A Rare Success Emerges in the War on Terror

There finally came a point when al-Shabaab militants went too far, and Somali farmers and herders just wouldn’t take it anymore.

It started in Hiiraan, a region of a half-million people in central Somalia. Islamist insurgents from al-Shabaab, the Somali branch of al Qaeda, had controlled much of the area for a decade. In May 2022, they dialed up the repression.
They shot a well-known clan elder. They dragooned local teens into their ranks of suicide bombers and fighters. And during the longest drought in living memory, al-Shabaab taxed herders three or four cows each time they brought their parched livestock to drink at public wells.

That set off a chain of events that has at last given the U.S. and its allies the upper hand in a 16-year campaign against one of the most potent and intractable Islamist insurgencies in the world.

One of the American military campaigns unleashed by the Sept. 11 attacks, the fight against al-Shabaab has been marked by years of setbacks and stalemates. Now Somalia has become a surprising bright spot in the global battle pitting the West and allied countries against insurgents who use terror tactics in the name of political Islam.

Within weeks, Hiiraan clan militiamen took up arms in a spontaneous uprising that blindsided al-Shabaab. Somali government forces, led by American-trained commandos called Danab, or Lightning, joined the fray. Some other clans followed suit and ousted al-Shabaab from their own turf.

Over the course of months, clan militiamen and Somali troops, backed by American drones, drove al-Shabaab out of some 20 towns and 80 villages, regaining about a third of the territory militants previously held nationwide, according to the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu, the country’s capital.

Last month, Somali forces, led by Danab commandos, launched the next phase of the offensive to dislodge militants from their last two strongholds in central Somalia. “The government is winning the war. I wouldn’t have said it two years ago, but I’d say it now,” said Maj. Aydarus Mohamed Hussein, commander of the 2,000-strong Danab special-forces brigade.

Initial fighting has been fierce, with government troops sweeping into El Buur, a key al-Shabaab bastion, then ceding the town back to militant counterattacks. Government forces moved so quickly that they outran their supply lines, according to Western diplomats in Mogadishu. Now the army is slowing the offensive to allow troops to recuperate. Government strategists plan to renew attacks in a more methodical way, putting clan militias in charge of defending towns and villages once the army has cleared them, Western diplomats say.

“They have retaken more territory in the last year than they had in the previous five years,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Kenya Monday. “But we know that progress is not always a straight line.”

Somalia, located on the strategic tip of eastern Africa, offers a whiff of success against a backdrop of failure. On the other side of the continent, in the semidesert strip called the Sahel, unchecked Islamist violence contributed to military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and, in July, Niger. Al Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates now control some 40% of territory in Mali and Burkina Faso, and insurgent attacks in Niger have displaced some 350,000 people, according to the Pentagon’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Some West African states along the Gulf of Guinea have experienced probing attacks by al Qaeda-affiliated fighters, and authorities fear Ghana, long a regional bedrock of stability, could be next.

Farther afield, the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan two years ago, ceding the country back to the Taliban after a 20-year war.

Backed by U.S. air power and advisers, the Somali army, by contrast, has been making headway against an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 al-Shabaab fighters, plus a few hundred Islamic State, or ISIS, adherents in the country’s mountainous northeast.

“If you look at where this country was 10 years ago, and even two years ago, the progress made by the government and by the international community gives everybody hope that we can see a future of Somalia without Shabaab and without ISIS,” said Shane Dixon, the top U.S. diplomat in Mogadishu.

Western diplomats and military commanders say they have seen a fundamental shift in the war since President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office last year. Mohamud promised to go after al-Shabaab with an aggression his predecessor, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, hadn’t mustered, and the Biden administration has stationed some 450 U.S. troops in Somalia to help.

Analysts wonder whether the latest advances can be sustained. Somalia has suffered 35 years of natural calamities, clan warfare and Islamist insurgency. Corruption and political infighting have weakened past counterterrorism efforts, while al-Shabaab has proven resilient.

The number of Somalis killed in political violence grew to almost 9,000 over the past year, up from 3,500 deaths the previous year, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or Acled, a U.S.-based nonprofit monitoring service.

Somali officials are optimistic. They initially predicted that clearing operations in central Somalia would take about two months, and in October or November they’ll be able to turn to larger al-Shabaab positions in southern Somalia, along the Kenyan border.

“This is our plan—to finish them off before August next year,” said Somali National Security Adviser Hussein Sheikh-Ali. “It might take longer, but definitely we’re going to defeat them.”

Somalia, a former Italian colony, began its descent into civil war in the late 1980s, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre bombarded the independence-minded Somaliland region, a one-time British protectorate.

Widespread hunger and a failed United Nations intervention followed in the early 1990s, culminating in the infamous 1993 Black Hawk Down battle that left 18 U.S. Army Rangers, Delta Force operators and other troops dead. Uncounted hundreds of Somalis, many of them clan fighters, were killed in the clash.

Al-Shabaab rose out of the anarchy that followed the U.S. and U.N. withdrawal. The group grew to control the Indian Ocean port of Kismayo and parts of Mogadishu, only to be forced out by an international force deployed by the African Union.

In 2007 President George W. Bush sent a small contingent of commandos to Somalia to battle al-Shabaab. President Barack Obama intensified that effort, ordering targeted airstrikes on al-Shabaab leaders.

President Donald Trump initially escalated the campaign, authorizing 203 airstrikes on al-Shabaab targets. Then, weeks before leaving the White House in January 2021, he stunned American commanders by withdrawing all 700 U.S. troops from Somalia.

The Pentagon relocated many to neighboring Kenya and Djibouti, from which they visited Somalia to coach local forces. But U.S. commanders complained that al-Shabaab gained ground without the full-time presence of American troops and the Pentagon pressed the new Biden administration to reverse the withdrawal.

Shortly before the Hiiraan uprising began, Biden ordered U.S. Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets and other troops back to Somali bases to advise and train Danab commandos.

Now the U.S. has special-operations teams in Mogadishu, Kismayo and Baledogle, aided by some 60 military advisers from Bancroft Global Development, a contractor hired by the State Department. Bancroft advisers accompany Somali commandos on missions but are only authorized to use force in self-defense. Uniformed U.S. troops, though allowed to accompany Somalis in rare cases, almost always advise from safe positions in the rear.

“There is no appetite for U.S. casualties,” said Col. David Haskell, commander of American special-operations troops in Somalia.

In a typical operation in July, a company of Danab commandos attacked an al-Shabaab camp in dense brush near Bud Bud, in central Somalia. The militants were armed with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The Somali commandos lost a couple of men and pulled back.

The next night they approached the campsite in Toyota pickup trucks mounted with machine guns, reinforced by Turkish-trained Somali infantrymen.

A U.S. drone sent live overhead video to Haskell’s team at Mogadishu’s heavily defended airport complex.

The Americans spotted some 80 militants converging on an isolated group of Danab, who were running low on ammunition. The U.S. team warned the Somali soldiers that they were stepping into an ambush. “They had those guys pinned down,” recalled Haskell.

The Biden administration has been far less willing than Trump’s administration to use lethal U.S. air power, in part out of concern about causing civilian casualties and stirring public resentment.

U.S. special operators can order airstrikes if their Somali partners are in a disadvantaged position or in immediate danger of being overrun, Haskell said. If the situation looks grim, Haskell calls a U.S. embassy official, who informs President Mohamud, day or night. A U.S. military lawyer must also give approval, and only if there’s virtual certainty that no civilians are at risk.

The U.S. has carried out 15 airstrikes in Somalia this year.

One took place during the Danab mission in Bud Bud, when the Somali unit appeared likely to be overrun. The drone, launched from a U.S. base in neighboring Djibouti, hit a cluster of militants, killing 25, according to U.S. estimates.

“This is the first time I’ve felt the U.S. is very serious about this fight against Shabaab,” said Malik Abdalla, a dual U.S.-Somali national and member of parliament representing Hiiraan.

Turkey operates drones in Somalia with fewer restrictions than the U.S., and the United Arab Emirates are starting to provide close-air support for Somali troops, said Sheikh-Ali, the national security adviser.

“Without air support, we don’t have much clear advantage in the battles,” he said.

The U.S. provides medical care for wounded Somali commandos, a critical morale booster. Contract helicopter crews evacuate the injured to an American field hospital. The surgical team in Mogadishu treated 64 Somali military casualties between December and the end of July.

This month, U.S. Africa Command said it evacuated two children injured during a Somali army operation against al-Shabaab in El-Lahelay. One child later died, in addition to one woman and three children killed at the site of the operation. U.S. forces advised the Somali troops but weren’t in El-Lahelay during the operation and didn’t conduct any airstrike, an Africa Command spokesperson said.

In a recent video released by al-Shabaab, Mahad Karate, a senior figure in the group, blamed U.S. forces for the civilian deaths in what he called a “Satan-inspired invasion.”

“We say to the Americans—we will avenge the death of our people, however long it takes,” Karate said. “You have the watches; we have the time.”

Some 280 clan militiamen have died in the Hiiraan uprising, according to Ali Jeyte Osman, who, as regional governor, helped lead the fight. “People were tired of al-Shabaab,” said Jeyte.

Initially Mohamud’s government only intended to deploy commandos to Hiiraan for a few weeks but, inspired by the success of the popular uprising, the president ordered last year’s offensive, Jeyte said.

In response, militants torched villages and set off car bombs in city centers. They dumped dirt into some wells, blew up others and poisoned many that remained.

Al-Shabaab fighters ambushed a convoy of civilian mini buses, killing 27 people, including a toddler, Jeyte said. One 6-year-old child ran for it; militants chased him and killed him, Jeyte said. Al-Shabaab fighters hunted down and killed a dozen wounded militiamen who had been taken to Mogadishu for treatment, Jeyte said.

The latest phase of the government campaign is being closely fought in central Somalia, with both sides recruiting allies among rival clan militias, according to Acled. The government has poured thousands of troops into the back-and-forth battle.

The militants have adapted their tactics, deploying battlefield car bombs and infantry rigged with explosives, said Hussein, the Danab brigade commander. “You’ll have a whole platoon running at you and detonating themselves,” he said.

The next phase, in southern Somalia, is expected to prove an even tougher slog.

Complicating the government’s military plans is the impending departure of an African Union force that first deployed to Somalia in 2007. The Somali government, unsettled by the ferocity of al-Shabaab counterattacks, appealed to the U.N. last week to delay the imminent withdrawal of 3,000 of the 18,000 African Union soldiers.

“This unforeseen turn of events has stretched our military forces thin, exposed vulnerabilities in our frontlines and necessitated a thorough reorganization to ensure we maintain our momentum in countering the al-Shabaab,” Sheikh-Ali wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council.

The remaining African Union troops are slated to leave Somalia by the end of next year.

U.S. and Somali officials say the African Union troops haven’t carried out major offensive operations this year, largely remaining in bases where they have absorbed repeated al-Shabaab attacks.

Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have pledged thousands of troops for 90 days to help Somali forces push al-Shabaab out of southern Somalia. Those units have yet to materialize, according to U.S. officials.

Al-Shabaab is deeply embedded in many southern communities, where the group’s administrators provide some services and Islamic courts settle disputes. Al-Shabaab extracts taxes at roadside checkpoints and on the docks in Mogadishu, revenue the U.S. estimates has reached $130 million annually during the group’s best years.

Somali and Western officials say the campaign’s success or failure will depend heavily on whether the government will quickly provide liberated areas with healthcare, education, water, corruption-free courts and a long-term security presence.

If the Somali government comes through, said Haskell, the American special-operations commander, “we can continue winning without the negative effects of a large U.S. presence.”

Source » msn.com