This podcast is about how war is changing. Over the past three years, our researchers have spent months in some of the most war-torn places on Earth. They have gone into parts of Iraq where ISIS occupied vast territories. They have witnessed first-hand how the battle against al-Shabaab is being waged in Somalia. They travelled to northern Nigeria where Boko Haram still threatens hundreds of thousands of people today. 

In this second episode, Adam Day speaks to Vanda Felbab-Brown, who regularly does fieldwork in Somalia, going to places where very few people from outside the region go, meeting with dozens of armed groups and militias around the country. One of the groups she’s most interested in is Al-Shabaab, a group that emerged as a radical youth wing of the Islamic Courts that controlled Mogadishu in 2006. It’s listed as a terrorist group and may have links to other terrorist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria. In 2009, Al-Shabaab took over a lot of southern Somalia, taking over huge territories and ruling them with brutality and repression.

How are the Somali militias, particularly the darwish, battling against Al-Shabbab and what is the group's role in the country?