It has been a particularly rough week for al-Shabab. The al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militia that has been battling for control of Somalia for the past few years has suffered three major setbacks in the course of a few days.

Just last month,  prominent al-Shabab-affiliated cleric Sheikh Aboud Rogo was fingered in a leaked UN report on Somalia as a key recruiter for the group in East Africa with strong ties to al Qaeda. On the morning of Aug. 27, he was shot in his car along with several members of his family as they drove through Mombasa, Kenya.

No assailants have been identified, but crowds of thousands of Rogo's outraged supporters have taken in the streets of Mombasa to protest his death.  At least one person has been reported dead so far and two churches have been vandalized by mobs, Jeune Afrique reported.

According to the U.N. report, Rogo was a key figure in the leadership of the Muslim Youth Centre (MYC) -- also known as Al-Hijra -- one of al-Shabab's main support networks in Kenya:

"The MYC relies heavily on the ideological guidance of prominent Kenyan Islamist extremists including Sheikh Aboud Rogo, a radical cleric based in Mombasa, Kenya, known associate of member of Al-Qaida East Africa and advocate of the violent overthrow of the Kenyan government. In consultation with Rogo, MYC has not only changed its name, but reorganized its membership and finances in order to permit its organization, the Pumwani Riyadha Mosque Committee (PRMC) in Nairobi, to continue funding Al Shabab."

Only a few days before Rogo's death, the U.N. Security Council announced that it was implementing targeted sanctions against Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, another Mombasa-based Kenyan national with deep links to al-Shabab.  Ahmed has been in prison for over two years in Kenya for his involvement in a grenade attack on a Nairobi bus depot that killed three.

According to the Security Council resolution, Ahmed has six known aliases and is "a close associate of Aboud Rogo." Rogo's name is the only one mentioned in the Security Council resolution condemning Ahmed. Both men were placed under sanctions by the U.S. at the same time on July 5, 2012.

Also on the morning of Aug. 27, the AFP reported that African Union AMISOM troops captured the coastal al-Shabab stronghold of Marka:

"The loss of Marka, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu, is another major blow for the insurgents, who have been on the back foot for several months."

Al-Shabab was pushed out of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, last year and has suffered number of further defeats over the past several months. However, they still maintain control of the two port cities of Barawe and Kismayo, their main stronghold.

Whether these events represent different strands of a coordinated regional crackdown on al-Shabab activities or whether the group is encountering a rather startling wave bad luck remains unclear.

Want a play-by-play of the battles al-Shabab militants are waging today with Kenyan forces in southern Somalia and Somali troops in Mogadishu? Look no further than al-Shabab's Twitter feed, which launched yesterday with a quote from the Koran ("in the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful") and has since tweeted in vivid and impassioned English. The Kenya Defense Forces "envisaged a lightening invasion of #Somalia but the Blitzkrieg they'd hope for became a thorny quagmire for the inexperienced soldiers," @HSMPress (short for Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen) declared this morning, adding, "Military ineptitude, deteriorating economy, social imbalance, & public ambivalence trigger a desultory face-saving attempt by the #KDF: FLEE!" A battle cry followed minutes later: "Despite the tragedy and loss of life & wealth, a Mujahid does not desert the dignity to defend what he holds dearest: His Faith!"

The new presence on Twitter, as Wired notes, may be part of a larger rebranding effort for the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic militant group. Earlier this week, Somalia Report noted that al-Shabab had decided to change its name to Imaarah Islamiyah ("Islamic Authority"). "Al-Shabab means 'youth' but many of us, including the leaders, are very old," a spokesman for the militant group explained. Wizened but still very much with it, mind you. After all, they're on Twitter.

In truth, though, al-Shabab's Twitter account represents more of a propaganda campaign than a branding campaign. On Wednesday, Wired pointed out that "journalists, terrorism researchers and aid workers make up the lion's share of its early followers, not eager Muslim youth" (hence the value of English-language tweeting). @HSMPress serves as a counterweight to the much-publicized Twitter feed maintained by Kenyan military spokesman Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, who has used the microblogging service to warn Somali civilians about air raids and get in the occasional jab. "Even with Al Shabaab change of name, KDF/TFG is committed in delivering the promise," Chirchir tweeted this week, in reference to the Kenyan and Somali militaries. "Reduce Al Shabaab effectiveness."

The proxy microblog battle speaks to a larger trend: Twitter, for all its pluses, is becoming a bit of a propaganda cesspool as the power of new media becomes more difficult to ignore. NATO has been tweet-sparring with two Taliban feeds for months now (a sample salvo from NATO today: "Scores of coalition killed in Kunar mortar attacks, huh? @Alemarahweb How about none killed"). The North Korean government launched a Twitter feed -- @uriminzok ("our nation") -- last year, prompting the South Korean government to threaten any of its citizens who reply or retweet @uriminzok's messages with legal action. This week, the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence held a hearing on the threat posed by terrorists using social media tools such as Twitter to attract followers.

Propaganda, as the popular feeds mentioned above attest, does indeed attract followers, though one imagines not all of them are ideological sympathizers. After two days and 21 tweets, @HSMPress already has 759 followers and counting.

As the almost entirely unreported humanitarian disaster in the Horn of Africa grows -- with the number of people in need of food aid expected to rise to an estimated 10 million in the coming weeks -- one interesting development has been the reversal by al Shabab (the militant Islamist group tied to al Qaeda) to allow aid workers into areas of Somalia under its control. Today, the U.N. World Food Program indicated it might take the group up on its offer.

"We're assisting thousands of Somali refugees ... but if we need to enter south Somalia, we need to work with al-Shabab," a spokesperson told Al Jazeera. The aid organization had to pull out of al Shabab-controlled areas last year after security risks proved too severe.

Al Shabab controls most of the country and about half of the war-torn capital, Mogadishu, but it has avoided trying to govern its territories and provide social services, experts say, choosing to remain a purely military force. The group has a complicated history with Western aid organizations. In the past, segments of al Shabab worked with aid groups -- even helping to retrieve kidnapped aid workers. (That said, they've also kidnapped foreigners.) That changed about three years ago as the terrorist group moved closer to al Qaeda and came to see Western aid as politically motivated and anti-Muslim. They've called U.N. and other international aid staffers spies and said they were legitimate targets. Among other ludicrous assertions, they've said food aid was a plot to drive Somali farmers out of business.

They declared war on the U.N. and Western NGOs, according to the New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson, and killed 42 aid workers in 2008 and 2009. As a result the World Food Program ceased its operations there in January, 2010.  

So, what's behind al Shabab's reversal? For starters, it is a testament to the overwhelming scale of the humanitarian disaster -- the worst the country has seen in over 20 years.

One unnamed aid worker in the region told the BBC: "You know things are desperate when even al Shabab is forced to appeal for help. They are a deeply unpalatable lot but we have to work with them if we are to save lives."

For al Shabab, there is also a degree of embarrassment at play. Many refugees are coming from areas they control like southern Somalia (and are either finding their way to other parts of the country, or are leaving to camps in Ethiopia or Kenya). Many say the lack of aid forced them to flee.

In the past, al Shabab defectors have cited the banning of food aid and other cruel practices against people in their areas as reasons for leaving the group. But this crisis surpasses anything in recent memory. Even al Shabab can't ignore it.

After you read through enough of these WikiLeaks cables, you realize that most of it is fairly mundane. And then you stumble on a line like this: Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to CENTCOM Commander John Abizaid: "The Somalia job was fantastic."

The Somalia job? 

The month is January 2007, and U.S. airstrikes have just taken out alleged al Qaeda leaders in Somalia. Days earlier, an American-backed Ethiopian invasion of the East African country rolled into Mogadishu and unseated Somalia's government -- the first functioning (if still flawed) one it had had in two decades. The job would later go a bit sour: Today, the central government controls just about a third of the land in the capital. The rest is in the hands of one of several Islamist militant groups that sprang from the extremes of that once-ousted government. Yes, the one ousted by the Somalia job. 

But back to the cable: the point here might be more about the weapon than the target. During the conversation, Zayed makes clear that he wants to acquire predator drones as a signal to Iran: "Iran has to know that there is a price to pay for every decision they make. They are expanding day by day -- they have to be dealt with before they do something tragic."

I wonder if they'll finally get what they asked for in the $7 billion U.S. arms deal anticipated to land in the UAE next year?

 Until recently counter-terrorism officials weren't worried about jihadi pundits having much of an influence in the United States itself, where they believed that a higher degree of Muslim-American assimiliation, social mobility and economic well-being would act against such influences. It turns out however, that this isn't always the case.

In an article in New York Times Magazine, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Andrea Eliot profiles the captivating transformation of an all-American boy from Alabama, Omar Hammami, who is now fighting with Al Shabaab in Somalia.

Despite the name he acquired from his father, an immigrant from Syria, Hammami was every bit as Alabaman as his mother, a warm, plain-spoken woman who sprinkles her conversation with blandishments like "sugar" and "darlin'." Brought up a Southern Baptist, Omar went to Bible camp as a boy and sang "Away in a Manger" on Christmas Eve. As a teenager, his passions veered between Shakespeare and Kurt Cobain, soccer and Nintendo. In the thick of his adolescence, he was fearless, raucously funny, rebellious, contrarian. "It felt cool just to be with him," his best friend at the time, Trey Gunter, said recently. "You knew he was going to be a leader."

A decade later, Hammami has fulfilled that promise in the most unimaginable way. Some 8,500 miles from Alabama, on the eastern edge of Africa, he has become a key figure in one of the world's most ruthless Islamist insurgencies. That guerrilla army, known as the Shabab, is fighting to overthrow the fragile American-backed Somali government. The rebels are known for beheading political enemies, chopping off the hands of thieves and stoning women accused of adultery. With help from Al Qaeda, they have managed to turn Somalia into an ever more popular destination for jihadis from around the world.

And there are some downright chilling portions of the article:

In a recent propaganda video viewed by thousands on YouTube, he is shown leading a platoon of gun-toting rebels as a soundtrack of jihadi rap plays in the background.

He is identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, "the American," and speaks to the camera with a cool, almost eerie confidence. "We're waiting for the enemy to come," Hammami whispers, a smile crossing his face. Later he vows, "We're going to kill all of them."

Getting native-born Americans to join the jihadist cause is a coup for groups like al Qaeda or al Shabaab. An American jihadi can increase a group's legitimacy, add appeal to radicalizing youth in Western countries and can teach foreign jihadis about American culture. Having an American passport also allows for freer travel.

Although Omar Hammami isn't the first American to reach the higher echelons of a radical Islamic organization (California native Adam Gadahn is a top spokesman for al Qaeda), Eliot's article is a uniquely in-depth look into the details of such a metamorphosis. It's definitely worth a full read.

As FP's coverage of Honduras shows, D.C. lobbyists are open to nearly anyone if the price is right. But for those with less cash, Independent Diplomat (ID), a non-profit organization, lobbies with a mission. With a team of experienced former diplomats, its stated purpose is lobbying on behalf of those without diplomatic representation with a goal of reducing conflict.

ID's current client list includes: Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Somaliland, and the Burmese government in exile.  A recent AP story explains:

"Very often government or international officials will refuse to talk to our clients, or if they talk to them they're reluctant to givethem the information they need," said Nicholas Whyte, who heads the Brussels office of the nonprofit group.

"And from our clients' side, they are often inexperienced in dealing with international bureaucracies precisely because nobody talks to them,"said Whyte, an Irish international affairs expert.

According to the AP, Independent Diplomat's annual budget is $1.8 million, funded partly by foundations and partly by client fees--which depend on ability to pay.

Because the United States makes it fairly easy to look up lobbying records, especially for foreign entities, I checked out exactly how much ID is making from its U.S. operations.  

According to lobbying disclosure forms, ID's most recent client, registered July 20, is the Government of the Southern Sudan. The contract between the two agrees that the fee to ID will be $294,000 for a maximum of 100 days work. This amount would be high for one contract, even for the standards of, say, Saudi Arabia ($150,000/quarter), but this is where the sliding scale applies. The contract states:

The Parties agree that the Client is not in a position itself to fully fund the Fee and the Expenses payable pursuant to this Agreement but as a contribution to that Fee and the Expenses will pay ID USD $10,000 at a time... to be determine by the parties. As to the remaining amount...the Client agrees that ID and the Client will seek project funding from external sources.

Any donors out there want to pick up this tab? It's a drop in the bucket compared to the $530,000 the official Sudanese government shelled out in 2005.

As for ID's other clients, it appear that Northern Cyprus is paying its full bill of £104,000 ($176,945) and the Burmese exiles have already payed half of their $100,000 year-long fee. Somaliland and Western Sahara, however, are paying only ID's expenses--and it promises to only travel economy class.

In 2008, Al-Jazeera English did a short documentary on Independent Diplomat, and its founder, Carne Ross, who quit the British foreign service over differences on Iraq. Viewable below. 

H/T: David Axe

An attack on Algerian police by the militant group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was the latest in a wave of violence in North Africa this week. It followed two major incidents in Somalia.

On June 17, Mogadishu's police chief was among those killed in heavy fighting between hardline Islamic militia and pro-government forces in the city. The following day, the Somali security minister was killed along with at least 22 others in a car bombing of a hotel in Beledweyne, north of Mogadishu. The last month has seen a push in Mogadishu by anti-government forces like the man pictured above. 

Interestingly, while Somalia's rebels, including some hardline Islamists have often downplayed alleged Al Qaeda connections and told Osama bin Laden to stay out of their business, AQIM in Algeria was formed from extremist remnants from the country's civil war in the 1990s and explicitly joined Al Qaeda in 2006, showing their allegiance with the name change. 

Reuters has a timeline of insurgent attacks in Algeria over the past two years.  Earlier this month AQIM killed a British man they kidnapped in Niger. 

MUSTAFA ABDI/AFP/Getty Images

Sen. Russell Feingold sent an interesting letter to Barack Obama about Somalia yesterday, cc-ing Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and Dennis Blair. The senator, a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, urged the U.S. president to engage Somalia, but carefully: work with the Somali government; improve support for the country's internal security apparatus. No quick fixes here:

[There is an] essential need to develop a comprehensive interagency strategy to stabilize Somalia and support effective governance. With the strategic review now underway, I reiterate my belief that expanded U.S. support for the new unity government must be a central component of that strategy. Furthermore, we must seize the opening that lies before us by publicly declaring our commitment to high-level, sustained engagement that could help Somalia overcome the many challenges to peace and stability."

Feingold proposes stronger U.S. engagement with the Somali government -- not only to stamp out piracy but to "establish security and functional, inclusive governance within the country." Obama, he suggests, should start by calling Somali President Sheikh Sharif. 

Most interesting of all, though, is Feingold's reference to the last time that piracy was notably halted in Somalia -- under the Islamic Courts Union in 2006. That regime, later ousted by Ethiopian troops (with U.S. support...) brought the only calm to the seas that the country has seen in recent years. 

The ultimate solution to the problem of piracy, then, is the establishment of a functional government that can enforce the rule of law. During the rule of the Council of Islamic Courts in 2006, there was a notable decline in piracy that can be attributed, in large part, to the rise of a central authority in southern Somalia.
Without replicating the repressive rule of the Courts, we must keep in mind that establishing a central governing structure in Somalia is critical to resolving, not just stopping, the problem of piracy."

Now that's an idea, unlike airstrikes, that I feel militantly supportive of. 

In my five pirate predictions yesterday, I wondered if the pirates would become more audacious and brazen, or if they would humble at their recent defeat at the hands of the U.S. Navy. This morning, I seem to have my answer:

Undeterred by U.S. and French hostage rescues that killed five bandits, Somali pirates brazenly hijacked three more ships in the Gulf of Aden, the waterway at the center of the world's fight against piracy. 

A greek ship and two Egyptian fishing vessels are now added to the handful of ships and 260 hostages the the Somali pirates claim on the coast. True to form, the hijackers adapted their tactics in defiance of the international naval patrols, this time striking at night. 

Also yesterday, I worried about an escalation on the part of the world's navies -- moving from naval patrolling into all out battle. Now it appears that escalation is coming from both sides.

If this attack is indeed in retaliation against the Americans, the world might be entering into a whole new kind of asymmetric warfare. Stay tuned on FP today.

Mike Allen of Politico's Playbook fame seconds our idea of renaming the pirates. "Pirates go from curiosity to crisis for 1600 and the Pentagon," his headline screamed, the suggestion of renaming them "maritime terrorists" within.

Matt Yglesias criticizes the letter of the suggestion, if not the spirit, with the rather unimpeachable logic that pirates are...pirates. 

The point I made last week -- that calling pirates "pirates" allows for a certain romanticization and fueled a media frenzy which too often overlooked the realities of the situation and the circumstance of failed-state Somalia -- thankfully seems passe.  

This weekend's rescue, which involved U.S. naval warships, millions of dollars, and pirate and civilian deaths, spurred an examination of the why and how behind the pirates. The sheen's worn off. They're criminals and a security concern. They redouble Somalia's problems.

Or, as someone will inevitably put it somewhere on the internet: pirates totally jumped the shark.

The United States is scrambling this morning to save a hostaged captain from Somali pirates -- calling in back up that includes FBI hostage negotiators, more warships, and just about every high-profile military and diplomatic figure who will reassure the American press. The drama is being scrupulously reported elsewhere (most recent update: the pirates want booty), so I'll save you the repetition.

I'm interested in a different question: Just how exactly have pirates managed to out-scramble the world's top navy? If neither the U.S. Navy, nor the EU, NATO, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian vessels were able to spot this pirate attacker coming on the vast seas... how do the Somali pirates find the ships they hijack? In theory, the sea is equally vast and equally sparsely populated on both sides of the looking glass.

One interesting theory comes from NightWatch: 

Several commentators highlighted the changed tactics by which some Somali pirate groups manage to seize ships far from the coast. What they do not provide is the hypothesis that this proves the existence of a well organized criminal syndicate with modern communications that link pirates to agents in port authorities from Kenya to the Suez Canal. The business is too big and rich to fail simply because modern frigates are present.  

It makes good sense. Why? Pirates have money and they can pay for tips. Port authorities, particularly in Kenya, are likely paid irregularly and poorly (particularly in comparison to pirate rates). The pirates have also shown that they are willing and able to infiltrate government authorities -- as they often do in their home in Puntland, Somalia.

No good news there. Cracking down on internal corruption among port authorities would be about as easy as, say, stopping a piracy epidemic in the Gulf of Aden. 

Photo: U.S. Navy

Over a month since the United States launched its own counter-piracy effort, details of the operations are emerging. The U.S. coalition is deploying technological and legal creativity to get the job done.

The first tactic: drones. After a report surfaced last week that U.S. unmanned aircraft vehicles were watching the Somali skies, I wrote to Navy Lt. Nate Christensen, who replied: "I can confirm that UAVs are being used aboard U.S. Navy ships to conduct counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. They bring the ability to stay airborne for long periods and cover hundreds of square miles of ocean during the course of one mission." The resulting intelligence is shared among allies. A good start to tackling the surveillance conundrum of patrolling miles and miles of high seas.

Perhaps even more interesting, the U.S. is now detaining and holding pirates -- there are 16 in custody now. As Derek Reveron pointed out in "Think Again: Pirates," that's no small feat. Most countries have been nervous about touching the pirates, let alone keeping them in custody. Britain, for example, instructed its patrols not to pick up any of them. There is no mandated court to try the offenders, and many fear that amnesty requests would be the result of naval arrest. No such fears plague the U.S. Navy, apparently. "They will remain aboard Lewis and Clark until information and evidence is assembled and evaluated and a decision is made regarding their further transfer," reads a military press release.

Good effort, team, but it looks like the pirates haven't lost their edge yet. A coal carrier was taken hostage today, just one of the 24 attacks so far in 2009. (Navies have stopped nine others). At that rate, this year would bring in about 100 less attacks than last. Alas!

Photo: U.S. Navy