World: Africa Security Brief No. 32 - Islamist Extremism in East Africa

Highlights

• While Islamist extremism in East Africa is often associated with al Shabaab and Somalia, it has been expanding to varying degrees throughout the region.

• Militant Islamist ideology has emerged only relatively recently in East Africa—imported from the Arab world—challenging long-established norms of tolerance.

• Confronting Islamist extremism with heavy-handed or extrajudicial police actions is likely to backfire by inflaming real or perceived socioeconomic cleavages and exclusionist narratives used by violent extremist groups.