In his Friday prayer sermon last week, president Hassan Sheikh criticized foreign agents and online media users for spreading fake news about the security situation in Somalia. In an angry outburst he said that even at a worse time than today when al-shabaab was bombing Mogadishu and prominent people were been assassinated international airlines landed in Mogadishu. While he did not specify the source of his anger, it was translated to be the US Embassy warning issued the previous week about an “imminent” attack in many places in Somalia’s capital including the airport. President Hassan’s team have been scrambling to reassure the Somali people of their security but brazen al-shabaab attacks in liberated areas has everyone frightened.
President Hassan Sheikh’s team are scared of a comparison with president Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan who fled Kabul despite assuring his citizens only a few days earlier that Afghanistan was safe from the Taliban over a years ago. Are al-shabaab going to take the capital? Will they storm Villa Somalia? This is unlikely according to international security experts who spoke confidentially to this media outlet, but the US threat alerts are serious and real.
“President Hassan can say whatever he likes but the truth is al-shabaab have become more organized and deadly with every attack. Last week is just the beginning because the Somali forces are stretched, poorly supplied, disciplined and led,” said the senior foreign security source. Another Somali expert backed this up by saying that the president and his security team are confused in their strategy and are short of funds because they gambled all their hopes on the UAE budget support to the army. “It is a case of lessons not learnt and weak financing for a combination of regular soldiers, community forces and anybody that is tagging along with them. President Hassan went to the UAE again this week and got no support,” said the Somali expert who did not want to be named because of his sensitive role in the administration.
Sources in office of the President and Prime Minister have confirmed that the views of the two experts in the article are true. They also said in the last weeks president Hassan has done nothing but security engagements and he is disappointed with the lack of support from international partners with force enablers including helicopters and drones. Another development is that Villa Somalia sources informed this website that president Hassan called in the Turkish Ambassador to Somalia to get an explanation for why Turkish Airlines had cancelled flights after the US security warning. This has not delivered any change in policy by the airline yet. The airlines that had immediately postponed flights to Somalia now include Qatar Airways and Egypt Air too.
The problem of president Hassan Sheikh is his security policy is in his head and implemented by his friends and not professionals with credibility. Many international security experts have pointed to the weakness in command and control, military strategy and planning and personnel within the Somali national army and intelligence services. “Al-shabaab attacks are planned and executed right under the noises of the government. The government has weak intelligence and always responds after an attack,” said a frustrated security adviser within the Somali government. “The Somali government has to take responsibility and not blame international partners.” Moreover, some community fighters, including those from the presidents Abgal clan who he was counting on have dropped their weapons and are surrendering to al-shabaab. In recent videos posted online, the reasons these groups provided were they were outnumbered, overpowered and the federal government was providing them no support. This is a huge failure by this government.
The fighting between the Somali army, some community forces and the terrorist group al-shabaab near the capital is still active. Many senior government military officials have gone to the front line and the prime minister visited wounded soldiers in a Mogadishu hospital this week in a show of support. The Defence Minister claimed around 150 terrorist fighters were killed. Al-Shabaab claim the same. The whole situation is chaotic and badly managed by president Hassan and his team. No wonder the Somali people and donors have lost confidence in them.