Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, simply known as Al-Shabaab, is a Sunni Islamist political and militant organization based in Somalia. It is involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War and controls territory in south and southwestern Somalia, which is referred to as the Islamic Wilayat of Somalia. The group has regularly invoked takfir to rationalize its terrorist attacks on Somali civilians and civil servants. It is allied to the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda, it is also in a more limited capacity active elsewhere in East Africa, and has forged ties with other insurgent groups like AQIM and AQAP.