Somalia’s End-of-year Cliffhanger

0:00Hi and welcome to the Horn, a podcast from the International Crisis Group. I'm Alan Boswell and this episode is produced in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation or FES. Today we are speaking with Samira Gayid, founder and senior analyst at the Mogadishu based Think Tank, Balkis. We talked to Samira about the potentially dramatic implications of the U.S. decision to block the renewal of UNSOS. The UN logistics arm supporting the African Union military mission against Alshabab in Somalia. Samira, thanks so much for coming back on our podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me again. So at the beginning of July, the U.S. told the African Union it would oppose a renewal of UNSOS, which is the UN Support Office in Somalia. Without getting too technical, why would such a decision be of major consequence for Somalia, if the U.S. does not change its mind? It's very complicated. I think you have to get a bit technical, but this is the logistics arm of the African Union mission in Somalia. The African Union missions have always survived on three legs. One is the troops provided by the Africans.

1:03Second is the finances. There's typons previously supplied by the European Union and now there's been a challenge with that. And this third leg, which is the logistics which was provided through UN assessed ones. The mission has always survived on just those two specifically, the stipends and the logistics. So they've been operating without stipends for a year and something with just bilateral commitments. And now having no logistics, I think, is very critical for a military mission for obvious reasons. So that's why this situation is very problematic. A second aspect about UNSOS is also provides support to the Somali National Army. So even if there is funding that goes to Somali National Army, trust fund through which UNSOS supports if UNSOS can no longer operate within Somalia to support the AU mission, it can no longer also support the SNA. So for those two reasons, I think it's very critical. Okay, so logistics is a bit of a catch-off phrase, but what specifically does UNSOS provide for all of these African troops in Somalia?

2:04For a mission to operate number one, the forces need to be able to be deployed to the mission. So UNSOS does provide that. It provides the ability for the African Union troops to be picked up from whatever TCC it is and dropped into the operation area. And the operation area sometimes is not just Mogadishu, but it's that several FOBs that exist within Somalia. Second, when they're in the country, they need camps. They need FOBs or headquarters. The building of those headquarters, the building of those camps, all of that is done by the UN. They sometimes need to drill boreholes and locations with, you know, water. They set up the entire campus engineering involved. They provide the food. They provide the fuel for movement, fuel for operations, fuel for the generators. And then medical supplies, some sort of medical facilities within each FOB and within the headquarters. And then ability to move personnel in case of casualties or evacuation of medical emergencies. I think the most critical bit that has always been one thing that the AU forces and any military force would require is an ability to move your forces out of a conflict area,

3:06get them to receive critical medical attention. So it's very complicated. It's a lot, but I would just like to say the support has been so expansive that for some TCCs they come in with just their military fatigues and also provides everything else. And just to clarify for all of our listeners, when you say TCC, you mean the troop contributing countries, the countries that provide the troops. And when you say FOB, you mean a forward operating base, the smaller military bases located across Somalia. So the UN support is an incredibly important part of this bigger African Union military mission in Somalia. Before we get into some of the rest, why did the US seem to take this decision? Because presumably it doesn't want Al Shabab to take over Somalia. Well, I would say it's a bit of a contradiction how the US has been operating. Number one, it has really stepped up its air strikes in Somalia more than any other time. We've seen more air strikes and more commitment to keeping terrorists at bay, not just in South Central, but also with the ISIS campaign. But on the

4:08other hand, they're also saying that they doesn't seem to be much progress in the fight against Al Shabab through the African Union mission in Somalia or through the Somalia National Army as it currently operates because of political reasons. So I think it's quite a loud, loud statement and I think it's not only limited to the US. I think for the rest of the international community as well, the decision by the EU to insist on bad and sharing for quite a while and then eventually stop stipends. I remember it was in 2024 December. They decided to stop stipends and then from January 2025, stipends have shifted to bilateral commitments and deposits. So it's just not the US. I think there's an overall fatigue around the end of the tunnel for the African Union mission. The mission has been there for 19 years, but I don't think anyone can say there's been progress over the past, let's say, 10 years in handing over to Somalia security forces. So we'll come back to a lot of this, but let's let's go back into that history a bit more. As you said, the AU missions been there almost two decades. Why exactly did it come about? What is its origin? The Somali state collapsed in 1991.

5:14I believe that history is very relevant for almost 10 years after the UN mission at the time left Somalia 1993. There was a bit of an abandonment of Somalia by the rest of the international community. There was still engagement terms of humanitarian work, but I think there was no engagement with the Somali actors that were emerging who were mainly warlords and also at the time the Islam courts union towards the end of that day gets headed forming. And then of course in 2001, there was the Twin Towers attack and the focus now on counterterrorism and any ungoverned spaces. And Somalia became one of those places. So there was a push now to involve the region in finding a solution for Somalia as an ungoverned space. And so the effort was really to install a government and then improve the ability of that government to expand its governance and then develop to what we see now. A transitional federal government came into place in 2004. In Nairobi, it was taken to Somalia in 2006, 2007, installed in Mogadishu through the Ethiopians at the time who made that unilateral decision to come

6:19into Somalia. A very bloody offensive, but the Ethiopians were replaced by this African Union mission. So it gave legitimacy to this external engagement to try and set up a govern space in Somalia. And so some of these deployments into Somalia by neighboring countries predate the multilateral mission itself, right? Yes. And some of those countries have their own deployments inside Somalia besides those that are under the African Union? Yes. Ethiopia's first government was the end of the 90s decade they went into ghetto that was a fast unilateral entry into Somalia and then their decision to push the transitional federal government into Somalia that was I think seen by most Somalis as illegal intervention. But then changing that mission and pulling out the Ethiopians was one of the agreements that was made at the time, pulling out the Ethiopians and replacing them with African Union forces. And those forces at that time, it was categorical that they would not be neighboring countries. But in the next decade we saw that now neighboring countries made some unilateral interventions and then were re-hatred into African Union forces and legitimized for various

7:23reasons. So a very evolving picture in terms of who actually made up the force. When did the UN come into the picture? Was it right there from the beginning providing logistical support? No, initially when the first troop contributors, the Ugandans came into Somalia and then were followed by the Burundians. This was the countries themselves providing their own logistics and then being reimbursed by other donors, whether it's the EU, the Americans, Western donors, traditional donors were supporting the African Union mission through this TCC's bilaterally. But also you have to remember that time the mission was only in Mogadishu. They were fighting street by street to recap to Mogadishu, which they completed in 2011. So while it was confined to just Mogadishu and their supplies could be brewed in by air to the Mogadishu airport, it was also supplies that they could provide themselves and the supply lines were shorter compared to what we see now. So the decision to provide through the UN and assess funds was made in 2008, 2009 and from then on,

8:24I think it became more predictable that while they don't have stipends and other stipends are being sought through various means, at least the logistics was secure through onso, at that time it was called onso. Initially it was called onso and then it changed into onso when it started supporting the UN political mission and the Somali National Army recently. And how much has the African Union troops share of Somalia's overall security burden shifted and evolved over the years as well? At first those troops carried out extensive operations against Al-Shabab. Now these African troops are often just helping hold territory and the Somali government has its own forces that it has been building up plus you have a number of bilateral interventions outside this AU deployment. So how has the reliance of the Somali federal government on these African troops diminished over the years? I think it has changed but it has improved in a way in some areas where the Somali security forces have proven that they're able to hold territory and especially in the capital. And so I would say the dependence on the African Union in Mogadishu

9:24has has really waned and now you find that the African Union forces are really critical for the airport but then outside the capital I think it's a different picture. This is quite a bit of dependence on the African Union forces and their support to the federal member states whether it's in Kismayo, whether it's in Bidador, whether it's in Johar. I think those specific three locations and more so when you talk about Bidador and Johar I think there's quite a huge dependence on the African Union forces there. One special case is in Gellmullog the government specifically requested the African Union to extend to Gellmullog not because there was a security threat there but because the international community who were not ready to access that newly formed federal member state in 2019 unless there was security guarantee by an African Union force. So there's been trials in areas where you can see that the African Union is really needed. In other areas it's a security guarantees that it provides for international actors and humanitarian actors to provide access. So it's a bit of a patchwork in some areas especially closer to the capital or in areas where

10:27the communities are better armed and have been able to fend off Al-Shawab. Those areas you can see that there's less dependence on the AU but in areas where the Somali communities are not as armed then you do see that they do need the African Union force to continue to support the Somali national army or the Somali regional forces. Okay so just as a baseline not saying the scenario will happen although it could if UNSOS ends at the end of this year in just a few months and there hasn't been any replacement for those logistics even if there are still African Union troops under the mission what would happen? First of all it's hard to determine what the individual TCCs were to decide because at this point I think it from the paper that we wrote it was pushing for the African Union to make a decision for the federal government to also reach out to Somali actors and seek their support in the Somali security architecture it was pushing the international community to also give Somali's time as well as the African Union to give them a deadline but to give them at least another 18 months it's unclear that is about to happen because there was a

11:30compiler summit that didn't resolve that cohesively it just to reiterated that they need more time and nothing is now clear other than the fact that TCCs have to make individual choices and from what we had in Kampala with President Musevani saying you know we will stay even if the West leaves or even if logistics is stopped you get the impression that TCCs some of them will remain regardless and provide their own logistics as they have been providing their own stipends for their own forces I would expect Kenya and Ethiopia to make that call for their own national interest as has been alluded but for TCCs that don't share a border with Somalia that call I think is hiding another reality which means eventually they will need those resources reimbursed and so there is now an effort to seek non-traditional donors to backstop that bilateral deployment as it would be then so you could have a scenario where the AU does extend its mandate it gets a united nation security council mandate to continue to keep forces on the ground those forces are not

12:34paid by any traditional donors in terms of stipends and logistics but there we revert back to what was happening between 2007 and 2009 where the forces themselves source their own logistics so it's a pretty messy messy picture especially as I mentioned now the the supply lines are much longer and so if that means we give it time and see how long they can take it I can foresee the mission consolidating their forces and their FOBs moving closer to the capital moving closer to their supply line whether in Kismayo whether in Mogadishu or elsewhere in reality it means a center that might be very secure the capital but then a periphery that will slowly degrade depending on what the African Union forces can provide to the mission and their FOBs downstream so under this scenario we could see Kenya Ethiopia Uganda perhaps continuing under the AU mission but providing perhaps their own logistics and it sounds like there'd be some areas to remote and difficult to try to hold

13:34and so you would see some repositioning and withdrawals there would that mean seating those territories to al-Shabab in practice or how might this scenario play out so what we have seen is you know AU has reduced numbers from 18,000 I think in 2022 to 12,000 now and if we can look at the history of what has happened to those FOBs most of them have not been you know sustainably held by the Somali National Army some of them have been retaken by AS and some of them are contested there's no Somali National Army force there and al-Shabab is not in those territories but it's contested whether the SNA can operate there it's quite questionable if they can if this is to happen rapidly I would say it's the same scenario where Somali National Army has not built up the forces to be able to sustain itself in the field I think the greatest challenge has always been the SNA can conduct operations can clear territories but it has had a challenge holding those territories especially after sustained AS attacks and so you would expect that the same would happen then if the AU is not there the SNA cannot sustain their presence then it becomes either territory

14:38re-captured by AS or territory that AS has freedom of movement over so funding aside although funding is a huge part of this equation what other entities besides the UN could possibly replace these logistics could the African Union do it if someone was willing to pay for it if it's the logistics to the scale of supporting this 12,000 forces in far out federal FOBs in federal member states and in the capital I don't think there's any other entity that can match what the UN has been able to do but if the UN is not able to do it and it depends on the TCC or any other frameworks then it would mean that the AU has to consolidate positions it can no longer be 50 plus FOBs it has to be much less maybe half of those FOBs and then the logistics will not be as expansive as has been provided by the UN it has to be quite limited and they would have to be costs cut in that way AS support is one I think that is very scary right now for any military mission I think how would

15:39you be able when FOB is attacked or if it's attacked how would you be able to with the draw forces or bring back your casualties or your medical evacuations but I would say I don't believe there's any other entity that can provide support to the scale that the UN has provided to the African Union forces in the same way as they are currently being supported or even you know with half their forces it will still be very difficult. Okay and as you mentioned the AU mission in Somalia it's been limping along for a while and downsizing funding has been a major problem so was this transition inevitable but now just it's being supercharged and accelerated and what exactly is it a transition to what's over that horizon a patchwork of bilateral security partnerships hopefully somewhat coordinated. Yeah so the pressure has been on I would say from 2017 for the mission to transition to Somalia security and since then of course you know the mission was at 22,000 it's now at 12,000 I think there has been progress in terms of transition there has been progress in terms of ownership

16:43leadership the Somalia National Army now leads operations we're no longer seeing AU forces developing the concept of operations and Somalia forces supporting it's sometimes the inverse where you have the SNA operating and the African Union forces probably just providing air support or sometimes water support heavy weaponry support so things have improved on the ground in that sense but when you look at it in terms of what's to come I think the the challenge is the US have pulled the rug on something that would have happened maybe according to the Somali government's documents 2031, 2029 to 2030 was where they were going to have full ownership of their own securities and there's also an assumption that as long as the language remained conditioned based this was open ended and so that I think is the game changer TCC such as Burundi that supposed to be out of the country replaced by Egypt it puts to question whether Egypt can even deploy under the circumstances at all and so I would say what we're looking at is and pragmatically what the government is doing is while

17:48pushing the agenda that yes we need the African Union forces please have them extended for 18 months it's also seeking bilateral commitments specifically from Uganda so that they could at least manage to secure not the capital but the capital and the surrounding areas those are the conversations we're hearing and so we see a future like that where you have probably very secure capitals and urban centers and then a periphery that's left to the terrorist group whether it has the capacity to take up all that territory is questionable but I think it would give steady pressure again to the urban centers and the capitals so Samira tell me if I'm wrong but the Somali government hasn't seemed that concerned about the potential imminent demise of UNSOS why so this is something that has concerned both the international partners and the region because I think the first impact of the African Union forces pulling out would be on the Somali people and the Somali government and the federal member states but yet on the ground I think the government is fighting

18:50a narrative war where of course ASS the government is propped up by external actors and so this proves that yeah we really need external actors to stay in town for you to continue to survive secondly the narrative among Somalis and especially people who are living in the capital and are now engaging more with the improved security better facilities and all of that they think about the Somali national army is able to secure them and they do not understand why there is a push to have external funding remain in the country why can't those finances be provided to the Somali national army to do exactly what it needs to do so the government is faced by that internal narrative but then at the same time you do not see them walking that line that helps secure the future while working on the internal politics I don't know if I want to say it's an issue of a capacity or other crises that are open but I would say the the government has a lot on its plate it's mandate ended in May 2026 it's three months in it's faced by a political crisis with

19:52federal member states and opposition challenging its legitimacy and its authority and the focus seems to be how to manage the next political transition and gain power again and for the opposition the focus is on how to bring the government to elections so there is not sufficient focus on what exactly does this mean and also I would say there's a confidence that the world and the region will not abandon Somalia not for Somalis interest but for their own interests I have to be very honest about that there is an idea that the neighboring countries see this as a national interest the national security threat and will remain in Somalia other international actors as much as they say they're leaving they have remained in place they have of course reduced the amount of funds they're spending in Somalia but there is an idea that they will remain and then the factor that we haven't talked about throughout this podcast today is Turkey Turkey being in Somalia and being in Mogadishu and expanding the kind of support that is providing to the Somali government

20:53I think that is the biggest factor that's giving Somali government the federal government confidence Turkey has been operating in Somalia alongside other international actors in the fight against Al-Shabaab in rebuilding of the Somalia National Army but ever since the MOU of 2024 between Somalia and Ethiopia take his engagement in Somalia has changed because of some agreements that have been made with the government an economic and military pact that was signed so we see F-16s in the countries of this year we see additional forces Turkish forces on the ground supporting I think Turkish investment in Loa-Shabaile in Middle-Shabaile so that also gives the government confidence that the Turks are also here to not only protect their investments but they would be there to protect Somali government in that way so I've been wondering does this Somali government just assume that one way or another the international security support they need will continue and so they don't need to really worry or are they just happy to see this era of multilateral babysitting if you will

21:59and even if it does cost them in terms of potential territorial control which one of those do you think is more driving their thinking I would say you're absolutely right in that sense because you know that the Somali government a bit more than two years ago rode directly to the UN asked the UN to close up the UN mission the political mission they were offered a two-year transition and that mission closes end of October this year but I would say one other aspect is some of this TCCs do not necessarily work well with the federal government so you'd consider for instance neighboring TCCs that are operating in some of this federal member states jubilant for instance in southwest for instance those TCCs have been at times calling for the stability of that federal member state while the government itself is pushing for political changes in that federal member state so I don't see someone in Mogadishu afraid of that FMS losing AU support because it would mean now the federal government has more influence on that federal member state if there's less

23:01international presence or AU forces on that ground so in a sense not only does it give them a choice on who stays it also gives the periphery the federal member states that have been opposed to the center making decisions unilaterally those federal member states become weaker and that helps the government to then now make arrangements with them for them to come to the table to make agreements with them so there is also that political dynamic that I think sometimes people do not see is contributing to the discussions so as you said terkie has been stepping up its support for the small e federal government of course there are other players as well Saudi Arabia Egypt even Pakistan though it is far from clear what will come from those is there a world in which the federal government is able to patch together enough of these new and expanded bilateral partnerships including potentially with some of the African countries currently deployed in Somalia so that it does not lose ground to al-Shabab amid all of this I would say not likely with the current situation

24:03on the ground and I think that's the part that we cannot be blind to is the political fragmentation and the fact that the federal government and some federal member states are not coordinating or not operating have cut off relations that's one second is there is armed insurgencies in one of the federal member states that is anti the federal government and not aligned with AS so that also lets you know that if the threat is really just not al-Shabab the threat is really a political settlement in Somalia that allows Somali entities Somali actors to cooperate against whether it's al-Shabab or any other external threat so I think you can get external actors to keep the threat the al-Shabab threat or terrorism threat at bay but international actors cannot replace Somali political settlement that can provide longer-term stability so we are avoiding the critical issue which is really trying to find a political settlement between the center and the periphery and that would provide

25:04a cheaper approach than trying to get bilateral actors to continue to support but knowing how political elite like to conduct themselves I see that that is the future where we get more actors involved and it's not just with the central government the federal government also the peripheral start shopping for those actors that can protect them from the center so it just allows for Somalia to again now be fragmented more for more external interference for you know the dual tracks that we saw before where actors can engage with Mogadishan and engage with other federal member states and then I would again say the the terrorist groups also benefit from this because there's now a larger coalition against the federal state in your report which you published soon after this US decision you listed options for dealing with the potential demise of Umso's you've already touched on it but what was your leading proposal for how to move forward and given how little has happened since you published that report is that still a realistic proposal we presented for options

26:08but the one that we thought would be the most feasible and realistic at this time would be an negotiated transition compact which would be to continue to support on-source to provide logistics to an African Union mission but on-source to be supported by willing partners through this trust fund system that provides support right now to the Somalia National Army so it would solve the problem that the US have that this is no longer assessed funds and then it would also give it a timeline it would not be conditions-based you would have to say we would do this for the next to one year to 18 months and then that allows for a quick political agreement between Somalis stakeholders on the transition that they're dealing with now and then focus on how can Somali actors create an architecture that can win off the African Union force or other forces but I would say it would have worked if there was Somali political elite agreement and we have not seen that since we haven't seen the government seeking out the federal member states that are allied with it or even those that are not allied with it in getting them to organize for this scenario

27:14so I think that option is not definitely on the table anymore and from what we're seeing on the ground is the government seeking bilateral support from TCCs that can help secure Mogadishu and the immediate periphery of Mogadishu and that means keeping the federal government alive I don't see as much effort going into keeping the African Union mission as it is alive so it seems like the government's already preparing for this world in which it's sitting at the center of a number of different bilateral security interventions in Somalia rather than the multilateral architecture that's been there for the past 20 years or so so it really does seem like a real scenario that as of January 1st there's not really a functional AU mission like we've known before you've already laid out what this could mean but are there any worst-case scenarios that should be on people's minds if all of this is mismanaged are there scenarios where this could all go quite badly? I would say that scenario itself is bad enough many that we're looking at you know degraded

28:16security architecture outside the capital so a secure hopefully secure capital but a periphery that is contested and that means it's just a matter of time before pressure piles on to the capital or the urban centers that remain secure so that to me is a really messy scenario second outcome of this would be then the TCCs or the entities that would then support members of the periphery to secure themselves against al-Shabaab or secure themselves against a center that's extending itself so then that invites more external interference from different actors and so to me that scenario is bad enough the scenario that I think a lot of people I think is the waski scenario which is al-Shabaab taking over like the Kabul style I think that's still far while the group has expanded or regained most of the territory that it had lost over the past two years I think the group especially at the highest level see that you know it's just a matter of time

29:17and there's really no need to conduct more offensive or put more pressure and the idea that they would then you know put pressure on the capital because of a you mission not existing as of next year I think is far off still but I do see them consolidating the periphery making agreements with communities and clients that they can strengthening that way and then slowly degrading the security architecture that has formed which is basically the federal member state forces and allied forces okay and if we accept two assumptions one that there's no major donor willing to fill the hole that the UN assessed contributions filled for UNSOS or a new logistics network and number two that the Somali government itself isn't going to try to go out of its way to save the AU mission what is the next best option besides just the cliff one in which the AU mission effectively ends as we know it on January 1st are there any other scenarios that could work if we don't see major new funding or a shift in the position from the Somali government I think it's just two options one

30:20is basically Somali is coming to the table and agreeing on the politics first but also just separating the politics from the security so they need to be a technical line of work that at the moment is not functional or not working or not visible I think this is still just very much a federal discussion a federal government with the international community and with bilateral actors but there's no discussion at the lower level with any of the security actors or federal member states on what to prepare for and what to do next the second option is what is actually in play now which is seeking bilateral support and then seeking non-traditional donors to fund this bilateral forces in country and that's what I think the government is busy doing and that's the scenario that I think can keep the government alive but not really improve the security of the periphery or even of communities outside there so probably seeking some golf and other funding to pay for some

31:21continued troops from for instance the Ugandans and others while the Kenyans and Ethiopians probably retain some of their troops around the border for their own security reasons that's more less the current direction of travel right that's what appears to me to be the realistic future at the moment based on the inaction and the discussions that we see Samira thanks so much for coming on and for this really nuanced and granular take on all of this we really appreciate it thank you thank you for having me thanks for listening you can find out more about crisis group or read our reports at crisis group.org once again I'm Alan Boswell and the horn is produced by me Francis and Ida Holy Numby