Issue No. 656

A not-so-hostile takeover of Somalia

Qatar's grip on Mogadishu is tightening. In the last 10 days alone, a bilateral agreement was signed between the Gulf state and Mogadishu relating to legal cooperation, Qatar's ambassador met with Somalia's Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, and deepening parliamentary cooperation between Doha and Mogadishu was touted. On the face of it, the contents of these agreements and meetings were banal, offering up platitudes of support and talk of deep ties. The reality, however, is likely much more sinister.
 
Following the election of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to his second non-sequential presidential term in May 2022, Qatar appeared on the outs with Mogadishu. During the previous administration, Doha had quietly pumped millions of USD into Somalia to its favoured Islamist politicians, including former President Mohamud Abdullahi Farmaajo. Principle among Qatar's previous ambitions in Somalia was its attempt to bring Al-Shabaab and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) to the negotiating table. That effort failed, running out of time despite former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo's attempts to cling to power.
 
Doha's current ties to Islamist movements and Al-Shabaab in Somalia are murky. It has been established, however, that in the jihadist group's early years, Qatar funnelled arms and money through Eritrea to the militants. Those were post-9/11 days, when American foreign policy gave no quarter for extremist support. But lines have since been blurred, and Washington now sees Doha as a strategic ally in the Gaza crisis and elsewhere. Many suspect that the ties between Qatar and Al-Shabaab were never fully severed, though.
 
Even if Doha does not directly extend patronage to Al-Shabaab, as it does to many other Islamist groups across the Horn, it has sought to conclude the war in Somalia using its role as a kind of 'mediator' of insurgencies, as it did in Afghanistan. One vehicle through which Qatar has projected influence in Somalia has been Al-Shabaab's ideological affiliate-- Al-I'tisaam. Al-Shabaab and Al-I'tisaam share a common ancestor in the Al-Itihaad Al-Islaam insurgency that emerged following the collapse of Siad Barre's regime in 1991. While Al-I'tisaam has largely disavowed violence, it remains extreme in its views and a potent political force in Somalia. Fahad Yasin was also the movement's de facto secretary. But while Fahad may be out of Villa Somalia, he is still seeking to influence Somalia's trajectory through other means, and the remnants of the Nabad iyo Nolol (N&N) in the current government have not lost sight of the end game. Behind closed doors in the FGS, some are increasingly agitating for talks with Al-Shabaab in the coming months.
 
More blatant was Somalia's Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre's speech last week at the launch of a new peace initiative in Mogadishu. In a departure from President Hassan Sheikh's previous insistence that negotiations can only occur once Al-Shaabab was significantly weakened, Barre said the FGS was willing to negotiate and listen to the jihadist's 'legitimate grievances.' The PM's comments further reflect a recent softening in Mogadishu's rhetoric towards the militant group, with some senior officials even framing Al-Shabaab as a potential ally against Ethiopia.
 
In the early months of Hassan Sheikh's second term, Mogadishu prioritised ties with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over Qatar. This diplomatic nuance has since been abandoned, with Villa Somalia's courting of Qatar beginning in earnest in November 2023 with the appointment of the former Minister of Internal Security and close Hassan Sheikh ally Mohamed Doodishe as Somalia's Ambassador to Qatar. While his appointment barely made news, it was a clear signal that Villa Somalia was seeking to return to the Qatari fold. Certain events have rapidly accelerated this Islamist embrace.
 
Primary among them was the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 1 January 2024 between Ethiopia and Somaliland that would see the leasing of 20 km of Somaliland's coastline in exchange for the recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign independent state. Though the FGS has insisted that its new maritime security pact with Turkey has no relation to the Ethiopia-Somalia MoU, it likely has Qatari support behind it as well.
 
While Qatari and Somali officials discussed parliamentary cooperation, members of Somalia's parliament debated and passed changes to the Provisional Constitution. The re-writing of this foundational document, framed as a 'review process,' is no small matter. While Villa Somalia has called this a critical step in Somalia's democratic state-building project, in reality, it is actively centralising power alongside a rising Islamist rhetoric. And despite the significant opposition the proposed electoral changes have faced, the process has been opaque and rushed. Equally concerning are yet unconfirmed reports that the 30% quota for women parliamentarians has been dropped from the early chapters of the text. Again, Qatar's hand in this is not hard to imagine.
 
It was the Doha-brokered 'peace talks' between the Taliban and Kabul, an essential capitulation, that brought an end to girl's schooling in Afghanistan. If Qatar and those like Fahad get their way, a similar situation could likely play out in Somalia. If this is the case, we can forget any real state-building project, as well as the vast funding poured into girls' education, civil society, equitable healthcare, and other social initiatives.
 
With the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) draw-down ongoing, there are growing rumblings in some domestic and international circles that negotiations with Al-Shabaab are inevitable. Talk of a new multi-national peacekeeping force of between 3,000 and 8,000 personnel in urban centres in 2025 can do little to prevent Al-Shabaab from seizing territory as ATMIS soldiers withdraw in 2024. It is true that most insurgencies end with some kind of negotiated settlement, like the Good Friday Agreement that disarmed and dismantled the Irish Republican Army in the 1990s. But such resolutions generally come from a position of strength on the part of the State– the opposite of Somalia's federal government at this time. It is the FGS, not Al-Shabaab, that will likely be forced to make significant compromises to bring 'peace' to Somalia.
 
The sweeping changes to Somalia's system of government that the NCC has proposed are minor compared to what Al-Shabaab would seek if brought into a power-sharing agreement. Regarding the constitution, it is not hard to envisage a Ulema Council with the final say on all constitutional issues- if there was one at all. Any form of liberal democracy would no longer be in the cards.
 
We may not see jihadists driving Toyota pick-ups and wielding AK-47s through the streets of Mogadishu in the coming months, but there is a grim sense of inevitability that for Al-Shabaab, Somalia's federal government and Qatar, their positions on Doha-mediated talks are aligning. Elements of the fatigued international community, aware that Somalia's collapse is now in its third decade, may be open to the prospect of negotiations. But with Qatar mediating, any talks would be pre-destined, and manoeuvres for these orchestrated negotiations have already begun. A post-jihadist state is on the horizon for Somalia, and it behoves us to consider what this would entail-- for the country and for the wider region.

By the Somali Wire team