African troops battling an al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia for the past decade stand little chance of withdrawing by their deadline in two years as the government remains fragile and a spike in militant violence has drawn in U.S. forces.
The longest-running African Union peacekeeping mission, known as AMISOM, operates in a shattered country whose lawlessness has bred regional violence — Al-Shabaab has staged attacks in Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti — and piracy that plagued global shipping in the early 2000s.
Over the past year, the U.S. has boosted its cooperation with the Somali army, targeting al-Shabaab and an Islamic State faction. The U.S. Africa Command said Al-Shabaab controls about a fifth of Somalia, mainly in the south.
Assaults on Ugandan peacekeepers this month show the challenge still facing the mission that deployed in 2007 as al-Shabaab stepped up its violence. Since October, Somalia has suffered its deadliest attack in three decades of civil war, debate in parliament threatened to turn violent and the federal and regional governments have been at loggerheads.
AMISOM officials still talk as if departure is imminent and say 1,000 troops from about 22,000 uniformed personnel will leave this year. Yet in March they asked the United Nations to repeal a resolution to trim the force, which also includes Kenyan, Ethiopian, Djiboutian and Burundian soldiers.
Source: bloomberg
