This is a

is CBS Island World. I'm John Bachelor with Bill Rajo,

Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, Senior Fellow of the Long War Journal,

and Caleb Weiss also of the Long War Journal, and Caleb Weiss also of the Long War Journal and Bridgeway Foundation, he is in Africa.

And we begin with a report from Caleb about Somalia and al-Shabaab a surrogate and actor for al-Qaeda,

directly linked to al-Qaeda, a sizable successful military operation for many years and now Chabab is on the offensive with the

general report at the African Union that has been deployed into Somalia, especially around the capital Mogadishu, is planning on exiting

the country by the end of this year or perhaps before.

Caleb, a very good day to you.

Shabab is on the offense offensive you report for some weeks.

Has that continued?

Is the weather better for them?

What do they hope to do in this iteration?

Good day to you.

Good day, John. Thank you for having me again.

No, it's not better. It's pretty much the same. In the report, which I believe was last week or the week

prior, Chabad was on the offensive in central Somalia in a

region called Madug. Madug is sort of, you know, hundreds of kilometers north

of Mogadishu. This is an area that is quite the and part of where the Somali government has decided to launch its counter-offensive against

Chabab a year and a half ago.

Since then, the offensive has stalled.

African Union forces are continuing with their withdrawal and Chabab is taking advantage of all of that.

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