Somalia’s al-Shabaab Islamist group will be defeated in its heartland by the end of the year, the United Nations envoy to the country predicted yesterday.
“The conventional capacity of al-Shabaab has been seriously degraded,” Augustine Mahiga said at a conference in Istanbul aimed at ending two decades of lawlessness in the failed state.
The al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgents have resorted to suicide bombings and guerrilla tactics after losing swaths of territory to Kenyan, Ethiopian and African Union forces.
“Judging from the pace they are making I would say by the end of the year there will be considerable control over the areas of southern and central Somalia,” Dr Mahiga, a Tanzanian diplomat, said. “There is an increasing capacity by Amisom \ to deploy modern weapons to decrease asymmetrical warfare.”
The dismantling of al-Shabaab may help to ease concerns that Somalia is a training ground for foreign jihadists.
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Abdilweli Mohamed Ali, the Somali Prime Minister, told delegates that his country was “on the verge of a new dawn” but that the international community was endangering progress by failing to deliver promised funds — including £1 million pledged by Britain. “They promised back in September . . . Thus far very little resources have come,” Mr Ali said.
Somalia’s leaders are struggling to meet a deadline of August 20 to deliver its first functioning federal government since 1991. Foreign countries have pledged $7.3 million (£4.7 million) towards this process but only $200,000 has arrived, Mr Ali said.
“It could be a recipe for failure if they do not deliver it,” he added.
Bekir Bozdag, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, said that Mogadishu, Somalia’s shattered capital, was now open for business.
“After a long period of instability and conflict, we now have ahead of us an opportunity for genuine peace and security,” he told delegates.
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Turkey has assumed a leading role in peace-building and humanitarian efforts in Somalia. In August Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister, became the first non-African premier to visit Mogadishu in almost two decades, and in March Turkish Airlines started flights from Istanbul.