With many around the world focused on the dangerous military confrontation in Ethiopia, Somalia too is facing a triple security crisis that can jeopardize the country’s halting progress. Ethiopia’s instability and ethnic strife are producing security repercussions in Somalia. Somalia’s upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections are the second component of the emerging security storm. And the Trump administration’s plan to withdraw U.S. special operations forces from Somalia in the next two months will further weaken the various struggling anti-Shabab forces and strengthen the militants.
The escalating military confrontation between the federal government of Ethiopia and the political leadership of the Tigray region has produced a worrying humanitarian situation. It also threatens to plunge the Tigray region into prolonged violent strife, ensnarl regional actors, and exacerbate ethnic violence across the country.
In addition, the crisis has potentially grave consequences for stability and security in neighboring Somalia. It hurts counterinsurgency efforts against the potent jihadi terrorist group al-Shabab and exacerbates Somalia’s existing tensions between its capital and regions.
Ethiopian forces, whether operating under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) or independently, are a powerful actor in Somalia. Their military heft significantly surpasses that of the Somali National Army (SNA) or Somali National Police (SPN). Despite years of international training and payments, the SNA and SNP remain predominantly conglomerations of clan-based fractious militias, with little independent capacity even for defensive operations against al-Shabab.
Somali federal forces and AMISOM rely on militias for rare offensive operations against al-Shabab and defense of bases. But although AMISOM has not conducted major offensive operations against al-Shabab since 2016 and remains hunkered down in garrisons, its presence and that of non-AMISOM Ethiopian forces stiffen the militias’ morale.
Wherever Ethiopian troops have withdrawn, al-Shabab attacks against local militias, leaders, and populations ensued; in most cases, the group has eventually taken over those territories.
Somalia’s security has been slowly deteriorating since 2016. Formally, al-Shabab controls less territory than at the height of its power in 2011. But its reach has been expanding, including into Puntland and Somaliland. It regularly mounts terrorist attacks in Mogadishu, levies taxes throughout the country, and enjoys significant freedom of movement, including on major roads. It extorts Somali businesses, some of which hire al-Shabab to eliminate business competition. Al-Shabab also deliverance governance, such as by holding shariah courts.
In response to the Tigray revolt, the Ethiopian federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed resorted to intense military operations in the Tigray region and to purges of ethnic Tigray from Ethiopia’s military and government offices. Tigray soldiers and commanders in Somalia have been disarmed, confined to barracks, or sent to Ethiopia. These purges weaken the morale, cohesion, and capacity of anti-Shabab forces.
Should the Tigray military confrontation escalate and spill into other Ethiopian regions — and should Ethiopia’s government withdraw more forces from Somalia — AMISOM will be severely weakened. The African Union’s force is dependent on the Ethiopian contingent. Its other members, such as Djibouti, Burundi, and Uganda, may start withdrawing too, not halted even by the inducement of the AMISOM salaries paid for by the European Union (EU).
AMISOM is formally slated to end its mission in Somalia by the end of 2021, but Somalia is unprepared for the security transition. The international community will again seek to extend the AMISOM mandate and ask the EU to reauthorize AMISOM payments expiring in December 2020. But the presence of a robust Ethiopian deployment remains a lynchpin of any meaningful AMISOM extension.
