Everything You Have Told Me Is True Read online

  ‘Taking you into the world never reached by today’s journalism – cutting through the simplistic headlines of fear – this book is a brilliant description of what it’s like to live within a modern insurgency. If you want to know what’s really going on outside the Western pleasuredome, you should read this book.’

  — Adam Curtis, writer–director of Bitter Lake and HyperNormalisation

  ‘Mary Harper knows more about, cares more about and writes better about Somalia than any other foreign correspondent I know. This book will become the defining account of Al Shabaab and its times.’

  — Fergal Keane, former BBC South Africa correspondent

  ‘Mary Harper has listened to Somalis’ stories for decades, at considerable risk to life and limb. She captures the voices of those who join Al Shabaab, tolerate it, fear it, or would die fighting it. This unique book offers precious insights into the movement, and some slender hope for peace.’

  — Michela Wrong, author of Borderlines

  ‘This brave, nuanced and revelatory book chronicles the emotional and social impact of living in a state in the grip of terror. Mary Harper skilfully unravels the complex network of relationships that leads many Somalis to collaborate with Al Shabaab, and many foreigners to profit from its presence.’

  — Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 News

  ‘A brilliant book. With brave energy and precision born of long experience, Harper vividly brings to life Al Shabaab fighters as I’ve come to know them over the past decade-and-a-half. This is a must-read for all those interested in the contemporary history of the Horn of Africa.’

  — Mohammed Adow, Senior International Correspondent, Al Jazeera English

  ‘Mary Harper has written the essential book on Al Shabaab. With the gift of simplicity—allowing Somalis from all walks of life to speak for themselves—she has accomplished the remarkable task of allowing the reader to understand Africa’s most resilient jihadist group.’

  — Alex de Waal, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation, and Research Professor, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

  ‘Mary Harper has brilliantly pieced together something rare: an exhaustive account of human suffering that we’ve all collectively failed to notice. She has captured all angles of the conflict, from the fighters’ zero-sum arithmetic to the very human stories of those living in Al Shabaab’s wide zone of influence.’

  — Hussein Sheikh Ali, Chairman, Hiraal Institute, and former national security advisor to the Somali government

  ‘One of the most detailed examinations of Al Shabaab, and a great book about Somalia. Harper has drawn on her long experience reporting on the region to explain the political and social context allowing Al Shabaab to survive, with great sensitivity to the culture and resilience of the Somali people.’

  — Richard Barrett, Director, The Global Strategy Network, and former Director of Global Counter-Terrorism Operations, British SIS

  ‘Mary Harper has written an astonishingly good book—not about Al Shabaab, but about the Somalis who have lived under the militant group’s control for more than a decade, and who know Al Shabaab not only as terrorists, but as brothers, neighbours and friends.’

  — Bronwyn Bruton, Deputy Director, Atlantic Council Africa Center

  ‘A massively insightful and rounded perspective of Al Shabaab’s workings, thinking and governance, put into perspective by the experiences of those living under Al Shabaab. Mary Harper’s journalistic professionalism, her humanity and deep understanding of Somalia make a major contribution to understanding Al Shabaab’s growth and evolution.’

  — Mark Bowden, former UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia

  ‘Only Mary Harper could have written such a vivid and insightful account of the perils and opportunities of daily life under Al Shabaab. This brilliant book allows the reader to understand the resilience of Al Shabaab as a political and military force through the voices of Somalis themselves.’

  — Sara Pantuliano, Acting Executive Director, Overseas Development Institute

  ‘Everything you wanted to know about Al Shabaab but were afraid to ask. This splendid book draws unique insight from Harper’s years of reporting from and on Somalia, benefiting from her sharp journalistic eye and engaging writing. Essential reading for understanding this highly nimble, adaptable and resilient violent Islamist movement.’

  — Alex Vines OBE, Head of the Africa Programme, Chatham House

  ‘No one knows the Horn of Africa—and Somalia—like Mary Harper. No one else could have written such an intimate account of Al Shabaab. Her very human stories bring an important and untold chapter of the region’s recent past—and present—to life.’

  — Seth Kaplan, Professorial Lecturer, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and Senior Adviser for the Institute for Integrated Transitions

  ‘A must-read. Harper tells the story of Somalis and Al Shabaab like no one else before her—taking the reader on a gripping, deftly mapped journey to unmask this secretive, violent group by revealing its complex, and often surprising, human impact.’

  — Judith Gardner, co-editor of Somalia—The Untold Story: The War Through the Eyes of Somali Women

  ‘Mary Harper has written an important and disturbing book on Somalia’s Al Shabaab. Drawing on her personal encounters with Somalis, she describes our complicity in sustaining one of the world’s most enduring violent insurgencies.’

  — Mark Bradbury, Rift Valley Institute, and author of Becoming Somaliland

  ‘Mary Harper has found a unique, compassionate way to tell the complex story of Al Shabaab. Much has been written about the organisation, but rarely do we hear of the human cost of its atrocities, from those most affected. It is their voices that are raised up by this book.’

  — Idil Osman, journalist, and Senior Teaching Fellow, Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London

  ‘Mary Harper combines long personal experience, analysis, compassion and journalistic craft in this compelling volume—an accessible “must-read” for anyone trying to understand the phenomenon of Al Shabaab.’

  — Michael Keating, Executive Director, European Institute of Peace, and former UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Somalia

  EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TOLD ME IS TRUE

  MARY HARPER

  Everything You Have Told Me Is True

  The Many Faces of Al Shabaab

  HURST & COMPANY, LONDON

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by

  C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.,

  41 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3PL

  © Mary Harper, 2019

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Mary Harper to be identified as the author of this publication is asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Distributed in the United States, Canada and Latin America by Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the British Library.

  EISBN: 9781787382695

  This book is printed using paper from registered sustainable and managed sources.

  www.hurstpublishers.com

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1.Who Am I?

  2.Women and Children

  3.Modus Operandi

  4.Resistance

  5.The Propaganda War

  6.The Industry

  Conclusion

  Notes

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  1.Beach to the south of Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  2.Ruins in central Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  3.Ruins of the old Italian cathedral, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  4.Boys and girls await food handouts from Al Shabaab during the 2011 famine. Photo courtesy of Al Shabaab.

  5.Children with their handouts from Al Shabaab during the 2011 famine. Photo courtesy of Al Shabaab.

  6.Private security guard at an internally displaced people’s camp, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  7.Crazy wires in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Photo by Mary Harper.

  8.A newly refurbished shop in Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  9.Bakara market, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  10.An internally displaced people’s camp, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  11.A Koranic school in an internally displaced people’s camp, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  12.Dr Habeb with one of his patients in the Habeb Mental Hospital. Photo by Mary Harper.

  13.Patients in the Habeb Mental Hospital. Photo by Mary Harper.

  14.Making salt, south of Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  15.Former Al Shabaab office, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  16.Old parliament building, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

  Map of Somalia & surrounding region

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book is the result of years of reporting from and on Somalia. I have had hundreds of conversations with people, mainly Somalis, about what it is like to live in the shadow of a violent Islamist movement. I have also had dozens of discussions with members of Al Shabaab. These conversations form the building blocks of the book.

  I would like to thank everybody who ha
s spoken to me, some of whom have taken great risk by doing so. Many others, Somalis and non-Somalis, have helped me in other ways. I do not feel it is appropriate or safe to name the people who have contributed to the book. They know who they are and I want them to know how grateful I am. I would also like to pay tribute to the friends and acquaintances whose lives have been lost in Al Shabaab and other attacks.

  Thanks too to my agent Rachel Conway at Georgina Capel Associates, to Michael Dwyer, Lara Weisweiller-Wu and Farhaana Arefin at Hurst, and to those who read through and perfected the manuscript. Thank you to the former editor of BBC Focus on Africa, Robin White, and his deputy, Elizabeth Ohene, for teaching me how to be a journalist. Most of all, I would like to thank my family for putting up with my absences, both when I travel to Somalia and other countries in the region, and when I bury myself in my writing.

  INTRODUCTION

  ‘You went into a shop on the ground floor of a multi-storey building. When you came out, you were holding a tube of Pringles potato crisps.’ The voice on the telephone is a familiar one. It is one of my contacts in the violent Islamist group Al Shabaab.

  ‘Then you walked to the bank next door, but it was shut. You knocked on the doors and tried to open them. You took some photos. Your bodyguards were not at all professional. They were wandering about, chatting amongst themselves with their guns slung around their shoulders, instead of keeping watch over you.’

  The man, whose voice is soft and quietly assured, goes on to tell me that before visiting the shop and bank in downtown Baidoa, I had been to a school where the girls wore yellow uniforms.

  Baidoa is a city in south-western Somalia. The innermost parts are protected by local forces, including a fierce militia known as the darwish; the outskirts by a ring of mainly Ethiopian troops serving as part of an African Union intervention force, AMISOM. Beyond that is open country and Al Shabaab, one of the most successful Islamist insurgent movements of the twenty-first century. Although there have been deadly internal disputes over the group’s ultimate aims, including whether or not it should fight to establish a global caliphate, its senior members are united in their desire to overthrow the Somali government and establish an Islamic state in the country based on sharia law.

  Al Shabaab has been in existence for many years and has shown a remarkable capacity for endurance. It emerged in the mid-2000s, at a time when a group of sharia courts, known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), briefly controlled much of southern and central Somalia. The courts rose to power in June 2006 after unexpectedly defeating a US-backed coalition of warlords known as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. The ICU was able to accomplish what no other central authority has been able to achieve before or since; it brought about relative peace and stability for the short six-month period it was in charge. But the alliance of sharia courts crumbled following an Ethiopian invasion in December 2006. Some in the ICU leadership fled Somalia, while other more hard-core elements, including members of its Al Shabaab military wing, survived by melting into the bush, regrouping and emerging as a far more extreme, uncompromising and violent force. Somalis at home and in the diaspora began to wake up to the existence of Al Shabaab. Some were attracted to this fierce, diehard little movement, with its relatively clear ideology and ambition to rid Somalia of the presence of its long-time foe, Ethiopia.

  Although the US initially urged the then Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, to exercise caution and to think long and hard about invading Somalia, it eventually gave its backing to the plan, conducting air strikes on suspected Islamist targets in southern Somalia in January 2007.1 Some members of the US administration, including the then assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, believed the ICU was closely linked to violent Islamist radicals, including members of Al Qaeda. ‘The Council of Islamic Courts is now controlled by Al Qaeda cell individuals,’ she said at the time. ‘The top layer of the courts are extremist to the core. They are terrorists and they are in control.’2

  Al Shabaab is highly nimble, adaptable and resilient. It has gone through several incarnations, from a tiny insurgent group to a movement which for a time controlled and governed much of Somalia, including most of the capital, Mogadishu, and many other major towns and cities, especially in the country’s southern and central regions. These areas are often referred to as South Central Somalia, and exclude the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in the north-east and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland in the north-west. At its height, from around 2009 to 2010, Al Shabaab held sway over between 3 and 5 million people.3 It is also present in other parts of East Africa and the Horn, especially Kenya. It has attracted recruits from all over the globe, who are prepared to go and fight in a country that for years topped the list of the world’s most comprehensively failed states.4

  But back to the man on the phone.

  ‘Everything you have told me is true,’ I say to him once he has completed his list of all the places I had visited in Baidoa. ‘But how do you know all of this?’ I feel sick to my stomach, because I try to be extremely discreet when I visit Somalia. I tell as few people as possible that I am coming to the country and switch off all my social media accounts when I am there. I change my local phone number regularly and use secure messaging apps whenever I can. Meetings are arranged at the last minute, with times and locations often changed again and again. I do not talk openly about my internal travel plans, only sharing them with my two trusted security advisers. How could Al Shabaab know all these details when my movements are so unpredictable and so few people know about them?

  ‘We have been monitoring you wherever you go. We have people in the government, the security forces, NGOs, businesses and the media who tell us everything. They are our friends and they have been keeping their eyes on you.’

  The man from Al Shabaab goes on to talk about which places I had visited in Mogadishu and which people I had met there. He gets it right every time. He talks about how a senior government official I had arranged to meet in what I believed to be a highly secure location had not shown up and how frustrating this must have been for me. This makes me wonder who in that so-called ‘safe place’ had been an Al Shabaab informant. Was he or she a member of the group’s ruthlessly effective intelligence wing, the Amniyaat, or a more casual informer? It makes me think of a phrase I hear so often from Somalis: ‘Al Shabaab is everywhere and you never know who is Al Shabaab.’ It reminds me of the young boy from the coastal town of Brava, controlled for several years by the Islamists, who said, ‘Al Shabaab do not fall from the sky. They know us and we know them. They are our cousins, brothers, aunts and uncles.’

  Al Shabaab has my British phone number and whenever I return to London from Somalia, I almost invariably receive a call from a member of the group as I am collecting my luggage or am in the cab back home. I am asked about my trip, what the weather is like in the UK, and given a blow-by-blow account of what I got up to in Somalia, with a dose of Islamist propaganda thrown in along the way. The group usually beats my family and close friends when it comes to phoning to check if I have arrived home safely.

  Al Shabaab is known to the outside world mainly through its acts of violence, especially the spectacular attacks on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in September 2013 and on Garissa University College in eastern Kenya in April 2015, and the huge truck bombing in Mogadishu in October 2017, which killed between 500 and 1,000 people and is one of the worst terror attacks ever to have hit the African continent.5 But less is known about its impact on individuals and families, and it is this aspect of Al Shabaab that the book aims to explore. This includes the impact on those who join it, those who live in areas it controls, and those whose lives are affected simply because they live in or come from a country where it has a presence. Much of this book involves personal testimony collected during my many visits to Somalia and the wider region. In order to protect people, some of whom have spoken to me at great personal risk, most names have been changed. As will become apparent, there are almost as many truths as there are individual stories, although some more general conclusions can be drawn. It is ironic that Al Shabaab has been able to describe to me so accurately what I do and whom I see when I visit Somalia while I have found it almost impossible to establish a single certifiable truth about the group.