Severing Al Shabab's Lifeline

Editor’s Note: This article is included in our ‘Conflict Hotspots 2014’ dossier which can be accessed here .

Al Shabab, the Somalia-based militant regime, is dependent on the ivory trade to finance its terrorist insurgency in eastern Africa. 40 percent of its revenue comes from the illegal poaching practice. As a result, its ivory revenue is a source of vulnerability.

Over the past eight years, Al Shabab has driven the United Nations peacekeeping forces, non-governmental humanitarian organizations, and NATO allies from its territories, and has withstood American Special Forces raids and Ethiopian and Kenyan military campaigns. Despite international efforts, Al Shabab has become the de facto authority in Somalia and a regional hegemon in the Horn of Africa. An international counter-ivory campaign, however, could weaken Al Shabab’s power and reign of violence.

Al Shabab challenges western-backed governments in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia, launching offensive campaigns and defending its sovereignty with a military based in southern Somalia. Simultaneously, it conducts attacks with insurgency networks that can strike throughout the disputed Somalia territories, the Horn of Africa, and even America's airports. The organization maintains international clandestine networks in multiple countries for recruitment, information campaigns, subversion, and sourcing for weapons material. The organization’s operatives often serve as part-time insurgents. They melt back into the local communities and move freely throughout the Horn of Africa, using the cover of refugee migrations to escape capture.

For those living in territories controlled and contested by Al Shabab, subjugation is arguably the best option for security and survival. Al Shabab has effectively used improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombers (including children), and high-profile attacks to create an environment of fear. Al Shabab’s strategic weapons of choice, IEDS, are cheap to use in isolated attacks. However, they are expensive to deploy in sustained insurgency campaigns because of the needed materials and networks to conduct target analysis, design innovative explosive devices, and emplace the weapons. The organization has the financial means to sustain an IED terror campaign in large part because of ivory wealth.

The Elephant Action League (EAL) traced a link between ivory and terrorism in its report, external pageAfrica’s White Gold of Jihad: al-Shabaab and Conflict Ivorycall_made. In 2012, over a period of 18 months, the NGO deployed clandestine researchers throughout Kenya and Somalia to uncover the “links in the ivory trafficking chain leading to al-Shabaab.” The investigation revealed a complex network of “poachers, small and big-time brokers, and informants” connected to Al Shabab’s ivory trade. EAL’s report concluded that the ivory trade is Al Shabab’s largest revenue source and funds the organization’s terrorist operations. The research showed that Al Shabab takes in an estimated $200,000 to $600,000 per month through ivory.

Al Shabab’s ivory economy is logically vulnerable to an information campaign that targets the points of sale – chiefly in Asia. EAL’s undercover researchers witnessed Al Shabab operatives loading ivory onto ships of Arabic, Chinese, Iranian, and Korean origin. Harvesting ivory in Africa is illegal; the international shipping of it is semi-legal; by the time it reaches markets in Asia, it has become a legal commodity. These legal markets that exist far from the Horn of Africa can be targeted through information campaigns that diminish the status of owning ivory and educate potential consumers on its environmental and political impacts.

Remittances -- known colloquially as hawaladars -- provide Al Shabab’s second largest revenue source. Thousands of untraceable donations from the Somali diaspora and global sympathizers flow into Al Shabab’s coffers and support both insurgency networks and public works, including building roads and hospitals, which subsequently reinforces popular support. The more popular support Al Shabab has in the Horn of Africa, the more money the diaspora gives. This international support would likely diminish if, in the absence of a profitable international ivory market, Al Shabab had to revert to overt criminal tactics, extortion, and human trafficking for additional revenue streams. Without the ivory income, Al Shabab would also likely become dependent on funding from organizations like Al Qaeda, which are not vulnerable to the local Somalia populations. Targeting ivory will directly reduce Al Shabab’s income and indirectly reducing its popular support.

Similar arguments have been made about undercutting the market for cocaine that fuels the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or eradicating the market for opium that funds the Taliban in Afghanistan. For many reasons, these strategies have proven ineffective. Ivory, however, represents a different kind of commodity, one that is elastic, rather than inelastic. Given that, to date, Al Shabab has proved itself relatively immune to western-backed military campaigns, drone strikes, and Special Forces raids, a non-military tactic is worth consideration. An international anti-ivory campaign could work in concert with military efforts in the Horn of Africa to counter Al Shabab, but military efforts alone without targeting Al Shabab's revenue stream could prove futile. Targeting ivory is a win for the international community, for the millions of people who are exposed to Al Shabab's terror, and for the remaining elephants in Africa.

Jeremiah Foxwell, Naval Ordnance Disposal veteran, is currently a graduate student at John Hopkins University studying global security studies.

For additional reading on this topic please see:

State Collapse, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency
Somalia: Puntland's Punted Polls
Blurred Lines: Kenya's Predicament, Fighting Al-Shabaab, Fighting Somalia
Somalia – Developments During President Mohamud's First Year in Office