Training session: Military affairs in member states are different and almost incompatible. Photo/FILE
One of the analysts, Bronwyn Bruton, calls for a new US policy of “constructive disengagement” from the TFG.
In a report for the non-governmental Council on Foreign Relations, she warns that negligible political support for the TFG inside Somalia indicates that a major counter-insurgency operation “is not the answer for the United States.”
But Washington appears committed to helping the TFG wrest control of Somalia’s capital from Al Shabaab, an Islamist force allied with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qa’ida network.
Gen William Ward, leader of the US Africa Command, told a Senate panel last week: “To the degree the transitional federal government can in fact re-exert control over Mogadishu, with the help of Amisom and others, I think is something that we would look to do in support.”
The New York Times had earlier reported that a TFG offensive could be launched in a few weeks.
Advocates of this military option argue that changed conditions inside Somalia enhance the possibility of success.
It is generally agreed, for example, that internal feuding as well as pressure from outsiders, including US Special Forces, have weakened Shabaab significantly.
The TFG’s forces have meanwhile been expanded and strengthened.
The United States has supplied the TFG with at least 80 tonnes of weaponry in the past year while also helping Kenya and other neighbouring countries train Somali recruits to fight the Islamists.
A 5,000-member African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) has also been upgraded.
The United States has simultaneously been focusing on the political dimensions of the Somalia stalemate, Obama administration officials say.
Washington has been pressing the TFG to engage with moderate Islamists in hopes of broadening the government’s base of support.
“There are limits to outside engagement,” US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson told the Times last week. “And there has to be an enormous amount of local buy-in for this work.”
Supporters of an offensive against Al Shabaab further contend that the status quo in Somalia poses unacceptable dangers to Western interests.
Al Shabaab is said to have developed strong connections with Al Qaeda elements in Yemen.
And with large swathes of Somalia itself under Islamist control, Al Shabaab and its allies have a base for carrying out their threatened attacks against Kenya and other countries in the region friendly with the United States.
But even if the TFG does manage, with US intelligence and logistical support, to drive Al Shabaab out of its strongholds in Mogadishu, the government lacks the ability to secure those areas, says a Somalia analyst who spoke on condition of not being named.
The most probable scenario, according to this expert, is for Al Shabaab to fade away after offering some initial resistance and then to re-infiltrate neighbourhoods where the TFG has little support.
Ms Bruton adds in her report that “the odds of the TFG emerging as an effective body are extremely poor.” Its heavy dependence on the United States has “perversely served to isolate the government and, at the same time, to propel co-operation among previously fractured and quarrelsome extremist groups,” she writes.
The US should distance itself from the TFG and signal to Al Shabaab and other Islamist groups that it will accept their authority in Somalia — provided they refrain from regional aggression and offering support to international jihad, Ms Bruton suggests.
Ted Dagne, another Somalia expert, presents a similar perspective in a recent report for the US Congress’ research unit.
His report further suggests that Al Shabaab leaders may prove receptive to a negotiated settlement if their names are removed from US and United Nations lists of terrorists.
“The international community may consider engagement with the Islamic insurgents and clan elders to deal with the political and security problems facing Somalia,” Mr Dagne writes. “Most observers believe that Al Shabaab can only be contained by another Islamic movement supported by clan elders.”
“The most effective way of containing the extremists, most observers contend, is to look for a Somali-led solution, both political and military,” Mr Dagne adds. “The TFG, Islamic Courts, Somaliland, Puntland, and other moderate Somali forces could form a coalition to contain the advances of the most extreme elements of the Al Shabaab politically and militarily. Such a coalition is likely to get the support of the Somali population rather than a peacekeeping force.”
The United States cannot afford to become directly involved in Somalia — nor can it simply ignore the potential threats posed by Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda fighters based in Somalia, Ms Bruton observes.
While rejecting the option of waging war at arm’s length via US drone and Special Forces strikes, she does support surgical attacks such as last September’s aerial killing in southern Somalia of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.
The Al Qaeda militant was said to have taken part in the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as well as the destruction four years later of the Paradise Hotel near Mombasa.
Source: The East Africa