Al-Shabaab's leadership hierarchy and its ideology

• Main Author: Shuriye, Abdi Omar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAVAP International 2012
• Subjects: BL Religion; JA Political science (General)
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/29678/1/al-Shabab-_Academic_Research_International-January_20122012%282.1-32%29.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/29678/; http://www.savap.org.pk/journals/ARInt./Vol.2(1)/2012(2.1-32).pdf

This research studies the deriving ideology and directions of al-Shabaab movement. The organization constitutes obdurate and dogmatic elements and individuals of originally Somali’s Salafi movements. The initial findings of this research are that al-Shabaab’s ideology must have originated outside Somalia. The key objective of this research is to investigate al-Shabaab’s political ideology and its structural leadership, to assess the ideological relationship between al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda, to comprehend the political future of the group and to ascertain their political and theological ideologies. The research therefore investigates the leadership structure of al-Shabaab and its organizational settings. The methodology of this research, partly, involved collecting field data in a form of informal interviews and surveys, but it is mainly an analytical and evaluative approach. My findings indicate that al-Shabaab operate in a flexible multiple cells organizational leadership structure whose components are independent.