African leaders push to extend threatened AU mission to Somalia

Leaders of countries making up an African Union military mission in Somalia on Friday insisted they wanted to extend its mandate, despite Washington ending political and critical financial support.

Somalia has battled Al-Shabaab insurgents for around two decades, but the Islamist group still controls vast swathes of the country.

The African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) is the leading force supporting the Somali army, providing roughly 12,000 troops.

But the United States has announced it will end support to the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS), which crucially provides logistics to the mission, at the end of this year.

Washington -- the main financial contributor to UNSOS -- said it would also oppose any further UN logistical support to AUSSOM.

In a July 1 letter, Washington accused Somalia's government of a lack of progress against Al-Shabaab and in addressing security and governance challenges.

Leaders in the Ugandan capital Kampala stressed the need for "an orderly, coordinated and phased exit of AUSSOM".

It should be supported by a UN Security Council-mandated mechanism for up to two years during which security would gradually be handed over to Somali forces, according to a statement read to reporters.

Analysts fear a similar scenario as in Afghanistan when US troops pulled out in 2021. That could lead to the possible collapse of the government in Mogadishu which for two decades has had AU backing against the Islamist insurgency.

But analysts said the chances of the mission continuing were slim given Washington's stance.

"I doubt that there is any viable possibility for sustaining this mission without reversal of the US decision on UNSOS," Solomon Dersso, head of the Amani Africa think tank, said.

Washington's decision is "irreversible", a senior diplomat to the AU told AFP on condition of anonymity.

It is part of a wider fatigue among donors and partners of Somalia in the face of what the US described as constant "internal rivalries and political infighting".

Somalia is deeply fragmented and currently in the midst of another political crisis.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had the constitution changed earlier this year, extending his term by a year after it expired on May 15.

Opposition parties and regional governments rejected the changes, leading to violent clashes in several parts of the country, including Mogadishu.

The summit urged Mohamud to convene a conference of leaders of the government, opposition and federal states.

The president responded that Somali political matters should not feature in the summit statement and must not be "internationalised".

Leaders in their statement also asked international partners "to consider the provision of additional resources to address the financial shortfalls" facing the AU mission.

UNSOS operational costs -- from troop rotation to food, fuel and medical equipment -- were half a billion dollars this year, three times more than AUSSOM's budget, the Balqiis think tank based in Mogadishu said in a recent report.

The European Union, traditionally the biggest donor to African missions in Somalia, has reduced its funding this year.

The AU "has no solution" and "now finds itself in a situation where it has to make a decision" quickly, the diplomat to the AU said.

"There's really no other choice than to end the AU mission before UNSOS shuts down and we find ourselves unable to evacuate our troops" from Somalia due to a lack of logistical resources, the diplomat added.

"A complete exit... will have security consequences that the Somalia government cannot handle," warned Meressa Kahsu Dessu, of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

"If the exit is not carefully done, it can reproduce an Afghan scenario where the Taliban took over, with the Shabaab," he added.

In comments on X, Abdisaid Muse Ali, former Somali security advisor and ex-foreign minister, said the Kampala talks should force Somalia's leaders to confront what follows an AU drawdown.

"In Kabul, leaders came to treat foreign troops, donor money & diplomatic backing as permanent foundations of power," he wrote.

"Patronage crowded out institution-building, corruption drained public authority, & political factions fought over offices while the security order weakened beneath them.

"Somalia now faces a similar danger," he cautioned.