SNA (Birmingham) — For years the internationally-recognized government of Somalia, based in Mogadishu, has been in a running battle with the Al-Shabab insurgency, but recent advances by the Somali Armed Forces, backed by the US military, as well as division within the Islamist movement itself, appears to have put Al-Shabab on the back foot.

Al-Shabab has operated independently in southern Somalia since 2006 after it broke off from the Islamic Courts Union, a federation of clan-based village leaders who had aimed to bring order out of the many years of chaos in Somalia after the fall of the Siad Barre regime in January 1991.

Ideologically, Al-Shabab mixes radical Islamism with Somali nationalism. They defeated the Ethiopian invasion of 2006-2009 and proclaimed opposition to Western imperialism. In 2012, they went of to declare allegiance to Al-Qaida. While their concerns are almost entirely about affairs within Somalia, they are routinely described as “terrorists” by the Mogadishu regime, the US military, and the mainstream Western media.

In recent months, there are indications that the military position of Al-Shabab has begun to seriously erode.

Last year was one of their worst years in terms of casualties. Statistics compiled by Airwars, a British organization focused on counting deaths related to Al-Qaida and other groups in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, show that last year an estimated 1,100 Al-Shabab fighters were killed; up sharply from its estimated 270 deaths in 2021.

Al-Shabab is losing territory as well. Last month, the Somali Armed Forces pushed Al-Shabab out of the port town of Harardhere, which the insurgents had controlled for almost twelve years.

Some officials of the Mogadishu regime have turned bullish. Minister of Justice Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur commented on the town’s capture by saying:  “The Haradhere and Galcad districts have been taken from the hands of the Al-Shabab. This means Al-Shabab is overpowered and gone. The remaining towns will also be liberated soon.”

Other analysts support the view that the war is turning against Al-Shabab. Ismail Dahir Osman, former deputy commander of Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency, told Voice of America last month that “since the government offensive began with the support of local citizens, who are fed up with the group’s oppressions, Al-Shabab has been losing territories and former strongholds in central regions. This is thanks to Somali government military operations backed by local clan militias and foreign partners, including the United States.”

The government offensive he refers to was launched by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who has been in power in Mogadishu since last May. The president has used extreme language to mobilize support for his campaign, addressing a stadium full of supporters last month and declaring: “I’m calling to you, the people of Mogadishu, flush out the renegades are amongst you… They are in your houses, they are your neighbors, in cars that pass you by… I want us to commit today to flushing them out, they are like bedbugs under our clothes.” He thus renewed his pledge to wage total war against Al-Shabab.

The US military, through its US Africa Command (AFRICOM), has been directly involved in the Somali Civil War since 2007, arguing that it is a major theater within its ongoing Global War on Terrorism. As AFRICOM’s website puts it: “Somalia remains central to stability and security in all of East Africa. US Africa Command’s forces will continue training, advising, and equipping partner forces to help give them the tools they need to defeat Al-Shabab, the largest and most deadly Al-Qaida network in the world.”

US military support to Mogadishu is provided in a variety of ways, both through indirect aid as well as via US airstrikes against Al-Shabab forces.

Last month, the United States government presented US$9 million in weapons, vehicles, medical supplies and other equipment to the Somali National Army. At the ceremony, US Ambassador to Somalia Larry Andre declared, “We cheer the success achieved by Somali security forces in their historic fight to liberate Somali communities suffering under Al-Shabab. This is a Somali-led and Somali-fought campaign. The United States reaffirms our commitment to support your effort.”

The fact that he felt the need to publicly assert that the campaign is “Somali-led” is a pretty clear indication of who is really the driving force behind the military campaign against Al-Shabab.

Aside from launching the military offensive, President Mohamud is also playing his part for his US allies by suggesting that the fight has significance beyond Somali’s national borders, thus justifying US military intervention in terms of the Global War on Terrorism. On a visit to Washington DC last September, he told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS):

The policy of containment–keeping Al-Shabab inside Somalia so that they will not spill over to the neighboring countries and to the outside world–was one of the policies that have been used for the last fifteen years. We have been arguing that this is not good policy for a long time, and recently, it has been proven that Al-Shabab cannot be contained within the boundaries of Somalia because Al-Shabab is an organization based on ideology, and ideology has no border and has no citizenship. Recent attacks to neighboring countries proves that the containment policy does not deliver what it was supposed to deliver.

Mohamud thus denies the Somali nationalist element which has always been characteristic of Al-Shabab’s leadership.

The true transnational Islamist movement in Somalia may not be the Al-Shabab, but rather its rival Islamic State in Somalia. While some of its fighters have Al-Shabab origins, the two organizations have been deadly enemies. Indeed, Al-Shabab’s leaders refer to Islamic State followers as “infidels” who should be killed immediately when discovered.

This distinction, however, does not appear to be keenly understood by the Western media. When Islamic State leader Bilal al-Sudani was killed in northern Somalia by US forces last month, USA Today noted that the “strike is the third by US forces in Somalia since January 20,” conflating military action against Al-Shabab and Islamic State.

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