Issue No. 829

Why the Somali National Army Keeps Failing

Armies generally lose the will to fight for one of three reasons: they lose faith in their cause, they lose faith in their leaders, or their country loses faith in them. It may be argued that all three factors have contributed to the Somalia National Army's (SNA) recent surge of withdrawals, desertions and defections across the frontlines in Hiiraan, Lower and Middle Shabelle. Since late February, several waves of Al-Shabaab advances have revealed an SNA both incapable and unwilling to hold its ground. And with the ma'awiisley from the Hawaadle and other clan militias currently shouldering any concerted resistance against Al-Shabaab, with minimal support from Mogadishu, it is worth examining--again-- the reasons for the enduring ineffectiveness of the SNA. As so often is the case in Somalia, the heart of the problems lies with its absurd and self-defeating politicisation.

The SNA faces challenges across the board, ranging from failures to synchronise logistics to rotating forces effectively to a lack of kinetic mobility. Many of these problems were on full display after the federal government attempted to co-opt and monopolise the organic Hawaadle and Abgaal-led uprising against Al-Shabaab in mid-2022. Again and again, soldiers were thrown forward without any coherent military purpose into areas of minimal value in Hirshabelle and Galmudug before being stranded there. Over several months, in the early stages of Operation Black Lion, which envisioned clearing the jihadists from South West and Jubaland with the support of Addis and Nairobi, Al-Shabaab overran a number of major locations where SNA soldiers were isolated – most infamously at Osweyne in Galgauud in August 2023, when well over 100 soldiers were killed. To this day, no one has been held to account for these catastrophic mistakes and severe lapses in operational security. 

Eventually, with 'Phase One' of operations going nowhere, plans for 'Operation Black Lion' also dissipated. Similarly, any discussion about the federated security architecture, agreed upon in President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's (HSM) first term in 2017 and revised in 2023, also evaporated. With no strategy beyond generating headlines about the 'all-out war' on Al-Shabaab, Villa Somalia has instead repurposed the SNA as a political tool in HSM's destabilising electoral and constitutional agenda. 

It is little wonder that with such calamitous failures in recent years and with the military offensive having been all but abandoned, the SNA has degenerated into such a demoralised force. Despite approximately USD 1 billion in external military assistance being allocated to the country on an annual basis, the army faces chronic issues of inadequate equipment and unpaid stipends. The force is further infamous for indiscipline and absenteeism, with bases routinely undermanned and recruits inexplicably unaccounted for. 

Equally concerning is the promotion system within the SNA, which remains highly politicised and unmoored from merit or battlefield experience. Officers with influential political connections and from more dominant clans routinely jump through the ranks or – like HSM's son, Abdifatah - are assigned to cushy VIP protection details, while leaving more effective soldiers unpromoted and serving under dangerously incompetent superiors. Consequently, amidst the latest Al-Shabaab offensive, many SNA officers supposed to be deployed to the frontlines were, in fact, still in Mogadishu. And among those serving in combat units, several senior commanders have recently become victims of 'fragging' – killed by their own demoralised troops.

There are some exceptions to this, particularly the US-trained Danab, which has a careful selection and extensive training process. But amidst the grim fall-out between Kismaayo and Mogadishu late last year, Jubaland's Danab special forces commander, Major Arab Dheeg, was dismissed after criticising his government for "prioritising political loyalty over professional competence." Failings of SNA command-and-control are also notorious, with many senior officers – including the underwhelming SNA Chief of Defence Forces, including General Odowaa Yusuf Rage – only capable of rudimentary tactical manoeuvre warfare rather than strategic leadership. There are also simply too few field-grade commanders in charge of operational planning and subordinate units.

Unable to trust their absent commanders and sometimes unpaid for months at a time, many within the rank-and-file routinely prefer to abandon their posts rather than risk their lives-- particularly in territories that do belong to their clan. With enduring issues of inadequate welfare and morale, recent desertions come not as a surprise but as further evidence of the army's institutional decay. Facing a cohesive, well-trained Al-Shabaab, the SNA has simply melted away in several places, including in Adan Yabaal in mid-April, where the army outnumbered the jihadists by well over 1,000 men. Even when replacements have been ordered from the capital, recruits have often refused to join the front, fearing they will be left unsupported or abandoned. And so significant has been the loss of combat troops that non-combat-trained Custodial Corps personnel have been dispatched to the battlefield to fill gaps in the line.

Somalia's security architecture is also notoriously corrupt, with immense funds and equipment siphoned off by senior ministers and officers. In addition to his moniker of 'Wasiir TikTok,' the long-serving Defence Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur 'Jama' was also known as 'Mr 25%' for his apparent fondness for taking hefty cuts of contracts. Numerous other reports of corruption continue to plague the SNA, with the latest controversy involving the reported rental of military helicopters, which were intended for medical evacuation. Even parts of the Danab, the US-trained special forces and some of the only units capable of carrying out kinetic operations were implicated in a corruption scandal regarding food rations last year. Such pervasive graft helps to explain why, in many instances, Al-Shabaab are better armed than their government counterparts on the battlefield.

But more than any other factor, the politicisation of the SNA has fed into its current malaise. Since 2022, it has been increasingly apparent that Al-Shabaab was far from defeated, despite the president's and others' wild assertions, but simply biding its time. Amidst the lull in operations by the extremist group last year, it continued to consolidate its hold over its territory in central and southern Somalia, watching as Mogadishu sought to intimidate and suppress its domestic political opposition by force. And even though dozens of settlements have fallen to the jihadists in recent weeks, the government has shown next to no interest in re-examining its disastrous political and military approaches. 

Instead, the federal government has continued to attempt to control and wield all elements of Somalia's security architecture for its own parochial agenda. From deploying its forces against the Jubaland administration in Ras Kamboni and Gedo to withholding much-needed equipment from South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen's forces, denying newer weapons and technicals to Hawiye sub-clans that it perceives as disloyal, and funnelling arms and ammunition to SSC-Khaatumo, Villa Somalia is apparently more eager to destabilise its own Federal Member States than to degrade and defeat Al-Shabaab. With the federal government so obviously uninterested in building a robust federation to confront threats to the nation, growing numbers of soldiers are - predictably - losing faith in both their leaders and their cause, preferring to desert their posts than fight to save the floundering HSM administration.
 
Conversely, the federal government seems to have lost faith in them. Villa Somalia's response to the desertions in March was scathing, with government-aligned cleric Sheikh Ali Wajis labelling soldiers as "infidels" and Custodial Corps commander Mahad Abdirahman Mohamed threatening retaliation against soldiers' families. Soldiers detailed to protect opposition leaders meeting in Mogadishu this week – a fairly standard practice in Somalia – have been threatened with dismissal and worse. And public confidence in the troops, though remarkably resilient, is gravely undermined by comically overstated government victory claims, slick and sophisticated (and generally more accurate) Al-Shabaab propaganda, and the undeniable evidence of attrition on the battlefield. 

If Villa Somalia genuinely expects its troops to seize the advantage on the battlefield, it must first restore soldiers' faith in their leaders and their cause. It could start by showing, through the appointment of capable commanders, the articulation of a credible strategy, the curbing of corruption, and providing the care that its forces deserve, that their country still has genuine faith in them. What is far more likely, though, is that the federal government will continue pursuing its myopic, highly political, and micro-managing military strategy to the detriment of both the SNA and the country.

The Somali Wire Team