Economist: The fragile government of Somalia is in deep trouble “scared witless”

[Liibaan]

Somalia and its jihadists

A government under the cosh

 

Jun 25th 2009 | ADDIS ABABA

From The Economist print edition

None of Somalia’s neighbours is keen to ride to its rescue

 

THE fragile government of Somalia is in deep trouble and, according to one of its officials, “scared witless”. Hence its panicky call on June 20th for troops from neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia to come to its rescue or see the country fall into the hands of jihadist fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Hence, too, the reluctance of its diplomats to heed a call from their foreign ministry to return from abroad to Mogadishu, the capital, for “retraining”. That was hardly surprising, since a teenage suicide-bomber had just blown up Somalia’s ambassador-designate to South Africa, along with its interior minister.

 

Fighting in Mogadishu has again emptied the coastal city of many of its poorer inhabitants. A 4,300-strong force consisting mainly of Ugandans and Burundians under the African Union’s aegis is unable to keep the peace. The government’s own troops are ill-equipped and rarely paid.

 

By contrast, a commander of the jihadist group known as the Shabab (meaning “Youth”) struck a cockier note, promising that foreign troops would be killed; Somali cats and dogs would eat them. “Somali young mujahideen,” he said, “will fight any troops deployed here until our last holy fighter passes away.” It is easy to see which side thinks it has the upper hand.

 

The Shabab’s confidence and sense of direction has been boosted by an influx of foreign fighters. Aides of Somalia’s embattled president, Sharif Ahmed, say there may be over 2,000 of them. Western intelligence sources think fewer. One of its bomb experts, Abu Mansour al-Amriki, appears to be a white American. Other al-Qaeda fighters have come from Pakistan and Afghanistan and may recently have helped assassinate Mogadishu’s police chief as well as clan elders and local journalists. The group’s slick internet propaganda echoes al-Qaeda. The Shabab says it has set up three units of suicide-bombers. At first they were mainly foreign but now they tend to be Somali boys educated in the movement’s religious schools.

 

Kenya and Ethiopia are loth to step in. Neither can afford a big military offensive. Both have large Somali minorities. The Shabab says it downed a Kenyan military helicopter flying along the border last month, though Kenya denies it. In any event, the Shabab says it “will destroy the tall glass buildings in Nairobi” unless Kenya pulls its troops back from the border. Any terrorist attack would badly hurt Kenya’s already shaky tourist industry and may well deter foreign investors. In any case, Kenya is unlikely to send its forces into Somalia unless it is attacked first.

 

Ethiopia withdrew most of its troops from Somalia earlier this year, after losing perhaps 800 of its men. A few Ethiopian soldiers are thought to remain discreetly inside Somalia, rallying armed opposition to the Shabab. But Ethiopia’s government has no appetite for sending in troops all over again. Ethiopian officials dislike being portrayed as stooges for the previous American administration’s war on terror and say their troops would return only under an international mandate and in smaller numbers. “We don’t want to be the horse taking the chestnut out of the fire and then being whipped by everyone and his grandmother,” says Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s prime minister. Yet he cannot stomach a jihadist state across his border, backed by his enemy, Eritrea.

 

The last hope for Somalia’s wobbly government may be the United States, which has once again secretly begun to supply it with arms. But that may be too late to save the day.