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Somalia Is Where US Military Strategy Goes To Die


Twenty years ago — and less than a month after the catastrophic 9/11 attacks — the United States waged a decisive unorthodox operation in Afghanistan in an effort to destroy Osama’s al-Qaeda terrorist network. bin Laden and stripped the Taliban regime of power. in Kabul, where the perpetrators of The deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Because Afghanistan is a remote, landlocked country with very little infrastructure, a conventional military invasion was deemed impossible just days after the most spectacular asymmetric warfare attack. in modern history. It will take too long to plan and execute.

CIA counterterrorism officers stepped in. They believe that some teams of the small-scale CIA Task Force could be helicoptered into the country with satellite phones, laser rangefinders and a wealth of modern communications equipment, linked to a the loose coalition of warlords who engaged in active resistance against the Taliban and killed most of the several thousand al-Qaeda fighters in the country, along with an even larger number of Taliban allies their. Most of the killings, ghosts told President George W. Bush, would be carried out with precision munitions delivered by American planes and drones. Native militias commanded by warlords, some on foot, some on horseback, could sweep with the help of US Special Forces, who would advise ground commanders. , coordinate their operations and call for air strikes.

In three months, more than 10,000 Muslim fighters were killed, 7,000 captured, and the Taliban and al-Qaeda were driven from Afghan soil. The only bad news, which didn’t seem too bad at the time, was that bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar had escaped, along with many senior and mid-level operatives. We’ll get them soon, thought gone.

The Bush administration embraced this success, which at the time seemed almost as astounding as the 9/11s themselves, and expanded on the “light footprint” strategy used in Afghanistan to counter colonial rule. terrorism in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Somalia, for example.

Recently, military and foreign policy experts have expressed concern that the decades-old CIA/Special Forces-led campaign in Somalia against al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate highly adaptable and likely to fail. The Biden administration, which has tightened restrictions on when and where US military commanders in the theater can order air strikes, is currently reviewing US strategy in the country.

Whatever it decides to do in Somalia, and we should know pretty soon, will provide important clues as to how the administration intends to conduct counterterrorism operations in general, even as the military and The CIA shifted its focus to potential conflicts with China and Russia.

The US military’s involvement in Somalia, one of the world’s poorest and most anarchic countries, goes back to the early 1990s, when far-reaching US and UN efforts to stabilize the land war ravaged country, located in strategic terrain on the Horn of Afri. ended abruptly after eighteen elite American soldiers were killed in a chaotic, sprawling street battle in Mogadishu against the forces of the powerful and evil warlord Mohammed Aidid in October 1993. That war is the subject of Mark Bowden’s best-selling book, Blackhawk Down, which was later made into a remarkable, if somewhat gory, film of the same name.

The United States withdrew from Somalia in humiliation and embarrassment, not returning until 2005, when the CIA began transferring large amounts of cash to a new generation of warlords to fight the established al-Qaeda cells. set up shop. over there. Al-Shabab, which means “Youth” in Arabic, seeks to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in Somalia. It was born as a resistance movement against the rising power of American-backed warlords.

Since 2006, the United States has been leading a shadow war against the organization, primarily with the CIA’s Special Forces and paramilitary types. The Americans trained the fledgling Somali army and a small, elite force against Somali terrorism, believed to be led by CIA officers in combat operations. America used to be top contributor to development fund for the country’s weak government and civil society organizations, which spent $450 million on humanitarian aid in fiscal year 2019 and covered most of the costs of the African Union peacekeeping force , at $2.5 billion over the past decade.

The counterterrorism program in Somalia has had some success. In 2011, a drone strike killed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, an al-Qaeda agent who was famous for planning bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, leaving more than 200 people were killed and 4,000 were injured. In September 2014, another drone strike killed Ahmed Abdi Godane, the senior leader of al-Shabab. Several other undisclosed senior leaders of the organization were killed in the operation.

In March 2017, Donald Trump scrapped many of the strict “rules of engagement” for US air strikes and raised the number of US troops in Somalia to about 700. During Trump’s four years in office, the number of airstrikes has increased dramatically. By the time he left office, about 202 strikes had been made, compared with just 48 during Barack Obama’s eight years in office.

However, despite increased military pressure, al-Shabab has gain considerable power and influence over the last year or so, and not just in the countryside. It also infiltrated the government bureaucracy in Mogadishu, and controlled most of the port operations there.

Transparency International, a highly regarded German nonprofit, rates the Somali government with ties to South Sudan as the most corrupt in the world.

Experts say the organization has continued to successfully recruit and expand its coffers through smuggling, extortion and toll collection. In 2020, according to US government sources, al-Shabab earned no less than $120 million in revenue. Perhaps most disturbingly, the organization attempted to establish a shadow government in many rural areas, a parallel political infrastructure following the lines of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, with high courts. courts, administrative apparatus and separate laws. Its large-scale bomb-making operations are said to be increasingly sophisticated, and there has been no mitigation of civilian casualties resulting from the attacks.

Al-Shabab currently has around 5,000 full-time fighters conducting IED attacks and operations against government security forces and civilians, but the terrorist network’s fighters are better led and have higher incentives than government. “Bottom point” Paul D. Williams wrote, a leading conflict expert who is a professor at George Washington University, “that US military actions have failed to reduce al-Shabab’s ability to attack Somalis and other personnel. international staff using a combination of asymmetrical tactics — including ambushes, IEDs, suicide. commando raids, and assassinations — and more conventional attacks on forward bases. ”

The main factors behind al-Shabab’s recent success are the weak and ineffective functioning of the current federal government, as well as the nation’s inability to rally and rally the small political class. decide on permanent power-sharing agreements. Despite billions of dollars in investments from various Western countries, the government in Mogadishu remains deeply corrupt and completely assigned to intrigues and infighting.

This past April, when the incumbent president, an American citizen named Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, refused to hold scheduled elections, fighting broke out between different government security forces in the capital. Transparency International, a highly regarded German non-profit agency, rates the Somali government as closely tied to the South Sudanese government as most perverted world, which is actually saying something.

Tricia Bacon, a longtime former State Department expert on counterterrorism, is now a professor at American University, wrote that al-Shabab “Drawing strength from exploiting government weaknesses — including divisions between the Somali Federal Government and its member states, particularly in the rural areas of Southern Somalia. Al-Shabab’s courts remain the preferred venue for dispute resolution, even for residents of Mogadishu, who may not support the group’s goals or harsh punishments. The roads it controls are still the best routes to travel within Somalia to avoid predation… While airstrikes and military operations take their toll, the fundamental weakness of the Somali state creates leaving a void that the team has and will continue to fill”.

So what will the Biden national security team do? One option would be to redeploy about 600 US troops that Trump withdrew at the end of his presidency, in order to increase military pressure. Another option: He could pull the plug on the U.S. military effort entirely, as he did in Afghanistan, and end another “forever war.”

Biden’s recent statements on Afghanistan and its counterterrorism strategy suggest he will not expand the US military effort.

A third option, strongly supported by Professor Williams, would be for the administration to shift its focus from military operations to diplomacy, in order to establish a new power-sharing arrangement between the states and the federal government. , and then used a combination of carrots and sticks to try to get al-Shabab into the political process, where it could share power with other key parties.

Biden’s recent statements on Afghanistan and its counterterrorism strategy suggest he will not expand the US military effort, and he is increasingly skeptical of the effectiveness of the military’s focus on dislodging the leadership. Senior leadership of terrorist groups, for a very simple reason: Again and again, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, these “successful” missions do not seem to have much strategic effect, and they are mixed up. considered by the international community to be fiercely controversial from both strategic and ethical perspectives. View. There are always authoritative replacements for fallen or captured leaders, and their organizations adapt, grow, and thrive as was the case with al-Shabab.

My best guess, based on what administration officials have said in the filing, is that Biden will move along the path suggested by Professor Williams, and diplomatic and political coercion, while not pressing to military operations.

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