Atmis in funding dilemma after Somalia requests drawdown delay

But then Somalia kicked off a new chain of events after it wrote to the UN Security Council – instead of the African Union – asking that the 3,000 soldiers stay around for three more months.

The request will be validated by the African Union Peace and Security Council, which traditionally discusses mission policy before transmitting decisions to the Security Council.

Also read: Kenya needs strategic mindset to engage ‘global Somalia’

After Somalia wrote to the UNSC, the AU Peace and Security Council said it would hold an urgent meeting to discuss the request. It had not sat by Friday.

A communique issued on Friday said that after its meeting on September 23 in New York, the Council took “note” of the request and decided to convene a session “to specifically consider the matter in due course.”

Until that happens, the drawdown might have to go on as planned. But sources told The EastAfrican that Somalia is looking to its frontier neighbours for bilateral arrangements to temporarily plug the security vacuum.

Djibouti especially had expressed willingness to maintain troops under such an arrangement even though all troop contributors – including Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Burundi – had agreed to Somalia’s 90-day delay.

Mogadishu argued, in a letter on September 13, that it did not have sufficient force regeneration to take over Atmis roles and warned that captured territories could fall back to al-Shabaab.

Hussein Sheikh Ali, Somalia’s National Security Adviser, said in the letter to Ferit-Hoxha, the September President for the UN Security Council, that the move arose from “our compelling need to address significant challenges revealed by the Joint Technical Assessment report, which lays out profound implications for the security transition in Somalia.”

That assessment had been conducted by Somalia and Atmis and it warned that some of the crucial areas, including civilian neighbourhoods near places the African troops were vacating could become new al-Shabaab strongholds.

Also read: Somalia vs Al-Shabaab, a local war with global implications

This week, the five troop contributors backed Mogadishu’s request in a joint letter filed by their foreign ministers to the UN Security Council last week but publicised on Thursday.

The move by Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda and Burundi now means the 3,000 soldiers who were to leave Somalia by September 29 may stay longer or be replaced by an equal number to ensure there are no security gaps.

Atmis, initially known as the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) had 21,000 troops but has been drawing down the numbers under a programme agreed on last year in April. The Mission is supposed to leave entirely by December 2024. But there has been no guarantee of financing their longer stay.

The five countries said they are in “strong support of technical pause” of the drawdown because they agree with Somalia that the country needs time to address certain security gaps, including pooling enough personnel to take over security responsibilities.

“Our aim is to ensure that Somalia has the space to address the pressing challenges without hastening the security transition process,” they wrote.

The UN Security Council has to provide a legal framework by approving longer stay for the troops. By Friday, the Council had not sat. But then the African Union will have to negotiate for new funding, which had been drying up long before the mission began drawdown.

Military experts warned this week that any gaps in the war on al-Shabaab could embolden the militants and impact Somalia’s transition journey.

“Somalia has made significant progress in the last year against al-Shabaab, but we know progress is not always a straight line, so we may see significant improvement on one day and maybe we see challenges on the next day,” said US Defence Secretary Lloyd J Austin III on his tour of Nairobi this week.

Austin spoke with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who told him he needs time to generate enough troops to cover the gaps left by Atmis.

“Countries in the region are looking for ways to help but in terms of how that is going to look like is yet to be defined,” said the Defence Secretary.

Somalia’s request to delay the drawdown triggered political, diplomatic and military meetings in Brussels, Addis Ababa, New York and Mogadishu.

“The EU has taken note of the Government of Somalia’s request for a technical pause to the UN Security Council mandated Phase 2 drawdown of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (Atmis). Such a request should be formally launched by the African Union and accepted by the UN Security Council. For the time being, the AU has confirmed to stay with the planned schedule, which foresees the withdrawal of 3,000 Atmis troops by 30 September 2023,” said Jennifer Sanchez Da Silva, the EU spokesperson.

Also read: Atmis are leaving Somalia: What needs to happen to keep peace

One of the gaps identified in a joint AU-Somalia technical report was Somalia’s current inability to guard residential areas near Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) to be relinquished by Atmis.

Dr Hawa Noor, a security researcher, told The EastAfrican that the problem goes beyond numbers and money.

“A three-month pause? One would equate that to a pain-relieving medicine: It offers temporary relief but does not alleviate the problem,” she said. “It means that the status quo will continue, only for another three months. In the end, a long-term solution is needed.

This also means keeping out politics, especially rivalries between regional governments and Mogadishu.”  The troop contributors argued that the matter of funding must now be urgently addressed.

“Atmis TCCs note that Somalia will require the assistance of international partners in seeking funding to support 3,000 troops. We propose sourcing funding from different budget lines and partners to ensure that the necessary resources are available to sustain the security transition effectively. We are committed to working with Somalia and Somalia’s partners to secure the financial support required for this critical mission.”

Experts say funding could provide certainty to the future of the mission but Atmis, and Amisom before it, were supposed to help build capacity for Somalia to secure itself.

“Each TCC has a domestic problem at the moment… and Atmis was never meant to be a permanent mission. It was supposed to be an intervention force to help stabilise Somalia and leave,” explained a security expert who consulted for the Kenyan government on counterterrorism policy and is therefore not allowed to comment on it.

“Atmis now faces a dilemma on whether to pull out and gaps [be] filled by al-Shabaab. It has to be done with a lot of considerations because there is the issue of sustaining territories conquered from al-Shabaab. There is a need to have a conversation on which regions the troops have to pull from first, not just a deadline issue,” she said.

Burundian troops vacated Bio Cadale in Hirshabelle State, but had not left Somalia by press time. Sources in Mogadishu told The EastAfrican that Atmis soldiers are still occupying the bases they were meant to vacate and hand over to the Somali National Army.

Uganda Peoples Defence Forces spokesperson Brig-Gen Felix Kulayigye also confirmed that Uganda has not received any of its troops that were expected to leave the mission as part of Phase 2 of the drawdown.

The TCCs say Somalia doesn’t have capacity yet to divide its roles between taking over FOBs and continuing with the war on al-Shabaab.

By press time, Atmis spokesperson Gifty Bingley indicated that there was no new development to reject or endorse Somalia’s proposal since last week when she hinted that Mogadishu’s appeal for a “technical pause” had triggered “discussions at the highest levels”.

With so much at stake, not least who would pick up the bill for the troops’ extended stay, it is understood that the UN Security Council, the European Union and the African Union were not amused by Somalia’s unilateral decision to request for a pause.

Also Read: Atmis should exit Somalia with caution

Regional security experts blame the government of Somalia for causing a stampede of all the parties and a new financial headache for donors.

“Who is going to feed the 3,000 soldiers?” asked Ugandan security expert and diplomat Simon Mulongo, who also served from August 2017 to November 2021 as Deputy Head of Amisom.

“It should have been done earlier. You don’t halt the drawdown when it’s already ongoing. You need to move troops, heavy-duty mechanised equipment like tanks, long-range artillery weapons. And all this is a cost… so you cannot tell people to stop in the middle of the drawdown,” Mulongo argued.

The EU, which foots the bill, also questions the planning that went into Somalia’s proposal, which will require mission donors to find additional funds to foot operation bills and also pay troops allowances for the three-month extended period. According to Mulongo, the 90-day pause is a smokescreen for the reality that the country’s force generation to fight the Shabaab is not the success it has been painted to be.

“They’ve been posting a false image of force generation. It takes a lot to make a well-trained soldier with combat experience. What can you do or achieve in those three months? To me, this is a political statement without justification.”

Uganda, Eritrea, and international partners like the EU, US and Turkey have been training Somalia to build an army, but insiders argue that the force generation has yielded fewer numbers – about 800 personnel per year.

By Aggrey Mutambo, Julius Barigaba and Mary Wambui