Al-Shabaab looking for attention

The Somali jihadi group Al-Shabaab grabbed headlines at the weekend when it released a video urging Muslims living in the United States, Britain and Canada to launch terrorist attacks against high-profile shopping mallsincluding the Mall of America in Minnesota.

So, why the threat now? And how worried should we be? The answer to the first question is easy. Al-Shabaab is trying to get attention. And it succeeded.

Al-Shabaab desperately needed such attention for two reasons. For a start, it has been entirely overshadowed by the violent extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria over the past year. The fact is that ISIS is garnering virtually all of the media coverage of extremists, and as a result is attracting virtually all the recruits and money from the patrons of violent extremism.

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