Early Life and the Islamic Courts Union
Many of the details of Godane’s early life remain shrouded in unverifiable rumor and hagiography, particularly in al-Shabab circles.
He was born in July 1977 in Hargeisa, now the capital of the self-declared independent republic of Somaliland in northern Somalia, into the large Arab/Isaaq clan.7 His initial education was at the Umar bin al-Khattab Islamic school in Hargeisa where he reportedly excelled.8 Well versed in poetry, which he regularly inserted into his audio statements and other messaging while al-Shabab’s amir, Godane was drawn in particular to the poetry of Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, a Somali Sufi leader who led a rebellion against the British and Italians, who dubbed him the “Mad Mullah,” in the early 20th century.9
Godane received scholarships to study in Sudan and Pakistan, the latter reportedly funded by private Saudi donors, and it was during his travels abroad that he is believed to have been attracted to militant Islamism.10 From Pakistan, Godane is believed to have traveled in 1998 to Afghanistan, where he received military training and battlefield experience alongside the Afghan Taliban before returning to Somalia in 2001.11
In the 1990s, Godane worked for the money transfer company al-Barakaat, which was shut down by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks, in an office in the town of Burao in the Togdheer region of Somaliland.12 He is suspected of participating in the murders of several foreign nationals in Somaliland between 2003 and 2004 alongside Adan Hashi Farah Ayro, an influential founding ideologue of the group and Godane’s one-time deputy.13
In mid-2006, Godane was named the secretary-general of the Islamic Courts Union’s (ICU) executive council.
14 A close associate of Ayro, he had previously been connected to al-Ittihad al-Islami, the first major organized Somali Islamist movement that emerged after the fall of Siad Barre in January 1991.
15 After the Ethiopian invasion toppled the ICU from power in 2006, Godane was one of the al-Shabab leaders instrumental in reorganizing the group and laying the groundwork for the launch of its insurgency against the subsequent Ethiopian occupation.
16 He was also at the forefront of delegitimizing Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad after the latter was elected as the new president of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
17
The exact date of Godane’s rise to al-Shabab’s amir is debated, although it seems he ascended to this position in December 2007.
18
On the night of Monday, September 1, 2014, a U.S. airstrike targeted two vehicles near a wooded area of Sablale district in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia, an area used by the Somali militant group al-Shabab to train its military forces.[1] The strike killed Ahmed Godane, the elusive amir...
ctc.usma.edu