Issue No. 873

El Dheer Through The Looking Glass

At dawn on Friday morning, Al-Shabaab launched yet another raid on government bases in central Somalia-- this time at El Dheer in the Galgaduud region. In typical Al-Shabaab style, suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (SVBIEDs) were deployed to trigger the assault, intended to scatter their enemies and blow a hole in perimeter defences before allowing fighters to swarm their target. We have seen these tactics employed time and again, and yet government forces still seemed unprepared-- after some fighting, all three SNA 77th, Gorgor, and ma'awiisley bases were overrun by the jihadists, dispersing government forces towards the coast in the aftermath. And having overrun these bases, inflicting-- according to their propaganda-- dozens of government casualties and seizing significant quantities of weapons and ammunition, Al-Shabaab had succeeded in their military objective. 

It had been apparent that an attack on El Dheer was coming for some time, with Al-Shabaab substantially scaling up its numbers in Galgaduud to the north of Mogadishu in recent weeks. With much of Hiiraan, Mudug, and Galgaduud back in their hands after capturing dozens of villages and towns, Al-Shabaab has had far greater space and manoeuvrability to shape the battlefield and shepherd reinforcements from southern to central Somalia. Though pressure on Mogadishu has been diminished somewhat, the militant group is now seeking to build a new Galgaduud axis, forging a corridor from Adan Yabaal-- a jewel in their Middle Shabelle crown-- to the coast. But last month, El Dheer was defended by just around 400 ma'awiisley, 200 18th Battalion Gorgor troops, and some 150 77th Brigade SNA soldiers-- far fewer than those defending Adan Yabaal in April, for instance. On the coast, the nearby Haradheere is similarly facing rising pressure, with reports that Al-Shabaab has increased its forward positions towards the town and taxation of goods. 

Yet no disruption operations were planned, with the assorted forces in El Dheer passively awaiting an Al-Shabaab raid. Pressure might have been alleviated by interdicting the advancing jihadists and disrupting their plan of attack. Instead, the SNA remained bunkered down and was inevitably overrun, with Al-Shabaab inflicting considerable casualties and seizing major arms caches. For years, the SNA has been doggedly unable or unwilling to learn lessons on disrupting these types of raids, be it deploying Claymore mines or a more robust defence in depth to inflict higher casualties on the attacking force. In part, this is due to a persistent shortage of field-grade commanders in charge of operational planning, with lacklustre officials instead routinely promoted due to clan or ideological affiliation. And so images of the militants' black flag fluttering over El Dheer have been widely shared through Al-Kataib Media Foundation-- racking up another propaganda 'win' in the information war against the government.

Though the government forces may have fared better in retaking the town than in Adan Yabaal, it can hardly be chalked up as a victory. According to Al-Shabaab's statements-- now arguably more reliable than the fantastical numbers suggested by the Defence Ministry- dozens of soldiers and ma'awiisley were killed and injured in the fighting. The identities of 22 SNA soldiers allegedly killed in action have already been published by the jihadists to date. More probable than the government's own assertions of a successful defence is that Al-Shabaab did not intend to hold El Dheer, for now at least, amid the continued threat of exposure to drone strikes by the US and other international partners.

The first half of this year has again brutally laid bare many of the failings of the SNA, from a lack of kinetic mobility to inadequate equipment to egregious politicisation. Months of stymied military operations against Al-Shabaab had allowed the jihadists to plan and for the SNA to atrophy, with no strategy beyond the 'all-out-war' repeated ad nauseam since Villa Somalia co-opted the organic clan uprisings in the 2022 central Somalia offensive. And in the 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' politics of Mogadishu, losses inevitably translate to propaganda victories. In their framing, Al-Shabaab remains on the back foot, with their defeat inevitable and just a few months away —if only more than USD 1 billion in annual external security assistance, for example, could be increased even further. And so, with the federal government remaining set on spinning any loss, senior military commanders travelled to El Dheer to parade their 'victories' over Al-Shabaab after the town was retaken, displaying a couple of dozen old AK-47s and two prisoners. 

El Dheer is far from the only haphazardly defended town within central Somalia, with reports of just a few dozen Gorgor soldiers in Raage Ceelle, for instance. With thousands of soldiers having abandoned their posts since Al-Shabaab's Ramadan surge earlier this year, the Custodial Corps-- essentially prison guards with no combat training-- is still deployed to frontline towns to plug the gaps. More experienced Turkish-trained Gorgor forces, meanwhile, have been dispatched to Gedo, along with aerial support, in Beled Hawo and Garbahaarey to consolidate Villa Somalia's grip over the Mareehaan-majority region in Jubaland. And successive attempts to mobilise some forces and ma'awiisley in Middle Shabelle and central Somalia have led nowhere, with the SNA still badly demoralised and the clan forces suspicious of the feckless and disinterested government.

Listening to the hawkish Defence Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi this weekend, one might think that the 'battle of El Dheer' was some famous victory over the jihadists, another step in the unrelenting march towards their defeat. While Al-Shabaab did suffer not-insubstantial casualties in the fighting, the government's persistent refusal to acknowledge the scale and threat of the jihadists-- and the SNA's own failings-- further dooms the fight to failure, with the broader auspices already so grim. If Villa Somalia spent less time spinning the war and more time winning it, the fight against Al-Shabaab might begin to resemble a real campaign.

The Somalia Wire Team