Issue No. 507

What the Facts Reveal in the War against Al-Shabaab 
 

Over the past five months, the Somali National Army (SNA) has been relentlessly pursuing Al-Shabaab in central and southern Somalia. They are joined by local militias known as the Ma’awiisley and regional armed forces. The offensive against Al-Shabaab is a major campaign of Somalia’s new government. The government’s commitment to defeating Al-Shabaab was rewarded with quick initial territorial gains. However, diminishing support from local communities and recent attacks by Al-Shabaab cast some doubt on the government’s ability to sustain these early successes.
 
The Ma’awiisley campaign, named for the bolt of cloth the fighters wear around the waist-- Ma’awiis–began as a community uprising against Al-Shabaab in the Hiiraan region. The Somali Federal Government announced steady gains of liberating villages and towns with hundreds of Al-Shabaab casualties. On 25 January, Somalia’s Minister of Information and the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) held a joint press conference claiming successes in Galmudug, Hirshabelle, South West, Jubaland, and Mogadishu.
 
In the past few months however, Al-Shabaab counterattacks have become more noticeable while the motivation of clan militias appears to be decreasing. There seems to be a general lack of coordination behind the government’s military campaign. SNA troops are unable to hold towns that have been liberated. While the clan militias’ initial uprising against Al-Shabaab was a mission of survival, communities in liberated towns have been left unprotected.
 
Al-Shabaab has not stood idle in the wake of their losses and are strategizing to learn from their mistakes. In late December of last year, senior Al-Shabaab leaders held a meeting in Bakool on the recent losses in Middle Shabelle and Hiiraan. Commanders from the Bay, Bakool, and Gedo regions shared the approach they used to deter community participation in government operations. Six months ago, Al-Shabaab militants in Hiiraan region were burning houses and destroying property of communities believed to be loyal to the government. Al-Shabaab has changed its strategy and adopted negotiations as a softer approach.
 
Al-Shabaab is known to kill community leaders and elders and to abduct civilians of non-cooperative communities. In the Bay, Bakool, and Gedo regions, Al-Shabaab has a track record of making clans offers that they can’t refuse. In one such meeting held in the Luuq district of Gedo region in late November, clan elders agreed to hand over at least 100 young men along with livestock to Al-Shabaab in exchange for protection. Such agreements have been replicated in different areas such as Hiiraan using this carrot and stick method.
 
Weakened by months of war and left vulnerable without the continued presence of government troops, community leaders have agreed to withdraw their militias. Last week, elders of the Hawadle clan’s Abdi Yusuf community, one of the first communities to mobilise as Ma’awiisley, signed a peace agreement with Al-Shabaab in Hiiraan. Earlier in December, fourteen elders from the Saleebaan clan in Galmudug signed an agreement with Al-Shabaab as well. This agreement was highly publicised at a press conference. Sheikh Ali Dheere, the Al-Shabaab spokesperson, extolled the agreement in a speech.
 
Recent Al-Shabaab operations do not signal a group in distress. On 11 February Al-Shabaab militants launched an attack on the federal military base in Eel Ba’ad in Middle Shabelle. Following the skirmish, Al-Shabaab published pictures of scattered bodies of soldiers that confirmed  their control of the base. This claim was denied by government military officials. On 12 February Al-Shabaab militants attacked a federal Forward Operating Base (FOB) in the Sabiid area of the Lower Shabelle region. According to Al-Shabaab media, they succeeded in overrunning the base and seizing military vehicles and weapons. 
 
Despite the undeniable tactical successes of government military operations in the past six months, the durability of the successes is questionable when Al-Shabaab can simply re-take the liberated areas.  
 
Al-Shabaab’s ability to re-enter once cleared areas also highlights the absence of effective governance. Local communities signing deals with Al-Shabaab in exchange for protection is a clear indication of weakness in these areas. Clan-led militias had community support at the beginning of the campaign but found themselves ill equipped to sustain support in the face of well-trained and ideologically motivated Al-Shabaab fighters. 
 
Conventional counter-insurgency strategy has given us the doctrine of “clear, hold, and build.” So far, “clear”seems to be the only engagement government forces can successfully achieve. This leaves space for Al-Shabaab to take over the “hold and build” functions of a counter-insurgency strategy.

By The Somali Wire Team