From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Jul 16 2010 - 17:28:12 EDT
Al-Shabaab’s Regionalization Strategy
While Uganda has paid a bitter price at home for its military engagement in
Somalia, al-Shabaab’s recent attacks will likely foster a more
interventionist agenda in East Africa and play into the hands of insurgents,
Georg-Sebastian Holzer writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Georg-Sebastian Holzer for ISN Security Watch
16 Jul 2010
_____
It was the biggest militant attack in sub-Saharan Africa since the infamous
1998 al-Qaida bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The
two coordinated bombings in Uganda’s capital Kampala killed 74 people and
wounded dozens of others watching the World Cup final on 11 July.
For al-Shabaab it was a successful attack against the country that forms the
backbone of the 6,000-strong African Union force in Mogadishu. The movement
previously threatened both Uganda and Burundi, the second major
troop-supplier to the AMISOM mission, which secures the survival of the
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) whose movement is virtually confined
to a few blocks in the capital.
Provoking an intervention
On the surface, attacking Uganda on its own soil seems to be as much
retaliation for Uganda’s refusal to withdraw its troops from Somalia as a
political message with the aim to deter outsiders from future meddling in
Somalia.
However, at least two other, albeit less obvious goals can be attributed to
these attacks.
One the one hand, the attacks will strengthen al-Shabaab internally by
converging the agendas of the nationalist and the international wing of
their movement. As a recent
<http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/horn-of-africa/somalia/B074-so
malias-divided-islamists.aspx> International Crisis Group Policy Briefing
pointed out, already existing internal divisions of the group drastically
increased in recent months. Since the official withdrawal of Ethiopian
troops in January 2009 and the introduction of Islamic law by the TFG, the
insurgents have had an increasingly difficult time justifying their
continued armed opposition to the government of President Sheikh Sharif.
Evidently, crossing the border satisfies the international wing, wedded to
al-Qaida-inspired notions of a permanent global jihad. At the same time,
attacking Uganda pleases the agenda of the nationalist wing, which views the
TFG as an illegitimate foreign puppy that is able to survive only because it
is propped up by AMISOM troops, US weapons and EU money.
On the other hand, the Kampala bombings are part of a rather cynical but
rational strategy that is well known from other terrorist groups. The
regionalization of the conflict builds on the notion that such an attack
will trigger a harsh response in the name of pre-emption and lead to renewed
foreign intervention.
In turn, indiscriminate retaliations and more foreign boots on the ground
would help al-Shabaab to portray itself again as fighting a nationalist
struggle and thereby overcome the steady erosion of its popularity and
credibility among the Somali people. It was exactly this playbook that
brought the movement broad popular support and legitimacy in the aftermath
of the Ethiopian intervention in late 2006.
Finding the right response
The nature of the external response will determine if al-Shabaab will
succeed with these strategies.
Here the stakes look rather dire: Already a week before the Kampala attacks
the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional body of
six East African States,
<http://igad.int/attachments/222_Final_Communique_of_15th_IGAD.pdf> agreed
in a communiqué to a request by the TFG delegation to reinforce the AU
mission with an additional 2,000 troops.
The fact that IGAD did not rule out bordering states - in particular the
archenemy and dominant regional military power Ethiopia - taking part in the
AMISOM mission resulted in
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h36B0YJEUGwUzrmZOgaXZHZm
CoeQ> stiff criticism, not only from al-Shabaab but also from within the
TFG.
Criticizing his own president, Somalia's special envoy to the US, Abukar
Arman, wrote in an
<http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/07/201078183832601277.html> opinion
piece on Aljazeera that “the IGAD resolution will embolden the very
extremist elements it is intended to subdue.”
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi already wisely ruled out sending
troops again to Somalia, but he stated previously that he would not hesitate
to do exactly that if Islamist insurgents seized power there.
The Obama administration, which is currently reviewing the failed Somalia
policy of its predecessor, is known to invest political capital to restrain
Ethiopia from officially re-entering Somalia. Washington is urging its
regional ally to keep a low profile in its (not so) secret operations in the
border regions and in its technical and logistical support of the TFG and
allied Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama’a.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in turn, is currently in the run-up to
national elections scheduled for early 2011. In power since 1986, he is
seeking a fourth term in office and is campaigning on his legacy of bringing
stability to his war-torn country after a decades-long struggle with the
Northern Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). He is responding to the
Kampala attacks by a
<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE66E1C7.htm> show of force for
the domestic and international audiences, announcing that Ugandan troops
will now go on the offensive and with troop expansion “the African Union
will be able to clean up this place.”
Already hours after the Kampala attacks, Ugandan AU soldiers shelled a
densely populated residential quarter in Mogadishu, which looked very much
like a first retaliation. Such indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas
antagonized the Somali population and galvanized resistance to the TFG and
its allies (apart from violating the law of war as stated in a
<http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/8955615.html> UN report this May).
Part of the problem in finding an adequate strategy to tackle the
intractable Somali conflict is evidently the absence of a local partner that
resembles some sort of government. While the EU, with US logistical help,
started to train Somali soldiers for the fledgling TFG army this June, its
counterpart still looks like a Potemkin façade with no change in sight. The
TFG was not even able to deliver any services in their manageable quarter in
Mogadishu, hence yielding no performance legitimacy whatsoever, which could
convince and attract the Somali people to put their faith behind President
Sheikh Sharif.
The irony is that at a time when the US is finally searching for a more
sober approach, having reflected on its failed security-dominated policy and
acknowledged that foreign intervention has exacerbated the long-running
conflict in Somalia, Somalia’s regional neighbors may prompt a re-learning
of the lesson.
_____
Georg-Sebastian Holzer is an analyst and free-lance journalist. He focuses
in particular on conflict dynamics in the wider Horn of Africa.
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