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Analysis: Somalia's Perpetual War

Council on Foreign Relations

May 9, 2008
Author: Stephanie Hanson

Pirates hijacked a record number of ships off the Somali coast this year, fighting in Mogadishu has driven hundreds of thousands from the city, and the aid workers that supply critical food and medical supplies to displaced Somalis are now targeted by Islamic insurgents (TIME). Yet perhaps the most telling indicator of Somalia’s deepening crisis is this: Not only has the country’s weak transitional government failed to protect civilians, according to a new report from Amnesty International, it routinely targets them (PDF).

Somalia’s transitional federal government has tried to legitimize its hold over the country since December 2006, when Ethiopian troops invaded to oust the Islamic Courts Union, a fundamentalist militia. Some eighteen months later, the Ethiopian troops remain, the Islamist insurgency has intensified, and moderate elements of the Islamists that split from the courts are refusing to negotiate with the transitional government. As this Backgrounder describes, the transitional government is an amalgam of warlords vying for power. The United States has backed it in the hopes of eliminating the country’s Islamic extremists, but many experts say that strategy has led to further radicalization.

The U.S. strategy toward Somalia is three-pronged: to eliminate the terrorist threat, to promote political stability, and to address the humanitarian crisis. Testifying before a Senate subcommittee in March, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said “As we encourage political dialogue, we will continue to seek to isolate those who, out of extremism, refuse that dialogue and insist on violence.” Critics of that strategy suggest that U.S. counterterrorism objectives undermine efforts at political reconciliation. The radical Islamist group al-Shabaab tells Newsweek International its recent addition to the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups will help it attract young recruits.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.