What's Going On in Somalia?
A guide to the latest terror-war front.
BY JONATHAN STEVENSON
Wednesday, December 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
Though 98% Muslim and long without a functioning government, southern Somalia has not, so far, ripened into the fully fledged terrorist threat that many have feared it would. This week, however, as Ethiopia engaged Islamist Somali militiamen, Somalia became the site of a nascent regional war. The primary combatants are Somalia's secular Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is internationally recognized and politically supported by the U.S., and the Islamist "Islamic Courts Union" that holds sway on the ground. They are backed militarily by two fierce rivals, Ethiopia and Eritrea, respectively. The military balance appears indeterminate. Ethiopia has deployed 15,000 to 20,000 troops in Somalia. Eritrea has provided arms to the Islamic Courts militias and sent only about 2,000 troops to support them; but the Islamic Courts hold more territory than the TFG and have greater indigenous assets and popular support. Even if Somalia does not become a terrorist redoubt, it could become a potent fount of regional geopolitical instability and perhaps the next "field of jihad" unless diplomatic attention is rallied to rescue the situation.
Ethiopia has a politically dominant Christian tradition and is vigorously opposed to Islamism. Al-Ittihad al-Islamiah, a Somali Islamist group aligned with the Islamic Courts, has sought to force the secession of Ethiopia's heavily ethnic Somali Ogaden region, and Ethiopian troops were responsible for eliminating several terrorist training camps run by al-Ittihad in the late 1990s. Although about half Muslim and half Christian, Eritrea's support for the Islamic Courts rests on its strategic enmity toward Ethiopia. The Islamic Courts are also politically and financially backed by several Muslim states, including Egypt, Djibouti, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya and Sudan. Ethiopia's preventive intervention against the Islamic Courts --tacitly approved by the U.S.--prompted them to declare jihad against Ethiopia in November. Meanwhile, on Dec. 7 the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted U.S.-sponsored Resolution 1725, authorizing the deployment of an African force in Somalia to protect the TFG and partially lifting a weapons embargo to Somali factions, which stands to strengthen the TFG and secular militias. The resolution spurred the Islamic Courts to declare jihad against any U.N.-sanctioned force, and the Eritrean government branded it "an attack on the Somali people." Foreign jihadists are reported to be infiltrating Somali territory already.
The volatile situation in Somalia presents the West with a thorny and immediate problem. To quell geopolitical tensions created by Ethiopia and Eritrea's intervention, a U.N.-sanctioned force would have to be led by a major power. Yet even if such a power could afford the troops and materiel, the insertion of a significant number of Western-led foreign troops would run the risk of attracting (as in Iraq) still more foreign jihadists to Somalia and inspiring terrorist attacks worldwide.
The U.N. and the African Union (AU) support the TFG, and the former has authorized peacekeeping troops. In hopes of minimizing regional tensions, the Security Council resolution bars the participation of neighboring nations Kenya and Djibouti as well as Ethiopia in any peacekeeping contingent, and limits the notional outside force to physically protecting the TFG in and near Baidoa, and to training TFG security forces. But there is little manpower available for any serious effort. The resolution also does not deal with foreign forces already in Somalia. While the resolution is nobly intended to promote political negotiations between the TFG and the Islamic Courts Union, coupled with Ethiopia's substantial military commitment to the TFG it may have had the effect of providing the TFG with enough political cover to defer dialogue. Furthermore, only Uganda has offered troops, and has done so ambivalently and against domestic public opinion. In any case, though trained by the French and the British, Ugandan troops would probably be both numerically and professionally inadequate.
Although Washington would probably provide logistical support and some funding for a Uganda-led force, it has essentially charged Uganda and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)--most of whose members (Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan and, less rigidly, Kenya) oppose intervention--with executing Resolution 1725. Accordingly, the military mission, in any case of dubious political value, is unlikely to gather momentum. Meanwhile, rough military parity allows the two Somali factions to procrastinate diplomatically.
While at times disingenuously denying that it has deployed troops in Somalia, Ethiopia has indicated that any troops are intended as a deterrent and that it is not eager to engage in a long war. The Islamic Courts, for their part, have demonstrated a degree of caution. Fatalities still probably number only dozens rather than hundreds. Thus far, the major powers have tacitly allowed Ethiopia and Eritrea to keep assets deployed in Somalia while pressuring both to refrain from escalating to all-out war. But these weak constraints cannot produce operational equilibrium between the TFG and the Islamic Courts Union for long enough to allow effective major-power attention to gravitate to Somalia before war arises.
Absent an unattainably strong peace-enforcement contingent, the only solution would appear to be robust diplomacy aimed at stabilizing the Somali situation by a power-sharing arrangement between the TFG and the Islamic Courts. Both the U.N. and the AU, as well as the U.S. and key European capitals, however, have their hands full with even more pressing regional matters, such as Darfur. Indeed, all save the AU are overstretched by Iraq, Afghanistan and the campaign against Islamist terrorism. They cannot be expected to devote serious diplomatic attention to Somalia in the short term. While Yemen and the Arab League have made attempts to facilitate dialogue, they are not likely to have the influence to close a sustainable deal.
The EU, however, has shown appreciation for the gravity of the crisis. On Dec. 8, EU development minister Louis Michel held separate talks with the TFG and the Islamic Courts in hopes of lowering tensions, albeit to no clear avail. Kenya, the most effective broker in the region on Somali issues, has sponsored the TFG. But Nairobi--constrained by a rising cross-border threat from the Islamic Courts and political pressures from its own substantial ethnic Somali population--has defaulted to a position of "neutrality." Since open conflict could send hundreds of thousands of refugees over its border, however, Nairobi may abandon timidity and push for negotiations. Religious leaders in Kenya have urged as much. With the EU's diplomatic sponsorship and residual U.S. support, such an effort might enforce a pause and bring the four principals--the TFG, the Islamic Courts, Ethiopia and Eritrea--to the table. Otherwise, only further escalation is likely to bring decisive major-power attention to the Horn of Africa.
Mr. Stevenson is a professor of strategic studies in the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College.
opinionjournal.com |
