The Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog posted on 19 January 2016 a commentary titled "Three Things We Learned from Last Week's Al-Shabaab Attack in Somalia" by Paul Williams, George Washington University.
William discusses al-Shabaab in the aftermath of its recent attack on AMISOM's forward operating base at El Adde. He notes that since mid-2013, al-Shabaab has become an increasingly extremist and transnational network with the stated aim of creating a caliphate across East Africa.