'If I Don't Pay, 😖 They Kill Me:' Militants Tighten Grip on 🇸🇴 Somalia with Tax Racket

The calls from an unknown number had been coming for weeks, but Osman, a household-goods trader in the Somali capital's largest market, disregarded them - until he got the text message.

"Will you pick up our call? Yes or no. This is the mujahideen," it said. The mujahideen, the Islamist militants, al-Shabab. He knew right away what they wanted: to capture him in a protection money racket that the militant group has been expanding across Somalia for years.

"My heart could barely pump blood in that moment," said Osman, 45, a father of seven, who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used out of fear for his life. "If I don't pay, they kill me."

When Osman replied "yes," he found that al-Shabab knew the size of his business and even how many containers of goods he imported through the city's seaport. Don't lie to us, they told him, we have the manifests from the ships to cross-check.

Interviews with a dozen business owners in Mogadishu reveal al-Shabab's quickly growing ability to tax the country's most lucrative businesses, which analysts and former government officials say earns the group tens of millions of dollars per year, which it uses to fund its attacks on government and military targets, as well as on those who refuse to pay up.