Making Mogadishu Safe

Localisation, Policing and Sustainable Security

Alice Hills

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429559280
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia militare e marittima

This Whitehall Paper explores the ways in which Mogadishu's inhabitants try to stay out of harm's way, from security officials in the presidential compound of Villa Somalia to the city's powerful district commissioners, from patrolling policemen to the women road-sweepers in the rubbish-filled alleyways of the Waberi district. Its central proposition is that security is best understood as a coherent relationship or activity based on the need for physical safety today, rather than in the future. It uses the neighbourhood-watch schemes developed in certain districts of Mogadishu - most notably Waberi - to understand the ways in which the city's inhabitants respond to the security models promoted by international advisers.

II. Policing Mogadishu

At first glance, Mogadishu's security governance is organised conventionally. The coastal city was formally recognised as the capital of the federal republic when the internationally acknowledged FGS was established in 2012, and it hosts Somalia's parliament, supreme court, prime minister's office and the presidential palace, known as Villa Somalia. Located in Benadir region, it also acts as the capital of the Benadir Regional Administration (BRA) which, headed by the mayor of Mogadishu, covers the same area as the city and plays a significant role in the politics and decision-making of its seventeen districts (it receives 15 per cent of the federal budget).¹ Benadir is the smallest administrative region in Somalia, but has the largest population, which in 2014 the UN estimated as approximately 1.65 million.² This figure includes approximately 369,000 IDPs.

¹ UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 'Benadir Region: Mogadishu City', 2012, <http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/1203l6_Administrative_Map_Banadir_A4.pdf>, accessed 9 April 2017.

² United Nations Population Fund, 'Population Estimation Survey 2014 for the 18 Pre-War Regions of Somalia', October 2014, p. 31, <https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Population-Estimation-Survey-of-Somalia-PESS-2013-2014.pdf>, accessed 12 January 2018.

Mogadishu's security is officially managed by the SPF and less officially by NISA and its military counterterrorism force, Gaashaan ('Shield'), essentially the regional administration's intelligence agency.³ The Somali National Army is not operating formally in Mogadishu, its head having agreed in March 2017 to pull all military personnel from the city (4,000 had been present, most of whom had not been paid for months⁴).⁵ However, this situation may yet change as a result of three decisions taken in April and May 2017.

³ Puntland, Somaliland, Jubaland and South West State have their own intelligence agencies.

⁴ Personal communication with author.

⁵ Garowe Online, 'Somali President Meets with Army Chiefs to Address Insecurity', 7 March 2017, <http://www.garoweonline.com/en/news/somalia/somali-presidentmeets-with-army-chiefs-to-address-insecurity>, accessed 7 March 2017. Many soldiers are experienced but undisciplined fighters. As the humanitarian news agency IRIN noted in 2013, 'Somalia's armed forces comprise some 20,000 soldiers, defined as those fighting Al-Shabab [sic], including militias not formally integrated into the military. Around 13,000 soldiers receive regular financial payments, most of which are paid by the international community'. See IRIN, 'Somali Security Sector Reform', 13 May 2013, <https://www.irinnews.org/fr/node/253499>, accessed 24 May 2013. This prompted a senior diplomat to observe that, '[N]ever has so much been invested in so many and turned into so few'. John Aglionby, 'Somalia's President Mohamed Takes Power in Fragile State', Financial Times, 10 February 2017. See also Menkhaus, 'Non-State Security Providers and Political Formation in Somalia', p. 23. On 18 May, several hundred soldiers mutinied over unpaid wages, although they soon returned to their barracks.

⁶ AMISOM Daily Media Monitoring, 'Parliament Approves Security Architecture with Few Amends', 3 May 2017, <http://somaliamediamonitoring.org/may-3-2017-morning-headlines/>, accessed 3 May 2017.

⁷ Judy Maina, 'Somali President Appoints New Mogadishu Mayor with High Hopes for Change', AllEastAfrica, 6 April 2017.

⁸ Somali Update, 'Somalia: To Ease Pressure, Mogadishu Mayor Appoints New Security Committee', 9 May 2017.

⁹ Horn Observer, 'Somali Government to Form Special Forces in Charge of the Security Officials and Government Offices - Minister', 18 July 2017.

First, in April 2017 the FGS and parliament endorsed proposals for a new countrywide framework that could affect Mogadishu's security architecture, under which Somalia will have: a 22,000-strong defence force, while its police will consist of 32,000 officers divided into six units in line with pre-1991 arrangements; a paramilitary unit (Darwish); a tax protection unit; diplomatic guards; a Criminal Investigations Department (CID); and a coast guard (there is no mention of a general duties police).⁶ A new National Security Council representing the federal states will determine the management of internal security threats.

Second, a stabilisation force was created with a remit to target illegal firearms, Al-Shabaab members and militia groups claiming to be government soldiers, all of which was intended to protect the city during Ramadan (26 May-24 June 2017), when terrorist attacks increase in frequency. Third, in early May, President Farmajo's newly appointed governor of Benadir and mayor of Mogadishu - a 35-year-old former diplomat⁷ - announced that the regional administration's security committee, created in 2013, would be replaced with a new regional-level security committee.⁸ These developments were followed by a flurry of initiatives that included an announcement in July that a special force would be created to guard government installations and officials. This force would replace NISA, which would revert to 'plain clothes' duties.⁹ Yet a fundamental change to policing is unlikely because the FGS is determined to prevent the regional administration from achieving the autonomy that might herald significant modification. For example, in January 2018, Farmajo sacked the mayor on the basis that the latter wanted Mogadishu to become equal to Somalia's six regional states, each of which has its own president.¹⁰ Change is further obstructed by the Somali preference for clan-based selection,¹¹ informal decision-making, tactical flexibility,¹² and for settling slights and disputes with guns.¹³ Arguably, innovation and fundamental disruption to current practices, seen as desirable by some international donors, are not in the interests of the international advisers and trainers supporting the security forces either, as too much would depend on the coercive effectiveness of, for example, Gaashaan's Alpha and Bravo components, which are trained in urban operations by US and international advisers, as is a separate NISA commando unit, Danab ('Lightning').

¹⁰ Shabelle News, 'Somalia Deploys Forces in Mogadishu after President Fires Mayor', 21 January 2018.

¹¹ Some members of the National Security Council argue that the new army (in other words, national security) should be based on the 4.5 power-sharing formula. See AMISOM Daily Media Monitoring, 'Challenges Emerge at the National Security Council Meeting', 7 July 2017.

¹² For an informative discussion, see the rationale for swarm tactics described in David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (London: Hurst, 2013), pp. 80-86.

¹³ For example, in May 2017, guards from the SNA and NISA exchanged fire outside the Benadir administration's headquarters when a NISA convoy was stopped at a security checkpoint. AMISOM Daily Media Monitoring, 'Gunfire Exchange Between Villa Somalia Guards and NISA Benadir Boss Leaves Two Dead', 17 May 2017. In July, four soldiers, including the former head of Benadir intelligence, were killed by NISA in a clash near Villa Somalia. See Shabelle News, 'Former Intelligence Officer Among 4 Killed in Mogadishu Fighting', 26 July 2017.

But appearances are deceptive. Donors may describe Mogadishu's governance structures in conventional terms, but the reality is anything but conventional: the FGS barely functions; mayoral politics pursues its own agenda; many police and military units are infiltrated by militia or Al-Shabaab sympathisers; much of the fighting and policing that takes place is carried out by clan-based militia and paramilitaries; and the government has so far lacked the political will and capacity to address this. The 2017 London Somalia Conference may have referred to a 'fair and equitable' distribution of the Darwish paramilitary policing unit between federal and state-level police, together with 'strong civilian oversight' and the involvement of civil society organisations in police development,¹⁴ but this means little when politicians are concerned only to recoup the often substantial costs of their appointment, when powerful clan interests are at play, when security forces are not paid regularly, when ministries do not operate as institutions, and when the capacity of district administrations is low.¹⁵ It is not by accident that Transparency International repeatedly identifies Somalia as the most corrupt country in the world.¹⁶ In Somalia there are no formal judicial or taxation structures, nor are there regulations covering foreign investment, and in 2016 the government's debts were approximately $5 billion, whereas revenues (mainly from airport fees) were approximately $230 million.¹⁷ Donors such as the UK repeatedly promote financial accountability and professionalism whilst providing the police with training in human rights, leadership, management and investigative skills, but neither politicians nor the security sector answer to the formal civilian authorities.¹⁸ Meanwhile, the approximately 7,000-9,000 fighters belonging to the militant Islamist group Al-Sbabaab capitalise on the government's inability to provide street-level security.¹⁹ For example, just a few days after Farmajo's election, Al-Shabaab paraded 800 new fighters in the southern town of Jilib, promising to continue its decade-long war.²⁰

¹⁴ London Conference Somalia, 'Security Pact', 11 May 2017, pp. 6,9, <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6l3720/london-somalia-conference-2017-security-pact.pdf>, accessed 15 May 2017.

¹⁵ Abdikahim Ainte, 'Can the Credibility of Somalia's Indirect Elections be Salvaged?', African Arguments, 5 January 2017; Waagacusub, 'President Sacks HabarGidir Officials and Replaces to his Clansmen', 19 March 2015; De Waal, The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa.

¹⁶ Transparency International, 'Corruption Perceptions Index 2016', 2017, <http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/corruption_perceptions_index_2016>, accessed 9 April 2017.

¹⁷ Aglionby, 'Somalia's President Mohamed Takes Power in Fragile State'. Hence the international community's welcome of the Communications Act of September 2017, which aims to regulate a sector that the World Bank estimates could potentially cont...