Gulf of Aden Security Review

• Unidentified militants blew up a Catholic church in Aden city in southern Yemen on December 9. The church, which was damaged by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in May, had been abandoned since Aden’s small Catholic population fled Yemen decades ago.[2]

• Coalition-backed Yemeni army and popular resistance forces assaulted an al Houthi-Saleh military camp in Labanat in al Jawf governorate in northern Yemen on December 9. The pro-Hadi forces reportedly killed dozens of al Houthi-Saleh combatants and seized al Houthi weapons and supply stores. Al Houthi-Saleh forces killed a popular resistance spokesman during the fighting.[3]

Horn of Africa Security Brief

• Kenyan intelligence reports indicate that Mohamed Kuno, al Shabaab’s commander for the Lower Jubba region, defected to the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) at an unspecified date in late November. Kuno, also known as Gamadhere, is believed to have planned al Shabaab’s attack on Garissa University in April of this year. An estimated 1,200 militants under Kuno’s command are thought to have defected along with him. The defectors include the previously al Shabaab-affiliated Jaysh Ayman cell. Kuno is reportedly a close associate of Abdul Qadir Mumin, a former al Shabaab religious leader in northern Somalia who defected to ISIS in late October along with a number of militants from his cell.[4]

• Pro- ISIS militants took control of the Lower Jubba region’s Dhobley village on December 9. The militants in the village are reportedly loyal to a key al Shabaab leader who defected to ISIS, likely Mohamed Kuno, though their leader’s identity has not been confirmed. This is the first instance of pro-ISIS militants definitively assuming control a populated settlement in Somalia.[5] 

• The president of Somalia’s Southwest State, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, called on December 9 for the Somali National Army (SNA) and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to end al Shabaab’s blockades in the administration’s territories in southern Somalia. Al Shabaab militants are currently blocking key roadways between unspecified cities throughout the administration’s territory, disrupting lines of communication between the Bay and Bakool regions and preventing critical food shipments from reaching urban populations. [6]