The Widening Gyre

Somalia in Hindsight

• January 25 -- The US Ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, has apparently met with Sheik Ahmed about reconciling with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Stratfor's analysis suggests that Ahmed does not have the ability to curb the insurgency because he was only the political chief of the Union of Islamic Courts (ICU). Sheik Aweys, the military leaders, is more radical than Ahmed and is still in hiding. Stratfor says that if Ahmed does make a deal with the TFG, it will fracture the remnants of the ICU and drive the radical elements into a deeper insurgency. While this may be true, I think a reconciliation between Ahmed and other moderates in the ICU with the TFG will be a positive step for Somalia. The most important thing is that the TFG can convince both Somalia and the international community that it is moving towards stability and reconciliation. The EU and the AU are depending on the semblance of reconciliation to send their financial aid and peacekeeping troops, respectively. Inside of Somalia this will limit the strength of the Islamist insurgency and some of the unrelated tribal violence. I would argue that perception is much more important than reality here -- if people believe that conditions will improve in Somalia, they will be much less inclined to let the country slip back into anarchy. So far the TFG has been cool to negotiations with Ahmed: Prime Minister Gedi has said that he will talk to Ahmed, but only in Somalia. Gedi refused to meet with Ahmed when the two were in Nairobi. Coincidentally, Kenya, no friend of the ICU, will not send Ahmed back to Somalia because they believe he will be killed there.
  
• January 22 -- A top leader of Somalia's Islamists handed himself in to Kenyan authorities. Sheik Ahmed has always been something of a moderate, and there is some hope that his taking part in a unity government will bring an end to the budding Islamist insurgency. However this assumes two things: one, that he still has a good deal of influence with the insurgents, and two, that the TFG will offer him a role that he would accept. I would say that the first assumption is likely true. Even if some of the insurgents are more radical than him, having the leader of the ICC either in the TFG or publicly allied with the TFG would take a lot of steam out of the insurgency and the likelihood of other moderates to support it. However the TFG has so far been opposed to the idea of reconciliation. The EU has attempted to push the TFG towards reconciliation by tying their redevelopment funds to the creation of a broad-based government which would include Islamists.
  
• January 9th -- The US attacked positions in southern Somalia near the Kenyan border, hoping to kill suspected Al-Qaeda members who they believe were responsible for the 1998 embassy bombings and who they thought were in the area. Right now I'm sure the high school English teacher inside of you is screaming "run-on sentence!". But where my error was only minor and grammatical, the error by the US was serious and geopolitical. If anyone had doubts about the tryst between Ethiopia, the TFG leadership, and the US, those doubts are now removed. Reuters reported that the US air strike killed between 22 and 27 people, and I think if one of them was an Al-Qaeda terrorist we would have heard something. TFG President Yusuf, who arrived in Mogadishu yesterday in a convoy of invading Ethiopian troops, said the US had a right to launch the strikes. The TFG Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed, who recently called for Ethiopia and Somalia to merge into one country, said that the US had the Somali government's "full support". Minister Aideed is the son of former anti-US warlord Mohammad Farah Aideed. According to the BBC, the idea behind the raid is to support the TFG and scare the Islamists into abandoning their plans for an insurgency. If these Islamists are as radically anti-Western as the US says, don't you think an attack by the US would only strengthen their resolve and draw more recruits? And if they aren't that radically anti-Western, why risk inflaming tensions by sending the US military to a country which is already on the edge of chaos? This attack is especially strange considering that US envoy Jendayi Frazer recently called for moderate Islamists to be included in the TFG -- a proposal which was rejected by President Yusuf. American helicopter gunships are welcome, but their political advice is not. What happened to soft power and public diplomacy? What has the American Empire become?
• January 7 -- Violence has continued to flare across the country, especially in Mogadishu. Residents are protesting against the Ethiopian presence and have refused to give in their weapons to the forcible disarmament drive announced by the TFG. This drive was then abruptly "postponed" by the TFG Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi. Thousands of refugees have fled the country, adding to already large refugee camps(PDF map) in the neighboring countries. The remnants of the ICU have vowed to heed Al-Qaeda's call for jihad. Good News? Sheik Sharif Hassan Aden, the leader of the TFG parliament who also has ties to the ICU, has called for peaceful cooperation and reconciliation. He seems to think that Sheik Ahmed, the somewhat-moderate leader of the ICU will heed his call. (Update: Speaker Aden was dismissed by the Parliament on January 17th). Jendayi Frazer, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, has been busy trying to get African nations to pledge troops to a peacekeeping force; so far Uganda has pledged 1000 towards a projected 8000 necessary. The International Contact Group for Somalia, made up of the US, the EU, and several African countries, met in Nairobi on Friday to find a way to create and finance a joint African Union/Inter-Governmental Authority on Development peacekeeping force.