338 - Africa's Killing Fields, III: Somalia and Puntland

Thanks to Trump and Musk, the long smoldering deadly war in the Horn of Africa has burst into hot flames, with a new Islamist insurgency joining existing jihadist warriors in making dangerous advances against civilians, constituted governments, and existing armies. Somalia has long battled the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabaab fundamentalists. Now, to the north and including the Cape Guardafui headland, a new Islamist movement linked to the Islamic State has terrorized villages belonging to the semi-autonomous Puntland government. With Washington backing off and Turkish forces not yet fully mobilized, the entire Indian Ocean-facing flank of Somalia is again enmeshed in war.

The Puntland theater of combat is new and represents an offensive staging point for the Islamic State, which has not hitherto been active in this corner of Africa. Its cadres broke away from al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda insurgent group, in 2015, establishing a global center for the Islamic State. Funding itself by extorting local businesses and bombing those who resisted, it quietly grew more powerful. Some funds came from Syria and Iraq, but with the weakening of those states, that support has dried up -- a possible stimulus for its new military activity within Puntland.

Puntland barely has an army, but this month it managed to overrun some Islamic State outposts, capturing a dozen Islamic State soldiers; none was Somali. Most were from Tanzania, Morocco, Yemen, Ethiopia, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia, a demonstration of the Islamic State's reach even beyond Africa. Puntland reports that the Islamic State's forces are heavily supplied by drones. It is using them to dramatic effect against the defenders.

The American Africa Command has attacked the Islamic State militia from the air, and also bombed an al-Shabaab gathering farther south in Somalia proper. The Africa Command is watching the unfolding combat zone in Puntland but is prohibited by Trump from providing meaningful support and oversight intelligence to the Puntland government.

Trump has shut down not only USAID, which has actively backed peace making and provided food aid to starving Somali, but also critically shuttered the Antiterrorism Assistance Program that tried in Somalia and elsewhere to improve the capacity of partner governments facing Islamist militants to respond to extremist threats. Additionally, programs countering transnational crime and narcotics trafficking (Somalia is a hub) have been suspended. U.S. continued drone and high altitude aircraft monitoring of the rebels in the region has become limited. Training of local armies, in Somalia's case special units within the Federal Army, have also been stood down. American contractors responsible for running training bases, providing power, feeding recruits, and even for evacuating wounded troops, have all been abruptly sent home -- leaving Somali forces at immediate risk of Islamist attack. Fifty health centers serving 19,000 poor Somali each month have been shut because USAID monies to pay the staff are no longer available.

Two important laboratories in Mogadishu, Somali's capital, and in a rural center, no longer analyze ballistic information from the field, examine bombs employed against Federal forces, or provide fingerprints to Interpol or the FBI. The American advisors have been compelled to leave. Washington has ceased funding these special outposts against the insurgents. If US money remains missing, the Islamists win, and quickly.

Although al-Shabaab (the youth) has been a militant force in Somalia (south of Puntland) since 2006, and especially since 2010, in 2025 it controls less territory than it once did. Largely based in central Somalia, it no longer has a base in Kismayu, the southern port city, or controls the Juba River Valley and its rich agricultural holdings. Instead, it has retreated to the middle of Somalia, taking advantage of the Federal Army of Somalia's weaknesses, and the withdrawal of troops from the African Union Mission to Somalia --AFRICOM.

Trump withdrew U. S. troops from the Somali theater of battle in 2018. President Biden restored a detachment of special forces, mostly to train and backstop the Somali's government's soldiery. Their continued support for Somalia's military is now in serious doubt. That will make a weak state vulnerable to resumed attacks from al-Shabaab.

In 1991, Somali protesters compelled President Siad Barre, an autocratic general who had gained control of the young nation and former UN Trust Territory in 1969, to resign. But anarchy and chaos followed, with an Islamist movement called the Organization of Islamic Courts ruling the country in the first years of this century and its successor, al-Shabaab, gaining control over much of the territory from 2006 to 2011. Then a combination of Kenyan-led African Union soldiers, Ethiopian battalions, and American airpower permitted a secular government of Somalis finally to take the reins in Mogadishu, the capital.

Unfortunately, successive secular Somali governments in Mogadishu have never been able to overcome the al-Shabaab menace. Instead, these governments have barely managed to provide education and justice, and infrastructural improvements in but parts of Somalia. Today al-Shabaab exercises authority on a daily basis in possibly 50 percent of Somalia, taxing inhabitants in its area, extorting protection monies even from businesses operating in the officially administered areas, and illicitly exporting charcoal to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Al-Shabaab also traffics in narcotics from Pakistan en route to the rest of Africa and Europe

Containing, or at least attempting to contain, al-Shabaab is a force of 19,000 military personnel from the African Union’s newly named African Transition Mission in Somalia. Another 20,000 soldiers belong to the army of the Federation of Somalia. But all of this firepower, with occasional drone attacks from an American base in Djibouti and Turkish assistance to the Somali army, has so far managed at best to slow the assaults of the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab. Truly reducing the al-Shabaab threat may demand the kinds of expertise, training, and firepower than the anti-Shabaab armies so far have been unable to muster.

Without the accustomed US support for the Federal government and its army, and with Africa Command troops held by Trump to bases in Stuttgart and Djibouti, the entire Somali and Puntland defensive experiments may be lost. Although American backing for battles against the Islamist insurgents - both from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State -- has never been extravagant, it has been a major support for the government of Somalia. If Trump succeeds for all the wrong reasons to undermine the battle against al-Shabaab, and lets the Islamic State strengthen its jihadist efforts in Puntland, the entire Horn of Africa may soon be overrun by Islamist fighters who care more about plunder and extortion than they do about providing an alternative administration that benefits the people.