"We are Somalia". Statements by al-Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamed Rage.
Between 26 and 28 March 2023, Al-Furqan Islamic Radio, one of the media outlets aligned with the jihadist group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujaheddin, released a very long interview of one of the organisation’s spokesmen, Ali Mohamed Rage.
Ali Mohamed Rage, also known as Ali Dheere, is one the most important, spokesman of al-Shabaab since May 2009. A veteran jihadist, he is a senior leader of the Somali jihadist and Qaedist organisation and a member of the Shura Council.
Rage, born in the Hawlwadag district of Mogadishu in Somalia in 1966, was designated a global terrorist by the US State Department on 6 August 2021.
The audio interview on Al-Furqan Islamic Radio was published in two parts on two different days for a total of about one hour of audio in Somali and translated into Arabic.
What did Ali Rage say?
At the beginning of the interview, spokesman Ali Rage was quick to emphasise the historical context, explaining that the conflict in Somalia has gone through many phases over the years, but emphasised that the latest phase began when the US began planning military support campaigns (training and drone strikes) against the “Islamic States” and continues to this day without positive results for them: “This campaign has been going on for years, and the reason for its prolongation is the steadfastness of the mujaheddin and their ability to strike pre-emptively”.
Later, the al-Shabaab spokesman spoke about the current Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud and the anti-al-Shabaab campaigns conducted in recent months, ruling out that the Somali president had played a leading role in the planning of the recent military campaigns, stressing that they were the work of the US: “We say that Hassan Sheikh had no role in the planning of this campaign, and the evidence for this is that he was elected on 15 May 2022, and the next day, i.e. 16 May, the Americans announced the return of their forces to Somalia, and on the same day they summoned Hassan Sheikh to the US embassy, and informed him of their plan”.