Al-Shabaab's improvised explosive device supply chain gambit in Somalia

[Deeq A.]

Al-Shabaab ended 2019 with a truck-borne improvised explosive device (IED) attack that killed at least 82 people and wounded dozens more in Mogadishu, Somalia. It capped a decade of increasingly deadly complex suicide attacks by the Somali terrorist group that routinely involves homemade IED devices constructed from commercially imported chemical precursors. These materials transit through the same supply chains exploited by criminal entrepreneurs — and well-connected militant groups — shuffling narcotics, illicit wildlife products, and weapons through some of the world’s busiest ports and waterways. And it is in the ability to penetrate licit supply chains and access weapon production materials in which al-Shabaab appears first among rivals.

Source: Hiiraan Online