On October 3-4, 1993, Somalis fired rocket-propelled grenades at a swarm of Black Hawk helicopters over Mogadishu. U.S. troops were on a mission to capture two of Aideed’s top lieutenants, but the grenades brought down two of the aircraft.
In the ensuing chaos, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed. Washington withdrew soon after, and the UN followed it out of the country in 1995.
[18]
The decade that followed saw a series of vain attempts to establish a viable, Mogadishu-based government.
Regions like Puntland in the northeast, and Jubbaland in the south, declared themselves autonomous in 1998. And the Transitional National Government (TNG), formed in 2000 during peace talks in Djibouti, never controlled more than parts of Mogadishu before dissolving in 2003.
Its successor, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), was at first so weak and unpopular that it could only govern from Kenya. When it moved to Somalia in June 2005, it set up operations in Baidoa—not Mogadishu—and its Parliament “
met in a converted grain warehouse.”
[19]
“What has happened in Mogadishu is a miracle”
As government after government tried to establish itself, other groups emerged to provide the structure and services the TNG and TFG could not.
The Islamic Courts (ICU) was the most prominent of these groups. The earliest Somali Islamic Courts, formed in Mogadishu in 1994, were “
a response to the need for some means of upholding law and order.” And they succeeded in this respect, spreading to southern Mogadishu in 1998, and then unifying in 2000 to become the ICU.
That group was “
genuinely popular ,” and spread beyond the capital to southern Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region.
[20]
Its growing popularity and territorial coverage angered the Somali warlords. And it was amidst mounting ICU-warlord tension that several Courts members disappeared, or were assassinated, in 2005.
The Courts blamed the CIA for these attacks, and formed a military wing—al-Shabaab, or “the youth”—in response.
But these self-defense efforts only further enflamed tensions, prompting the warlords to form, in February 2006, the CIA-backed Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.
[21]
Tensions soon exploded into all-out war, with the Courts prevailing at first, securing control of Mogadishu by early June 2006. They proceeded to clean up the city and reopened its long-shuttered airport and seaport. Residents described ICU rule as “
a miracle ,” and the Courts enjoyed a 95% approval rate.
This popularity allowed the ICU to extend its influence beyond the capital, and by October 2006 the group “controlled
most of southern central Somalia .”
[22]
These successes revealed that, for the international conferences and interim Somali regimes discussed above, the goal was not to establish effective Somali governance. Because the ICU ruled effectively, but in the wrong way: on its own terms. This was unacceptable. And Somalis would be punished as a result.
“Whole neighborhoods were shelled”
The TFG was weak, but it had powerful friends. Ethiopia gave it military support during the latter half of 2006—the time of ICU rule.
Washington had been funding and training Ethiopian troops for the better part of a decade by then, through initiatives dating back to the Clinton era. Ethiopian troops proceeded to commit human rights abuses, but U.S. support persisted.
[23]
By December 2006, these troops were ready. They teamed with the TFG to launch airstrikes and a ground offensive in Somalia, quickly massacring 1,000 ICU members.
Soon they captured Mogadishu; the ICU fled the city, then the country. To consolidate their victory, Ethiopian and Somali forces shelled neighborhoods, displacing hundreds of thousands, and terrorized the public through hospital bombings, rape, murder, and torture.
African Union troops also participated in these atrocities.
The African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, began in January 2007, just after the ICU’s defeat. And their forces, mainly Ugandans and Burundians, routinely abused and raped women and assaulted civilians.
The U.S. government, though, stepped-up aid to Burundi and Uganda, and U.S. contractors—DynCorp International and Bancroft Global Development trained AMISOM troops—were complicit in these crimes.
[25] The CIA ran a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives which built up an
indigenous strike force that carried out snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against al-Shabaab. The model was the
Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRU) in South Vietnam under the murderous
Phoenix program .
“The sky was full of strikes”
Besides running de facto death squads, Washington also terrorized Somalis from above. Its first airstrikes date to January 2007—the twilight of the George W. Bush era—and gave aerial support to Ethiopia’s murderous intervention, targeting ICU and al-Shabaab members trying to flee the country.
[26]
At the time—and until 2011—unmanned aircraft over Somalia were strictly surveillance tools.
The attack on Aden Hashi Ayro, a top ICU council member and al-Shabaab’s first leader, required a complex choreography of military surveillance and coordinated launches that set the trademark for the high-tech U.S. war in Somalia over the next decade.
First, two Air Force AC-130 gunships landed at a small Ethiopian airport on January 6, 2007. One of them took off for Somalia the next day, accompanied by a Predator drone—itself likely launched from a U.S. base in Djibouti, after which a pair of remote pilots, “most likely sitting
in a trailer in Nevada ,” took control.
The Predator then traveled 500 miles south, over the eastern Ahmar Mountains in Ethiopia and the Ogaden region’s western edge, before reaching its destination: Ras Kamboni, a remote fishing village on the Somalia-Kenya border.
The Predator proceeded to use Ethiopian intelligence to track Ayro’s convoy. It locked onto the target, and then it was time to strike: the AC-130 fired, “
smashing the convoy .” The attack killed up to a dozen militants, as many as eight civilians—but not Ayro. He somehow survived, but died in another U.S. missile strike in May 2008.
[27]
Weeks later, U.S. Special Forces targeted Ahmed Madobe, an ICU deputy. “At around 4am we woke up to perform the dawn prayers,” Madobe later recalled, “and that’s when the planes
started to hit us . The entire airspace was full of planes. There was AC-130, helicopters and fighter jets. The sky was full of strikes.” Though he survived, the other eight members of his convoy—men and women “
on the run ”—were all killed. Soon after the bombing ended, “Ethiopian and U.S. forces
landed by helicopter ,” taking Madobe prisoner.
[28]
Other U.S. airstrikes were like those targeting Ayro and Madobe: Heavy collateral damage was routine. Yet another January 2007 bombing, on Hayo, killed as many as 31 civilians and
“at least one child.” The next year, on March 3, U.S. cruise missiles hit Dhobley, a town in the Lower Juba region, killing up to six civilians.
One local elder, lucky to survive, recalled the terror: “I woke up to
loud blasts and flashing lights that shook my doors and windows. Airplanes were flying at a low altitude and were firing. I ran outside and hid under trees.”
And the following May, U.S. missiles killed somewhere between five and 30 civilians in Dusa Marreb, in the Galgaduud region.
The wide range reflects Washington’s studied indifference toward its bombing victims. The local population, for whatever reason, was more invested, “
counting skulls to determine the number” slain in the strike’s aftermath.
[29]
“The most effective system of governance Somalia has known”
Amidst this chaos, one group affords Somalis stability. This group was once part of the Courts system—and the only element able to survive the brutal, U.S.-supported Ethiopian intervention: al-Shabaab.
After Ethiopia’s assault forced Courts members into exile, al-Shabaab sought new alliances. It
forged ties with al-Qaeda in 2008, as Ethiopia’s occupation continued.
Through its opposition to Addis Ababa, and through its association with the ICU, it won support—both as the occupation dragged on, and in its aftermath.
Much as the ICU had, al-Shabaab gained control over large swathes of Somali territory, winning much of the country’s south by 2010. It used violence to establish itself, exactly as the TNG and TFG had before it.
But al-Shabaab governs through more than terror. In its jurisdictions, according to residents interviewed by BBC Africa editor Mary Harper, “[it] is
present and visible in people’s lives in a way that government is not, especially in rural areas, and smaller towns and villages. For many, it is simply the best option available,” and in some respects “has created the most effective system of governance Somalia has known since its collapse into chaos and conflict began in the late 1980s.”
Analysts acknowledge, sometimes begrudgingly, the group’s successes—and, often, superiority to the government—in fundraising, financial management, tax collection, and upholding the legal system.
Think of this track record, the next time a U.S. official promises to wipe out al-Shabaab.
