The following introduction is an excerpt from the case study, “The problem with militias in Somalia: Almost everyone wants them despite their dangers,” produced by Vanda Felbab-Brown for the United Nations University report, “Hybrid conflict, hybrid peace: How militias and paramilitary groups shape post-conflict transitions,” of which Adam Day was the project lead. The full case study can be found here.

Introduction

Militia groups have historically been a defining feature of Somalia’s conflict landscape, especially since the ongoing civil war began three decades ago. Communities create or join such groups as a primary response to conditions of insecurity, vulnerability and contestation. Somali powerbrokers, subfederal authorities, the national Government and external interveners have all turned to armed groups as a primary tool for prosecuting their interests. State-aligned militias help to offset the weakness of Somalia’s official security forces, produce greater motivation and better intelligence and enhance bonds with local communities, perhaps even suppressing crime and intraclan violence.

However, Somalia’s State-aligned militia groups are also an underlying source of insecurity, violent contestation, abusive rule, impunity and pernicious outside manipulation. They give rise to and allow the entrenchment of powerful militant groups such as the Al-Qaida- supporting, jihadist Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly referred to as al-Shabaab. As such, their increasingly central role in the fight against al-Shabaab is a double-edged sword: short-term military gains must be balanced against the militias’ longer-term, destabilizing impact.

This study analyses the pros and cons of relying on militias for security provision and counter-terrorism objectives in Somalia. It details the evolution, effectiveness and effects on stabilization efforts of several militia groups — Macawiisleey, Ahlu SunnaWal Jama’a, South-West Special Police, Mukhtar Robow’s militias, Ahmed Madobe’s militias (the Jubbaland State Forces), the Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) and the Puntland Security Force (PSF). The study then assesses the effectiveness and shortcomings of existing responses to militias in Somalia, providing recommendations to national actors, policymakers and practitioners.

At the beginning of 2020, militias are once again at the forefront of a major policy debate about the strategy for State-building and security in Somalia. Since 2012, after helping to dramatically weaken a brutal, dangerous al-Shabaab regime that controlled much of the country, the international community has assisted in building State institutions in Somalia, which had been overwhelmingly destroyed in two and half decades of civil war. As part of its continuing efforts to combat al-Shabaab, the international community has partnered with Somalia’s national Government to build Somalia’s official armed and law enforcement forces and civilian institutions of governance, while advancing a plan to devolve power to the country’s states (known as federal member states).

But eight years later, many of these efforts have not yet delivered results. Al-Shabaab remains one of Somalia’s most powerful political and military actors. In fact, since 2018, the group has gained momentum and deepened its political entrenchment, prompting some members of the international community to question whether the State-building model is the right approach. Despite USD $1 billion of international financial assistance and international training since 2012, the Somali National Army (SNA) continues to lack the gamut of fighting capacities, relying instead on international forces to wrest territory from al- Shabaab, or even to keep the group from openly retaking other large territories, including majorcities. Existing efforts to strengthen the SNA and other official forces are not producing adequate numbers of sufficiently competent Somali national soldiers. Intensified rivalries between Somalia’s federal Government and the federal member states further hamper the deployment and effectiveness of the SNA.

As a result, countries such as the United States, Kenya, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates — the former three of which have military forces in Somalia — are losing their appetite for the State-building project in Somalia.1 With the SNA chronically underperforming, these countries are poised to intensify their cultivation of pro- Government militias to fight against al-Shabaab. Even countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany (which have been at the forefront of multilateral efforts in Somalia) are increasingly motivated to support at least one set of militia groups — the State-supported paramilitary darwish (also known as “special police forces”) — through financial and possibly other non- lethal support.2 These countries’ rationale is that, although reliance on militia groups for counter-terrorism and security is problematic, it is equally unsustainable and problematic to rely on the small and incompetent SNA and the national Somali Police Force (SPF). The situation in Somalia is putting growing pressures on both the Somali Government and the international community to scale up the use of such militias.