This past week, Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House homeland security committee, held the third in a series of highly publicised hearings on the radicalisation of Muslims in the United States and the threat they allegedly pose to the American homeland. King's focus this time around was on Americans who support al-Shabaab, an organised insurgency in Somalia known for its brutal tactics and the ruthless control it exerts over its own members. According to King, the danger this faraway rebellion poses for the United States should not be minimised:
"With al-Shabaab's large cadre of American jihadis and unquestionable ties to al-Qaida, particularly its alliance with AQAP, we must face the reality that al-Shabaab is a growing threat to our homeland."
King claimed to base his findings on an investigation conducted by his staff. His conclusion was that the call of al-Shabaab has placed the American homeland in imminent peril.
Most of the criticism leveled at King has focused on his reckless use of Congress to articulate distrust and fear of Muslims in a way that upends the basic tenets of non-discrimination in the United States. But more to the point, there are numerous factual and interpretive mistakes in King's representation of the Somalia issue. These errors are worth noting, because if left uncorrected, they may propel the United States along another erroneous pathway, both at home and abroad.
First, King misrepresents the magnitude of the exodus of Americans to Somalia. King's figures are correct, but his conclusions are misleading. Since 2009, nearly 40 individuals have been indicted in the United States for providing some sort of support – or wanting to provide some sort of support – to al-Shabaab. According to the terrorism database at the Centre on Law and Security, which I direct, 20 individuals have been indicted for travelling to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab, and an additional five have been indicted for attempting to travel there. Of these, 15 were US citizens. This is hardly a "large cadre of Americans".
Second, King confuses internationalist jihad with nationalist foreign insurgency. In the case of Somalia, the main imperative for fighting is not international jihad; it is the wresting of power from the group now in nominal control of the government, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The individuals who join this insurgency are most often of Somali descent and are fighting to help their former countrymen and their families in a failed state where violence, famine and chronic water shortage plague one the poorest nations on earth. In fact, contrary to King's assumptions, recent research done by Thomas Hegghammer at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment suggests that most foreign fighters do not have terrorist intentions at the outset beyond the nationalist cause they are looking to serve.
Third, King infers that tenuous links between foreign insurgency and jihadi violence will result in terrorism in the United States, once these foreign fighters return, now trained in the tactics of violence. This may, in fact, be a realistic worry for the future. But at present, the statistics show, according to the study done by Hegghammer (who is currently a fellow at the Centre on Law and Security), that "not more than one in eight foreign fighters returned to perpetrate terrorism in the west", once they have left the nationalist cause for which they were fighting abroad. As to facts on the ground in the United States, there are no Somalia returnees who have been charged with planning to attack America. On the contrary, returnees who have been indicted have been charged with attempts to recruit for the struggle abroad.
Fourth, to bolster his conflation of terrorism and nationalist struggle, King misrepresents the strength of the ties between al-Shabaab and al-Qaida. While there may be some connection between some of the leaders, al-Shabaab's mission is very much its own. According to the National Counterterrorism Centre, al-Shabaab's links to al-Qaida have not reached the organisational level; it can therefore in no way be classified as a strong partner in the al-Qaida network. To quote from the NCC's website:
"While most of [Shabaab's] fighters are predominantly interested in the nationalistic battle against the TFG and not supportive of global jihad, al-Shabaab's senior leadership is affiliated with al-Qaida, and certain extremists aligned with al-Shabaab are believed to have trained and fought in Afghanistan."
A summary report by the Council on Foreign Relations concurs:
"Experts say there are links between individual al-Shabaab leaders and individual members of al-Qaida, but any organizational linkage between the two groups is weak, if it exists at all."
These exaggerations and errors suggest that King has fallen prey to three fallacies that have, unfortunately, characterised American counterterrorism policy since 9/11, generating a string of counterproductive policies. King, too, fails to distinguish between the various terrorists threats – that is, the difference posed by Americans who reach out to al-Shabaab, as opposed to AQAP; he risks playing into the worldview of al-Qaida, which is constantly trying to claim inroads into foreign struggles; and finally, he succumbs to fantasy threat-inflation rather than encouraging realistic risk-avoidance – it is one thing to be vigilant about fighters returning from Somalia and quite another to prosecute individuals merely for a desire to fight in the civil conflict there. A more feet-on-the-ground approach would begin with a simple observation: the only Somali American who attempted to commit violence against US targets was Mohamed Osman Mohamud – and he appears to have no links to al-Shabaab or their cause.
The accurate analysis of homegrown terrorism in the United States is yet to be written. But its contours would look something like this: the incidence of terrorism arrests and indictments have gone down precipitously in 2011. Yet the serious nature of terrorism arrests for domestic terrorism has risen in recent years, as illustrated notably by the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, the New York City subway bomber Najibullah Zazi and Major Hassan at Fort Hood. Somalis have not yet emerged as a group with the motivation and capacity to harm Americans at home or abroad.
It is responsible to consider the possibility of what will happen as Somali fighters are exposed to al-Qaida operatives and foreign training; it is not so to make the claim, as Peter King has, that Somali Muslims represent a real and present danger to the United States. Until the United States can have a fact-based discussion of terrorism and look towards threat management, rather than prevention strategies based on guesswork and hyperbole, the excesses of the war on terror – and the harm that it has caused to America's core values – will rage on.
• additional research for this piece was contributed by Susan Quatrone
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