Al-Shabaab (militant group)

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, simply known as al-Shabaab, or by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Somalia, is a transnational Salafi Jihadist military and political organization based in Somalia and active elsewhere in East Africa. It is actively involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War as an Islamist group, regularly invoking takfir to rationalize its terrorist attacks on Somali civilians and government forces. Allied to the militant pan-Islamist organization al-Qaeda since 2012, it has also forged ties with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.