that depend on the continued existence of Al-Shabaab.
First, they support the security industry built around the fight against terrorism. Western think tanks and security contractors require Al-Shabaab to remain portrayed as an ever-present and escalating threat—one capable of capturing the capital at any moment—in order to justify continued funding and multi-million-dollar budgets allocated to counterterrorism programmes.
Second, these predictions directly benefit Al-Shabaab itself by feeding its propaganda and psychological warfare. The group frequently cites failed Western forecasts to undermine public confidence, spread fear among civilians, and weaken the morale of Somali soldiers fighting on the front lines.
Ultimately, however, Somalia’s future and security do not depend on predictions written from desks and driven by financial interests. They depend instead, the author concludes, on the sacrifice and courage of Somalia’s national security forces and on the unwavering determination of the Somali people.