The Al-Shabab in Somalia who recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State are moving into the capital, Mogadishu, according to a senior intelligence analyst.
Colonel Abdullahi Ali Maow, a former national intelligence officer who now heads the new Mogadishu-based Somalia Institute for Security Studies reported that some al-Shabab members are fleeing to the capital and to areas near the border with Kenya because they were overpowered in the region of Middle Juba.
Maow said Mogadishu is attractive because, as a city of several million people, it is an easy place to blend in.The Islamic State this week claimed responsibility for an attack in Somalia when an explosion targeted a convoy of African Union troops outside the capital.Al-Shabab, however, did not claim responsibility for that attack, as they often do.