Dina Mahmoud (Mogadishu, London)
Yesterday, the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia announced the completion of the second phase of its withdrawal, which includes 3,000 soldiers, after a delay of four months.
The Mogadishu government requested a three-month “technical suspension” of the withdrawal process, which was scheduled to be implemented by last September.
The peacekeeping force said in a statement, “The African Union Transitional Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) completed the second phase of withdrawal, which included reducing the number of forces by 3,000 soldiers.”
Atmis handed over 7 forward operating bases to the internationally supported government, and closed two other bases.
“We will soon begin preparations for the next phase, the third phase, to reduce our numbers by 4,000 soldiers in June,” Lieutenant General Sam Okeding said.
The number of soldiers who were withdrawn in the first and second phases reached 5,000. 14,600 personnel from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda are still deployed in Somalia.
Under a UN timetable, Atmis will completely withdraw from the Horn of Africa country by the end of the year and hand over responsibility to Somali security forces.
In April 2022, the Security Council agreed that Atmis would replace the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which was formed in 2007.
In conjunction with the announcement of the African Union Mission in Somalia (ATMS) that it had completed the second phase of withdrawing its members from this country, security experts in Mogadishu considered that the Somali government forces may have begun to “tame and remove the fangs” of the terrorist Al-Shabaab movement. After it and its allies seized control of strategic strongholds, it remained subject to the movement’s terrorists for nearly two decades. In this regard, experts point to field gains achieved by the Somali army and its African force partners, during the past few days, in their battles against the militants of the movement affiliated with the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, in the central and southern regions of the country.
These gains included terrorist sites in the “Buq-Aqabla” area in the Hiran region in central Somalia, where government forces launched joint operations early this week, which led to the seizure of large quantities of weapons and advanced vehicles that Somali officials confirmed were being used by Al-Shabaab militants. Launch their attacks.
The security experts stressed that the recent military operations fall within the framework of efforts aimed at expelling the terrorist movement from its hideouts and strategic centers, in order to enable the ruling authorities in Mogadishu to fulfill their pledges with regard to defeating the militants, and to open the way for the army to take over security responsibilities from a strong force. Atmis, by the end of this year.
It is assumed that this African force, consisting of approximately 17,500 members, will have completed its gradual withdrawal operations that it began in June 2023, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 2628 and 2670.
In statements published on the Jarrow Online website, experts highlighted the importance of the timing of the recent setbacks suffered by the Al-Shabaab movement, in light of the fact that they precede the start of an expected new phase of the campaign launched by the Somali government and its allied clans against the terrorist movement in August. 2022.
They pointed out that the expected phase of the tribal government campaign, for which the Mogadishu authorities have not yet determined the exact date of its launch, will target the sites that are still under the control of Al-Shabaab, in the regions of Jubbaland and southwest Somalia, after the mixed results achieved during the period. The previous stages, which included gains in the Middle and Lower Shabelle regions, before momentum declined in some central and southern regions.
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