SYDNEY - Somalia's Shebab group poses a potential threat to foreign interests by radicalising Western youths, one observer claimed on Tuesday.
Raffaello Pantucci said Somali youths in the United States, Britain and elsewhere were being drawn to the conflict in their homeland.
"The danger is that once trained and inspired by conflict on the battlefield, these young men might then return home and become the cause of further trouble," he wrote in a paper for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"As has been shown before, radicalised young men do not always need an outside commandment to reach the conclusion that they should carry out action."
Australia listed Shebab as a terrorist organisation in August after five men, some with links to Somalia, were charged with planning a deadly suicide assault on a Sydney army barracks.
The group is engaged in a military offensive against Somalia's internationally backed government, although it denied any connection to the alleged plot.
Pantucci, a consulting research associate at the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Shebab was reaching out to Somalis as far afield as Sweden and Canada.
"At this stage it would seem unlikely that al-Shabaab (Shebab) would attack the West," Pantucci wrote.
"What is clear, however, is that we are likely to see an increase in Westernised Muslims appearing on the battlefield in Somalia," he added.
However, other observers point out that while there is much media concern over Somalis going to take part in conflicts in their homeland, there has been little attention given to Israelis going back to kill defenseless civilians in Gaza, while escaping the much deserved titles of "terrorists" and "radicals".
The Shebab has been taking extreme stances since it broke away from the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), who ruled much of Somalia with relative peace and prosperity until the Ethiopian invasion late 2006.
After the Ethiopian troops ousted the ICU, Somalia plunged into unprecedented chaos, where warlords and pirates have returned to the scene.
The US-backed Ethiopian troops in Somalia had resorted to throat-slitting executions and gruesome methods that include rape and torture.
As a result, the Shebab has become increasingly radicalised and has spearheaded an insurgency against the Somali government, whose president today is a former ICU leader.
Despite the Ethiopian withdrawal, it is unlikely that Somalis would soon be returning to the period of calm and security enjoyed under ICU rule.
The US and its allies in the region, who were not happy with the then relatively popular and stable ICU, will likely to face a non-negotiating force when dealing with the Shebab.
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