Emir Of Somali Al-Shabaab Appears In Front Of Camera!

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, more commonly known as al-Shabaab, is a Salafi-jihadist military and political organization based in Somalia.

Abu Ubaidah, the emir of the so-called al-Mujahideen group, took part in the second consultative meeting on issues related to jihad in East Africa and addressed the participants about an hour.

Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaidah claimed that the military raids by the Somali government forces and its allies against what he called as the Islamic provinces would be defeated and made a speech about the recent plan of the Somali government to use tribes to confront the so-called Mujahideen group.

He went on to say that these forces do not have the potential to confront Al-Shabaab elements without air support with all their capabilities. He also spoke of the defeat of Danab Brigade, a highly trained Somali National Army commando force, in various confrontations.

It is worth mentioning that a while ago, the Al-Kata’ib Foundation published a trilingual footage of the al-Shabaab elements attacking Danab Brigade in the Gal’ad region.

Read more: US withdrawal from Somalia

The emir of al-Shabaab continued to point out to the damage inflicted upon the Somali armed forces and their allies as well as the spoils obtained from the forces, adding that the military operations by the government forces against the al-Shabaab elements are carried out with air support by the United States, Turkish, Kenyan and Ethiopian warplanes. Abu Ubaidah further referred to Ethiopia’s role in the war against the al-Shabaab elements and considered the Ethiopian forces’ attack on Somalia to be imminent.

Following the fall of the government of former President of Somalia Siad Barre in 1991, Umar Diriye also known as Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaidah, who was born in 1970, joined the Al-Ittihad Al-Islami (AIAI, or Unity of Islam), which is a militant Salafi group. In 2009, he was appointed by the group as the governor of Bay and Bakool districts. Umar Diriye turned into the leader of the group in September 2014 after the killing of Ahmed Abdi Godane, aka Mukhtar Abu al-Zubayr, the former emir of Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen.

It should be noted that al-Shabaab had not released any image of Umar Diriye until the killing of Mukhtar Abu al-Zubayr and after the incident they published pictures and videos of the new commander. Of course, the Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen has not yet released any clear image of its current leader.