Somalia Will Require Foreign Troops Past Atmis Exit, Experts Says

SUNDAY JULY 14 2024

Outgoing African Union Mission in Somalia (Atmis) troops arrive at Jalalaqsi, Somalia on February 9, 2023. PHOTO | POOL

By JULIUS BARIGABA

As Somalia moves towards African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (Atmis) exiting the country and ushering in another foreign force on its shores, security experts say financial reasons and political expediency are to blame for the short transition timelines. As a result, they say Somalia’s push to be the architect of its security will again not be achieved when all AU troops exit the country.

This will come nearly three years after Atmis was authorised by the United Nations Security Council to mentor the Somali National Army (SNA) to take up security responsibilities, handover military outposts and deliver the transition that guarantees protection for civilians, against al Shabaab militants.

But, in his June 24 briefing to the UNSC, head of Atmis Mohamed el-Amine Souef observed that despite the AU force’s progress towards delivering the transition, al Shabaab remains resilient and retains the ability to conduct devastating attacks.

This, Souef said, was evident in the recent attack on Somali Security Forces in El Dhere in the Galguduud region of Galmudug state in central Somalia, and the mortar attack on the Atmis camp in Baidoa, in the southwestern part of the country.

“The political ambitions around the transition consistently have not matched ground realities, which then causes delays,” says Omar Mahmood, senior Eastern Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Mr Mahmood observes that there has been progress, as the SNA has taken over some bases from the AU force, and increasingly leads the fight against al Shabaab, but a full transition is a long-term process, and more time is required to continue to develop the Somali security sector to stand on its own.

“It is likely Somalia will still require foreign troops assistance for at least the next couple of years in order to avoid a security reversal,” he says.

Peace and security analyst Ruth Namatovu argues that the transition in Somalia is staggered because it was not designed by the AU but imported into the mission.

“[There’s] no clear plan, different stakeholders have different agendas,” argues Ms Namatovu, who is a research fellow at the Institute of Research and Policy Integration in Africa, at the Northern Illinois University in the US.

Citing conflicts like Afghanistan, Iraq, peacekeeping missions in Mali, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ms Namatovu adds that globally, security transitions during insurgencies have always ended in disaster and recycled the affected countries into conflicts.

“Somalia is trying to dodge a similar end result by minimising the risks of getting rid of the foreign forces at once at the time when al-Shabaab has become more resilient, sophisticated and grown its force in terms of numbers,” she says. 

Experts say a fluid security transition such as the one in Somalia does not need an immediate, complete withdrawal of foreign forces, but the gradual transfer of military operations and security responsibilities to local forces prior to the ultimate withdrawal of foreign troops.

Despite the progress – in which the SNA has since June 30, 2023 taken over 22 bases from the AU, Somalia’s transition has stuttered due to a force generation deficit, resulting in the inability to match the security tasks at hand, which has continued to expose civilians to al-Shabaab attacks.

Because of these security gaps, the Federal Government of Somalia last month sought to delay till end of September the exit of 2,000 out of 4,000 AU troops that were meant to leave the mission at the end of phase three of the drawdown on June 30.

But on June 28, the UN Security Council cut the period that Somalia sought to delay the full drawdown to August 12, in the unanimously adopted Resolution 2741 (2024).

The decision means the Atmis troop-contributing countries (TCCs) were authorised to deploy up to 14,626 uniformed personnel until June 30 but must complete the drawdown of the 2,000 personnel by this date. 

The Security Council further authorised the TCCs to deploy up to 12,626 uniformed personnel from July 1 until August 12, after which 2,000 troops will leave the mission to complete phase three of the drawdown. 

The AU force will wind up its peacekeeping operations on December 31, amid fears of a resurgent al Shabaab.

In December 2023, Somalia tabled a formal request to the UN Security Council, for a post-Atmis force after a series of security setbacks in several parts of the country.

Mr Mahmood argues that a new mission – whose Concept of Operations (Conops) the UN Security Council says should be finalised by end of this month and reviewed on August 2 – should have clearly identified benchmarks that continue momentum towards a full transition.

“Part of the problem has been previous plans emphasised quick timelines for reasons of political expediency, rather than realities on the ground. Ultimately, it is less up to the international partners or even the AU to deliver the transition, but the Somalis themselves,” he says.

Indeed, in the run up to the reconfiguration of the African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom) to Atims, mission fatigued donors shot down a five-year transition period that the TCCs proposed as the more realistic timeline, in favour of their own short transition of less than three years.

But funding has remained a thorny issue, with the mission allegedly $145 million in arrears currently, and analysts say international partners have to agree on a mechanism to finance the new force, as a priority that guarantees peace and security returns on their investment in state-building of Somalia.