September 7, 2010

Peter Clottey

Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, currently the President of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government talks during a news conference in central London, Tuesday March 9, 2010. Sheikh Ahmed, who was one of the most senior leaders of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a hard-line Islamist militia movement in Somalia is currently in Britain seeking support for his government. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

The spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has denied reports that stepped-up attacks by hard-line insurgents forced peacekeeping troops to move to new positions across the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Major Barigye Ba-Huko said AMISOM started the redeployments early in the year as part of its mandate to help President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed’s Transitional Federal Government against the insurgents.

“It’s a process that troops allowing (are) going to continue. But, for now, suffice it to say that we have got at least one new position in the southwest, two (or) three new positions in the center of the city and another three in the northeast and north of the city,” he said.

The hard-line insurgents, including Al-Shabab, have refused to recognize the transitional administration and vowed to overthrow it.

Last month, the insurgents launched several attacks against the presidential palace and demanded President Sharif stepped down. They were repelled by AMISOM and government troops.

The insurgents have intensified their attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. But, AMISOM spokesman Ba-Huko said the peacekeeping troops will continue taking up new positions in the capital, Mogadishu despite increased insurgent attacks.

“The significance of this movement has absolutely nothing to do with being squeezed by any extremist group here. But, rather, that it is part of our mandate. That mandate talks about stabilizing the whole of Somalia, not stabilizing just the airports or the seaports,” Ba-Huko said.

He also said AMISOM’s effort of fully implementing its mandate has been hampered by the “shortage” of troops. He praised the pledge by African heads of state and government of increasing peacekeeping troops levels in Somalia.

Analysts say the presence of foreign troops has been a rallying cry for insurgents who have been recruiting young Somalis to fight the government as well as AMISOM troops.

September 4, 2010

NAIROBI, Kenya — African Union peacekeepers say they have established nine new bases in Somalia’s capital over the last several months.

The announcement Friday follows days of bloody clashes in Mogadishu that have claimed dozens of lives.

The deputy head of the AU commission on Somalia says the peacekeepers have established nine new bases over the past five months.

Wafula Wamunyinyi says the bases have helped secure a key road linking government buildings with Mogadishu’s port and airport. The area has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent days and Wamunyinyi estimated around 300 insurgents have been killed.

Fighters with al-Shabab, a militia that has links with al-Qaida, are trying to overthrow the weak Somali government.

September 5, 2010

Stephanie Hanson

Women register to vote on June 26, 2010, in Hargeisa, the capital of the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland. (Ali Musa/AFP/Getty Images)

BUNGOMA, Kenya — These days, Somalia is known for two things: its pirates and its Islamic militants. When Al Shabaab, the extremist Islamic insurgents based in southern Somalia, claimed responsibility for the July bombings that killed 78 people in Kampala, international concern over the problem of Somalia spiked.

Somalia’s transitional federal government hangs on by a thread in Mogadishu. Despite several years of international support, including an African Union peacekeeping force, its authority remains tenuous. The international community seems torn over what to do next. At the end of July, the African Union was poised to widen the mandate of the AU peacekeeping force, but was deterred after the United Nations opposed it. What might be a constructive way forward in Somalia?

Somaliland, a peaceful enclave in northern Somalia, offers some valuable lessons. The autonomous area is not recognized by the international community, but it recently held successful presidential elections that saw Dahir Riyale Kahin, the sitting president, hand over power to Ahmed Silanyo, a long-time opposition leader.

Somaliland is a small success story within the larger failed state of Somalia. To understand what might be possible in Somalia, it’s useful to examine the history of Somaliland.

In 1991, when the regime of Siad Barre collapsed, northern Somalia was left in disarray, much like southern Somalia. The area’s strongest political force was the Somali National Movement (SNM), which had been fighting against Barre’s government since the 1980s. The SNM declared Somaliland’s independence and created a transitional government that lasted until 1993.

Somalilanders believed the SNM was only representative of one tribe and wanted a more inclusive government. From 1991 to 1997, Somaliland held more than 30 peace conferences. These conferences happened at the local, district, and national levels and were largely funded by the local business community. They used indigenous conflict resolution techniques to build political institutions that were acceptable to the majority of the population.

By 1997, Somaliland had a basic government structure — a presidency, a judiciary and a bicameral legislature. The legislature had a house of elected representatives, and a house of tribal elders, called the Guurti. The Guurti was meant to provide a link between traditional governance structures and the state structures of Somaliland.

In 2001, Somaliland ratified a constitution, and in 2003, it held presidential elections that were decided by a margin of 214 votes. The outcome was not contested.

Somalia experts such as Ken Menkhaus believe the formation of Somaliland’s government was able to happen because it remained unrecognized by the international community and thus ineligible for foreign assistance. Since 1997, Somaliland’s annual budget is estimated at $20 million to $40 million for a population of 2.5 million to 3.5 million. By comparison, Somalilanders receive at least $200 million a year in remittances.

Running a government on a shoestring budget has drawbacks. The government has focused its investment on maintaining security, not economic development. Somalilanders remain poor. However, they are better off than the rest of Somalia. Though development statistics are extremely limited, available data shows modest improvements in health, education and income indicators since 1991.

Further, the limited budget might be what has held Somaliland together. In a Center for Global Development working paper, Nicholas Eubank argues that in the absence of foreign aid, Somaliland had to depend on local sources of revenue and thus, it had to consider voices outside the government. Somaliland’s business community has been instrumental in the formation of political institutions; it has lent money to the government, funded the security forces and financed peace conferences.

More than that, it’s possible that Somalilanders have greater trust in their government because it is not the beneficiary of large foreign aid flows. Somalis associate state predation with foreign aid, according to Africa analyst Alex de Waal. When Somaliland’s political institutions were established, preventing a powerful centralized government was very important to the population. As a result, Somaliland has a decentralized governance structure that allows individual districts to retain 10 percent of their customs collection. Districts are also allowed to impose their own taxation.

Somaliland’s government is still flawed, however. As Human Rights Watch has documented, it is somewhat repressive. Security committees operate outside the formal judicial system and journalists are persecuted.

But Somalia is much worse. The transitional federal government, which is almost completely funded by international donors, has been trying to assert its authority since early 2007, with no signs of permanence. It hasn’t even managed to ensure basic security in Mogadishu. Whether Al Shabaab is growing more powerful is up for debate, but the group has certainly convinced those outside Somalia that it is.

The transitional federal government has not been able to do the same. I recently met a government official from Somalia’s Ministry of Public Works. He was a civil engineer, trained in England, who had returned to Somalia from abroad to take a government position. Was he building any roads, I asked. No, he said. There was no money, and in any case, if he was able to build anything, it would just be bombed. He was on his way to a conference in Kigali about infrastructure development.

Outsiders continue to believe, most likely because of the fear of a more powerful Al Shabaab, that they can influence the messy political situation in Somalia. It’s time to adopt the lessons of Somaliland to Somalia. The formation of political institutions will only work through an iterative process that involves all ethnic groups at the community level. This process should not be funded by the international community. The transitional federal government tried to form a parliament that represented all ethnic groups, and now has an unwieldy and ineffective body of over 500 people. Somaliland shows that the construction of political institutions is a slow process, one that needs local buy-in and most importantly, local funding.

Of course, the threat of Al Shabaab cannot be ignored. In a March report for the Council on Foreign Relations, Bronwyn Bruton recommends that the United States adopt a policy of “constructive disengagement” in Somalia. Such a strategy would focus on limiting Al Shabaab’s influence and containing the flow of money and arms to the organization. Such a policy, in combination with giving Somalis the space they need to muddle toward their own governance structures, is the most pragmatic way forward for the international community.

September 1, 2010

AMY FORLITI

MINNEAPOLIS — A group of elders in the Minneapolis Somali community on Wednesday publicly denounced al-Shabab, making it clear that they do not support the terror group they say is responsible for “sinister” acts of recruiting young Americans to fight in Somalia.

The elders made the statement shortly before a closed-door meeting with a representative from the local office of the FBI. The goal of the meeting was to keep an open dialogue with law enforcement — to allow elders to ask questions and air concerns, and give the FBI a chance to educate the group.

Abdirizak Bihi, a community activist who helped get the group together, said the elders are highly respected in the Somali community. To have them come out against al-Shabab is a big step, he said, “because if the elders validate our points of contention, it will be a very important issue for the community to get involved completely.”

Supervisory Special Agent E.K. Wilson said during a dinner break that he listened to the elders’ concerns about al-Shabab, gangs and other issues affecting Somali youth, and explained that the FBI is there to protect their children.

“We’re really dependent on them to carry that message forward to the community at large. These guys are who the community looks up to, and respects, and will listen to,” Wilson said.

It was the first time some of the elders involved had met with the FBI, which has increased its outreach efforts in the community since roughly 20 young Somalis left Minneapolis in recent years to fight with al-Shabab, a violent group that seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia.

The U.S. has declared al-Shabab to be a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaida.

Bihi’s nephew, Burhan Hassan, was just 17 when he left Minneapolis to go fight in Somalia. His family said he was killed in the Horn of Africa country.

The statement from the elders said al-Shabab has inflicted sinister acts on the fragile Somali community by brainwashing and recruiting some American youths. It also said al-Shabab inflicts daily carnage on the Somali people in Somalia.

“We want to state that al-Shabab kills, maims and victimizes us in the Somali Diaspora, wherever we are,” Bihi said, reading from the statement.

The statement also said the Somali culture is based on peace, coexistence and working hard to obtain the “American dream.” It thanked those community members who have cooperated with law officers.

A total of 19 people have been charged in Minnesota in connection with the Minneapolis investigation, facing a host of charges. Two others have been charged in Alabama and California with helping al-Shabab.

Wilson said the investigation is ongoing.

September 3, 2010

The United States says Islamic militants in Somalia have not been able to capture any new territory during more than a week-long offensive in the capital, Mogadishu.

The U.S. State Department told VOA Friday that the situation in Mogadishu remains difficult, but said the transitional government and AU peacekeepers continue to hold their ground in the city.

An African Union official expressed confidence Friday that government troops are gaining the upper hand over insurgent group al-Shabab. Wafula Wamunyinyi, the AU’s deputy representative for Somalia, said AU troops have set up nine new positions in Somalia’s capital and that the AU now has 7,200 troops in the country, with more expected to come.

Also Friday, Somalia’s Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke said his country’s transitional government must move toward a more permanent constitutional and democratic government. He called for parliament and representatives from civil society to ratify a new constitution by February.

Somalia has seen 11 days of fierce fighting in Mogadishu triggered by an al-Shabab offensive. Al-Shabab is trying to overthrow the government, but AU forces have retained control of a key road that links government buildings to the airport.

Earlier this week, the United Nations-backed government issued an urgent appeal for more help to fight what it called the “evil al-Qaida, al-Shabab alliance.”

Several members of parliament were killed last week when al-Shabab gunmen attacked a Mogadishu hotel and killed more than 30 people. More than 100 people have been killed in fighting since the militant group’s offensive began.

Al-Shabab and fellow insurgent group Hizbul Islam want to turn Somalia into a strict Islamic state. The groups, which control much of central and southern Somalia, have enacted a harshly conservative form of Islamic law in the areas they rule.

Despite the fighting, a U.N. official said Thursday that he is “hopeful” for Somalia. Under-secretary-general for political affairs Lynn Pascoe said the elements are in place for the government to hold on and eventually stabilize the country.

September 2, 2010

JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and MOHAMED IBRAHIM

NAIROBI, Kenya — The streets of Mogadishu, Somalia’s besieged capital, were finally quiet on Wednesday, after 10 days of heavy fighting that has claimed more than 100 lives.

Beleaguered residents stepped out of their homes for the first time in days, unsure if the insurgents who had been hammering Somalia’s weak transitional government had been decisively pushed back or if the lull was simply another pause to regroup and reload.

African Union officials are claiming a small victory of sorts, saying that their peacekeepers in Mogadishu, who now number around 7,000, had seized several strategic intersections from the insurgents.

“We are expanding our zone,” said one African Union official who was not authorized to speak publicly. “We have killed more than 300 insurgents in the past week or so.”

Residents in Mogadishu said that the better-equipped and better-trained African Union troops, who are mostly Ugandans, had replaced the Somali government forces on the front lines, a change that might have helped push back the insurgents over the past few days.

Still, most analysts estimate that there are several thousand militant Islamist fighters in Somalia, and they seem to be getting more sophisticated and more ambitious.

On Tuesday, a powerful roadside bomb tore into three minibuses and killed as many as 15 people, including several female college students who were on a vacation during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Somalia’s Information Ministry said. The road had been one of the few in Mogadishu that was considered safe for civilians.

“In minutes, there were pools of blood and screaming people,” said Ahmed Omar, a passer-by reached by phone from Nairobi.

Ali Muse, the head of the city’s clearly overwhelmed ambulance service, said that medics had collected 8 bodies and treated 25 wounded people. Many residents believe that the bomb was planted to hit African Union troops or government personnel.

“Whoever did this is a traitor to Somalia and a ruthless, callous murderer,” said Abdirahman Omar Osman, Somalia’s information minister.

He added that “we are heartbroken that once again it is our young students who die at the hands of extremists intent on destroying our country,” alluding to a suicide bombing in December at a graduation ceremony for medical students that killed four government ministers and a number of students.

The past few days have been especially bloody. Also on Tuesday, four civilians were killed in heavy shelling that hit the Baker market, a notorious insurgent hide-out. The day before, an insurgent mortar shell killed four African Union peacekeepers guarding the presidential palace.

The Shabab, the militant Islamist group leading Somalia’s insurgency, held a news conference on Wednesday warning that “foreign forces” might join the fight and launch airstrikes against them. They asked civilians in the Shabab-controlled areas of Mogadishu to fight side by side with them and hide them, if necessary.

The American military has killed several Somali insurgent leaders and terrorism suspects in covert strikes over the past few years, though American officials have recently said that it was crucial for Somali government forces to assert themselves and that this war could not be won by outside help.

Also on Tuesday, a Somali journalist working for a local radio station, Abdullahi Omar Geddi, 25, was stabbed to death in the central Somalian town of Galkaiyo by unknown assailants, according to an e-mailed statement by the National Union of Somali Journalists. Several Somali journalists have been killed in recent years.

September 1, 2010

Abdi Sheikh and Mohamed Ahmed

* Islamists claim to have restored order in much of country

* U.S. official says al Shabaab split over foreign fighters

MOGADISHU – A Somali rebel group has told the Horn of Africa nation’s embattled president to resign and said hardline Islamists had succeeded where the government had failed, in establishing order in areas they controlled.

Hizbul Islam, which has waged a three-year insurgency against the fragile interim government alongside the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group, urged Somalia’s Muslims to unite and join the Islamists’ struggle.

“President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed ought to quit. He has nothing for the people except a call for more foreign troops that massacre Somalis,” Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of Hizbul Islam, told reporters on Tuesday evening.

Hardline Islamists control vast tracts of south and central Somalia and much of the capital Mogadishu, hemming the government into just a few blocks manned by African Union (AU) peacekeepers.

In recent days, the militants have intensified their offensive on government targets and killed four Ugandan peacekeepers deployed near the presidential palace.
Bent on imposing a strict version of sharia, Islamic law, on the nation, the militants routinely carry out stonings and amputations and have banned football, music and school bells in areas they control. They claim to have restored law and order.

JOIN THE JIHAD

“I urge Islamists to unite. Areas under the control of Islamists are peaceful. They are the good Muslims who can rule the country,” Aweys said.

Political analysts are at odds over the best way to tackle the insurgency.

A U.S. military official said on Wednesday that foreign militants were not universally accepted by al Shabaab, but that outside powers would find it hard to use their presence to divide and weaken the insurgency.

More than 150 people have died over the last 10 days during the latest escalation of violence in Mogadishu, medics said. On Tuesday, a roadside blast and heavy artillery fire between insurgents and AU-backed government troops killed at least 18 people.

The African Union on Wednesday condemned an attack on Monday in which four Ugandan peacekeepers were killed when insurgents fired mortars at the presidential palace.

“The Chairperson of the (AU) Commission … reiterates the commitment and determination of the AU to stand by and support the people of Somalia in confronting and defeating these anti-peace elements,” the AU said in a statement.
Ali Muse, coordinator of the ambulance service, said many of Tuesday’s casualties were civilians hit by shells landing in and around the Bakara market, Mogadishu’s largest bazaar and a known rebel stronghold.

Nine people were killed when a roadside bomb hit two minibuses, doctors at the Medina Hospital said.

“The bomb exploded on the buses ahead of the one I was on. Blood and pieces of human flesh littered the road,” witness Ismail Musamil told Reuters. (Additional reporting by Abdi Guled; Editing by Richard Lough and Tim Pearce)

September 1, 2010

JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Jehad Nga for The New York Times
The government in Hobyo has asked pirates to ring off coastal villages and block out the Shabab.

More photos

HOBYO, Somalia — Ismail Haji Noor, a local government official, recently arrived in this notorious pirate den with a simple message: we need your help.

With the Shabab militant group sweeping across Somalia and the American-backed central government teetering on life support, Mr. Noor stood on a beach flanked by dozens of pirate gunmen, two hijacked ships over his shoulder, and announced, “From now on we’ll be working together.”

He hugged several well-known pirate bosses and called them “brother” and later explained that while he saw the pirates as criminals and eventually wanted to rehabilitate them, right now the Shabab were a much graver threat.

“Squished between the two, we have to become friends with the pirates,” Mr. Noor said. “Actually, this is a great opportunity.”

For years, Somalia’s heavily armed pirate gangs seemed content to rob and hijack on the high seas and not get sucked into the messy civil war on land. Now, that may be changing, and the pirates are taking sides — both sides.

While local government officials in Hobyo have deputized pirate gangs to ring off coastal villages and block out the Shabab, down the beach in Xarardheere, another pirate lair, elders said that other pirates recently agreed to split their ransoms with the Shabab and Hizbul Islam, another Islamist insurgent group.

The militant Islamists had originally vowed to shut down piracy in Xarardheere, claiming it was unholy, but apparently the money was too good. This seems to be beginning of the West’s worst Somali nightmare, with two of the country’s biggest growth industries — piracy and Islamist radicalism — joining hands.

Somalia’s pirates are famous opportunists — “we just want the money” is their mantra — so it is not clear how long these new alliances of convenience will last. But clan leaders along Somalia’s coast say that something different is in the salty air and that the pirates are getting more ambitious, shrewdly reinvesting their booty in heavy weapons and land-based militias, and now it may be impossible for such a large armed force — the pirates number thousands of men — to stay on the sidelines.

“You can’t ignore the pirates anymore,” said Mohamed Aden, a clan leader in central Somalia. “They’re getting more and more muscle. They used to invest their money in just boats and going out to sea but now they’re building up their military side.”

Take the elusive and powerful pirate boss Mohamed Garfanji, who surfaced briefly two weeks ago wearing a belt of bullets strapped across his chest in an X and a purple rain jacket to guide a group of foreign journalists to Hobyo, his base of operations. The journalists had been invited by the Galmudug State administration, a clan-based local government trying to gain a foothold in the region. But Hobyo is a fully engulfed piracy community, where 10-year-old boys with Kalashnikovs hang out in the sandy streets and glare at outsiders, and the visit could happen only with Mr. Garfanji’s blessing. During a meeting with Hobyo elders, Mr. Garfanji stuck his head through the door and grunted: “It’s O.K. for you guys to speak to the journalists. And for them to take pictures.” After that, he vanished.

Mr. Garfanji is believed to have hijacked a half-dozen ships and used millions of dollars in ransom money to build a small infantry division of several hundred men, 80 heavy machine guns and a fleet (a half dozen) of large trucks with antiaircraft guns — not exactly typical pirate gear of skiffs and grappling hooks.

While some of his troops wear jeans with “Play Boy” stitched on the seat, others sport crisp new camouflage uniforms, seemingly more organized than just about any other militia in Somalia.

Mr. Garfanji’s original motivation was probably profit, pure and simple — by mustering a formidable force on land, nobody could squeeze him to pay protection fees. But now his associates claim that their pirate army was created to stop Hizbul Islam and the Shabab.

“Sometimes,” explained Fathi Osman Kahir, a pirate middle manager, “you commit crimes to defend your freedom.”

Somalia’s violence has been grinding on since 1991, when the central government collapsed, but it keeps morphing in subtle but potentially significant ways. Just last year, elders in several coastal areas were turning against pirates because of their un-Islamic ways. Now, with the security situation deteriorating so rapidly, elders today seem to ask fewer questions, especially about where their young men get their guns. In Hobyo, a poor, isolated village on a crescent of white sand, the big fear is the Shabab.

The Shabab are the most fearsome insurgents in Somalia — they have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda — and last month they showed how effective — and brutal — they can be by infiltrating a hotel in the government zone of Mogadishu, the capital, and methodically gunning down more than 30 people, including four lawmakers. Once the Shabab take over an area, they impose a harsh form of Islamic law, banning music, soccer, even bras. Offenders can get their hands chopped off or their heads bashed in with rocks.

Many areas of Somalia have given up on the central government’s saving them from the Shabab, which is why local administrations are beginning to gain traction. The local governments are often run by Somalis who have lived abroad, like Mr. Noor, a former Somali Army officer who resided in London for years and still seems to enjoy playing war. (Night vision scope: Check. Body armor: Check. 9 mm pistol tucked into the small of his back: Check.) One of Mr. Noor’s favorite expressions, which he continually barked out to the journalists with him, was “be my skin,” meaning something like “stay close to me” because even though he was working with the pirates, there were still some serious questions about trust.

Still, Mr. Noor said, he needed the pirate muscle to protect his area because “we just don’t have the forces.”

Many pirates seem happy to help. Though 2010 is shaping up as another banner year — more than 30 ships have been hijacked, which means tens of millions of dollars in ransom — the increased naval presence off Somalia’s coast has taken its toll, with hundreds of pirates now in jail and even more lost at sea and presumably drowned.

Ahmed Elmi Osoble, 27, said his family was so upset at him for being a pirate that they basically staged an intervention to get him to quit.

“As soon as I got back from the Seychelles,” he said, where he had been jailed for six months on piracy charges, “my mom locked me in the house.”

“She wouldn’t let me out until I got another job.”

He is now driving a truck for the government/pirate militia — it is hard to separate the two — working side by side with policemen in grubby Galmudug administration uniforms and his pirate friends wearing the Play Boy jeans.

September 2, 2010

Mariama Diallo

A top United Nations official, Lynn Pascoe, the U.N. under-secretary-general for political affairs, says he is “hopeful” for Somalia, where the government is trying to fight off an offensive by Islamist militants. This comes as Uganda is offering to send more troops to the beleaguered nation if the United States provides funding.

The militant group al-Shabab in late August launched an offensive aimed at toppling Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia know as AMISOM. Mogadishu has come under heavy shelling. More than 100 people are dead.

Uganda says it will send more troops if the United States provides more funding. The State Department has responded by saying it will continue to provide equipment, training and logistical support, and encourages other donors to step forward with additional help.

Walid Phares from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies says the U.S. is already doing too much in other parts of the world. “We are now overseeing the withdrawal of troops in Iraq. We are engaged in escalation in Afghanistan. There is an issue of concern in Yemen just across from Somalia,” Phares said.

But given the urgency of the present situation, Phares proposes an alternative. “Let’s keep in mind that Somalia is a member of the Arab League. So we need a lot of financial support from the oil rich countries Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait…all the emirates. They have to pour in some money if they consider Somalia as a member of the Arab League,” Pharea said.

Author Bronwyn Bruton, who writes regularly about the Horn of Africa and visited Somalia in April, advocates what she calls a new approach to Somalia. “The Shabab appear to be a very unified and directed organization, but, in fact, it’s a very loose conglomeration of a lot kinds of people. Currently they are unified to get rid of Amisom, the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia and the TFG, the Transitional Federal Government, but without that unifying purpose, there is actually not a lot of cohesion there,” Bruton said.

Bruton adds that some fears about al-Shabab are unrealistic. “These fears we have about the Shabab becoming the new Taliban in East Africa are very much overblown…. In this particular situation, it’s worth asking if we didn’t have this sort of artificial government in name only sitting in Mogadishu, then would the Shabab have a nationalistic reason to attack outside of the country,” Bruton said.

But a spokesman for the Ugandan Army, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, says critics should not be so harsh on the TFG. “I mean, how can it be capable when it is just building from scratch? And dealing with an international terrorist group that is being funded by remnants in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye.

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed continues to enjoy U.N. support, but Kulayigye says the U.N. must do more. “One may ask why the U.N. appointed a permanent person for Darfur, for DRC, for Burundi, but there is no permanent person for Somalia. Isn’t that a bit suspicious?,” Kulayigye said.

Walid Phares from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies says something drastic has to be done because of repercussions for the Horn of Africa region. “What they need to do is the crafting of political national unity even with forces they don’t agree on everything with… The second stage is for the United States to be very active not just with the government but with non government organizations with popular organizations in Somalia. That’s the best we can do at this time,” Phares said.

September 2, 2010

Scott Baldauf

The best hope for stability in Somalia may lie in African Union troops, but they can’t take the offensive against the terrorist group Al Shabab.

An Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab militant wrapped a belt of ammunition around his waist in Mogadishu, Somalia, in late August.

Western governments may consider the rising power of the militant group Al Shabab a major threat to the Horn of Africa. But they have learned enough from the ill-fated US military intervention of 1991-93 – portrayed in “Black Hawk Down” – to know that Western troops are not the solution.

Yet, as the Al Qaeda-backed fighters take control of much of Somalia’s rubble-strewn capital, Mogadishu, there is certainly plenty of reason for the West and for democratic African countries in the region to be concerned. On Aug. 24, Al Shabab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a part of Mogadishu thought to be under government control, an event that killed more than 30, including six members of parliament.

Until the tottering three-year-old interim Somali government stands up to the challenge, the best hope for stability lies in the 6,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM), manned primarily by troops from Uganda and Burundi and funded mostly by nations worried about the threat of a terror haven in East Africa.

“There are not many countries lining up to join this mission,” says E.J. Hogen-doorn, head of the Horn of Africa mission for the International Crisis Group in Nairobi, Kenya. “Everyone is concerned, but no one wants to be the one risking their forces’ lives.

“Now we hear of reinforcements for AMISOM, but even the Ethiopian contingent numbered 40,000 troops, and they still weren’t able to pacify the place,” he adds. Ethiopia occupied Somalia from 2007 to 2008, when Al Shabab was less formidable.

It’s not that Somalia has been free of foreign intervention. In the two decades since the fall of Somalia’s last government, the country has accepted massive foreign food relief; today, half the population survives on foreign food aid. But foreign troops tend to strengthen the hand of extremist politicians of either the nationalist or religious sort, and the legacy of the US intervention and the Ethiopian invasion has been a network of warlords who are difficult to dislodge.

Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, Al Shabab’s spokesman, said on Aug. 24 that Al Shabab would be starting a war against “invaders” – referring to the Ugandan and Burundian forces in AMISOM.

Uganda, which recently suffered a string of Al Shabab suicide attacks in Kampala, has pledged to add troops to the mission, and there are rumors South Africa may contribute to the overall protection force.

But AMISOM has said the solution will have to come from Somalia’s government. The transitional government has been adding troops in preparation for an offensive against Al Shabab, many of them trained by the European Union in Uganda. Moderate Islamist militias have made headway against Al Shabab in central Somalia.

“We have to dissipate the perception that AMISOM is looking for more soldiers to fight Al Shabab,” said AMISOM spokesman Maj. Barigye Bahoku. “Our mandate is to maintain peace and create an environment for national discussion and political settlement. We cannot directly confront Al Shabab, but we have the right to self-defense when we are attacked.”