Somalia: At the Margins at Our Peril

DEVELOPMENTS

Dismissed as a failed state, Somalia is sometimes perceived as less significant to international affairs than it should be.  But the region’s instability and complexity has recently attracted more attention.  The United States (U.S.) military has been training and supplying the Somali national army in an attempt to bolster its efforts to retake the capital, Mogadishu, and other parts of the country from Al Shabab, an Islamic organization that has waged an insurgency against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) since 2006.  Al Shabab controls most of Mogadishu except for a very small section of the city held by the TFG.  Around 5,000 African Union troops also provide military support for the government.

U.S. military involvement is increasing for a number of reasons. First, it is keenly aware that Al Qaeda fighters have begun streaming into the country and may use it as a base of operations.  Second, because American arms and equipment intended for the TFG sometimes land in the hands of Al Shabab or other militia groups, the U.S. is increasingly relying on the use of drone airplanes and airstrikes against top militant commanders.

Further exacerbating the situation in Somalia are the acts of piracy off the coast.  Al Shabab has reportedly enlisted the help of pirates to ferry in Al Qaeda fighters from Yemen and elsewhere.  Somalia's First Deputy Prime Minister, Professor Abdulrahman Adan Ibrahim, explains that, “Shabab are requesting the pirates to bring people in for them….  Somalia's borders with neighboring countries are now tightly policed, so the only corridor for them is via the sea.  The pirates smuggle them, and if anybody stops them, they just say they are passing fishermen.”  Somali pirates also travel hundreds of miles offshore to hijack oil tankers, fishing vessels, recreational sailboats and ships carrying military equipment from Europe.

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