Intel Brief: Defining the Somali Enemy
By Diane Chido for ISN
One of the worst kept secrets in Washington and the Horn of Africa is the external pagelow-level war conducted by the US in Somalia since 2006. With new UN-granted rights to cross into Somali territory and with a coalition of partners desiring to eradicate insurgents and pirates, all Washington needed was a clear enemy in order to define a simple mission to its allies and to the American people for an open war in Somalia.
In light of the UN Resolution providing this right to trespass only until December 2009 and recent declarations by the US military that “we will never go to war alone again,” it is entirely possible that an international effort to end the chaos will begin in the next 12 months.
A definable enemy
Only one group has refused to cooperate with the new president of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the former head of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), who has publicly stated his aim to work toward peace with all elements in Somalia. Al-Shabaab, or “The Youth,” illustrated its recalcitrance by taking over police stations and then whole towns as Ethiopian security forces withdrew from Somalia in January this year. The group then captured the TFG stronghold in Baidoa, forcing the government to flee to Djibouti. It now controls much of central and southern Somalia.
Al-Shabaab’s leadership has long had direct links to al-Qaida and has been external pagegaining strength with an influx of mujahideen fighters from external pageIraq and from external pageYemen. The latter, just across the Gulf of Aden, is quickly becoming a external pagestronghold for jihadists.
A 19 March audio feed allegedly from Osama bin Laden denounced the new TFG president as having “changed to partner up with the infidel,“ and encouraged al-Shabaab in its insurgency efforts. From the morass of warlords and warring Islamist factions, the international community now has its “Public Enemy Number One.”
Ethiopian departure
In December 2006, Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia with the stated intention of driving out the UIC, a coalition of Islamist groups that had taken over much of Somalia. By December 2008, it was clear that the Ethiopian mission was no closer to bringing stability, although the UIC was no longer a unified force and had lost much territory, leading to a declaration by Ethiopia to withdraw. Fearing a power vacuum with the completion of the pull-out in January 2009, the African Union (AU) has begun moving a planned 3,500 troops into Somalia.
Creating stability in Somalia would go a long way to providing security in the Horn, especially for US allies Ethiopia and Kenya, who have an anti-aggression pact against Somalia, which has designs on portions of both nations’ territory populated by a majority of ethnic Somalis.
Piracy
Economics is motivating a number of disparate nations and multinational institutions toward anti-piracy cooperation. Over the past three years, piracy off the Horn of Africa has caused shipping and insurance costs to rise, has given tens of millions of dollars in ransom to the pirates, and is now spreading along the more stable Kenyan and Tanzanian port regions. The expansion over the past year of the pirates’ operating territory and their increasing audacity in attacking larger ships with more valuable cargo has brought the problem to a head.
Many shipping companies are opting to travel all the way around the Cape of Good Hope to reach southern Europe, rather than risk the much shorter route between the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. This greatly increases travel time, fuel and other costs. Indeed, the external pageInternational Maritime Bureau (IMB) reported on 12 December that some pirates are operating as far south as the Cape itself.
The increasing threat posed by modern piracy in the Gulf of Aden has led NATO members to escort World Food Progamme (WFP) relief supplies to Somalia. Canada, China, the EU, India, Iran, the UN and the US have begun to participate in a multilateral naval policing effort to thwart ship hijacking.
According to external pageJ Peter Pham, a piracy expert and professor at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, US, while the various navies have “exchanged standard courtesies,” they have yet to integrate their activities. external pageDominick Donald of Aegis Defense, a London-based security and risk management company, noted on 24 November that the pirates were clearly adept at finding gaps in current naval methods.
In order to effectively deal with the well-coordinated pirates, these navies will have to develop a plan for working together so as not to trip over each other’s masts or rack up friendly-fire incidents. This includes joint exercises and training, coordinating operational plans, and interoperability of communications systems and methods. Such coordination is likely to lead to an appreciation for the benefits of cooperation; it is also likely to spawn an interest in further collaboration on shared areas of interest.
Expanding the right of pursuit
On 17 December 2008, the United Nations’ Security Council voted unanimously for external pageResolution 1851 to permit the open pursuit of pirates into Somali territory for one year. This does not only mean pursuit on land, but by air, and “by any means necessary.”
However, with the increasing threat of terrorist activity augmented by materiel and recruits from Yemen, it is likely that the tenets of this Resolution will be stretched to their legal limits as the definition of “pirate” expands.
AFRICOM
The new US Africa Command (AFRICOM), based in Djibouti, began operation on 1 October 2008. Its stated mission is focused on “Partnerships, Security, Stability, Reliability, and Hope,” a new approach to collaboration intended to change how Africans view and interact with the US. AFRICOM’s activities thus far range from providing joint training for African Union and various national troops to building schools and repairing churches and mosques.
These actions thinly disguise the goal of a forward presence in an area of valuable resources and growing insurgent activity.
Change of Transitional Federal Government
Clearly, the issue of piracy in this region will not be resolved by just chasing down individual pirates, but in making their chosen career less attractive and minimizing their support in the coastal towns in which they operate. This can only be accomplished through the creation of a stable, unified, functioning government in Somalia that provides economic opportunities for the huge and growing number of young Somalis. The same holds true for reducing the attraction of Islamist insurgency.
Approval of the sovereign government, which the UN defines as the TFG, is required for engagement on Somali territory. This weak, nominal body is not supported by the Somali people and has been paralyzed internally since it formed in 1994. On 29 December 2008, then-TFG president Abdullahi Yusuf external pageresigned after a power struggle with his prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein. That very day, the external pageUS State Department announced a payment of US$5 million to “support formation of a joint security force in Somalia.”
On 19 February, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, former head of the UIC, was elected by the Somali parliament to replace Yusuf and has pledged to work with all factions in Somalia.
On 10 March, the parliament approved Sheikh Ahmed’s proposal to establish sharia law in Somalia, with his external pageinformation minister noting: "Islamic sharia is the only option to get solutions for the problems in this country." Western countries barely commented.
As early as 29 November 2008, Sheikh Ahmed had external pageannouncedthat he “supported the presence of international forces to stabilize Somalia, and offered his help to any who would come.” As bin Laden noted in his audio recording, the new TFG president was anointed by the US, as well as the UN, and al-Qaida fears the new approach might work.
Oil: Last but never least
Since oil prices skyrocketed in 2008, there has been greater international interest than ever in finding and controlling untapped reserves. Somalia is clearly no exception.
On 12 March, Canada-based Africa Oil announced “plans to start drilling external pagetwo wells in Somalia by the end of this year, after picking a suitable partner for the work. [James] Phillips [participant in an oil and gas conference in Mombassa] also said the company was in talks with contractors to carry out seismic work in Ethiopia and Kenya.”
It should also be noted that the failed US-led humanitarian aid effort, Operation Restore Hope, which began in Somalia in December 1992, came on the heels of a 1992 World Bank external pagereport on hydrocarbons that “ranked [Somalia] second only to Sudan as the top prospective [oil] producer” in northeast Africa.
There is clearly broad collective interest in protecting international shipping, but once the Canadians begin drilling in Somalia, this collective interest will to expand to include protection of future drilling sites, as well as the stated aim of halting the spread of Islamic terrorism.