Al-Shabaab’s Regionalization Strategy

It was the biggest militant attack in sub-Saharan Africa since the infamous 1998 al-Qaida bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The two coordinated bombings in Uganda’s capital Kampala killed 74 people and wounded dozens of others watching the World Cup final on 11 July.

For al-Shabaab it was a successful attack against the country that forms the backbone of the 6,000-strong African Union force in Mogadishu. The movement previously threatened both Uganda and Burundi, the second major troop-supplier to the AMISOM mission, which secures the survival of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) whose movement is virtually confined to a few blocks in the capital.

Provoking an intervention

On the surface, attacking Uganda on its own soil seems to be as much retaliation for Uganda’s refusal to withdraw its troops from Somalia as a political message with the aim to deter outsiders from future meddling in Somalia.

However, at least two other, albeit less obvious goals can be attributed to these attacks.

One the one hand, the attacks will strengthen al-Shabaab internally by converging the agendas of the nationalist and the international wing of their movement. As a recent external pageInternational Crisis Group Policy Briefingcall_made pointed out, already existing internal divisions of the group drastically increased in recent months. Since the official withdrawal of Ethiopian troops in January 2009 and the introduction of Islamic law by the TFG, the insurgents have had an increasingly difficult time justifying their continued armed opposition to the government of President Sheikh Sharif.

Evidently, crossing the border satisfies the international wing, wedded to al-Qaida-inspired notions of a permanent global jihad. At the same time, attacking Uganda pleases the agenda of the nationalist wing, which views the TFG as an illegitimate foreign puppy that is able to survive only because it is propped up by AMISOM troops, US weapons and EU money.

On the other hand, the Kampala bombings are part of a rather cynical but rational strategy that is well known from other terrorist groups. The regionalization of the conflict builds on the notion that such an attack will trigger a harsh response in the name of pre-emption and lead to renewed foreign intervention.

In turn, indiscriminate retaliations and more foreign boots on the ground would help al-Shabaab to portray itself again as fighting a nationalist struggle and thereby overcome the steady erosion of its popularity and credibility among the Somali people. It was exactly this playbook that brought the movement broad popular support and legitimacy in the aftermath of the Ethiopian intervention in late 2006.

Finding the right response

The nature of the external response will determine if al-Shabaab will succeed with these strategies.

Here the stakes look rather dire: Already a week before the Kampala attacks the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional body of six East African States, external pageagreed in a communiquécall_made to a request by the TFG delegation to reinforce the AU mission with an additional 2,000 troops.

The fact that IGAD did not rule out bordering states - in particular the archenemy and dominant regional military power Ethiopia - taking part in the AMISOM mission resulted in external pagestiff criticism, not only from al-Shabaabcall_made but also from within the TFG.

Criticizing his own president, Somalia's special envoy to the US, Abukar Arman, wrote in an external pageopinion piece on Aljazeeracall_made that “the IGAD resolution will embolden the very extremist elements it is intended to subdue.”

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi already wisely ruled out sending troops again to Somalia, but he stated previously that he would not hesitate to do exactly that if Islamist insurgents seized power there.

The Obama administration, which is currently reviewing the failed Somalia policy of its predecessor, is known to invest political capital to restrain Ethiopia from officially re-entering Somalia. Washington is urging its regional ally to keep a low profile in its (not so) secret operations in the border regions and in its technical and logistical support of the TFG and allied Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama’a.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in turn, is currently in the run-up to national elections scheduled for early 2011. In power since 1986, he is seeking a fourth term in office and is campaigning on his legacy of bringing stability to his war-torn country after a decades-long struggle with the Northern Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). He is responding to the Kampala attacks by a external pageshow of forcecall_made for the domestic and international audiences, announcing that Ugandan troops will now go on the offensive and with troop expansion “the African Union will be able to clean up this place.”

Already hours after the Kampala attacks, Ugandan AU soldiers shelled a densely populated residential quarter in Mogadishu, which looked very much like a first retaliation. Such indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas antagonized the Somali population and galvanized resistance to the TFG and its allies (apart from violating the law of war as stated in a external pageUN reportcall_made this May).

Part of the problem in finding an adequate strategy to tackle the intractable Somali conflict is evidently the absence of a local partner that resembles some sort of government. While the EU, with US logistical help, started to train Somali soldiers for the fledgling TFG army this June, its counterpart still looks like a Potemkin façade with no change in sight. The TFG was not even able to deliver any services in their manageable quarter in Mogadishu, hence yielding no performance legitimacy whatsoever, which could convince and attract the Somali people to put their faith behind President Sheikh Sharif.

The irony is that at a time when the US is finally searching for a more sober approach, having reflected on its failed security-dominated policy and acknowledged that foreign intervention has exacerbated the long-running conflict in Somalia, Somalia’s regional neighbors may prompt a re-learning of the lesson.