UN: Al-Shabab remains ‘potent threat’ in Somalia and region

Al-Shabab extremists in Somalia remain “a potent threat” to regional peace and are now manufacturing home-made explosives, expanding their revenue sources and infiltrating government institutions, U.N. experts say.

The panel of experts’ report to the Security Council, circulated Tuesday, said a significant escalation of U.S. airstrikes targeting al-Shabab militants and leaders has kept the al-Qaida-linked group “off-balance” but has had “little effect on its ability to launch regular asymmetric attacks throughout Somalia.”

The report said al-Shabab’s assault on Jan. 15 on a commercial business complex in Nairobi, Kenya, containing the DusitD2 Hotel “illustrates the danger the group continues to pose to regional peace and security.” That attack killed 21 people as well as four gunmen.

The experts also cited “an unprecedented number” of attacks across the Kenya-Somalia border by al-Shabab in June and July, “possibly in an effort to exploit strained relations between the two

The panel, which monitors sanctions against Somalia, also reported on the arrest last Dec. 17 of a Somali national linked to the Islamic State extremist group in Bari, Italy, in connection with a planned attack on the Vatican and other targets to coincide with Christmas celebrations.

The experts said the plot by Omar Moshin Ibrahim, also known as Anas Khalil, to plant a bomb in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Christmas Day “was rudimentary and had little chance of success.” Intercepted communications indicated Ibrahim devised the plan on his own and was not directly tasked by Islamic State operatives outside the country, the panel said.

Still, the Vatican plan was the first instance in which Islamic State elements in Somalia “were directly linked to an attempted terrorist attack outside the country,” it said.

After three decades of civil war, extremist attacks and famine, Somalia established a functioning transitional government in 2012 and has since been working to rebuild stability. But U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said it must still tackle violent extremism, terrorism, armed conflict, political instability and corruption.

The panel stressed that while an African Union peacekeeping mission and the Somali army hold the majority of urban centers in Somalia.