In a bid to stay relevant, Al Shabaab Places Bounty on Obama, Clinton

One curious item picked up by the major news outlets over the last 24 hours is the bounty placed on President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton (Click here if you haven't read it yet, though it's made yahoo's headlines since this post has been written). Clearly, the bounties are a play in a pretend tit-for-tat game with the United States. A few days prior, US officials leaked information on up to $33 million in bounties for Al Shabaab leadership (here). In return, Al Shabaab offered 10 camels for Obama and 2 camels for Clinton. The CNN article linked above mentions that the average price of a camel is $700 in Somalia, though a number of websites selling camels (likely not in Somalia) indicate that prices can be a few thousand per camel. So a guy with a $5 million dollar bounty on his head puts one of a up to a few ten thousands on his opponent.

Is the bounty price meant as an insult, or is it truly a sign of weakness? The information available so far does not indicate any insult. In fact, military strategy often notes to respect the strength of your opponent, until you can secure victory. The one exception is where an insult can lead to your opponent's position becoming unwound, none of which seems to apply here.

Let's also compare this bounty to others. There has been a $100,000 bounty on a rapper who insulted Islam and a $2.2 million bounty on the pastor who burnt the Koran, just to name a few. On the other side, a British parliamentarian supposedly offered (though later denied offering) a bounty of £10 million on President Obama. So this helps put the no more than $10,000 camel bounty placed by Al Shabaab in perspective.

At the same time, it is widely believed that Al Shabaab's power has diminished over the past year or so. Its tactics and strategies seem to be less and less effective. So much so that it has been forced to partner with Al Qaeda, which reflects on the diminishing power of both groups. It is rapidly losing territory and influence (ex: here and here). On a related note, despite there existing a lack of government, it has been argued that the Somali economy is no where near as absent as its government. This means that there should be more "money" for such a bounty. Perhaps. But many signs point to less capacity within Al Shabaab.

So what is the end goal? Al Shabaab is not capable of a tit for tat with the US, unless it is an imaginary one from the Islamist perspective wherein the small group from Somalia is fighting with the hegemon on the world stage. It's important to remember that terrorism is meant to spread an effect and any opportunity for publicity is critical. Islamist compete, much like nonprofits and politicians, for donations and funding. This is Al Shabaab's grab at a larger slice of the media pie and thereby, the funding critical for them to retain their previous power.