When Shabaab abducted a PS and the rise of Jaysh Ayman militia

The militia took control of the PS’ vehicle, which had six occupants, and sped into a thicket. Ms Maawy had been shot in the leg and shoulder while her nephew suffered fatal bullet wounds.

The abduction of the PS would have given Al-Shabaab the kind of victim it was looking for but a team of the Kenya Defence Forces soldiers and the General Service Unit personnel rescued her.

Sadly, she died while being treated in South Africa three months later.

The story of Jaysh Ayman goes back to 2006 when some Kenyans were recruited into the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) government in Mogadishu, which was supposed to bring some order in the volatile Somalia capital.

ICU was opposed to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which had the support of Western powers and the African Union.

Al-Shabaab was working alongside ICU and there was a thin line between the two. After the ICU was overthrown in 2007, Al-Shabaab became an autonomous group.

Kenyans continued to travel to Somalia, joining resistance against the TFG and allied Ethiopian forces. It was the first time Kenyans trooped to Somalia – and got trapped in a war they hardly understood.

“Many of these fighters were funnelled towards al-Shabaab’s ‘Majimmo’ sector in southern Somalia – an area of operations assigned predominantly to East African mujaahidiin under the command of Titus Nabsiwa ‘Mwalim Khalid’ (also known as ‘Mwalim Kenya’),” the Igad Security Sector Programme (ISSP) and Sahan Foundation reports titled “Al-Shabaab as a Transnational Security Threat” , says.

A number of recruits in the “Majimmo” sector had close ties with al-Hijra and a significant figure came from Pumwani.

They had been inspired by Sheikh Iman Ali, the engineering graduate from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology behind the Muslim Youth Alliance known as al-Hijra.

Despite having a deep ideological backing of youth, Mwalimu Khalid’s people only had little success in its war in Kenya.

First, they conducted low grenade attacks in Mombasa, Nairobi and Garissa between October 2011 and early 2013, according to the National Intelligence Service.

Second, there were operational differences between Somali-trained fighters and local affiliates in Kenya.

Third, problems arose over operational issues such as chain of command and attack planning.

Mwalimu Khalid’s efforts to create an Al-Shabaab wing in Kenya ended prematurely in September 2012 when he was gunned down by Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) officers in Majengo, Mombasa, alongside another suspect known as Omar Faraj.

Though the official explanation was that he died in a fierce shoot-out, it was more of a targeted killing. One report said the house in which they were caught “bore hundreds of bullet marks”.

Still, some terror suspects escaped under a hail of gunfire, according to a press briefing by former Coast Provincial Deputy Criminal Investigations Officer John Gachomo, who is now the ATPU head.

After the death of Mwalimu Khalid, the then Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane ordered the formation of a new East African unit to be called Jaysh al-Usra or Jaysh Ayman in late 2013.

From Mandera

The outfit is believed to have been named after a man known as Maalim Ayman alias Dobow Abdiaziz Ali from Mandera, who was among its founding commanders.

Unlike al-Hijra, which was characterised by small-scale attacks involving grenades and shoot-outs, Jaysh Ayman started carrying out large scale raids targeting churches, hotels and police and military installations. The fighters would film the attacks as part of propaganda.

On the night of June 15, 2014, Jaysh Aymen carried out its first major attack on the sleepy village of Mpeketoni in Lamu County. The death toll was 60 in the morning.

The raid in Mpeketoni surprised even the security forces.

Among the attackers was Abdilatif Abubakar Ali, whom security agents linked to the 2013 Westgate attack in Nairobi that left some 67 people dead.

On July 5, 2014, the group carried another daring raid at Gamba police station, killing at least 29 people.

Dozens of fighters arrived in Gamba in two trucks and took over the police station.

They also rescued some of their members who had been arrested.

So brazen was this group that its fighters raided a church in Hindi in the same month, took videos of the mayhem and posted clips online.

The attacks in Hindi village left 29 people dead.

But it was the group’s appearance in Pandanguo village in Lamu that puzzled security agents.

Here, the group members preached at the mosque for the entire night before looting drugs, nets and mattresses from the local hospital.

Their attacks usually included combat-video cameramen who documented the high profile mass casualty raids.

The message in the propaganda videos was then disseminated through Al-Shabaab’s al-Kata’ib media wing.

Through al-Kata’ib, the group produced CDs, which were openly traded in Nairobi’s Eastleigh and Pumwani estates and Isiolo town.

In April 2015, the group made another soft target surprise when its fighters killed 148 people at Garissa University, the deadliest attack in the country since the 1998 US embassy bombing in Nairobi.

In the same month, they raided Mangai village in Lamu, harvested food from shambas, preached at a mosque and carted away medical supplies from the local dispensary.

It’s time to redraw the East African map.

On the same day, the militants were repulsed when they attacked Bauru military base.

The attack resulted in the deaths of at least 11 soldiers and more than 16 Jaysh Ayman fighters.

PS Maawy's abduction was going to be a propaganda coup for Jaysh Ayman.

For a group that was well known for inciting Muslims to violence against non-Muslims and the government, a senior government official in its hands would have been a war trophy.

“The aim of our Jihad is to make the word of Allah the highest, striking the falsehood of disbelief with the invincible sword of Tawhid. It’s the birth of a new dawn and a new era is on the horizon. And now, with the Mujahideen making inroads into the occupied Muslim lands in Kenya and beyond, it’s time to redraw the East African map,” the group said in one episodes titled “No Protection Except by Eeman (belief) or Aman” (covenant of security).

It was in some of these videos that we got to know the inside story of Jaysh Ayman.

In 2015, for instance, the group released a series of videos featuring members of Jaysh Ayman force, many of whom have since been killed.

In one of the videos, the group said one of its fighters identified as Abdifataah Hersi ‘Umar Nadheer’ was killed in the Mpeketoni raid.

Leaders highlighted

The Mpeketoni videos also highlighted the leaders of Jaysh Ayman like Ramadan Kioko , Omar Owiti, Luqman Issa Osman , Andreas Martin Muller alias Abu Nusaibah and Said Hemed Abdalla.

Unconfirmed reports pointed out that Luqman Issa Osman was the “Amir” of jaysh Ayman until June 14, 2015.

The video was reportedly filmed by Briton Thomas Evans, who was killed during an attack in Baure, a military camp close to the border with Somalia.

Some of the other known members of the outfit are Erick Achayo Ogada and Anwar Yogan Mwok , the suicide bomber who was behind the improvised vehicle-borne improvised explosive drive that killed dozens of Kenyan soldiers during the Kulibiyow attack in Somalia.

The others are Abdullahi Jarso Kotola and his brother Hassan Jarso Kotola, Hassan Abdalla Mushi, James Kimanthi Masai, Hamisi Swaleh Abdalla, Rama Mbwana Mbega and Mohamed Kuno alias Gamadhere, the planner of the Garissa University massacre.

Many fighters

Foreign fighters in Jays Ayman include Ahmed Muller – a German who uses several aliases, including Andreas Ahmad Khaled, Muller Martin Muller and Abu Nusaibah – and Malik Ali Jones, an American now serving a prison term in his home country.

Other than Jaysh Ayman, Al-Shabaab has other wings like Jaysh al-Usra (the army of hardship) which is commonly known as Jayshka (the army), Istiqbaarad (or Sirdoon) and Amniyaad.

Istiqbaarad is Al-Shabaab’s intelligence service while Amniyaad is the group’s security service.

Istiqbaarad (or Sirdoon) is further divided into external, internal and military services while Amniyaad has various organs namely Istishhadiin (martyrs/suicide operations), Iqtiyaalad (assassins), Tahqiiq (investigations/counter-intelligence), Sahmin (surveillance), Haaris (close protection) and Iqlaas/Maxaabiis (prison).

Below Istishhadiin and Iqtiyaald is a unit specialised in explosives known as Mutafaajirad.

Destroying these groups has been the task that the Kenyan military has been given.