Once they have connected to al-Shabaab, at least one young man, a university
student from Ealing, West London, blew himself up as a suicide bomber in
Somalia four years ago.
Many recruits do not return, but there is an established facilitating
organisation of intermediaries coming and going from the country that have
caused MI5 concerns.
Al-Shabaab professes to global ambitions but so far its attacks have been
mainly limited to Somalia.
However they caused shock in Uganda during the World Cup in July 2010 by
setting off bombs in Kampala as fans watched the game on TV, killing 74
people.
Jonathan Evans, the director general of the security service, has said that it
is “only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets” inspired
by Britons who have joined al-Shabaab, which is aligned with al-Qaeda.
Mr Evans said there were “a significant number of UK residents training in
al-Shabaab camps to fight in the insurgency there” and that the country
showed “many of the characteristics that made Afghanistan so dangerous as a
seedbed for terrorism in the period before the fall of the Taliban.”
He added: “We need to do whatever we can to stop people from this country
becoming involved in terrorism and murder in Somalia.”
Theresa May, the Home Secretary has warned that al-Shabaab has developed links
to al-Qaeda in Pakistan and to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) in
Yemen.
“It has aspirations beyond Somali borders,” she warned, and added: “We know
that people from this country have already gone to Somalia to fight.”
Ms May said it “seems highly likely, given experience elsewhere, that if left
to their own devices we would eventually see British extremists, trained and
hardened on the streets of Mogadishu, returning to the UK and seeking to
commit mass murder on the streets of London.”
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