Issue No. 800

Al-Shabaab Tightens Noose Around Mogadishu

Over the weekend, large groups of Al-Shabaab fighters infiltrated areas close to the Somali capital Mogadishu, the bulk of them in the direction of Afgooye. Local media reported Al-Shabaab (AS) ‘sightings’ two nights in a row in multiple locations such as Ceelasha Biyaha and Sinka Dheer. According to local sources, Al-Shabaab reassured the public it had no intent to trigger fighting and ‘harm civilians’ or ‘change people’s lives’. The aim, Al-Shabaab told the residents of these districts, was to take over Mogadishu and create a ‘just Islamic state based on Islamic sharia.’ It would seem AS’s tactics are partly psyops, the aim being to project soft power, reassure civilians, and demonstrate confidence and reach. However, these types of deep incursions into enemy territory from multiple directions may also signal a far bolder military strategy: to steadily take control of Mogadishu as Somalia’s feckless federal government unravels.

Reports of Al-Shabaab interest in overrunning the city have generated renewed anxiety among residents. While government supporters took to social media to ‘show normalcy in Mogadishu’, opposition supporters and critics paint a far gloomier picture. Social media chatter alleging US Embassy staff were being withdrawn caused enough of a stir that the US Embassy in Mogadishu felt obliged to issue a statement terming the news as false.

There is fear in the city, but not yet panic, according to multiple sources Sahan analysts spoke to over the weekend. Many dual nationals are said to be actively considering leaving. There is a scramble to apply for Kenyan visas (which can take up to three months to be approved). On Sunday, the government ordered members of the Custodial Corps – a branch of the security service that deals with the management of prisons – to deploy to the front lines, an unprecedented step that may suggest a new level of desperation. Hundreds of young prison warders untrained for combat boarded lorries and were dispatched to the Shabelle Valley to ward off the Al-Shabaab offensive.

The Somali National Army (SNA) is performing badly in the two Shabelles. In Ceelasha Biyaha, for example, a force of roughly 1,400 SNA opted to pull back instead of fighting AS infiltrators numbering not more than 200, according to multiple sources. The pattern of soldiers ‘refusing to fight’ is being replicated across many fronts. And that suggests serious trouble ahead for the government.

The overall command of the SNA in the Shabelle Valley was handed to Lt. Col. Hassan Adan ‘Iraqi’ (an Ogadeeni officer from the Mohammed Zubeyr sub-clan). Iraqi is deeply loathed by much of the rank and file of the SNA as the architect of the botched “Operation Ras Kambooni” to overthrow the President of Jubaland in which dozens of federal troops were killed and over 600 forced to flee to Kenya. Instead of being stripped of his rank and prosecuted as many would have preferred, Iraqi was ‘promoted’ by being handed full command of the counter-AS operations in the Middle Shabelle. The assumption that as a non-Hawiye he may command the respect and loyalty of the SNA and be seen as even-handed in an area riven by intra-Hawiye feuding in the Shabelle has not been borne out.

The FGS’s Shabelle strategy, broadly speaking, appears to be in disarray. There are close to 900 Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) operating under the auspices of the African Union peace enforcement mission, African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), are stationed in Jowhar but playing no effective role in pushing back against the jihadists. Instead, Ethiopian fighter aircraft operating independently have provided some close air support to SNA troops in the area.

The anticipated deployment of Egyptian military units to the same sector also poses challenges. The FGS has invited Egypt to deploy over 1,000 troops under the AUSSOM mandate, and even more may be deployed under a bilateral arrangement. The plan so far is to deploy Egyptian Special Forces in Adan Yabaal and Adaale in the Middle Shabelle, supported by Egyptian helicopter gunships and drones. But Al-Shabaab's advances across the sector threaten to scupper Egypt’s plans.

The FGS clearly has no plan or strategy to counter Al-Shabaab’s inexorable encirclement of the capital. Having failed to crush the insurgency with bravado, bluster and baseless body counts, Villa Somalia is now committing ill-suited police and prison guards to defend the Somali capital – a last-ditch measure that begs the question: what other means does the government still possess to prevent an Al-Shabaab takeover?

In 2007, the Somali government owed its survival to a combination of Ethiopian and African Union (mainly Ugandan) forces who did the fighting that the then embryonic SNA was incapable of. Today, no such foreign military intervention is likely to materialise. Somali government officials have spent much of the past year insisting that the AU mission be reduced to less than 12,000 troops – a force too small to be capable of effective offensive action – on the grounds that the SNA is more than capable of defeating Al-Shabaab on its own. Ethiopia has spent much of the past 12 months resisting bellicose demands from Mogadishu that its forces withdraw from Somalia completely. And Kenya has watched impassively while Villa Somalia struggles to overthrow its longstanding ally in the Juba Valley, President Ahmed Madoobe of Jubaland.

The suspension of American security assistance since the advent of the Trump administration threatens to cripple the FGS’s most effective fighting force, the Danab Special Forces Brigade, while Washington’s refusal to provide funds for AUSSOM under UN Security Council Resolution 2719 is also likely to terminate the payment of stipends to more than 10,000 SNA soldiers through the same mechanism. The European Union, meanwhile, which has long sought to reduce its own contributions to Somali security assistance through more equitable burden-sharing, is now preoccupied with finding money for Ukraine’s defence instead.

Under such dire circumstances, Villa Somalia appears to have few options remaining to break Al-Shabaab’s tightening siege of Mogadishu. Perhaps it’s still not too late for President Mohamud to do what he should have done since the outset of his second term in 2022: join hands with the leaders of Somalia’s Federal Member States, instead of treating them like adversaries, and form a common front against Al-Shabaab. Or to replace his manifestly incompetent and corrupt security officials with one less likely to squander the more than USD 1 billion in external assistance that his government receives every year to fight Al-Shabaab. Perhaps the formation of a robust, inclusive Somali transitional government could yet stave off total defeat.

Alas, it seems that Somalia’s President remains impervious to reality, staking his government’s fortunes on the dedication of a few prison guards and the forlorn hope that some benign foreign power may yet come to his rescue. As many an embattled leader before him has learned to their chagrin, hope is not a strategy.

The Somali Wire Team