A VAR analysis of the effects of Al-Shabaab's pledge to Al-Qaeda on bombings and fatalities. Issue 3 (2nd September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Onat, Ismail; Guler, Ahmet; Hsu, Henda Y.; Reyes, Jessica
• Is Part Of: Journal of policing, intelligence and counter terrorism. Volume 16:Issue 3(2021)
• Page Start: 283
• Page End: 301
• Publication Date: 2021-09-02
• Subjects: Terrorist Alliance -- pledging allegiance -- Al-Shabaab -- al-Qaeda; 363.3205
• DOI: 10.1080/18335330.2021.1953115
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1833-5330

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Pledging allegiance to a larger terrorist group is assumed to increase activities of religious terrorist groups because of cooperative relationships and further support. In a competing theory, a pledge to another group is viewed as symbolic to motivate a group's supporters. Taking Al-Shabaab terrorism as a case, the current study tests the extent to which those competing theories are valid for frequencies of bombings and relevant fatalities. Even though Al-Shabaab pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda since 2012, the literature lacks an empirical test of whether or not a significant change occurred in Al-Shabaab's attacks after the pledge. Drawing on data from the Global Terrorism Database results from our vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis indicate that the frequency and lethality of Al-Shabaab's bombing attacks and fatalities did not change significantly in the post-pledge period. The contributions of our findings to the terrorism literature are discussed and policy implications for counterterrorism efforts are considered.