By Dr. M. Omar Hashi
One of the most profound and long-lasting achievements in the 16-year long fight against the Al-Shabaab terrorist movement in Somalia has been the spectacular success of the surveillance model of counter-terrorism devised and implemented by the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) of Somalia under Mahad Mohamed Salad. Just three months after Mahad Salad’s reappointment to NISA in June 2025, the Surveillance model he devised in 2022 has able to unmask, track and eliminate Al-Shabaab sleeper cells and thereby ensure unprecedented peace and security of Mogadishu and its environs.
When President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud appointed Mahad Mohamed Salad as the Director General of the National Intelligence and Security Agency in August 2022, Mahad focused on devising an ingenious model of surveillance-led counter terrorism, a unique model built on the combined use of CCTV cameras and human intelligence on the ground to identify, track and neutralize the Al-Shabaab operatives.
Before Mahad Salad’s appointment, the shadowy Al-Shabaab were able with impunity to stage mass terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds and thousands of Mogadishu civilians such as the infamous 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings that killed over 500 civilians in one day!
The Shabaab terrorists callously deployed improvised explosive device (IED) and Vehicle (V-IED), mortar attacks, suicide attacks, as well as frequent assassinations, and arson in Mogadishu
For more than 16 years, it became commonplace and even expected that Al-Shabaab would regularly execute brazen attacks on hotels, beach-front restaurants, mosques, government office buildings and even the Mogadishu international airport zone. Shabaab operatives and collaborators remain hidden within the Federal government, businesses, hotels and the very security agencies that were mandated to stop them. These faceless Shabaab collaborators facilitated the unrelenting and devastating Shabaab terrorist attacks.
A Somali model of counter-terrorism
To counter the Al-Shabaab terrorist attacks in Mogadishu, NISA chief Mahad Salad since 2022 deployed an ingenious surveillance model of counter terrorism that is centred on the use of CCTV cameras merged with local human intelligence on the ground.
Mahad focused on installing CCTV cameras on every major Mogadishu road intersections, commercial businesses, mosques, hotels and even outside civilian homes.
Under Mahad Salad’s directions, NISA recruited thousands of undercover plainclothes agents to track Al-Shabaab movements throughout the labyrinths of Mogadishu neighborhoods and the numerous IDP camps strewed across the city.
Using the combined information on Al-Shabaab networks captured from CCTV cameras and undercover human intelligence, NISA conducted surgical drone strikes on Al-Shabaab staging grounds for operations outside of Mogadishu. In this way, Mogadishu was secured inside and outside by the combined surveillance system of CCTV cameras, human intelligence assets and drone strikes.
A key advantage of the success of NISA’s model of counter terrorism is Mahad’s deep localized knowledge of two fundamental pillars of Al-Shabaab terrorist operations:
1. Al-Shabaab attacks are largely facilitated by sleeper cells and collaborators, including those working within the Somali security agencies, business community and members of the Federal and State governments. It is these hidden Shabaab operatives and collaborators, some motivated simply for money and others by extremist and parochial interests, that provide key information and surveillance for Al-Shabaab to target and execute terrorist operations with lethal frequency.
2. Al-Shabaab as an organization works very hard to protect the identities of their collaborators and operatives because without the assistance of these collaborators and infiltrators, the Al-Shabaab is comprehensively unable to organize and execute mass attacks and assassinations. Therefore, Al-Shabaab prioritizes safeguarding the hidden identities of their collaborators and concealing their involvement and movements inside Mogadishu as much as possible.
By eliminating these two pillars of Al-Shabaab terrorism, Mahad Salad accomplished an unprecedented victory against the terror movement. Specifically, NISA’s surveillance model of counter-terrorism succeeded to deprive Al-Shabaab of their fundamental and greatest lethality in Somalia: the ability to provide secrecy to its members.
Al-Shabaab is now unable to recruit and protect the identities of its collaborators from detection and inevitable NISA retaliation. Without the assistance of hidden operatives and collaborators, Al-Shabaab has been unable to successfully execute mass terror attacks and assassinations. The Shabaab as an organization have not been able to counter the combined risk of detection and infiltration by CCTV cameras and undercover NISA plainclothes community agents— some say hundreds of Mogadishu residents have been recruited by NISA— who spot and report any Shabaab activity.
Terrorism by its very definition is asymmetrical warfare. This means Al-Shabaab terrorists require the ability and space to clandestinely hide their identities within the civilian population to stage attacks to violently intimidate and undermine the legitimacy of the Somali state.
Cognizant of above-mentioned nature of terrorism and the prevailing factors that enable Al Shabaab terrorism and projection of power, NISA chief Mahad Salad has successfully instituted an effective Surveillance model of counter terrorism- one tailored to the local conditions and realities to secure Mogadishu and its environs from the incessant mass casualty terrorist strikes of the Al-Shabaab.
In short, NISA achieved the power to identify hidden collaborators and thereby unmask Al-Shabaab networks and the activities before they strike.
Conclusion
More than the debt relief or lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia, it will always remain the greatest achievement of the Hassan Sheikh Government and NISA commander Mahad Mohamed Salad in particular, how Mogadishu has finally been successfully secured from the Al Shabaab terrorist.
The power of NISA’s surveillance-based counter terrorism model was best captured by none other than its chief Mahad Mohamed Salad who famously responded to the loud denials of a group of Somali clan leaders protesting the detention of Al Shabaab operatives, that “Unfortunately, the CCTV cameras do not lie or care about clan!”.
The writer can be reached at : wadijir@hotmail.com
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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