The threat of al-Shabaab

Solly Rakgomo | Monday January 12, 2026 06:22

Would the fall of Mogadishu resemble more the Taliban conquest of Kabul or Hay’at Tahrir al-Shams’ domination of Damascus? Al-Shabaab had seized a succession of strategic towns from the Somali National Army with little apparent difficulty.

By July, the militants had largely encircled the capital, advancing to less than 50 kilometers from Mogadishu and setting up checkpoints on its outskirts. Many foreign embassies in the city withdrew nonessential staff to neighbouring Kenya.

Then, inexplicably, the advance paused, leaving Somalia’s beleaguered federal government to claim victory while less sanguine observers wondered when the offensive might resume.

Somalia is embroiled in a deepening crisis involving an ascendant jihadist insurgency, a faltering peace support operation, domestic political polarisation, and regional geopolitical competition.

The federal government’s de facto sphere of control is confined to Mogadishu and a few satellite towns: essentially a metropolis with a diplomatic corps and a demoralised, ineffectual army. Absent a dramatic change in direction, likely near-term scenarios include the collapse of the federal government and an al-Shabaab takeover of the national capital, with profound consequences for regional stability and security.

Al-Shabaab’s strength has always been a reflection of the Somali government’s weakness. An insurgency waged by Harakaat al Shabaab al-Mujaahidiin (al-Shabb), an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organisation, has been raging for nearly two decades. The group now controls roughly 30% of Somalia’s territory far more than the fragile federal government in Mogadishu.

In 2023, a short-lived government offensive, supported by U.S. special forces, succeeded in wresting large swaths of central Somalia away from the militants. But progress tapered off after a few months, and al-Shabaab has since recovered almost all of that lost ground.

The group is currently building up forces around Mogadishu and has stepped up attacks inside the city. In October 2025, an al-Shabaab suicide squad stormed the Mogadishu branch of the national intelligence service, NISA, destroying valuable intelligence and releasing dozens of prisoners—just a stone’s throw from the presidential palace (Villa Somalia).

Al-Shabaab’s strength, however, has always been a reflection of the Somali government’s weakness.

Despite more than two decades of investment and billions of dollars in training and equipment, the Somali National Army (SNA) is still incapable of sustained clearing and holding operations. In an address before Parliament in November 2025, Chief of Defense Forces General Odowaa Yusuf Raage disclosed that between 10,000 and 15,000 troops had been killed or wounded in action over the past three years.

The force suffers from a host of troubles, including poor leadership, corruption, uneven training standards, and a reliance on clans deemed loyal to a sitting president rather than being a force having a genuinely national character.

This has left the federal government of Somalia heavily reliant on the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) for security. Meanwhile, Mogadishu’s political interference in the mission has left AUSSOM under strength, without a unified chain of command, and hemorrhaging donor support, threatening the reduction or termination of the mission.

These challenges are symptoms of much deeper problems: the unraveling of Somalia’s federal political settlement and cyclical constitutional and electoral crises. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s recent attempts to amend the constitution, impose a new electoral system, and redraw the federal map are widely viewed as maneuvers to stay in power beyond the end of his term in May 2026, with the effect of spinning Somalia even faster toward fragmentation.

As a result, Somalia’s political class is dangerously polarised and unable to forge a united front against its common enemy, al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab, for its part, seems content to watch and wait while its enemies quarrel, international partners cut back on security and development assistance, and AUSSOM contemplates withdrawal.

As a growing number of international partners have begun quietly exploring prospects for a negotiated peace with the militants, absent some deus ex machina to salvage Somalia’s federal system, al-Shabaab’s seizure of Mogadishu may already be simply a matter of time whether through military action or negotiations. If so, a new cycle of armed conflict between a further empowered al-Shabaab in control of Mogadishu and its four million inhabitants, and their sworn enemies in other parts of the country, will be all but inevitable.

Neighbouring countries would similarly face the heightened prospect of renewed terrorist attacks across their borders. The time for hopeful half-measures is past. Only urgent, decisive, and concerted intervention can prevent Somalia from becoming a jihadist state.