From Foreign Policy · Mohamed Gabobe · · 4m
How al-Shabab Outlasted Three Peacekeeping Missions
Two decades and $3.6 billion in U.S. money later, the group the peacekeepers came to beat runs its own state.
In brief
Two decades and $3.6 billion in U.S. money later, the group the peacekeepers came to beat runs its own state. Al-Shabab won by governing while everyone else was busy funding a mission, and the December withdrawal hands it the vacuum it has waited twenty years for. Originally reported by Foreign Policy.
Washington pulls the plug
In July, the U.S. Mission to the African Union said it would cut funding for the U.N. Support Office in Somalia, which supplies the AU peacekeepers with fuel, rations and medicine. The cut lands Dec. 31.
Twenty years, one result
The cut ends U.S. backing for the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission. After two decades of intervention, mostly on America's tab, al-Shabab is arguably stronger than when it started.
No plan, ever
Analysts told Foreign Policy the Trump administration pulled out partly because of that record. Former Somali diplomat Abukar Arman was blunt about what the past twenty years lacked.
“Despite the savior rhetoric of the past two decades, the international community has neither developed a strategy to defeat al-Shabaab.”
How it began in 2007
Ugandan AU peacekeepers landed in Mogadishu in March 2007 to prop up a fragile transitional government fighting Islamist rebels, al-Shabab chief among them.
Cities won, countryside lost
The AU force did push al-Shabab out of Mogadishu and other major urban areas across south-central Somalia. The group simply kept the rural south and center, where most of the land is.
The $3.6 billion bill
Since 2007 the U.S. has spent roughly $3.6 billion on successive AU missions: about $2 billion through U.N. support offices and $1.6 billion in bilateral aid to troop-contributing countries.
A mission versus a state
Jethro Norman of the Danish Institute for International Studies frames the mismatch in one line. One side was maintaining an operation, the other was building institutions.
“The international community has focused on propping up a mission, while al-Shabab has focused on building a state.”
The insurgency that pays itself
Al-Shabab runs courts and a tax system, pulling $100 million to $150 million a year. The Somali government collects a little over $250 million, mostly Mogadishu port customs and donor transfers.
“You have an insurgency that funds itself and a government that does not.”
Services buy legitimacy
That revenue goes into governing. In al-Shabab areas, drugs and crime have been nearly wiped out, and the group has worked Somalia's clan politics carefully since its founding.
Corruption did the recruiting
Transparency International has ranked Somalia's government the world's most corrupt every year since 2006. Even in government-held Mogadishu, civilians take their disputes to al-Shabab's sharia courts.
Victory nobody wanted
Norman says many in Somalia's political class had no real interest in winning. Regional leaders feared a government triumph would give Mogadishu the legitimacy to push them out of office.
“[Cooperation] was shallow even at its high points.”
Ethiopia went in first
Before the AU came the December 2006 Ethiopian invasion, later backed by U.S. drones. Bush wanted the Islamic Courts Union gone, the first post-9/11 case of political Islam taking power in Africa.
The intervention that grew it
Al-Shabab was a small radical faction inside the Islamic Courts Union until Ethiopian troops and American airstrikes arrived. It recast itself as the resistance and swelled.
“Many who joined appear to have been moved by Ethiopian conduct rather than by commitment to al Qaeda's broader ideological project.”
Peacekeepers accused of atrocities
All three AU missions face allegations of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, civilian massacres and rape used as a weapon of war. Decades of accusations, no accountability.
Two farmers in Bulo-Mareer
In 2024, Ugandan AU troops decapitated two farmers in the town of Bulo-Mareer. Residents protested and demanded the troops leave. Al-Shabab condemned the killings and promised revenge; the federal government still has not responded.
Resistance as recruiting pitch
Many Somalis see al-Shabab as defending the country from foreign occupation, a line that runs back to colonial-era armed religious resistance. The group uses that history to pull in young men.
Back to the gates of Mogadishu
Al-Shabab has retaken nearly all the ground it lost in the 2022-2023 army campaign. Its 2025 counter-offensive reached within 45 kilometers of the capital and forced Turkey to send 500 more troops and drone operators.
Waiting for the last boots
Withdrawals have started, first from Burhakaba, encircled by al-Shabab since 2014. Troop-contributing governments have asked for an 18 to 24 month extension. No country can fill the U.S. gap.
“The one thing Al-Shabaab does well is filling vacuums when they present themselves.”
The takeaway
Al-Shabab won by governing while everyone else was busy funding a mission, and the December withdrawal hands it the vacuum it has waited twenty years for.
