US urged to abandon plan to pull troops from Somalia
British sources say United States troops are the only ones capable of holding off terror cell al-Shabaab
BRITAIN is urging the United States to abandon plans to cut its military presence in Somalia after last week’s terrorist attack in neighbouring Kenya, according to Western defence officials.
The assault by al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s Somali franchise, on a hotel and office complex in Nairobi demonstrated the group’s resilience 12 years after US troops were first sent to Somalia as part of an international military campaign to destroy it.
At least 21 people, including a British charity chief, were killed after a suicide bomber and four gunmen breached 14 Riverside, one of the best guarded civilian premises in the Kenyan capital on Tuesday.
The attackers killed restaurant diners in their seats, and sprayed a hotel lobby with gunfire. Hundreds of employees at Western organisations housed in the complex hid for more than 15 hours under tables, in lavatories and in cupboards as the gunmen hunted them down office corridors.
A swift and well-coordinated counter-assault by the Kenyan forces was praised for preventing a higher death toll. An SAS non-commissioned officer, in Nairobi to train local Special Forces, took a leading role in the operation at the request of Kenyan police.
Yet that al-Shabaab was able to carry out a massacre of civilians in Kenya for the first time in more than three years has also prompted a rethink of US strategy in Africa, a Western defence official said. After Donald Trump came to power in 2016, he ordered a significant, but little publicised expansion in military personnel in Africa to counter Islamist militant groups. Roughly 2,000 American soldiers are deployed in Africa, 500 of them – mostly from Special Forces units – are stationed in Somalia.
The president also presided over a doubling in air, drone and missile strikes on al-Shabaab in Somalia.
But in June, a Pentagon review recommended that the number of US special operations personnel stationed in Africa be cut by half over the next three years, after four American soldiers were killed by Islamist fighters in Niger in October 2017.
The proposal, which has not yet been adopted as official policy, reflects concerns that Special Forces units are being spread too thin globally as well as over “mission creep” on the continent.
Last year, the US carried out air strikes against Islamist militants in Libya for the first time, while its troops are increasingly being drawn into ground operations against al-Shabaab.
Two American soldiers have been killed in Somalia since 2017, the first combat deaths since George W Bush first deployed a small troop contingent in the country 10 years earlier.
The prospect of more body bags returning from Africa at a time when Mr Trump is pushing for a withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan is unlikely to sit well with a public weary of the never-ending war on terror.
But a US drawdown in Somalia would cause great dismay in Britain, which is understood to be urging a change of heart.
“Al-Shabaab are not only not beaten, they may be regrouping,” the defence source said. “The Americans are the only ones holding the line. If they draw down, neither the Somali National Army nor AMISOM (the African Union Mission in Somalia) are capable of stepping into the breach.”
In the wake of the Nairobi attack, the Pentagon is thought to be reviewing its decision to reduce its presence in Somalia, two Western sources said.
“There are still disagreements, but my understanding is that they will almost certainly row back,” one said.
Britain’s call reflects the position of many within the American military establishment, particularly inside US Africa Command.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman declined to comment on whether Britain had made official representations in Washington in line with a policy of not publicly discussing matters relating to Special Forces operations.
Britain has often taken the lead in trying to prevent Somalia from slipping off the Western political and military agenda. Theresa May hosted a major international conference on Somalia in 2017, while Britain gave the country £385million in the last financial year, a significant portion of it dedicated to helping develop its counter-terrorism effectiveness. Britain also trains the Kenyan army, which invaded southern Somalia in 2011 in a bid to wrest territory from al-Shabaab.
But Britain has struggled, particularly since the EU referendum, to keep European allies invested in Somalia. The EU used to fund 90 per cent of AMISOM’s 20,000-strong mission in Somalia, but the budget was cut after France insisted on diverting cash towards Operation Barkhane, its mission against Islamist militants in five former French colonies in West Africa.
Should it decide to maintain its current level of presence in Somalia, the United States will still have a battle on its hands to defeat al-Shabaab.
The group appeared to be a diminished force after it was driven out of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, in 2011 and out of other urban strongholds. Yet even though the territory it controls is now restricted mostly to rural patches in the south, it has not been weakened to the extent that Isil has been in simi- lar circumstances in Syria and Iraq. Crucially, the al-Shabaab movement remains well financed. It is so efficient at collecting taxes from traders and farmers that it runs a budget surplus, according to a recent UN report.
Whether the Riverside attack, the first on Nairobi since 67 people were killed at the Westgate shopping mall in 2013, represents a one-off demonstration of strength or the beginning of a renewed campaign to force Kenya to withdraw from Somalia remains to be seen.
Even though the gunmen behind the Riverside attack may have been killed, al-Shabaab still has an estimated 7,000 men under its command, leaving Kenya – a key Western ally – highly vulnerable, whatever the US decides to do.
‘Al-Shabaab are not beaten, and they may be regrouping. The Americans are the only ones holding the line’