We have recently been bombarded by the wars on the ISIS group in Somalia and a re-emerging war on the Al Shabaab Group in Southern Somalia, the Middle Shabelle region, in particular. The news reaching the world appears to being engineered to coincide with the near completion of the Turkish 3D surveys off the coast of Somalia by the Turkish Research Vessel Oruc Reis, expected to conclude its works by the end of April 2025.
It is most interesting to note that the President of the Federal Government of Somalia has been going on and off to the war front in the central regions as if this was just a game, dressed in camouflage, although the Al Shabab terror group, appears to be at his doorstep just off Mogadishu, in Bal ‘ad and in Afgoi, where they collect taxes from vehicles and people leaving or going to Mogadishu.
It is also most strange that the Al Shabab war is taking place in the president’s own region and the people being killed are his own people, both the clan-invested government soldiers he deploys and the civilian populations. He has even asked the help of his declared arch-enemy Ethiopia for help, a strangely twisted story. No one knows who they are helping!
Sometimes, one asks oneself if the President is joking like Egypt’s Imam Adel, the comedian or more like Aw Kombe of Mogadishu, the Somali comedian. The war in the central regions of the country appears to be just inland from where the oil and gas offshore is to be extracted and near the port of Hobyo to be built for the purpose.
Further north, the war on the ISIS group by the soldiers of the Puntland region continues. The caves from which they have emptied the ISIS fighters, appear to be more like mines than homes, at least those shown by the multitude of Somali youtubers in the region. The questions is, “What have they been mining for?” No one talks about this possibility of mining, although ample evidence points to a continuing illegal mining in the region.
These wars appear to be diversionary tactics deployed by whoever is exploiting illegally, the resources of the nation and this is being helped either tacitly or unknowingly by the Federal Government and/or by the leaders of the some of the regions of the country. The wars seem to be a scare tactic against western countries in the region and more particularly the United States which has ample forces in the region, that there is, indeed, a major religious jihadist terror in the country.
The fact that gold and other minerals such as tin has been extracted from northeast of the country has been known for some time now. This exploitative processes have bypassed all the legal frameworks of the country and amount to stealing by unnamed countries, who bribe officialdom in Somalia both at the regional and federal levels of governance in the country.
Somalia is said to be a sovereign nation, but is it? It is clear that NGOs reign more than its own institutions. The African soldiers deployed in the country earn ten to twenty times their Somali counterparts in the country. Yet no African soldier dies in the country fighting the terror groups, except on few occasions, when the terror groups are launched against them for the purpose of justifying their presence in the country. The African soldiers appear to being used to ensure that Somalia does not raise an army of its own and this is unfortunately helped by the leaders of the country, who put their personal enrichment processes before the national interest of the country.
The current terror wars in the country are, indeed, designed to manipulate those who have genuine interest in Somalia’s sovereignty and wellbeing, and make them believe that there is an expanding and rampant terror in the country and Somalia is not worth the risk. The wars are a deflection to avoid scrutiny of what some countries are doing in the country including the illegal mining, the threats to its territorial integrity, and the staining of the credibility of the country’s leadership both in the opposition and in governance, at every level.
As the Somali proverb with respect to a tree complaining about an axe, goes, “Oh Axe! you would not have cut me if a part of me was not in you,” those malicious countries, exploiting not only the terror groups but also many other means such as corrupting politicians and officialdom in the country, would not have succeeded, if there were no enabling Somalis, who have betrayed their people and ancestors and country.
There is always corrupt officialdom in any country, sometimes assisted by clan or group-minded clowns, who ruin countries and their people just so they could live off the backs of their own broken brothers and sisters. It happens everywhere but it appears more pronounced in the Somalia of today.
Why are some countries so involved in Somalia and working hard to ensure that Somalia does not raise its head again? There are many reasons but some are related to the historical relations with some countries which were always antagonistic. These include those who are still afraid that Somalia may claim again the lost lands of the Somalis, given away casually by colonial Europe. Others are in the country to exploit its economic resources while still others are there for the geostrategic location of the country. All in all, they work together for their own purposes but Somalis, the great silent majority of them, still stay on the sidelines and let corrupt people to take up the challenge, and they are failing miserably, not only the nation but themselves too.
The wars of Somalia are no longer the earlier clan rifts that led to the collapse of the state and which were engineered and exploited by Ethiopia using its own international resources of the eighties of the last century. They are about economic exploitation disabling people to grow their own food or look after their own wealth in terms of livestock and perhaps even exploiting its own marine space and its mineral resources. They are, indeed, for economic exploitation of the country disabling its ports or using them to serve others and not the Somali people. The wars are more complicated than how they are presented. They are a camouflage for the mineral exploitation of Somalia much like the DR Congo, which has never seen a day of peace since its independence. Will Somali take the same path? It is for Somalis to decide.