Map of Azania/Jubaland
Witnesses claim that a Kenyan aerial bombardment on 30th October killed 5 non-combatants in a refugee camp near the southern Somali town of Jibril. While the Kenyan army claim they targeted al-Shabaab Islamist fighters, killing 10 and wounding 45, MSF reports would appear to corroborate the witnesses’ accounts.
This is the latest event to raise questions over independent Kenya’s first unilateral military action – their mid-October march into Somalia. The invasion aims to drive al-Shabaab from the region in a clear attempt to protect the Kenyan tourism industry. The recent killing and abductions of Western tourists and aid workers have been highly publicised, and pose a great threat to the Kenyan economy. Remembering the 54% plummet in tourism revenues that followed the 2007 Presidential election violence, the government was compelled into taking decisive action that being sending Kenyan troops into Somalia on the 16th October.
Al-Shabaab’s spokesman, Ali Mohamud Rage vowed retaliatory attacks and told the BBC, “Kenya doesn’t know war. We know war. We have fought against governments older and stronger than Kenya and we have defeated them.” Compared to the 2006-2009 Ethiopian invasion (to which Rage is referring), the Kenyan operation does not stack up favourably. Not only have they sent fewer troops (although official numbers haven’t been released in either case, Ethiopia was estimated to have sent roughly 8,000 troops, compared to Kenya’s 2,000), but they have also chosen to invade during the rainy season, when most of southern Somalia turns to marshland. Additionally, since al-Shabaab’s first successful external operation – the July 2010 suicide attacks in Kampala – and considering the large Somali diaspora in Kenya, reprisal attacks are highly likely. Indeed, on 24th October, 2 grenade attacks were carried out in Nairobi.
The Somali President has declared the invasion “not welcome”, and commentators have argued that it risks uniting the Islamists at a time that they were splintering. J Peter Pham of the Atlantic Council think tank stated that the operation appears to be based “merely on an emotional reaction,” and that despite recently waning popular support for the Islamists, this operation allows them “to once again rally Somalis around them under the banner of nationalism.” Furthermore, increased fighting in the region will clearly hamper the already stretched aid efforts to reach those affected by famine. Roughly 3 million in southern Somalia are at risk of starvation, but al-Shabaab’s rejection of international humanitarian aid, combined with security concerns, has dramatically complicated the aid effort.
Regional commentators have noted an underlying, longer-term motive behind the Kenyan invasion – the securing of a buffer zone. Comprising Gedo, Lower Juba and Middle Juba (the three Westernmost areas of Somalia), the semi-autonomous region Jubaland, or Azania, was officially created on 3rd April this year, to a mixed reception. The region includes al-Shabaab strongholds of Afmadow and Kismayo port (their economic lifeline and their most important strategic asset), and it is this area, rather than southern Somalia as a whole, that Kenyan troops are looking to clear.
For several years, Kenya has been supporting the creation of Azania, including training and equipping Somali troops to increase control over the area, but Ethiopia remains unenthusiastic. By ‘liberating’ the region, while no doubt ensuring their influence over it, Kenya risks aggravating Ethiopia, potentially drawing them into a proxy war. Tensions have already been mounting over the Kenyan-approved, self-appointed leader of the region, Mohammed Abdi Gandhi. Gandhi is a member of the Ogaden clan, many of whom live across the border in Ethiopia; Addis Ababa fears empowering this clan through a strengthened Azania could lead to internal conflict.
It is hard to envisage exactly what would constitute a ‘success’ for Kenya. The ideal would involve the locating and freeing of hostages, while simultaneously forcing al-Shabaab out of Azania, allowing the semi-autonomous region to become a stable buffer zone. However the Kenyan army lacks the logistical ability to track the hostages and the invasion is unlikely to maintain enough domestic support to allow for a long-term, peace-building type mission in Azania. Previous foreign incursion in Somalia tell a cautionary tale – both the US and Ethiopia,which boasts one of the most respected armies on the continent, were eventually forced to withdraw after painful, and in the case of the US humiliating, losses. Even if militarily inferior Kenya succeeds in driving the bulk of al-Shabaab out of the region, the aftermath remains unclear. Guerrilla fighters will likely remain, and there is a risk that once al-Shabaab’s control is removed, clan fighting will return. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG), plagued by internal division and lack of popularsupport, is simply not strong enough to control the area, and the 9,5000 African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops are already overstretched with African nations unwilling to bolster them to the mandated 20,000. As such, the hasty invasion, which came after only 12 days of planning, risks leaving Kenya trapped as a player in Somalia’s bloody and protracted conflict – a position they had been eagerly and deftly avoiding for the past 20 years.
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Great article, thoroughly researched and very insightful!