The al-Shabab militant group in Somalia has been limiting the extent of tree cutting in the areas under its control for several years. The militant group has also burned down trucks carrying charcoal and arrested workers involved in the business.

But the reasons behind the measures have nothing to do with the health of the planet.

Since 2022 alone, the U.S. military carried out 32 airstrikes against al-Shabab, killing dozens of militants including commanders. Deforestation was exposing the group’s fighting force.

“Al-Shabab uses forest as a shelter,” said Badal Ahmad Hassan, senior environmental adviser to Somalia’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

Climate expert Nazanine Moshiri, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group in Washington, agrees.

Based on her conversations with people in Somalia, Moshiri said, al-Shabab “prohibits tree cutting in the areas that in controls, and in some areas, it replants trees as well. I would say, though, this is less about al-Shabab wanting to be environmentally friendly, you know, similar to its ban on plastic bags. I would say that perhaps the ban is more about protecting themselves from drone attacks.”

U.S. drone attacks have killed many al-Shabab leaders over the years, most notably the group’s co-founder and emir, Ahmed Godane, in 2014. Most recently, U.S. strikes killed Maalim Ayman, the commander alleged involved in the preparation of the Manda Bay Airfield attack, which killed a U.S. soldier and two U.S. Defense Department contractors.

Currently, al-Shabab militants have dug trenches in forests to guard against attacks from the air and to bolster their defensive positions.

However, some tree cutting continues, as al-Shabab depends partially on the sale of charcoal to fund its war against Somali authorities and African Union peacekeepers. The U.S. Treasury estimated that as of 2022, the group was making $20 million per year from the charcoal business. That includes the production and sale of charcoal and taxes on charcoal collected at roadblocks and ports.

Climate expert Moshiri was formerly a member of a U.N. Security Council panel of experts that monitored sanctions on Somalia, including a 2012 ban on the export of charcoal, passed to protect Somalia’s rapidly declining tree cover. She said the charcoal trade boosted al-Shabab's war efforts for many years because charcoal was exported through Shabab-controlled ports such as Kismayo to states on the Arabian Peninsula. She says al-Shabab does not reap the same benefits now because it does not control any major ports — although it still taxes everything that is transported through its territory.

Beyond the long-running battle between al-Shabab and the Somali government, Moshiri said, conflicts in Somalia over land, cattle and water can be exacerbated by climate change, which has made the country more vulnerable to droughts and floods in recent decades.

“We're not saying there's a direct link between climate change and conflict; what we're saying is that they can amplify these preexisting tensions that exist between communities,” she told VOA. “When I speak to people on the ground, to herders and communities, they say, ‘Well, we know that conflict is coming in that area, because there have been rains in that area, and everyone's going to move to that area with their cattle, or closer to that area, and there could be potential conflict because other communities are moving there as well.’”

Moshiri said al-Shabab sometimes uses the climate situation in its efforts to exert control.

“What we've seen through our research is that sometimes they offer concessions to clans and communities when, you know, it's on the back foot, when it needs those clans, when it needs support,” she explained.

“But then it reverts very quickly to harsher methods when it's in a stronger position … like in the history of al-Shabab and the way that it reacted to various droughts and issues, we saw in 2011 it took a very harsh stance, which led to the famine.”

She said al-Shabab tactics varied again during the 2020 to 2023 drought.

“We saw them delivering some aid and supplies. We actually analyzed this, and we saw around 127 deliveries of aid between April 2021 and November 2022. It did allow the delivery of food and water in some areas, it created a committee for the drought response,” she said. “But at the same time, in areas of central Somalia, areas that were disproportionately affected by the drought, al-Shabaab was extremely harsh towards certain communities.”

She links the harsh measures to the role of clans in the military offensives against the group by the Somali government and local fighters.

This is the third article in a three-part series exploring the impact of climate events in Somalia. You can read the first part here and the second part here.