The President of Somalia has outlined “new strategies” if Somalia and its international partners should defeat Al-Shabaab.
Speaking at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies on Friday, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said that the current policies of containment and degrading of Al-Shabaab, both of which are military based, have proved to be insufficient.
“The policy of containment – keeping al-Shabaab inside Somalia so that they will not spill over to the neighboring countries and to the outside world – was one of the policies that have been used for the last 15 years,” Mohamud said.
He added, “We have been arguing that this is not good policy for a long time, and recently, it has been proven that al-Shabaab cannot be contained within the boundaries of Somalia because al-Shabaab is an organization based on ideology, and ideology has no border and has no citizenship.”
While acknowledging that the military approach is the most important pillar in the fight against Al-Shabaab, Mohamud stressed that the ideological and economic approaches are also critical in defeating the group.
“In our fight against them [Al-Shabaab], we have ideological war telling them [the locals] what Shabaab is propagating is not a true Islam, is not the right version of Islam. Islam does not kill the people, does not kill in masses, does not humiliate, does not loot their property,” the Somali leader explained.
He also underlined the importance of promoting patriotism as an element of this ideological war where Somalis are reminded that their country is not for every Muslim, but for Somali Muslims.
Economically, Mohamud emphasized the importance of cutting off Al-Shabaab’s sources of income.
He said his administration has developed a financial interagency unit, the Financial Reporting Center, to expose the movement of money to Al-Shabaab, while also working on establishing an agency to register all citizens which among many other benefits, will help track bank transactions to ensure no money goes to terrorists.
Asked whether his administration is ready to negotiate with Al-Shabaab, Mahmud criticized the group for not being “ready to negotiate”.
“We believe that al-Shabaab will not end with the barrel of the gun, but they are not ready to negotiate,” the president said. “So, we have to take them to a place where they prefer to negotiate and put down the lethal tactics that they are using right now.”
Mohamud made it clear that he does not want Afghanistan-like negotiations and that he is not a fan of third parties in negotiations. We know “where it [Afghanistan-Taliban talks] ended up,” he remarked.
The Somali leader is in Washington DC for a working visit where he has been meeting Senior US government officials. The President is set to proceed to New York to attend the 77th UN General Assembly.
