Mary Harper - Everything You Have Told Me Is True: The Many Faces of Al Shabaab

Taking you into the world never reached by todays journalism cutting through the simplistic headlines of fear this book is a brilliant description of what its like to live within a modern insurgency. If you want to know whats really going on outside the Western pleasuredome, you should read this book.

Adam Curtis, writerdirector of Bitter Lake and HyperNormalisation

Mary Harper knows more about, cares more about and writes better about Somalia than any other foreign correspondent I know. This book will become the defining account of Al Shabaab and its times.

Fergal Keane, former BBC South Africa correspondent

Mary Harper has listened to Somalis stories for decades, at considerable risk to life and limb. She captures the voices of those who join Al Shabaab, tolerate it, fear it, or would die fighting it. This unique book offers precious insights into the movement, and some slender hope for peace.

Michela Wrong, author of Borderlines

This brave, nuanced and revelatory book chronicles the emotional and social impact of living in a state in the grip of terror. Mary Harper skilfully unravels the complex network of relationships that leads many Somalis to collaborate with Al Shabaab, and many foreigners to profit from its presence.

Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 News

A brilliant book. With brave energy and precision born of long experience, Harper vividly brings to life Al Shabaab fighters as Ive come to know them over the past decade-and-a-half. This is a must-read for all those interested in the contemporary history of the Horn of Africa.

Mohammed Adow, Senior International Correspondent, Al Jazeera English

Mary Harper has written the essential book on Al Shabaab. With the gift of simplicityallowing Somalis from all walks of life to speak for themselvesshe has accomplished the remarkable task of allowing the reader to understand Africas most resilient jihadist group.

Alex de Waal, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation, and Research Professor, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Mary Harper has brilliantly pieced together something rare: an exhaustive account of human suffering that weve all collectively failed to notice. She has captured all angles of the conflict, from the fighters zero-sum arithmetic to the very human stories of those living in Al Shabaabs wide zone of influence.

Hussein Sheikh Ali, Chairman, Hiraal Institute, and former national security advisor to the Somali government

One of the most detailed examinations of Al Shabaab, and a great book about Somalia. Harper has drawn on her long experience reporting on the region to explain the political and social context allowing Al Shabaab to survive, with great sensitivity to the culture and resilience of the Somali people.

Richard Barrett, Director, The Global Strategy Network, and former Director of Global Counter-Terrorism Operations, British SIS

Mary Harper has written an astonishingly good booknot about Al Shabaab, but about the Somalis who have lived under the militant groups control for more than a decade, and who know Al Shabaab not only as terrorists, but as brothers, neighbours and friends.

Bronwyn Bruton, Deputy Director, Atlantic Council Africa Center

A massively insightful and rounded perspective of Al Shabaabs workings, thinking and governance, put into perspective by the experiences of those living under Al Shabaab. Mary Harpers journalistic professionalism, her humanity and deep understanding of Somalia make a major contribution to understanding Al Shabaabs growth and evolution.

Mark Bowden, former UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia

Only Mary Harper could have written such a vivid and insightful account of the perils and opportunities of daily life under Al Shabaab. This brilliant book allows the reader to understand the resilience of Al Shabaab as a political and military force through the voices of Somalis themselves.

Sara Pantuliano, Acting Executive Director, Overseas Development Institute

Everything you wanted to know about Al Shabaab but were afraid to ask. This splendid book draws unique insight from Harpers years of reporting from and on Somalia, benefiting from her sharp journalistic eye and engaging writing. Essential reading for understanding this highly nimble, adaptable and resilient violent Islamist movement.

Alex Vines OBE, Head of the Africa Programme, Chatham House

No one knows the Horn of Africaand Somalialike Mary Harper. No one else could have written such an intimate account of Al Shabaab. Her very human stories bring an important and untold chapter of the regions recent pastand presentto life.

Seth Kaplan, Professorial Lecturer, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and Senior Adviser for the Institute for Integrated Transitions

A must-read. Harper tells the story of Somalis and Al Shabaab like no one else before hertaking the reader on a gripping, deftly mapped journey to unmask this secretive, violent group by revealing its complex, and often surprising, human impact.

Judith Gardner, co-editor of SomaliaThe Untold Story: The War Through the Eyes of Somali Women

Mary Harper has written an important and disturbing book on Somalias Al Shabaab. Drawing on her personal encounters with Somalis, she describes our complicity in sustaining one of the worlds most enduring violent insurgencies.

Mark Bradbury, Rift Valley Institute, and author of Becoming Somaliland

Mary Harper has found a unique, compassionate way to tell the complex story of Al Shabaab. Much has been written about the organisation, but rarely do we hear of the human cost of its atrocities, from those most affected. It is their voices that are raised up by this book.

Idil Osman, journalist, and Senior Teaching Fellow, Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London

Mary Harper combines long personal experience, analysis, compassion and journalistic craft in this compelling volumean accessible must-read for anyone trying to understand the phenomenon of Al Shabaab.

Michael Keating, Executive Director, European Institute of Peace, and former UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Somalia

First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by

C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.,

41 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3PL

Mary Harper, 2019

All rights reserved.

The right of Mary Harper to be identified as the author of this publication is asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Distributed in the United States, Canada and Latin America by Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the British Library.

EISBN: 9781787382695

This book is printed using paper from registered sustainable and managed sources.

www.hurstpublishers.com

Beach to the south of Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

Ruins in central Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

Ruins of the old Italian cathedral, Mogadishu. Photo by Mary Harper.

Boys and girls await food handouts from Al Shabaab during the 2011 famine. Photo courtesy of Al Shabaab.

Children with their handouts from Al Shabaab during the 2011 famine. Photo courtesy of Al Shabaab.