Al Shabaab’s area of operations

Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen—commonly known as al Shabaab—is an al Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia. Al Shabaab emerged from Somalia’s civil war in the 1990s as part of a loose alliance of shari’a courts and armed groups. The group capitalized on the 2006 Ethiopian invasion to gain broader support and ultimately expanded across much of central and s…