Summary
Recognizing the continuing limitations of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia, the international community is exerting pressure on the government to reach some level of basic functionality. To do this requires a new approach to stability in the chaotic country, where political infighting has rendered the TFG dysfunctional and the leading Islamist insurgent group is capitalizing on the government’s misfortune. The two-pronged approach involves both political and military maneuvering, while the immediate task at hand is to reduce political tensions in Mogadishu.
Analysis
On Oct. 31, the Somali parliament approved the appointment of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed as the new prime minister of the struggling Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu. A response to pressure from the international community, the move is part of a new multi-pronged approach to stabilizing Somalia by creating space for Somali politicians and technocrats to deliver essential services in Mogadishu and reducing space for leading Islamist insurgent group al Shabaab, essentially isolating it in a geographic triangle in southern Somalia. The approach is a work in progress, however, and it is rife with spoilers.
Recognizing the continuing limitations of the TFG, the United States, Ethiopia and United Kingdom (among other European countries) are exerting pressure on the government to reach some level of basic functionality. Under the current administration of TFG President Sharif Ahmed, political infighting over patronage and job security has rendered the government unable to provide security or deliver jobs and public services. Al Shabaab has taken full advantage of the TFG’s failures by waging a propaganda campaign, trying to show that areas under its control have some basic level of security — however brutal it may be — while anarchy reigns in TFG-controlled areas.
The immediate task at hand for the United States and other countries with a vested interest in a stable Somalia is to bring at least a temporary end to TFG political infighting. The parliamentary approval of the new TFG prime minister is a move in this direction, at least within the Ahmed administration and between the administration and the rival TFG bloc led by parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan. Mohamed will now be expected to form a new Cabinet, and outside pressure is being applied to reduce the size of the TFG Cabinet to fewer than 30 seats, with each presenting planning documents and basic budgets. Expectations for TFG performance are low; wanted at the very least is some progress in delivering basic services in Mogadishu.
Turf battles between the president and speaker are only part of the tensions within the TFG. Always a primary source of conflict is the distribution of power and patronage — the chief means of sustenance in the country — among the dominant and minor clans that make up Somali society. Another point of contention is the relationship between the TFG and its regional and international backers, without which the TFG would not exist. While some Somali politicians in Mogadishu want to achieve Somali objectives, this must be done in concert with outside stakeholders — neighboring countries as well as the United States — which are the driving force behind the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a regional U.N.-approved peacekeeping initiative.
In the event the Ahmed-led TFG fails to make even minimal gains in creating jobs and providing services, the United States and other outside stakeholders are considering an alternative administrative structure to the TFG, which has a mandate that expires in August 2011. This alternative structure is not yet worked out, but it may involve installing in Mogadishu a technocratic template that would have no political component and would be responsible only for delivering public services. (More about the security component below.) Instead of having a presidential administration and parliament that seem more interested in political perks than in governing, the government in Mogadishu would consist of administrative agencies with such duties as running schools and clinics and operating the seaport and airport. Distinguishing this structure from the TFG, however, will be difficult, since the successful delivery of jobs and services, not to mention security, will certainly have political ramifications.
To counter Somali critics who will complain that not having an arena for political debate would be unjust, the international community will emphasize the importance of political cooperation with the semi-autonomous regions of Somaliland and Puntland, which have political systems that are functioning and could be someday considered a model for southern Somalia. Political debate will not be taken away, just separated from the task of governance until Mogadishu can show some semblance of stability.
The Military Approach
While political and economic solutions in Mogadishu are being pursued, a military approach is also in play to provide the necessary security. There are several components to this, and U.S. restraint is being applied so the military strategy does not outrun the political strategy, which would risk a popular backlash against the notion that Somalia is being occupied by foreign aggressors. Al Shabaab and other Somali nationalists would be all too happy to take advantage of such a backlash to gain greater grassroots support for their insurgencies.
(click here to view interactive graphic)
The new military approach is similar to an offensive strategy floated in late 2009 that involved the same constellation of forces operating essentially in the same areas, although this time the idea is not to defeat al Shabaab, only to isolate the group in a triangular area of southern Somalia bounded by the towns of Kismayo, Baidoa and Marka. Currently, most of the peacekeepers in Somalia are AMISOM forces, numbering around 8,000 troops, drawn from Uganda and Burundi and deployed in Mogadishu. There is talk of boosting the force level to 20,000 troops, although STRATFOR sources say the true aim is to deploy a total of 12,000 to 13,000 troops and only in Mogadishu (AMISOM has dropped any pretense of planning to deploy troops to other towns and cities in central and southern Somalia). AMISOM calculates that such a force would be sufficient to displace al Shabaab from Mogadishu and confine it to its triangular stronghold in the south.
To help keep al Shabaab contained, Kenya would maintain a blocking position along its border with Somalia. There are still an estimated 3,000 ethnic-Somali Kenyans trained by the Kenyan army deployed on the Kenyan side of the border, fighters who are not expected to invade Somalia. In addition, there is the 1,500-strong Kenya Wildlife Service that was trained by the British, making it a special operations-capable force with expertise in “bush tracking” and the ability to capture any fleeing high-value targets.
Ethiopia also maintains its own forces and allied Somali militias along its border with Somalia. Operations by the Ahlu Sunnah Waljamaah militia and other district-level militias in central Somalia are meant to maintain a buffer that will contain al Shabaab in the area. At this point, neither the Ethiopians nor their proxies in central Somalia have pushed beyond this buffer zone to deploy deeper into al Shabaab territory. Ethiopian and U.S. political and security cooperation with Somaliland, Puntland and Galmudug is meant to constrain any al Shabaab movements north from Mogadishu.
U.S. military support in the region is meant to interdict al Shabaab’s supply chain by obtaining and sharing actionable intelligence with Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian allies and striking high-value al Shabaab targets. U.S. forces operate mainly out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, with forward operating bases in Ethiopia and Kenya.
There is also a proposal by the African Union to establish an air and sea blockade against Somalia, specifically al Shabaab installations and most notably the port at Kismayo. However, no country has volunteered to participate in such a blockade, including South Africa, which has the largest and most capable navy on the continent and has been looked to for leadership in the proposed effort. STRATFOR sources report an overall lack of political will for what would surely be a difficult and complicated operation.
The Spoilers
Spoilers to this dual-track political and military approach include Somali and regional actors. Somali politicians, including top TFG leaders, are driven now by a need for immediate survival. Knowing that their political careers could end by next August (once Somali politicians leave office their career prospects are essentially over), members of the TFG, including President Ahmed, are playing multiple sides against each other. Ahmed refuses to be beholden exclusively to Ethiopian paymasters and instead is accepting payoffs from regional interests, including Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. His recent power play to force the resignation of former Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, an ally of Speaker Hassan, was a move to reduce the influence of Ethiopia in the TFG (Hassan is an Ethiopian client).
While the approval of Mohamed as the new TFG prime minister created a temporary truce in the Mogadishu government, it also strengthened Ahmed’s hand at the expense of Ethiopia. Ahmed now relies more on a small group of Somali training clerics called the Ahlu Sheikhs, whose origin goes back to the Islamic Courts Union. Aware that Ahmed is not the client it thought he was, Ethiopia must now rely more on its proxy militias in central Somalia. This is not to say that Ethiopian influence in Mogadishu has waned. Ahmed (along with all other Somali politicians) knows his political and physical survival depends on a working accommodation with Ethiopia, which will never stop trying to protect its national security interests in Somalia, unlike other countries like Uganda that have only secondary interests in the country. Likewise, Addis Ababa cannot declare war on the TFG, even if it has little confidence in whoever occupies Villa Somalia. Ethiopia unilaterally occupied much of central and southern Somalia from late 2006 to early 2009 and engendered much grassroots opposition in the process. It would be futile for Ethiopia to repeat this exercise and much easier for it to work through proxies, although such a strategy is not foolproof.
Weakness is inherent in Somalia’s TFG, as is difficulty in selecting and implementing the right policies. In fact, there is no perfectly right policy that can be implemented in Somalia. There must always be compromise among groups of seemingly opposing political interests. The prime-ministerial reshuffle is meant to end the TFG infighting for the time being and is seen as only a temporary setback for Ethiopia. It also means Ahmed now has some breathing room — and no excuses — to deliver much-needed government services to the people of Mogadishu and deny the TFG’s growing grassroots public relations value to al Shabaab.
Read more: A Multi-pronged Approach to Stability in Somalia | STRATFOR
