Al Shabaab
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (حركة الشباب المجاهدين ) "Movement of Striving Youth", more commonly known as al-Shabaab, meaning"The Youth" , " The Youngsters " or "The Boys" , is a jihadist and takfiri group based in rural parts of southern Somalia. They are also a cell of the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda. As of 2013, the group has retreated from the major cities, but imposes strict forms of Sharia law in some rural regions. Al-Shabaab's troop strength as of 2013 was estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 militants.
Al-Shabaab's composition is multiethnic, with its leadership positions mainly occupied by Afghanistan- and Iraq-trained ethnic Somalis and foreigners. According to the National Counterterrorism Center, the group's rank-and-file members hail from disparate local groups, sometimes recruited by force. Unlike most of the organization's top leaders, its foot soldiers are primarily concerned with nationalist and clan-related affairs as opposed to the global jihad. They are also prone to infighting and shifting alliances.
The Elephant Action League investigated the ivory trail into Somalia, and found that ivory, or ‘white gold’, is ‘one of the lifelines of al-Shabaab’. EAL found that according to sources within the militant group, ‘between one to three tons of ivory, fetching a price of roughly $200 per kilo, pass through the ports in southern Somalia every month’. Al-Shabaab’s monthly income from ivory is – according to EAL – between $200,000 and $600,000.
Al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist group that killed dozens of people last month in a bloody four-day siege of the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, is deriving funds for its terror campaigns from elephant poaching in Kenya and elsewhere, activists and conservationists claim.
The illicit ivory trade funds "up to 40 per cent of the cost [of al-Shabaab's] army of 5,000 people", according to Andrea Crosta, a director of EAL, and co-author of a 2011 report into the links between poaching and terror groups.
A highly sophisticated, organized and violent movement.
The illegal wildlife trade is annually worth more than
19 billion US dollars.
The Western Black Rhino was declared extinct in 2013.
Don't let this happen to the elephants as well.
