The Pan-African approach to the Somali conflict
Somalia, a country described as an epitome of state failure and one of the most dangerous places in the world, has been in turmoil since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in January 1991. In March 2007, the African Union Peace and Security Council and the United Nations Security Council mandated and authorised the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)—now the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).
Despite considerable lobbying and the prospect of significant Western security assistance, only six countries deployed their troops to the country — namely Uganda since March 2007, Burundi since December 2007, Djibouti since 2011, Kenya since 2012, Sierra Leone between 2013 and 2015, and Ethiopia since 2014. Many countries that initially pledged soldiers such as Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania did not fulfil their promise.
The AU forces arrived 12 years after the US and UN had pulled out of Somalia following their disastrous peacekeeping missions in the 1990s. The AU mission had a three-fold mandate. First, to reclaim the country from the strong grip of Al-Shabab. Second, to support the Somali government’s endeavours to stabilise the country and foster political dialogue and reconciliation. Third, to create an enabling environment for Somalia’s long-term stabilisation, reconstruction, and development.
Since 2010, a host of powerful nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey and the Middle Eastern powers of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are capitalising on the breathing room created by AU forces to (re)establish their military presence or influence in Somalia. However, these powers seem to lack a shared strategy against the Al-Shabaab, which is considered to be the heftiest, richest and deadliest terror group in the world today. As a result, the challenge of competing strategies and approaches to the Somali conflict tends to undermine AU’s influence and achievements in the country.
Field experience in Somalia
This article is based on two rounds of field research conducted in Kampala, Nairobi and Mogadishu in 2022/2023. I interviewed military officers, Western diplomats, UN and AU officials, Somali local politicians, businessmen, and some Somalia National Army (SNA) officers.
On arrival at the Mogadishu airport, I observed the overwhelming presence of the AU forces. At the time of my first trip to Somalia in August 2023, the AU troops were in charge of the security of sensitive and strategic facilities, including Villa-Somalia (the presidential palace), the airport, the seaport, the parliament, and UN agencies. The AU forces oversee what is known as the Green Zone, an area of approximately 12 kilometres which comprises the airport and all the western embassies, including those of the US, UK, EU, Italy and the UN.
The Green Zone is highly secured; one has to go through multiple roadblocks, barricades and heavily armed AU forces to get into the area. Each office is enclosed in about three to four security rings constructed with Eskos (heavy concrete made of iron bars and cement to prevent heavy losses in case of a suicide bomber). To access the Green camp, one needs several security clearances, which is, of course, a limitation to the ordinary Somalis.
The differences in strategy and the competition for influence between the Western and the Middle-Eastern powers can be detected in the location of their embassies. Whereas the Western powers are all located in the Green zone, Turkey, UAE and Qatar are not. The embassies of the Middle-Eastern powers have their own security arrangements that are detached from the AU forces.
Historicising the conflicts in Somalia
Before delving further into the field findings, a historical context of the conflicts in Somalia and the subsequent international interventions warrant some attention.
Before colonialism, Somalia did not exist as a single centralised political unit. Somalis lived under decentralised and egalitarian political systems structured along clan affiliations. With the advent of colonialism, the Ethiopian empire and the European powers of Britain, Italy, and France divided the Somali society into five states—British Somaliland, Italian Somalia, French Somaliland (now Djibouti), the Ethiopian Ogaden, and northern Kenya. In July 1960, the present-day Federal Republic of Somalia was born out of the union of Italian Somalia and the British Somaliland Protectorate.
Somalia is one of the few nations in Africa characterised by a shared common ancestry amongst its people, a single language, an Islamic (Sunni) heritage and a way of life that is predominantly pastoral. The Somali-speaking people form one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa.
Between independence in 1960 and Siad Barre’s military coup in 1969, Somalia enjoyed some level of stable democracy, as the country was presided over by democratically elected governments. Following the coup in 1969, Siad Barre mobilised the population against clannism; marriages were stripped of clan significance and clan elders were renamed ‘peace-seekers’ and made part of the state bureaucracy. However, Barre’s government increasingly turned authoritarian. In the 1980s, a multiplicity of clan-affiliated militia groups emerged and fiercely fought his regime until its collapse in 1991. Though the different clan militias had a semblance of common objectives, they bitterly split up, leaving the country with multiple centres of power bedevilled by heightened levels of violence. For instance, warlords, notably Farah Aideed and Ali Mahadi, ferociously contested for the control of the capital, Mogadishu, while the Somaliland region declared itself independent, an issue that remains contentious to date.
To stem the crisis, the UN Security Council put in place a series of peacekeeping missions, which all failed, leaving behind some catastrophic consequences. These included the October 1993 ill-famed ‘Black Hawk’ incident, in which 19 American troops and over 1,000 civilians and militia were killed. Bodies of the American soldiers were publicly dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, triggering the withdrawal of all the US forces in March 1994. A year later, in March 1995, the UN withdrew all its troops from Somalia. For over ten years, the international community did not militarily intervene in Somalia until 2007, when the AU mission got involved.
In the meantime, an Islamist terror group, the Al-Shabab, emerged as one of the strongest power contenders. The group has orchestrated a series of attacks outside Somalia. In Kenya, for instance, over 260 people have died following Al-Shabaab attacks at DUSIT D2 Complex, West Gate shopping mall in Nairobi and Garisa University. In July 2010, the group executed two suicide bombings in Kampala, killing 74 people. The terror group claimed that the attacks were in retaliation to Kenya’s and Uganda’s intervention in Somalia. Following these attacks, the AU changed the rules of engagement and allowed its forces to conduct offensive operations.
Battling Al-Shabaab
Many interviewed officers admitted that Al-Shabaab has been the most difficult enemy in the region. As one officer put it, “It took four months for the AU forces to fight from the airport to the Mogadishu main stadium, a distance of only four kilometres… We battled house by house, block by block, street by street and suburb by suburb.”
Many analysts have described Al-Shabaab as a complex organisation, which is partly a terrorist organisation, partly an insurgent group, partly a shadow government, and partly a mafia gang. Though it has been under serious pressure from AU and other foreign forces, it is still extremely disruptive for a number of reasons. One, the group is fluid and it is unclear who are members and who are not. Two, the group operates with a sizable budget of about $100 million annually. Three, curtaining its revenues is a challenge since many opinion shapers, including senior politicians, pay or secretly encourage citizens to pay taxes to the group. The integrity of Somalia’s financial and judicial systems is also weak and questionable and cannot be trusted to disrupt the financial flows of Al-Shabaab.
Further, the efforts to eliminate Al-Shabaab continue to be slowed down by the suspected high infiltration of the SNA by members of Al-Shabaab or their apologists. For instance, the attack on 24th July 2023 at the heavily fortified Jaalle Siyaad Military Academy in Mogadishu, which left 25 SNA officers dead, was facilitated by some high-ranking officers within the SNA itself. Experts continue to highlight that senior SNA officers continue to aid Al-Shabaab with vital intelligence.
In August 2023 alone, the National Intelligence Security Agency (NISA) arrested over 15 high-ranking officers who are believed to be sharing intelligence with Al-Shabaab. Some interviewed experts claimed that in the past, there were numerous attacks on AU forces, including the 2015 deadly assault on AMISOM headquarters by individuals in SNA uniforms.
It is worth noting that Al-Shabaab are driven by toxic but effective propaganda which resonates with the Muslim sensibilities of Somalis. This was evident when some of them secretly cheered the attack of Al-Shabab fighters against a Ugandan-manned Forward Operating Base (FOB) at Bulamarer, 130 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu, which left 54 soldiers dead. A false rumour was spread that the Ugandan soldiers were drunk at the time of the attack. Since alcohol is forbidden in Islam, the death of those soldiers was justified.
Competing interests of the intervening forces
The AU mission has run on a complex model whereby the AU provides troops and personnel, the United Nations Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) provides critical operational and logistical support, and the EU provides financial support. Moreover, other powers, including the US and the UK, also provide some form of support. In fact, an AU official intimated that they have been grappling with trichotomous friction among operational (AU), logistical (UN), and financial (EU) dimensions of the mission.
Credible sources indicate that the UN appears to be mooting an idea of creating another peace mission in Somalia, which is intended to sidestep the AU who they classify as middlemen. The idea is that when the ATMIS mandate runs down in December 2024, the UN should take over with a mission that has no police and civilian component from the AU. Simultaneously, the UN intends to separately negotiate with each of the troop-contributing countries to deploy troops under UN terms. Since the mission began, the EU has provided funding, which includes stipends to uniformed personnel and salaries to its civilian component. Since the EU is significantly cutting down on funding, AU Member States will have to come up with practical frameworks to fund their presence in Somalia and for future missions.
At any rate, frustration is palpable in AU circles. Several military and civilian staff of the mission complained that non-Africans are undermining their efforts and do not consult them about key decisions, especially on security and the political future of Somalia. There is a feeling within the AU that foreign powers have exploited African sweat and blood and now want to create their own spheres of influence. Indeed, by diminishing Al-Shabaab’s capabilities, the AU forces seem to have cleared the way for other actors. Suddenly, in pursuit of their interests, the US, the UK, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have intensified the scramble for influence in Somalia.
It also seems that Western countries cannot openly promote the logical idea of a strong AU presence in Somalia because they all want to claim the ultimate praise of having pacified the country, one military officer reasoned. For all these reasons, AU’s influence in Mogadishu is diminishing, and foreign powers are progressively taking over.
AU forces also accuse Western countries, especially the Americans, of prioritising economic interests rather than the stability of Somalia. A number of officers insisted that Americans fly in and out of Mogadishu at prohibited hours, and it was not clear what kind of business they do. Though the AU forces oversee the airport’s security, power dynamics make it inconceivable for them to question the activities of Americans. This negative perception of Western countries’ economic interests is also common among the Somalis, who claim that their resources are being plundered.
Similarly, there is an ill-informed perception among some elite Somalis that AU forces are using Somalia as a cash cow. These elites, especially some politicians, intellectuals and security officers, think that if the funding available to AU forces had been directly given to the Somalis, the war against Al-Shabaab could have been won already. However, all interviewed experts shared the view that the Somalia security apparatus is still too weak and disorganised to hold the country together.
Precarious foreign-led security initiatives
Numerous experts, including Somali military officers and politicians, shared the view that the security strategies of some actors, especially the USA and Turkey, might cause a fracture in the SNA. Both the US and Turkey have created a semblance of armies within an army. The US recruits, trains, equips, and pays allowances to an estimated 3,000-strong Danab Brigade, also known as the ‘Lighting Force.’ The Danab are housed at three camps, and the US plans to build military camps in each of the six states in Somalia. Theoretically, the recruitment process involves negotiations with clan elders, with efforts being made to avoid building a force that is dominated by one clan.
A Western diplomat claimed that three reasons led to the creation of Danab. First, it came out of the US’ frustrations because its efforts to improve the capabilities of the wider SNA were not working due to corruption and clannism. Second, the US wanted a trusted partner it can rely on in anticipation of the winding-up of the AU mission. Third, there are legal dilemmas that affect US operations in Somalia. The politics in Washington do not entirely agree on how America should engage, and Danab gives them some legal cover to conduct military operations against Al-Shabaab on the grounds of collective security with a partner force.
Since 2011, when Turkey first entered into the Somalia arena, it has continued to be seen as a major actor. Turkey has impressed Somalis with its bilateral aid, the provision of scholarships for Somali students and its willingness to locate its own nationals in downtown Mogadishu, outside the Green Zone. Turkey has also built its largest embassy in Mogadishu, and President Erdogan visited Somalia twice in 2015 and 2016.
Turkey has strategically replicated the USA’s Danab by creating the Gorgor Commando Brigade, also known as “the Eagles,” and a special police unit, the Haramcad, nicknamed the “Cheetah.” According to a Western diplomat, Turkey has become a competitor by not only replicating the Danab model but also building a modern military training camp, TURKSOM. Turkey further trains commandos in Turkey, which the US does not foresee doing.
The United Kingdom has also immersed itself fully in training and equipping the SNA troops at the UK training camp in Baidoa. This training facility was established in 2019 and is directly run by the UK. So far, the UK has trained over 2,700 SNA troops. Meanwhile, the UK has officers vaguely attached to the AU forces.
The Danab, Gorgor, the UK-trained and other SNA troops trained in Uganda, Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia seem to embrace different military doctrines and cultures, which makes it difficult to build a coherent national army. The different military training regimes coupled with the existence of clan militias and the precarious political rivalries based on both clans and regionalism are a concern to most experts.
Cultural nuances and African ways of life
AU forces argue that they understand Somalis better than most players, especially the Western powers who lack knowledge of the cultural nuances and the African ways of life. In their view, each attack has a different meaning, and it takes a deep understanding of the Somali social-cultural dynamics to deconstruct; some violence has nothing to do with national politics. According to many officers, the AU forces have been building comprehensive knowledge of Al-Shabaab and the local population in general.
As a testament to these claims, some commanders in the AU forces who have operated in Somalia at different intervals have been bestowed the title ‘Ugasi’ (elder) by the Somalis. Often, these commanders, even when they have returned to their home countries, are approached to informally mediate in some social-cultural conflicts among Somalis. To the Africans, this is a strong sign of acceptability, which, from the Western perspective, would be considered unprofessional.
To sum up, many officers within the mission seemed to have much interest in developing AU peacekeeping capabilities to enhance the path towards African-led initiatives. Though challenges exist, the AU mission in Somalia is looked at as a Pan-African project where African states can make decisions about their own problems. In future, such an initiative can achieve much better results when AU Member States are highly encouraged to contribute funds towards the Peace and Security Fund. This will guarantee less external interference, gain more negotiating powers, make timely decisions, and gain total ownership of the conflict resolution processes. This would fulfil the quest for “African Solutions to African Problems,” which, as things stand now, remains elusive.
