No More Blank Cheques Last Friday, the head of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), General Michael Langley, testifying to the US Senate Armed Services Committee, confirmed that Islamic State-Somalia (ISS) had relocated its global command hub to Puntland. Emphasising how ISS was developing its "global footprint" from Somalia, he warned that if left unchecked, the jihadist group could pose direct threats to US national security. This acknowledgement by the head of AFRICOM was a mark of just how consequential ISS, led by Emir Abdulkadir Mumim, has become within Daesh's architecture. And while perhaps bad news for the counter-terror fight in Africa, Langley's statement on ISS and the subsequent offers a glimmer of hope for an embattled Mogadishu, which fears that the new American administration may be inclined to turn its back on Somalia.
On Tuesday, 5 July, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) delivered a speech at Turkey’s SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research. In his remarks, HSM emphasized the need to fight Al-Shabaab in an integrated way, by targeting their military, financial, and ideological capabilities. The president’s address was notable for not just advocating a purely military solution: more troops, more weapons, more operations. Instead, he offered a more olistic strategy, one that seemed to acknowledge that the threat posed by Al-Shabaab owes to more than just their fighting strength.