Somalia, which Transparency International has rated the world’s most corrupt country for 11 years running, represents the worst of modern war and the international state-building economy. But Somalia wasn’t always a war zone. In the first decade after the British Somaliland protectorate and the U.N.-administered former Italian Somaliland colony gained independence and unified in 1960, the Somali Republic was a stable, relatively prosperous democracy. As politicians stoked nationalist sentiment in the name of a Greater Somalia, the country sought to build a formidable army, known locally as “The Lions of Africa,” with Soviet assistance. At the time, military academies in the country were so well resourced they had tanks to spare for practical training.
These days, after decades of military dictatorship, failed foreign escapades, civil war, and armed insurgency, there’s not even adequate funding for essentials like radios and protective gear. The SNA’s soldiers use their mobile phones—easily tapped by Hormuud Telecom, which has a sizable market share and plenty of al-Shabab influence—to communicate when fighting. Many operate in flip-flops.
Meanwhile, a conglomeration of countries are paying each other, and each other’s companies, ostensibly in support of Somalia as it rebuilds a national army. Each has its own military models that differ in ways big and small, from the way that soldiers salute to the chain of command. More significantly, each has different funding streams, various internal alliances, and broader strategic agendas.
Turkey has its own military academy. Qatar has one as well. The United Arab Emirates’ training facility shut down in April, a proxy in the Persian Gulf dispute. The Egyptians and the Sudanese are training officers. The British are conducting training in their own center, south of Mogadishu, in Baidoa. And the United States, as well as private U.S.-based security firms, are working with the Danab special operations forces on Baledogle air base. The United States used to provide funding for fuel and food for the SNA proper, but suspended that support in December because of fraud.
After so many attempts at state-building and training national armies—not least of all in Iraq and Afghanistan—it seems as if the international community is following a failed blueprint. “The West has trained the three most abysmal armies in the world: the Iraqi Army, the Afghan Army, and Somali Army,” said Stig Jarle Hansen, an associate professor of international relations at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
None of this bodes well for the Somali people, and suggests that, even if AMISOM eventually follows through on its announced intent to leave, there will be private security firms, peacekeeping missions, and mercenaries in the country for the foreseeable future.
“I have no doubt that al-Shabab have infiltrated the Federal Government of Somalia as double agents,” former spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Security Abdulaziz Ali Ibrahim said in an interview with FP. Such infiltration of the security sector creates serious problems.
At least 21 people were killed and an unknown number injured in Mogadishu in July as al-Shabab was able to get through a number government checkpoints to attack targets including a popular hotel and the Interior Ministry compound. Last month, the office of the deputy director of the National Intelligence and Security Agency was raided, allegedly by men with ties to al-Shabab. Members of the group infiltrate the SNA and NISA, often donning uniforms to strike checkpoints, training camps, and soft targets.
According to the to the Defense Ministry advisor, it’s an open secret that members of the government—and even members of the international community—will hire al-Shabab to kill or intimidate their political rivals. A prime example was the attack last year on the Dayah Hotel, where numerous politicians were staying. Twenty-eight people were killed and 43 were injured in the attack, for which al-Shabab claimed responsibility.
It took four years of dogged fighting to wrest control of Mogadishu back from under the under the complete, public influence of al-Shabab. The West still refused to commit its own troops but funneled money to AMISOM while turning a blind eye to the rampant human rights abuses, especially sexual assault, committed by its forces—another element that aids the jihadi group’s propaganda mission.
The facts that AMISOM hasn’t fully flushed out al-Shabab, and that the SNA remains so incapable after so many years, have fueled rumors—even among some educated, worldly Somalis who don’t support al-Shabab—that such chaos is in fact the Somali federal government’s end goal, allowing foreign forces to remain on the ground and in control while government officials take their share of the spoils.
“The Somalis lost the war and the world is trying to pander to their every need to show to their home nations they are making progress; meanwhile, [Somali government officials] are laughing all the way to the banks and meanwhile secretly supporting al-Shabab,” said an SNA trainer in an email, stressing that government figures “don’t want to solve any problems because they want the money to keep coming.”
“You can buy an army here,” the advisor to the Defense Ministry told me bluntly. “Collectively, we as the international community have been supporting nothing but a criminal patronage network for years.”
