Issue No. 804

Drones Won't Save Mogadishu

Another day and more territory in central Somalia falls to Al-Shabaab. Just this morning, in the Masjid Ali Gadud district, jihadist fighters launched a dawn raid on a Somali National Army (SNA) base, seemingly overrunning the camp and killing several government soldiers. Across the Shabelles, Al-Shabaab is continuing to dictate the battlefield, and with the extremists' progress unmistakable, the threat to Mogadishu continues to grow. Yet Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's government remains waiting for a foreign deus ex machina rather than consider conceding political ground within the Abgaal and at the national level to halt their advance.

While the federal government has dispatched forces and weaponry to Middle Shabelle, alongside the president shuttling back and forth, Al-Shabaab has tightened its grip on Lower Shabelle. Facing little resistance from the SNA, the jihadists have advanced across the region and now control three of the four major bridges and towns. Only Afgooye remains under government control, but Al-Shabaab has been steadily intensifying pressure there as well, launching several mortar rounds into the town's SNA base yesterday. Last night, reports suggested a highly volatile situation, with the SNA facing massed Al-Shabaab fighters on its periphery. Across central Somalia, the government's territorial control has already regressed to levels last seen between 2012 and 2018, with most of the successes of Operation Badbaado and the 2022 central Somalia campaigns reversed.

While the SNA is melting away on the battlefield, there are growing signals from Al-Shabaab that this Ramadan offensive has evolved into more than just a handful of raids and feints aimed at unsettling the government. On 22 March, Al-Shabaab's Al-Kataib Office, responsible for its propaganda and media output, released a video of the jihadist group's spokesperson, Ali Dheere, addressing newly graduated fighters. Though not saying it explicitly, the senior Al-Shabaab leader confirmed that the extremists' advances across Middle and Lower Shabelle constitute a deliberate and large-scale offensive.

There are other pointers that Al-Shabaab is looking to firmly consolidate its hold across Middle and Lower Shabelle, even if it is not yet ready to capture the capital. Al-Kataib videos from the overrunning of the SNA base in Awdhegle revealed something unprecedented—Al-Shabaab demolishing parts of the perimeter Hesco walls with earth-moving equipment. The chronology of the footage remains unclear, but in several parts, cameras pan over remnants of walls with large tyre tracks alongside them. This suggests more than a straightforward hit-and-run attack—something Al-Shabaab has perfected—but rather an attempt to deny the SNA the ability to redeploy to the base.

Dheere's comments to the new recruits on the quality of their opposition were further telling about the contempt Al-Shabaab holds for its government adversaries on the battlefield, saying that "the apostates cannot even form a single organised unit for battle." Dheere's remarks, however unpleasant, shine a light on the growing chasm between the impact of Al-Shabaab and government forces on the battlefield. Al-Shabaab fighters are often fewer in number than the disjointed coalition of federal and ma'awiisley forces supposedly commanded by Mogadishu, yet they prove far greater than the sum of their parts.

The past weeks have only emphasised the extent to which Al-Shabaab's forces are more singularly dedicated and unified in their purpose than their SNA counterparts. Much of the SNA, on the other hand, is badly demoralised and unwilling to lay down their lives for this government, with significant ongoing desertions reported from the frontlines. It hardly helps that many of the SNA commanders supposed to be on the battlefield have remained in Mogadishu. And though much has been made of a 'rallying' of the ma'awiisley, without the critical political reconciliation within the Abgaal that Villa Somalia is doggedly refusing to entertain, these forces will remain limited in both number and effectiveness. So, while the SNA forces defending Afgooye may outnumber the reported 300 jihadists on its outskirts, Al-Shabaab's manoeuvrability allows them to quickly mass and overwhelm government positions before dispersing again.

The apparent hopes in Villa Somalia that the influx of attention-grabbing military materiel, the latest being an imminent delivery of Turkish T-129 ATAK helicopters, can repel Al-Shabaab alone are misguided. While drone strikes can certainly inflict painful casualties on massed fighters, they cannot hold the line absent a coherent SNA. Today, Türkiye is expected to begin operating the much-heralded Akinci drones against Al-Shabaab, but there is a painful irony at work-- that the jihadists may be forced to move into more urban centres to limit the impact of strikes, in turn only further hastening the capture of more towns and even potentially Mogadishu. Drones can play a defensive role in protecting key areas, but they are no substitute for well-organised ground forces with rational defensive lines.

Al-Shabaab may not yet want to move into Mogadishu, particularly because of the unclear leadership positioning within the jihadist group. There are long-standing reports of Ahmed Diriye's, better known as Abu Ubaidah, ill-health, and whether he is in a position to actually command such a significant transition is improbable. A succession battle may well be looming within Al-Shabaab, but this is unlikely to halt the jihadists' advance if they feel the time is ripe, or if they have little choice but to take the capital.

At this current trajectory, the most probable scenario is that with no immediate and patchwork security or political reforms from Villa Somalia, SNA forces will continue facing heavy attrition in the Shabelles and will eventually be routed. Tonight will most likely bring Laylat al-Qadr, the holiest night of Ramadan. Though Al-Shabaab has historically paid little heed to this, the militants may attempt to strike a large town, potentially Afgooye or Jowhar, which has seen dozens of ma'awiisley abandon their weapons in the past 24 hours. And unless something checks its advance, in the coming weeks, Al-Shabaab will most likely look to surround the city before consolidating its hold on its peripheries before moving into the capital through the Eelaasha corridor. The jihadists could then systematically advance into Mogadishu block by block, mirroring the fall of the capital in 2006, with pro-government units surrendering piecemeal. 

Mogadishu has not yet fallen– and it may still not. But to prevent this scenario, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud likely needs to make several substantial gestures within his own clan and to the country that he is willing to overhaul his government's military and political agenda. Stuck between a choice between Al-Shabaab and Hassan Sheikh's unpopular government, many of the key Hawiye sub-clans in central Somalia are voting with their feet and allowing the jihadists passage rather than throwing their fighters into save Villa Somalia. While there is no dearth of arrayed forces within Somalia antithetical to Al-Shabab's extremist ideology, including in Puntland and Jubaland, it is beyond apparent that they will not rally to the federal government in its current positioning. Akinci drones cannot save Mogadishu, but some rapid and deft political and security bargaining just might.

The Somali Wire Team