Fuad Mohamed Qalaf (Somali: Fu'aad Maxamed Khalaf, Arabic: فؤاد محمد خلف; born 28 March 1965), also known as Fuad Shangole,[1] is a Somali-Swedish militant who is a senior member of Al-Shabaab.
Working as a cleric in Sweden during the 90s and early 2000s, he returned to Somalia in 2004 and eventually became a senior figure within the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Following the collapse of the ICU during the Ethiopian invasion of 2006 he fled Somalia but returned to become a top official within Al-Shabaab.[1] Qalaf was the first senior Al-Shabaab official to publicly criticize the groups leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.[2] In 2012, the United States government put out a bounty on Qalaf.[3]
Presently he holds a seat on Al-Shabaab's Shura Council and is believed to head the groups operations in Puntland state.[4] He helped lead al-Shabaab's invasion of Ethiopia during 2022.
Biography
Born in Mogadishu,[4] Qalaf came to Sweden as an asylum seeker in 1992 and later received Swedish citizenship.[5][6] Qalaf comes from the Harti sub-clan of the wider Darod.[4] He lived in Sweden for twelve years, most of the time preaching as an Imam at mosque in the Rinkeby district in Stockholm (Swedish: Rinkebymoskén).[5][6][7] As such, he worked to influence young Muslims about Jihad.[5] He was openly sympathetic towards al-Qaeda and collected money towards financing the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia as well as recruiting youth to both the Islamic Courts Union and later also to al-Shabaab. He was also a prolific lecturer at the Bellevue Mosque in Gothenburg.[7]
In 2004, Qalaf returned to Somalia together with his family during the rise of the Islamic Courts Union.[5] Following the conquest of Mogadishu in mid-2006, Qalaf went on to serve in the Department of Education under the newly formed ICU-government.[5][6] After the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December 2006 and the subsequent fall of the ICU-government, Qalaf and other ICU leaders fled the country.[8] In April 2007 he was reported to be living in Kenya.[5] Qalaf returned to Somalia again during 2007/2008 to be a prominent leader in Al-Shabaab. He was alleged to be behind the killing of Aisha Duhulow in Kismayo during late 2008.[7] In 2010 he was the target of two different assassination attempts. Hizbul Islam, an Islamist group then rivaling Al-Shabaab, reportedly targeted him with a road side bomb in February of that year. In May he was targeted by unknown assailants in the Bakaara Market of Mogadishu.[4] By the end of 2010, Qalaf became the first senior figure in the organization publicly criticized the leader of Al-Shabaab, Ahmed Godane, for having “hidden agendas,” after the Al-Shabaab attacked Hizbul Islam forces.[2] Qalaf increasingly split with Godane due to attacks he carried out on Hizbul Islam while its leader, Hassan Dahir Aweys, was negotiating with Al-Shabaab. Godane opposed a Hizbul Islam/Al-Shabaab merger, while Qalaf supported it.[4]
By 2011, Qalaf had risen to become the leader of the groups operations in Puntland. That year he also publicly described suicide bombing as unlawful and began adopting a more conciliatory tone towards the TFG. He warned Al-Shabaab fighters to stop assassinating people 'on mere suspicion of working for the government' as it was a great sin.[4] During a speech in Mogadishu during January 2011, Qalaf stated that TFG would potentially be able to lead the country, in accordance with sharia (Islamic law), together with Al Shabab.[9]
During June 2012, the United States government put out its first bounty on Qalaf.[3] He publicly stated that year that Al-Shabaab would stop 'caning' people for perceived transgressions against sharia.[10] In May 2013, Fuad Qalaf confirmed that al Shabaab had killed American jihadist Omar Hammami (aka Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki) and several other foreign fighters in Bay region.[4] In May 2014, Qalaf stated that al-Shabab fighters would carry out jihad, or holy war, in Kenya and Uganda "and afterward, with God's will, to America."[11]
In 2021 the United States government put a $6 million dollar bounty for information that could lead to Qalafs capture.[12] Following al-Shabaab's 2022 invasion into Ethiopia, Major General Tesfaye Ayalew of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) claimed to have killed Qalaf[13][14] in an airstrike on 29 July 2022.[15] On 3 August Al Shabaab released a voice recording of Qalaf, who denied Ethiopian forces killed him on July 29. He further stated that al Shabaab would continue to attack the Somali Regional Liyu police.[16][15]
