After Kismayu, the real battle begins

The Kenya Defence Force is poised to wrest control of the strategic southern port city of Kismayu from the Somali insurgent group Al-Shabaab in the coming few weeks.

The fall of Kismayu will deal the extremist group a major blow. A vital source of revenue that has underpinned its political prestige and influence and allowed it to mollify the clans and buy consent will be choked.

More significant, the fall of the city may sow further dissension in its ranks and foment a fatal process of internal organisational disintegration and decomposition, impossible to reverse.

But one must not lose sight of the potential military pitfalls.

Owing to the city’s economic, political and symbolic significance, it is highly likely Al-Shabaab hard-liners may attempt to put up a stiff resistance, even though there have been reports clan elders have been busy piling the pressure on the movement to avoid a blood bath and to pull out.

Even if this pressure succeeds and the Kenyan forces and their Amisom allies take the city without any major combat, the struggle to secure Kismayu and maintain control could prove long, arduous and complicated.

Remnants of Al-Shabaab will continue to wage a low-intensity guerrilla campaign and operate discreetly in some pockets of the vast city.

As has happened elsewhere, the takeover of the city will see a corresponding rise in insurgent suicide and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks as well as targeted assassinations.

To be clear, the overarching strategic objective of the counter-insurgency mission is broader than the defeat of Al-Shabaab militarily and the liberation of the city, important though that is.

The greater overriding imperative must be to win over the trust of the public and create the context for wider stabilisation — a gradual restoration of peace, law and order and the creation of a credible and legitimate political dispensation at the local and national level.

This may all smack of “nation-building”, something which most armies on combat duties abroad are instinctively averse to.

It raises the spectre of mission creep and remains a constant source of tension between commanders on the ground and policy makers.

Non-combat tasks

This reluctance is understandable and for obvious reasons. Armies are not well-trained or equipped for non-combat tasks and in a situation where the available resources are inadequate, it is unfair to expect them to be enthusiastic about performing the role, much less to discharge it with competence.

A good grasp of the prevailing ground truths and the wider context and dynamics is however necessary and critical.

1. Preventing insecurity: Much of the public support for Al-Shabaab in southern Somalia historically rested on the group’s tight administrative and functional control; a tough approach on crime and the swift and brutal sharia regime it imposed.

For many communities blighted by decades of lawlessness and violence this was the Faustian pact they had to enter into — in the process giving up their liberty in exchange for the semblance of order and relative peace offered under Al-Shabaab’s totalitarian rule.

For a variety of reasons, not least the Transitional Federal Government’s endemic dysfunction and institutional weakness, many of the emerging liberated areas are experiencing a security vacuum.

A plethora of armed groups nominally loyal to the TFG have stepped into this vacuum, ostensibly to prevent Al-Shabaab infiltration and suppress criminality in their neighbourhoods.

Because some do, indeed, serve good community policing and security functions, the TFG appears reluctant to challenge them.

Most are however tied to clan interests and linked to powerful local actors and therein lies the problem. Urgent steps must be taken to dismantle these groups before they become an obstacle to peace.

2. Governance: The task of encouraging the creation of a post-Shabaab local administration in Kismayu — one that is functional, legitimate, and credible and enjoys popular backing — is by far the most difficult challenge that awaits the KDF and its Amisom allies.

The city’s population is diverse and like much of the Jubba Valley, there is intense and perennial contestation between the major clans over political dominance and resources.

Reconciling the complex welter of diverse clan interests and encouraging the communities to work together to establish a united administration and agree on a formula to share resources is key to improving the prospects for stabilisation.

By contrast, a political stalemate in Kismayu could be catastrophic and thoroughly damaging, especially for the hearts and minds campaign.

While it is true some work has been done to select and train a new crop of leaders and administrators and a “shadow local government” is waiting in the wings to take charge of the city, there are many who say the entire process has not been sufficiently inclusive.

It is certainly not too late to address such fears and accommodate those who intend to play a constructive political role.

3. A smooth transition in Mogadishu: What happens in a post-Shabaab Kismayu and other liberated towns in the periphery partly depends on what happens in the centre.

Failure at the centre can have huge ripple effects across the country. The troubled Roadmap plan to end Somalia’s cycle of inept political transitions and usher in a more stable and functional government by 20, August 2012 is now at a critical stage.

The process must be shepherded to a conclusion that enjoys broad support. Much of the intense international diplomatic engagement with the stakeholders in the roadmap plan is partly to mitigate against the potential risk of a political melt-down in Mogadishu.

A renewed stalemate in Mogadishu will most certainly compound the governance crisis in the liberated areas and potentially create the perfect conditions for Al-Shabaab to stage a comeback. Consequently, pressure must be maintained on the parties involved to prevent this from happening.

4. Service delivery and improving living conditions: Many of the liberated areas are vast acid lakes of human misery and deprivation. Millions face chronic hunger, acute malnutrition and depend on food aid.

It is impossible for the political elite jostling for national leadership in Mogadishu to win over this sullen mass of desperate and despaired citizenry, much less interest them in what is happening there, in the absence of any scheme to provide basic services and improve living conditions.

Unless the circumstances of these people improve, there will be no dramatic shift in the negative public attitude towards the current regime and possibly the one expected to be inaugurated in August.

A number of donors are now trying to change this and funding modest projects to rehabilitate infrastructure and provide basic services in major towns recovered from Al-Shabaab, such as Mogadishu.
Such schemes are positive and must be extended to other areas, such as Kismayu, when the situation permits and the active combat phase is concluded.