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As Power of Shabab Declines, Once Feared Fighters Leave Terror Group Behind
Source: New York Times
As Power of Shabab Declines, Once Feared Fighters Leave Terror Group Behind
By ISMA’IL KUSHKUSH and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN NOV. 4, 2014
BAIDOA, Somalia — Bashir was a true believer, a foot soldier who recently quit after seeing too many innocents slaughtered.
Ahmed deserted the Shabab because he wanted a real family, not just a bunch of heavily armed, sociopathic militants who called themselves a “family,” he said.
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Even before its leader was cut down in an American airstrike in September, the Shabab militant group in Somalia, once one of Al Qaeda’s most powerful franchises, began unraveling. In the past few months, the group has been shedding territory — and fighters.
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The picture they paint — in their accounts, and in their mere presence at a halfway house off the battlefield — is one of the Shabab in decline, without a charismatic leader, its ranks thinning, a once powerful organization now partly defanged, though still dangerous.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
By ISMA’IL KUSHKUSH and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN NOV. 4, 2014
BAIDOA, Somalia — Bashir was a true believer, a foot soldier who recently quit after seeing too many innocents slaughtered.
Ahmed deserted the Shabab because he wanted a real family, not just a bunch of heavily armed, sociopathic militants who called themselves a “family,” he said.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Even before its leader was cut down in an American airstrike in September, the Shabab militant group in Somalia, once one of Al Qaeda’s most powerful franchises, began unraveling. In the past few months, the group has been shedding territory — and fighters.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
The picture they paint — in their accounts, and in their mere presence at a halfway house off the battlefield — is one of the Shabab in decline, without a charismatic leader, its ranks thinning, a once powerful organization now partly defanged, though still dangerous.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/world/africa/shabab-somalia-fighters-leave-terror-group-behind.html