Somalia dipped into turmoil after the 1991 overthrow of then-President Siad Barre’s military regime, leading to years of clan warfare followed by the rise of Al-Shabaab which once controlled large parts of the country and Mogadishu.
The country’s history of conflict reveals an intriguing paradox namely, many of the factors that drive armed conflict have also played a role in managing, ending, or preventing war. For instance, clannism and clan cleavages are a source of conflict–used to divide Somalis, fuel endemic clashes over resources and power, used to mobilize militia, and make broad-based reconciliation very difficult to achieve.
Large numbers of civilians were displaced and warlords diverted food aid. In response, a United States-led military intervention attempted to facilitate access for humanitarian relief. While armed forces clashed in Mogadishu, food distribution was disrupted and famine continued in the south. United Nations (UN) peacekeepers followed but were unable to restore order. Of the ensuing period, Alex de Waal wrote that “centralized political authority has never reemerged”.
Communities create or join such groups as a primary response to conditions of insecurity, vulnerability and contestation. The impact of terrorism is worsened by Somalia’s protracted inter-clan conflict, which involves internal, regional and extra-regional dynamics. Links between clan affiliated militias established in response to growing insecurity, and the way Al-Shabaab recruits and operates, require scrutiny of the nexus between inter-clan conflict and terrorism.
Somali powerbrokers, subfederal authorities, the national Government and external interveners have all turned to armed groups as a primary tool for prosecuting their interests. State-aligned militias help to offset the weakness of Somalia’s official security forces, produce greater motivation and better intelligence and enhance bonds with local communities, perhaps even suppressing crime and intraclan violence.
However, Somalia’s State-aligned militia groups are also an underlying source of insecurity, violent contestation, abusive rule, impunity and pernicious outside manipulation. They give rise to and allow the entrenchment of powerful militant groups such as the Al-Qaida- supporting, jihadist Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly referred to as Al-Shabaab. As such, their increasingly central role in the fight against al-Shabaab is a double-edged sword: short-term military gains must be balanced against the militias’ longer-term, destabilizing impact.
Warfare erupted again in 2006 between the transitional government and insurgents in the southern and central regions, with pockets in Baidoa and Mogadishu under government control. Ethiopian troops entered to quell threats to the border and reinstate the government. UN and African Union peacekeepers also arrived, but were declared to be enemies of the Islamist movement. From 1997 to 2005, Somalia surpassed Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq in reports of attacks against aid workers. The UN and many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) now operate remotely from Nairobi.
The election of a new president and reformulation of parliament in 2009 brings renewed optimism for stabilization. Yet Somalia remains a fragmented region consisting of two effectively independent states (Puntland and Somaliland), a small area governed by transitional authorities and the greater part overseen by terrorist groups.
Al-Shabaab was driven out of the capital in 2011, but its militants continue to wage war against the government, carrying out regular attacks.
Al-Shabab committed serious abuses, including forcibly recruiting children and adults; arbitrary executions, notably of those it accused of spying for the government and foreign forces; and extorting “taxes” through threats. Al-Shabab attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombings, and shellings in Mogadishu resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries.
Al-Shabab continues to prohibit most nongovernmental organizations and all UN agencies from working in areas under its control. The group continued to blockade government-controlled towns and attacked civilians who broke the blockades, destroying goods and vehicles.
In Somalia, fear is a traded commodity. And these phenomena play major roles in perpetuation of fear: Ghost assassinations of patriotic civil servants with institutional memories, government officials, and activists; and periodical suicide bombings that never get investigated. In February 2019, the African Union (AU) called for the gradual transfer of security responsibilities from the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to agencies of the federal government of Somalia.
Security in Somalia is currently provided by the SNA, SPF, and NISA, supported by AMISOM mentors and international advisers, and there are a plethora of challenges these agencies face. Many military and police units have been infiltrated by militia or Al-Shabaab sympathizers. Fighting and policing is often carried out by militia and paramilitaries loyal to factional leaders and businessmen, rather than to the SNA or SPF. Government ministries do not operate as institutions, and the federal government lacks the political will to address the challenges.
This environment created by these challenges has resulted in violence on the streets of Somalia. Many of these are gunfights that are caused by arguments over access or by mistaken identity.
The United States Defense Department continued to conduct airstrikes and joint operations with an increase in strikes in the Jubaland region. The department concluded without substantiation that there were no civilian casualties in its operations in 2018. The group has been the target of a growing number of U.S. military airstrikes under President Donald Trump’s administration, with at least 63 strikes carried out in 2019 alone.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) reported 982 civilian casualties by October, over half from Al-Shabab attacks. Inter-clan and intra-security force violence, along with sporadic military operations against Al-Shabab by Somali government forces, African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops, and other foreign forces, resulted in deaths, injuries, and displacement of civilians.
The diplomatic crisis between Qatar and other Gulf countries continued to exacerbate tensions in Somalia, between Mogadishu and federal states, with Somaliland, as well as among Mogadishu’s political elite, over a United Arab Emirate company’s development of key ports.
As long as federal and regional authorities made some progress in clarifying roles and responsibilities in the security and justice sectors, political infighting diverted from greatly needed reforms.
In Puntland in north, security operation with U.S. air support 21 July reportedly left 27 Islamic State (ISIS)-Somalia militants dead in Bari region. In capital Mogadishu, Al-Shabaab 8 July detonated bomb killing two police officers; 13 July launched unsuccessful suicide attack on army chief, General Odowa Rage; 18 July detonated bomb failing to kill deputy security minister; 27 July shot policeman dead.
Nevertheless, the Somalia-based extremist group has been resilient, recently improving its ability to build explosives and supporting its deadly work by taxing travellers along major routes in the country and extorting businesses.
In south, Al-Shabaab 4 July detonated bomb killing at least five civilians and security personnel in Bay region; next day kidnapped and killed regional lawmaker in Middle Shabelle region; 6-13 July launched attacks on security forces reportedly leaving at least seventeen dead in Lower Shabelle and Lower Juba regions.
Counter-insurgency operations 6-19 July reportedly killed at least 29 Al-Shabaab militants in Lower Shabelle, Lower Juba and Bay regions. U.S. airstrikes 9 and 29 July reportedly killed two Al-Shabaab insurgents in Lower Shabelle and Middle Juba region; reports of civilian casualties also emerged. The contentious relationship between the federal government and regional states is complicated by clan rivalries, and divisions have deepened as Somalia prepares for elections.
Interrelation between the federal government and the Puntland and Jubaland states especially have soured of late. At the centre of the dispute lies the federal system, which states claim has not led to a full devolution of power, including the administration of security forces, or the equitable sharing of resources.
Strife on key governance issues could further destabilise the country. These are the inclusiveness and transparency of the constitutional review process, the legislative process that led to the adoption of the new electoral law, and the universal suffrage voting system meant to replace the clan-based quota approach.
After electoral commission late June said it could not organise “one person, one vote” 2020 parliamentary and 2021 presidential elections on time, presidents of all federal member states 11-12 July met in Galmudug state capital Dhusamareb, agreed that polls should be held on time and invited federal govt to discuss alternative, indirect electoral model; in ensuing conference in Dhusamareb 19-22 July, President Farmajo and federal state leaders agreed to conduct timely elections and create technical committee tasked with formulating recommendations for electoral process; during conference, Farmajo and Jubaland state President Madobe reportedly held informal talks after more than a year of fraught relations; Madobe said they had “agreed to reach truce”.
On 25 July, the PM Khayre was ousted in a parliament’s lower house vote of no confidence last month, lack of sufficient progress in improving security was cited — along with disagreements over the timing of a crucial national election.
Farmajo same day named Deputy PM Mahdi Mohamed Guleid as caretaker PM. After resuming in June, talks with Somaliland suffered delays.
The July vote came just days after the president and regional governments, which have had a tense relationship, had agreed to hold a timely election. Somalia had aimed to hold its first one-person-one-vote in 50 years, but that prospect is fading.
For Somalia, such an election would be the first universal suffrage polls in half a century. Somalia’s last universal vote was held in 1969, shortly before the coup that brought military leader Siad Barre to power. Following two decades of civil war and then rule by a transitional government, backed by the United Nations and the African Union, Somalia has slowly been inching its way toward universal polls.
Three previous presidential elections in 2009, 2012 and 2017 were decided in a system where lawmakers were voted in by about 14,000 clan delegates. The lawmakers then in turn elected a president. The clan-based election system has been widely criticized for marginalizing young people, women and ethnic minorities.
Until then, the fateful scenario of the stubborn python trying to swallow the wounded tiger continues to play itself out.
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