US focused on disrupting finances for Somalia’s al-Shabab

The United States strongly backed efforts to disrupt the illegal financing methods used by Somalia’s al-Shabab extremist group, which according to UN experts raised more than the $21 million it spent last year on fighters, weapons, and intelligence.

US Ambassador Kelly Craft told the Security Council on Wednesday that the Trump administration is committed to partnering with other countries and using UN sanctions to counter al-Shabab’s ‘financing of terrorism’ and the threat from homemade bombs which the group continues to make.

The United States also remains focused on limiting the ability of al-Shabab to conduct attacks against civilians, she said.

The Security Council was focusing on the panel of experts whose latest report stresses the continuing impact of al-Shabab´s operations not only in Somalia but in neighboring Kenya.

Al-Shabab remains the most active and resilient extremist group in Africa, controlling parts of southern and central Somalia and often targeting checkpoints and other high-profile areas in the capital, Mogadishu. It has fired several mortars this year at the heavily defended international airport, where the US Embassy and other missions are located.

The experts stressed that military operations against al-Shabab ‘must be accompanied by non-military efforts to degrade the group´s capacity and combat its propaganda’.

Its investigation found that al-Shabab generated approximately $13 million in these four case studies alone. It assessed that the group remains ‘in a strong financial position and is generating a significant budgetary surplus, some of which are invested in property purchases and businesses in Mogadishu’.