On the night of December 8th, a vehicle carrying several agents from Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) was driving north to the Somali town of Dolow, located near the Mandera triangle where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet.
As the vehicle travelled along the highway in the dead of night, it suddenly struck a roadside landmine causing a massive explosion. When the smoke and dust cleared, the casualties became apparent. Six NISA agents were seriously wounded, and one had been killed — Colonel Abdurahman Abdullahi Bakaal Kooke.
At the time of his death, Bakaal Kooke was the Chief of the NISA station in Somalia’s Gedo Region. The area is notorious for hosting a large presence of al-Shabaab, the most powerful insurgent group in Africa. Kooke had dedicated his life to fighting the group. He was well-known across Somalia and had previously held several government positions, including as the Deputy Governor for Jubaland State from 2015-2016.
Regrettably, it was Kooke’s intense desire to eradicate al-Shabaab that ultimately got him killed by them.
Days after the attack, the insurgent group released a statement claiming the landmine that killed Kooke had been planted by one of their men, demonstrating the group’s ability to successfully target high-ranking members of the Somali government and security services.
As stated by Mahad Salad, the Director of NISA: “al-Shabaab killed Kooke for dedicating his life to liberating the region from the shackles of the terrorists”.
By assassinating Kooke, al-Shabaab has managed to temporarily disrupt a war being waged against them from multiple sides. The Gedo region, where the assassination took place, sits in a corner pocket of Somalia where the border meets with Ethiopia and Kenya — both of which have suffered their own plague of al-Shabaab terrorism.
In Kenya, al-Shabaab have carried out numerous mass-casualty terror attacks over the years, including the Garissa University massacre in 2015, which left 148 students and teachers dead, and the Westgate shopping mall attack in 2013, which resulted in the deaths of almost 70 people.
And in Ethiopia, al-Shabaab has made regular cross-border incursions, including a large-scale invasion in July of this year, where the militants briefly captured and held the town of Hulhul.
These events have forced Kenya and Ethiopia to launch their own military operations against al-Shabaab inside Somalia, and Bakaal Kooke was the man responsible for coordinating with both countries to assist these operations.
According to local sources, Kooke spent his time “working closely” with the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF), Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), and the Somali National Army (SNA). He also provided intelligence to the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, known as ATMIS.
This put Kooke at the forefront of the war against al-Shabaab in the Gedo region.
Kooke regularly expressed his support for Ethiopian forces helping to secure the Somali border and preventing foreign insurgent fighters flowing into the country. But in the weeks prior to his death, he was becoming increasingly focused on eradicating al-Shabaab in the wider Jubaland state, where the Gedo region is located.
In early December, Kooke was invited to assist a new Somali-Ethiopian military campaign in Jubaland, which aimed to attack two main areas where al-Shabaab are known to control at least 80% of the territory.
This put Kooke in the crosshairs of the insurgent group. His death brought down the primary source of intelligence for this new campaign.
Kooke’s assistance to the Kenyan Defense Forces was just as crucial. For years, al-Shabaab have used the Gedo region as a vital crossing point into neighboring Kenya’s Mandera County, where the group also maintains a large presence and regularly conducts attacks.
As a result, Kenya focuses much of its military power on the region, which has occasionally come at a heavy price. For example, on the morning of January 2016, a KDF outpost near the town of el-Adde was attacked by hundreds of al-Shabaab fighters, resulting in the deaths of over 170 Kenyan troops. In response to the attack, Kenya reportedly increased its surveillance and intelligence operations in the Gedo region, with assistance from NISA and Kooke.
As a result, al-Shabaab’s strength and attack capabilities in Gedo gradually declined, but the group stayed in the area to utilize the easy access routes into Kenya. Kooke tried to minimize these crossings by lending support to SNA patrols along the border.
Now, as NISA scrambles to find Kooke’s replacement, the pressure is temporarily lifted from al-Shabaab, allowing them to operate with a considerable amount of impunity across the Kenya-Somalia border.
Since the media shifted its focus to the Somali military offensive in the central region of Hiraan, which began in September, less attention has been given to events occurring further south in Jubaland state.
The death of Bakaal Kooke highlighted the importance of intelligence and multi-state cooperation in the war on al-Shabaab.
SOURCE: Project Black