The horn of Africa has been a historically prosperous locale. When Muslim traders penetrated the tribal region that is now Somalia around 1000 C.E., bringing religion, wealth, and infrastructure, they brought what seemed to be the final pieces for the construction of a fruitful society. There are modern advantages as well: 3,000 kilometers of coastline en route from Europe to the growing economies of Asia, largely untapped commodity reserves, and a general lack of involvement in the conflicts of the surrounding region. But despite these advantages, Somalia has long since plunged into hardship. In the past 15 years, Somalia has become synonymous with war, anarchy, and misery. While the situation does not seem to be improving for the nation’s almost nine million inhabitants, the current transitional government has a unique opportunity to build on Somalia’s traditions and create a stable government for posterity.

Fifteen Years of Chaos

Somalis have been misruled by a series of increasingly incompetent groups since the 1991 ousting of the dictator Mohammed Siad Barre after his two decades in power. First came a loosely allied group of warlords who split the country amongst themselves following Barre’s overthrow. But when the rebel alliance failed, Mogadishu became a battleground of warlords and their personal militias. The devastating effects of war in Mogadishu destabilized the nation to the point of anarchy.

While the warlords bickered amongst themselves, another political group began to gain prominence. Following Barre’s dismissal, the Muslim nation, which at the time lacked any legitimate government, adopted Shari’ah law as a de facto judicial system. In time, Islamic courts became increasingly united and even started offering otherwise nonexistent social services. In 2000, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was formed under the leadership of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys.

Fearing marginalization, many of the warlords around Mogadishu formed a makeshift allegiance of their own, the ironically named Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT). As the United States supplied arms money to former enemies in the ARPCT to protect against a purported al-Qaeda presence in the ICU, the conflict between the ARPCT and the ICU escalated. Battles between the two groups replaced battles between warlords around late 2005. Gunfights in the capital and outlying towns and villages killed hundreds of Somali fighters and civilians during 2005 and 2006. By early December 2006, the ICU had driven the ARPCT out of the country, had taken Mogadishu, and was shelling Baidoa, the inland seat of the powerless Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Somalia’s internationally recognized government-in-exile.

As it assaulted Baidoa, the ICU declared that the entire country would be subject to Islamic law and drew up an impromptu Islamic constitution. All of this worried Somalia’s western neighbor Ethiopia, a regional military power which maintained a discrete military presence in Somalia to ensure that the ever-present conflicts did not spill over Somalia’s western border. Ethiopia was especially concerned with declarations from the ICU that a jihad had been declared on Ethiopians inside and outside of Somalia. When the ICU captured Baidoa, Ethiopia sent troops, tanks, and the air force to augment returning ARPCT and small TFG forces, which then collectively advanced on Mogadishu, sweeping through southern Somalia. By the end of December, less than a month after gaining control of the country, the ICU had retreated back to a single stronghold, the port town of Kismayo. They abandoned the country entirely in January. As Ethiopian troops patrolled Mogadishu in early January, TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, appointed in 2004 and for many months exiled in Kenya, stepped into his capital city for the first time. Former warlords, who soon realized they could no longer run Mogadishu, came with him.

While the TFG now nominally controls Mogadishu, southern Somalia is still a hotbed of ICU loyalists. The United States even launched air strikes against purported al-Qaeda targets in the region following the TFG takeover. Underneath the veneer of TFG control lies the possibility of another drawn-out war, driven by the marriage of a resurgent ICU to other rebel groups and to Somali patriots who see increased foreign presence in their nation as an insult.

The Other Insurgency

Among the darkest fears of both the United States and Ethiopia is the use of guerilla tactics made popular in Iraq and other battlegrounds of the War on Terrorism. The ICU’s support was initially derived largely from religious Somalis, while its prominence originally induced anxiety in less religious citizens. Now, in the face of a common enemy, the Ethiopian forces, regrouped ICU fighters have teamed up with secular rebels loyal to warlords who controlled Mogadishu for almost a decade. Many ICU and rebel fighters have threatened to make Mogadishu unlivable. This threat is very real—while Ethiopian forces have the ability to take ground quickly as they did in December, they do not have the ability to maintain a prolonged presence and police the Somalis. In order to prevent just such an insurgency, the African Union (AU) offered to send 8,000 peacekeepers to Mogadishu. The gesture, while earnest, is simply not enough to change the inertia of events. Still, the AU has not been able to come up with a third of that number, sending only 1,200 Ugandan troops who were as scorned in Mogadishu as the Ethiopians.

If the ICU and their former rebel enemies unite against Ethiopians and AU troops using guerilla tactics, there are a few potential outcomes. Ethiopia might assume that because the international community has not paid much attention to the crisis, it can root out insurgents using brutal and indiscriminate tactics. It could also simply send more troops to ensure that the insurgency is beaten back. A worse outcome for Ethiopia would be to retreat from a possible war of attrition that would sap the morale of its people. Most worrying is the chance that such an insurgency could catalyze a regional conflagration that would pull Ethiopia’s bitter rival Eritrea into the fold.

Ethiopia’s actions in Somalia have already earned Eritrean consternation, because to Eritrea, Ethiopia’s actions are viewed as more of a power grab than a legitimate act of self-defense. According to several sources, the Eritrean government has already provided the ICU and other rebels with arms to fight Ethiopian soldiers in proxy. If Eritrea decides to become more militarily involved in the conflict in Somalia, Ethiopia could react in kind. Such brinkmanship could lead to another all-out war between the uncooperative neighbors. A regional conflict would mean the end of hope for a permanent and sovereign Somali government.