Have Al Shabaab activities decreased ?

This article will be based on Dr Mohamed Ibrahim Shire‘s research on the issue. Dr Shire published ‘Brothers in Arms: The Phenomenon of Complex Suicide Attacks‘ end of last year.

This research paper talks about the complexity of Al Shabaab(AS) attacks , compares the different years of activity and methods used to cause havoc. We spoke about how inaccurate ACLED is in our previous article.

The dataset starts from 2006 and goes all the way to 2018. This gives a good comparison between different years and high & lows. The first tally presented is the ‘Al-Shabaab’s Suicide bombing operations over time’. This tally recordes that the highest year between 2006 – 2018 was 2016, with a recorded 35 suicide attacks. During the past decade suicide attacks increased yearly but started to decrease in 2017. From 2016 to 2018, attacks went down by 37%.

Image

We now have an exact count of the suicide attacks, we move on to understanding the casualties whether it be combants or civilian.

Image

The ratio of combatant to civilian is 60:40, this means that overall from 2006 to 2018 there has been more combatant deaths than civilian deaths.

Suicide attack are split to two different types :

  • Simple attack – traditional suicide bombing operation involving one or more suicide bombers but absent of any assailants.
  • Complex attack – a deliberate and coordinated attack that includes a suicide device, more than one attacker, and more than one tactic (for instance, a suicide vehicle bomb) and small arms fire.
Image

This line graph dataset shows the increase of Complex suicide attacks and the gradual decline from 2016. The same would also apply to the Simple suicide attacks.

Simple attacks
Simple attacks can be specified into three groups :

  • PBIED – Person-Borne IED
  • VBIED – Vehicle-Borne IED
  • Mixture – Elements of both VBIED and PBIED
Image

PBIED devices reached their peak at 2012, with 10 attacks and later started to fall in 2014 and 2016. VBIED took off in 2010 and peaked in 2017 then declined the following year.

With the evidence provided above it can be said that AS activity have decreased in recent years. Here are some possible reasons :

  • US has conduct 35 Airstrikes in 2017, 47 in 2018 and 63 in 2019
  • SNA improvements and restructuring
  • Military academy opening end of 2017
  • Increased Defence Budget
 

Dharbash

🧊
MARQUESS OF SSC
Thanks to N&N it has decreased, Al Shabab is a thing of the past. Now we need to deal with and make strategies against Kenya/Amisom and move into the north making an SSC state.

Everything else will fall into place @embarassing . :sass2:
1585192423913.jpeg
 

kickz

Engineer of Qandala
SIYAASI
VIP
This article will be based on Dr Mohamed Ibrahim Shire‘s research on the issue. Dr Shire published ‘Brothers in Arms: The Phenomenon of Complex Suicide Attacks‘ end of last year.

This research paper talks about the complexity of Al Shabaab(AS) attacks , compares the different years of activity and methods used to cause havoc. We spoke about how inaccurate ACLED is in our previous article.

The dataset starts from 2006 and goes all the way to 2018. This gives a good comparison between different years and high & lows. The first tally presented is the ‘Al-Shabaab’s Suicide bombing operations over time’. This tally recordes that the highest year between 2006 – 2018 was 2016, with a recorded 35 suicide attacks. During the past decade suicide attacks increased yearly but started to decrease in 2017. From 2016 to 2018, attacks went down by 37%.

Image

We now have an exact count of the suicide attacks, we move on to understanding the casualties whether it be combants or civilian.

Image

The ratio of combatant to civilian is 60:40, this means that overall from 2006 to 2018 there has been more combatant deaths than civilian deaths.

Suicide attack are split to two different types :

  • Simple attack – traditional suicide bombing operation involving one or more suicide bombers but absent of any assailants.
  • Complex attack – a deliberate and coordinated attack that includes a suicide device, more than one attacker, and more than one tactic (for instance, a suicide vehicle bomb) and small arms fire.
Image

This line graph dataset shows the increase of Complex suicide attacks and the gradual decline from 2016. The same would also apply to the Simple suicide attacks.

Simple attacks
Simple attacks can be specified into three groups :

  • PBIED – Person-Borne IED
  • VBIED – Vehicle-Borne IED
  • Mixture – Elements of both VBIED and PBIED
Image

PBIED devices reached their peak at 2012, with 10 attacks and later started to fall in 2014 and 2016. VBIED took off in 2010 and peaked in 2017 then declined the following year.

With the evidence provided above it can be said that AS activity have decreased in recent years. Here are some possible reasons :

  • US has conduct 35 Airstrikes in 2017, 47 in 2018 and 63 in 2019
  • SNA improvements and restructuring
  • Military academy opening end of 2017
  • Increased Defence Budget

^Great find, its pretty obvious that Shabaab are no longer able to coordinate regular attacks, thanks to SNA chasing them in their tuulos.
 

fox

31/12/16 - 04/04/20
VIP
^Great find, its pretty obvious that Shabaab are no longer able to coordinate regular attacks, thanks to SNA chasing them in their tuulos.
Now this is why I've grown to dislike politics. Think I'm going to have to permanently retire from this mess.
 

fox

31/12/16 - 04/04/20
VIP
State your objections rather than whining, the data has been posted in OP
"Sunshine and beaches ... Come and visit Mogadishu ... The pearl of the Indian Ocean ... The complexity of Al Shabaab's suicide attacks has changed for the best ... Oh but please ignore the fact that terror related fatalities have gone up under our infallible President"
EOugBxDXkAAERiI.jpeg


Nationalism is a sickness. I'm done with the 3rd world. Time for me to find a Japanese wife.
 
Bro you shouldnt be asking this question...i mean look at graphs you posted..the lines on both type attacks are upward and increasing..

I remeber couple years ago i went to Moqdisho with my brother..to claime our stolen houses in Xama..they reffered us to a court that was managed by Al Shabaab :ohhh: the court ordered to retrieve documents from records..to cross examine it with our documents

Al Shabab runs a shadow government in Somalia. Not only do they only enforce the laws.. but they also tax people and have their own court systems.

Broad daylight face to face kind of shiit.
 

Dharbash

🧊
MARQUESS OF SSC
"Sunshine and beaches ... Come and visit Mogadishu ... The pearl of the Indian Ocean ... The complexity of Al Shabaab's suicide attacks has changed for the best ... Oh but please ignore the fact that terror related fatalities have gone up under our infallible President"
View attachment 100896

Nationalism is a sickness. I'm done with the 3rd world. Time for me to find a Japanese wife.
Did you even read the op’s post? ACLED use both civilian and combatant deaths in their data. Your source says ACLED
1585194940706.jpeg

:francis:
 

kickz

Engineer of Qandala
SIYAASI
VIP
A fatality is a fatality mate. It's not like ACLED is pushing it as "civilian fatality".

Context matters, inflating numbers with Shabaab deaths is misleading, no one cares for a terrorists blowing themselves up
 

fox

31/12/16 - 04/04/20
VIP
Context matters, inflating numbers with Shabaab deaths is misleading, no one cares for a terrorists blowing themselves up
It would be misleading if ACLED had published it as "terror related fatalities of civilians". Let's not go round in circles mate.
 
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It would be inflation if ACLED had published it as "terror related civilian fatality". Let's not go round in circles mate.
What is your point? We should be concerned about increased AS deaths? You seem to be going in circles yourself. Increased 'fatalities' from AS is a good thing.
 

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