Within the past few days, the name al-Shabab (حركة الشباب المجاهدين; Ḥarakat ash-Shabāb al-Mujāhidīn, "Movement of Warrior Youth" or simply الشباب, "The Youth" or "The Lads") has been popping up in the news.
The first, and most recent, case is the attacks on the capital city Mogadishu, in Somalia. Just yesterday; two members of this Islamist terror group, dressed as government security personnel, succeeded in bypassing security forces and began mass shootings in the Muna Hotel, a site which is well known to regularly host Somali government officials, before detonating bombs strapped to their bodies. I was unable to discern a time for the attack, but Aljazeera broke the story (found here) at 1442 GMT, and TIME reports it was early morning. Some of the figures were also sketchy, but from what I could find, the death toll ranges between thirty and forty, six or eight of whom were members of Parliament.
This comes the day after al-Shabab declared a "massive, final" war against what they call "invaders". Also on Monday, al-Shabab perpetuated several attacks on military barracks in multiple districts of the city. According to Somali government security officer Colonel Mohammed Omar, "Government forces are inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy....We have killed more than fifteen of their fighters."
This is not the first time al-Shabab's name has appeared in the headlines, and it certainly is not the last. I'm sure I will be filing many more reports under there name.
Sources:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/08/201082464449278785.html
http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/major-rebel-attack-in-somalia/
http://allafrica.com/stories/201008240797.html
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2013649,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shabaab#2010
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