Issue No. 770

The Ethiopians are set to stay, but the battle for Gedo continues

After months of sabre-rattling and insistence otherwise, the Ethiopian army appears set to officially remain in central and southern Somalia– with Mogadishu's grudging acceptance. Villa Somalia's hard deadline of 1 January 2025 for the withdrawal of the thousands of Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) troops positioned across Gedo, Bay, Bakool, and Hiiraan came and went amidst ongoing disorder over the troop composition for the new African Union peacekeeping force. Where they will remain is proving contentious, however, with Villa Somalia pressuring Addis to withdraw its troops from Gedo in Jubaland, as well as Hiiraan in Hirshabelle. Though Ethiopia has outright refused these conditions and Mogadishu's request that Addis sever long-standing ties with Federal Member State (FMS) administrations, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is expected to raise the issue again when he visits Addis in the coming days. The prospect of ENDF soldiers packing their bags in Baidoa has thankfully been greatly diminished, but the political machinations are far from over.

The Turkish-driven and mediated 'Ankara Declaration' in early December provided an important face-saving mechanism for both Addis and Mogadishu to begin cooling the months of heightened rhetoric, particularly from the Somali side. Containing little substance and platitudes related to both Somalia's 'sovereignty' and Ethiopia's 'sea access,' it allowed each to claim victories and avoid the unseemly case of Ethiopian forces remaining in Somalia without consent. Reciprocal visits by senior Somali and Ethiopian foreign and security officials since then have helped smooth over several tense hiccups in the weeks since, including clashes involving allied Ethiopian and Jubaland troops against Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) forces in Dollow. And with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expected to travel to Ethiopia and Somalia in the coming weeks and further negotiations anticipated, the momentum is still towards resolving the destabilising tensions that marked 2024. Meanwhile, the fate of the contentious Ethiopia-Somaliland Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is yet unknown post-Ankara and with a new administration in Hargeisa, and is once again expected to be mostly left off the agenda when Hassan Sheikh visits Addis. 

While Mogadishu may have eventually agreed to the ENDF staying in Somalia, it is still quietly attempting to set highly politicised and dangerous constraints. The rationale behind the request for Ethiopian troops to withdraw from Gedo is clear-- Villa Somalia remains set on wresting the Mareehaan-dominated region from Jubaland President Ahmed Madoobe amidst their bloody fallout. Though called by the Ras Kamboni debacle in December, where hundreds of federal troops were routed or captured by Jubaland Daraawiish forces, the federal government is intent on undermining Madoobe's administration from several angles, having been unable to forcibly unseat the long-serving leader. Among others, Internal Security Minister Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail 'Fartaag' and Gedo Governor Abdullahi Jama Shimbir have been deployed to work with the Mareehaan/ Reer Dini sub-clan and others to control areas of Gedo.

The Ethiopian military staying as part of AUSSOM, for which funding has still not been agreed upon, does not mean that any major offensive against Al-Shabaab will suddenly become possible. With no significant coordinated federal military campaign having been conducted for nearly two years, the necessity of the ENDF remaining only grew as Mogadishu pursued its political agenda and abandoned the offensive. The extremist group appears to be waiting and seeing amid the AUSSOM transition, having consolidated its presence, continued to recruit and quietly stoke inter-clan animosity.

While the rhetoric has eased-- at least for a couple of weeks-- and the risks of proxy war have ebbed, domestic tensions in Somalia rumble on as Hassan Sheikh prepares for his first bilateral trip to Ethiopia in nearly a year. Though the Somali president is expected to withdraw his resistance to Ethiopian troops remaining in South West State, the security realities have not changed elsewhere. Ethiopian forces must stay in Hiiraan and Gedo, not just Bay and Bakool, to avoid losing yet more ground to a resurgent Al-Shabaab. Ceding ground to the jihadists to appease a federal administration set on undermining all domestic opposition-- no matter the cost-- would be a grave mistake. Instead, with the ENDF now staying, returning to agreed-upon principles of AU peacekeeping, soothing Burundian concerns, and shoring up positions ahead of a possible Al-Shabaab should be the priority. But whether Villa Somalia will return to the principles of federalism and collaboration in a transitional political context in 2025 will be a taller ask.

The Somali Wire Team