The Road to Kabul: Villa Somalia and Negotiations with Al-Shabaab
Today's editorial in The Somali Wire is written by Matt Bryden.
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At his address to the Oslo Forum in June 2024, Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) declared that his government stands ready to negotiate with Al-Shabaab. The almost off-hand statement quickly prompted a flurry of denials and clarifications from Villa Somalia, including some oratorical tap-dancing by the president himself. But the prospect of negotiations with the jihadists has long been entertained – and even actively promoted – by previous administrations as well as some of Somalia's closest international partners. Why, then, did HSM's statement trigger such a furore?
One reason is that it represented an abrupt volte-face from the chest-thumping bravado that has been so characteristic of the Somali president and his security chiefs. Soon after taking office in August 2022, HSM declared "total war" on Al-Shabaab. A year later, following a crushing defeat of Somali National Army (SNA) units in central Somalia – the president doubled down on his pursuit of a "final victory" over the jihadists by December 2024. And just two months ago, the newly appointed Minister of Internal Security Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail Fartaag pledged that Somalia would be rid of Al-Shabaab by April 2025. Negotiations with terrorists were nowhere on Villa Somalia's agenda.
HSM's recent pivot might be best understood in the context of the contraction of the African Union Mission in Somalia (ATMIS). The peacekeeping force has been deployed in Somalia since 2007, and with troop numbers having peaked at over 22,000, just over 10,000 troops will remain by the end of 2024. According to Somalia's military planners, that would leave the defence of Mogadishu entirely in the hands of the country's security forces, except for some 1,500 African Union soldiers protecting the international enclave around the capital's port and airport. Yet, since the SNA remains manifestly unprepared to assume national security responsibilities, even Villa Somalia can no longer deny the possibility of an Al-Shabaab takeover in Mogadishu akin to the Taliban's seizure of power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Villa Somalia's principal foreign patron, Qatar, has a wealth of experience mediating negotiations with violent Islamist movements – including, of course, the ruinous peace talks with the Taliban. Doha embraced Al-Shabaab in 2007 and has been discreetly promoting dialogue with the jihadists ever since. Clandestine talks intensified under the previous Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo administration (2017-2022) but were suspended when HSM took office in 2022. Another partner of Somalia has long been associated with the prospect of peace talks with Al-Shabaab-- Norway. Oslo was again linked to the campaign for negotiations in a recent interview with opposition Somali MP Abdirahman Abdishakur. In recent months, as Villa Somalia's ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia have ebbed in favour of Qatar, dialogue with Al-Shabaab is back on the table. How then might negotiations unfold?
According to HSM's National Security Advisor, the Somali president has stipulated three preconditions for dialogue with the jihadists-- sever ties with international terrorists, respect Somalia's territorial integrity, and pursue its objectives through peaceful political means. For a government so confident of "final victory," this appears to be setting the bar awfully low.
Al-Shabaab stands to lose little by declaring independence from Al-Qa'ida, which is experiencing something of a nadir in operational potency and global influence. Osama bin Laden himself once discouraged Al-Shabaab from affiliating itself officially with Al Qa'ida, in keeping with the jihadist doctrine of taqiyya -- masking one's true faith in order to deceive the infidels. Al-Shabaab could also abide by the principle of Somalia's territorial integrity – particularly if that means rejecting Somaliland independence, which the extremist group already opposes. It would, however, find it less palatable to endorse Somalia's 'fake' borders with neighbouring countries or to cease attacks against Kenya and Ethiopia through Jaysh al-Ayman and Jaysh al-Habash. And Al-Shabaab would likely agree to a ceasefire, at least for the duration of negotiations, as long as the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) did too.
Al-Shabaab's opening demands, on the other hand, are likely to prove much harder for the FGS to stomach. The militants reject the very foundations on which the FGS is putatively based-- constitutional rule, electoral democracy, and federalism. And its leaders insist on the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Somalia, which would almost certainly lead to the collapse of the federal government. Whether or not the jihadists present these as preconditions or can be prevailed on to reserve them until later in the negotiating process likely depends upon Doha's leverage over the group.
If negotiations are to make any substantive headway, Al-Shabaab will almost certainly demand that Somalia's 'apostate' constitution be replaced by the Holy Qur'an and Islamic Shari'a law. Villa Somalia might counter this by pointing to recent constitutional amendments that enshrine the primacy of Islam. But even if Al-Shabaab conceded to a constitution, its negotiators would likely insist on some form of Ulema Council to enforce their militant Salafi interpretation. This position would also appeal to Somalia's other powerful, wealthy Salafi movement, Al-I'tisaam. Since the precepts of the Muslim Brotherhood guide HSM's administration, it might push back on narrow political grounds rather than ideological ones.
With negotiations, the future of electoral democracy in Somalia would be forfeit. Al-Shabaab rubbishes the very concept of popular sovereignty and with it, the notion of political alternation. Any electoral system that survived negotiations would be so circumscribed as to be virtually meaningless – not very different, perhaps, from Iran's theocratic model.
One issue on which Villa Somalia and Al-Shabaab concur is that federalism is a nuisance, so they would probably have little difficulty converging on a nominally decentralised form of unitary government. But that would risk alienating many, if not most, of Somalia's Federal Member States, which aspire to differing degrees of functional autonomy from Mogadishu, and can be counted on to resist further attempts to strip them of power. Further erosion of Somalia's ill-defined federal arrangement would threaten to shatter the country's creaking political settlement and ignite further armed conflict.
Assuming these challenges could eventually be overcome and some form of agreement reached between the two parties on the future of Somalia's governance, negotiations may yet founder on the treacherous question of power sharing. With, at a minimum, Puntland, Jubaland, and South West State opposed to a deal, Villa Somalia could not plausibly profess to speak for the federation; it would be placed in the awkward position of seeking a separate peace with extremists. Nor, seated across the table from powerful Al-Shabaab leaders from the president's own clan-- like Sheikh Yusuf Kabokutukade-- could HSM even claim to speak for the Hawiye. At most, he would be seen as a spokesman for Damul Jadiid – the small, elitist faction of Somalia's Muslim Brotherhood that dominates his government.
And therein lies the rub. The FGS would enter negotiations with Al-Shabaab from a serious disadvantage. Villa Somalia's conceit regarding national sovereignty derives not from any intrinsic legitimacy or authority but from vast foreign aid and security assistance. The government's minimal domestic annual income of roughly USD 300 million barely suffices to govern Mogadishu, let alone the country. It is only years of international largesse that have enabled the federal government to present itself as an alternative to the jihadists. But if Al-Shabaab were to join the government and assume key posts in the cabinet, civil service and security forces, HSM's faction would no longer enjoy control over foreign aid; it would be rendered politically impotent and possibly irrelevant. Moreover, the arrival of jihadists to Villa Somalia would likely herald a massive contraction of foreign aid, similar to what was witnessed in Afghanistan post-2021. And the arrival of an Al-Shabaab-led state would surely stem the trickle of reverse migration and diaspora investment. Instead, it will drive foreign passport holders and professionals from Somalia-- just as happened in Afghanistan.
Negotiations with Al-Shabaab may be notionally intended to forestall the takeover of Somalia's federal government by Islamist militants, but that is what they are most likely to deliver while conferring on them a veneer of international legitimacy they would forfeit by military conquest.
That is why HSM and his team have started backpedalling from the offer of dialogue with Al-Shabaab. They are becoming aware of where that path leads. Hence their desperate appeals for the ATMIS draw-down to be staggered and for a robust new military mission to replace it – neither of which can significantly alter the fundamental political-military balance in Somalia. For now, though, that leaves Villa Somalia with just two perceived options-- negotiate or capitulate. And it is increasingly difficult to see any distinction between the two. So, for those wondering how negotiations between the FGS and Al-Shabaab might unfold, the answer might well be–“Kabul.”
Matt Bryden is Sahan's co-founder and Strategic Adviser. He worked in aid and political organisations focused on the Horn of Africa and served as the Coordinator for the Monitoring Group for Somalia and Eritrea between 2008 and 2012.
