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CriticalThreats.org: Africa File, April 11, 2024: Kremlin’s Africa Corps Nears Niger; Ethiopia-Somalia Rift Widens; al Qaeda Affiliates Strengthen in the Sahel and Horn

Posted by: Berhane Habtemariam

Date: Friday, 12 April 2024

 
Liam Karr, Matthew Gianitsos and Josie Von Fischer
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Data Cutoff: April 11, 2024, at 10 a.m.

To receive the Africa File via email, please subscribe here. Follow CTP on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

The Africa File provides regular analysis and assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’ activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US personnel and interests.

Key Takeaways:

  • Niger. A pro-Russian and Wagner Group–linked African outlet claimed that Russian Africa Corps soldiers will “soon” deploy to Niger, supporting CTP’s previous assessment that the Nigerien junta may contract Russian soldiers to help fill the gaps left by French and potentially US forces and address the country’s deteriorating security situation. Niger’s engagement with Russia in late 2023 and 2024 shares similarities with Burkina Faso’s engagement with Russia months before Africa Corps deployed to Burkina Faso. Russian forces in Africa have been ineffective in counterinsurgency operations and would likely be more focused on advancing the Kremlin’s strategic aims in Niger, such as securing access to valuable natural resources, destabilizing Europe, and consolidating Russia’s position in Africa.
  • Al Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate has increased its rate of attacks in western Niger since the beginning of 2024, likely to establish new support zones that it can use to facilitate more regular and severe attacks on critical roads connecting Niamey and various district capitals. The group likely already established a new support zone southwest of Niamey toward the end of 2023 that it is using to support its current attack campaigns.
  • Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is continuing to advance bilateral partnerships with de facto autonomous regions of northern Somalia, which is exacerbating tensions between the SFG and Ethiopia by undermining the Somali Federal Government’s (SFG) claim to legitimacy and sovereignty in these areas. The overlapping domestic and regional crises with Ethiopia and its northern regions have weakened the SFG’s counterterrorism efforts by distracting the SFG and weakening cooperation with key security partners Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
  • Somalia. Al Qaeda’s Somali affiliate al Shabaab launched a complex attack targeting a district capital in south-central Somalia, underscoring al Shabaab’s ongoing resurgence in areas that Somali forces liberated during the 2022 central Somalia clan uprising and counterterrorism offensive. The group had not conducted an attack of this scale in the western half of the Middle Shabelle district since September 2023, when it launched an offensive to reestablish itself in the area. Al Shabaab will continue threatening to reestablish a foothold in the Middle Shabelle region through its control of the west bank of the Shabelle River.

Assessments:

Niger

Author: Liam Karr

A pro-Russian and Wagner-linked African outlet claimed that Russian Africa Corps soldiers will “soon” deploy to Niger. Cameroon-based Afrique Media, citing unnamed military sources, reported on April 10 that an Africa Corps contingent will arrive in Niger.[1] The Russian Ministry of Defense set up the Africa Corps in mid-2023 to establish new footholds in the Sahel and subsume preexisting Wagner Group operations in Africa.[2] Afrique Media has strong ties to the late Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner Group personnel that have since signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, indicating it could have legitimate sources to support the report.[3]

CTP previously assessed that the Nigerien junta may contract Russian soldiers to help fill the capacity gaps left by French and potentially US forces and address the country’s deteriorating security situation.[4] The Nigerien junta initially showed interest in a Wagner Group deployment in its first days in power, when it faced a potential regional invasion to restore democratic rule.[5] The junta has met with Russian defense officials linked to Russian military personnel in Africa since the threat of invasion ended and signed several unspecified defense agreements in December and January.[6] US officials have also voiced concerns about growing Nigerien military cooperation with Russia in 2024, and they gave broad public warnings to regional states to avoid collaborating with Russian mercenaries.[7]

The report could be a Russian information operation that would presumably intend to increase public support for an Africa Corps deployment or startle the West. Afrique Media has a media-sharing agreement with RT and has regularly spread pro-Russian and pro-Wagner information campaigns.[8] The article does not describe an imminent Africa Corps deployment as fact outside of its title and first sentence and instead relies on assessment language that describes the deployment as hypothetical. The article notes that “everything suggests” an Africa Corps deployment is imminent and that an Africa Corps deployment “would constitute” an important step for the Nigerien junta.[9] Such an information operation would presumably either aim to foment pro-Russian public sentiment to encourage the Nigerien junta to pursue an Africa Corps deployment or scare off Western countries like Italy and Germany that have continued to try and work with the Nigerien junta.[10]

Niger’s engagement with Russia in late 2023 and 2024 shares similarities with Burkina Faso’s engagement with Russia months before Africa Corps deployed to Burkina Faso, which occurred with little immediate warning. One hundred Africa Corps soldiers arrived in the Burkinabe capital on January 23.[11] The Russian deputy minister of defense met with Burkinabe officials in September and discussed defense cooperation but did not publicly disclose if Russian military personnel would deploy to Burkina Faso.[12] The only clear precursor to the Africa Corps deployment was the arrival of 20–50 Russian soldiers in early November 2023 that likely engaged in preliminary discussions and groundwork for the deployment.[13] Reputable France-based outlet Jeune Afrique reported at the time that an anonymous military source claimed the delegation was responsible for constructing barracks in a town near Burkina Faso capable of accommodating 100 soldiers, which is where the initial 100-strong Africa Corps contingent is currently stationed.[14]

Russian forces in Africa have been ineffective in counterinsurgency operations and would likely be more focused on advancing the Kremlin’s strategic aims rather than degrading insurgent support zones in western Niger. The Russian contingent of 1,000–2,000 troops in Mali has failed to degrade the Salafi-jihadi insurgency in the country but is gaining increased access to valuable natural resources.[15] The Kremlin’s smaller deployment in Burkina Faso is primarily concerned with training and regime protection to boost the pro-Russian junta’s legitimacy and potentially secure access to valuable natural resources in the country.[16]

Niger’s strategic location at the crossroads of the Sahel creates even more opportunities for the Kremlin to advance aims, such as threatening Europe and consolidating its own position in Africa. Russia has systematically weaponized migrant crises in Europe and is looking to foment greater refugee flows to affect European elections in 2024, and Niger sits along a major and increasingly used trans-Saharan migration route to Europe.[17] A share in Niger’s large uranium deposits would increase its grip on the nuclear energy market to improve its leverage with countries seeking to cut Russian energy purchases.[18] CTP has previously noted that the Kremlin could use Niger-based drones to threaten critical areas along NATO’s southern flank, although this is unlikely in the near future, and Russian forces in Africa do not currently have their own drones.[19] Russian basing in Niger would also be centrally located and help close the logistics air gap between its positions in North and sub-Saharan Africa.[20]

Figure 1. Growing Russian Presence on Trans-Saharan Migration Routes in West Africa

Source: Liam Karr; Clingendael Institute; Norwegian Center for Global Analyses.

Figure 2. Prospective Range of Iranian-Made Shahed 136 Drones from Agadez, Northern Niger

Note: At the time of publishing, US forces are still stationed at Agadez Air Base, and there are no Russian or Iranian forces or drones in Niger.

Source: Liam Karr.

Figure 3. Russian Mercenary Facilities in Northwest Africa

Note: At the time of publishing, US forces are still stationed at Agadez Air Base, and there are no Russian or Iranian forces or drones in Niger.

Source: Liam Karr; Grey Dynamics; Jules Duhamel; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.

JNIM in Niger

Authors: Liam Karr and Matthew Gianitsos

Al Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate has increased the rate of its attacks in western Niger since the beginning of 2024, likely to establish new support zones that it can use to facilitate more regular and severe attacks on critical roads connecting Niamey and various district capitals. Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM) nearly doubled its number of attacks in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023.[21] The majority of these attacks occurred within 75 miles of the capital, including one attack in January that was one mile from the Niamey city limits.[22]

Two attack campaigns west of Niamey are driving the uptick in operational tempo. CTP has previously assessed that JNIM is likely seeking to establish new support zones with these campaigns.[23] JNIM has attacked the area between Samira and Gotheye at least six times since January 1.[24] These attacks mostly targeted civilians and civilian militias.[25] Security forces have relied on drone strikes to contest JNIM in the area and have been generally inactive in the area since February, indicating that JNIM has established a strong foothold in the area.[26] These types of operations signal that JNIM is aiming to remove Nigerien forces from the area and coerce civilians so it can ensure freedom of movement and access to resources.

JNIM has also carried out at least another six attacks near Ouro Gueladjo, which lies at the midpoint of a road connecting two district capitals, since January 1.[27] Security forces have maintained a presence in Ouro Gueladjo, but a continued high rate of JNIM improvised explosive device (IED) and ambush attacks around the town indicate that they have been unable to degrade JNIM’s capabilities in the area.[28] These kinds of attacks signal an effort to keep security forces out of surrounding rural havens so that JNIM can maintain freedom of movement and access to resources in these areas.

Figure 4. JNIM Escalates Attacks in Western Niger in 2024

Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.

JNIM likely already established a support zone southwest of Niamey toward the end of 2023 that it is using to support its current attack campaigns. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Database recorded at least nine instances of JNIM militants extorting “taxes” from villages in rural areas of the Torodi district in November 2023.[29] The group’s only activity in this area since was an IED attack in January 2024 targeting Nigerien security forces attempting to move through the area.[30] This area is situated between JNIM’s two major attack campaigns in Samira and Ouro Gueladjo, indicating that the group is using this haven to support those campaigns.

Additional support zones in southwest Niger would allow JNIM to expand the geographic scope of future attack campaigns, enabling it to amplify pressure on the roads surrounding Niamey during the coming year. JNIM’s attack campaigns near Samira and Ouro Gueladjo are near key roads leading to the capital. JNIM has already used its havens around Ouro Gueladjo and the Torodi district to attack the RN6 connecting Torodi town and Niamey. Militants can use the same havens they use to attack Ouro Gueladjo to facilitate attacks on the RN27, which connects Say and Niamey. Support zones in the Gotheye department would also enable attacks along the RN1 or RN4 highways that run along the Niger River and connect several department capitals in northwestern Niger to Niamey.

Degrading Nigerien lines of communication around the capital fits JNIM’s historical pattern of avoiding decisive battles for large population centers in favor of siege tactics that isolate security forces and spur favorable negotiations.[31] JNIM has been conducting such an attack campaign around the Malian capital since early 2023.[32]

Horn of Africa

Authors: Liam Karr and Josie Von Fischer

Ethiopia is advancing bilateral partnerships with de facto autonomous regions of northern Somalia, which is undermining the SFG’s legitimacy in these areas and exacerbating tensions between the SFG and Ethiopia. Ethiopia and the de facto independent breakaway region of Somaliland announced at the beginning of January that they had signed a deal that would grant Ethiopia land in Somaliland for a naval base in return for recognizing Somaliland’s independence.[33] Ethiopia and officials from the de facto autonomous Puntland region have met multiple times in Ethiopia and Puntland in recent weeks to discuss security, economic, and political cooperation.[34] Ethiopian engagement with both regions legitimizes their existence as autonomous entities at the expense of the SFG’s de facto sovereignty over these regions.

Both regions’ cooperation with Ethiopia has inflamed preexisting tensions between the SFG and the regional governments. The SFG does not recognize Somaliland’s independence and has repeatedly rejected the port deal as a violation of its sovereignty since neither Ethiopia or Somaliland consulted the SFG about it.[35] The announcement scuttled potential dialogue between Somalia and Somaliland that aimed to ease tensions.[36] The recent flurry of diplomatic activity between Ethiopia and Puntland came days after Puntland announced it would function as an independent government until the SFG addresses its grievances surrounding the ongoing Somali constitutional revisions.[37]

The Somali government responded to the cooperation by expelling the Ethiopian ambassador from Mogadishu on April 4, recalling its ambassador, and ordering the closure of Ethiopian consulates in Puntland and Somalia.[38] Both Somaliland and Puntland have stated the SFG does not have the authority to close Ethiopian consulates in their respective regions, while Ethiopia has not publicly acknowledged the SFG’s decision.[39] SFG said it took these steps because of the Somaliland port deal.[40] However, the timing and rhetoric about Somalia’s internal affairs indicate that the moves were also in reaction to Ethiopia’s more recent engagement with Puntland.[41] The move risks further escalating the diplomatic crisis by placing Ethiopia in violation of international law, since the international community recognizes the SFG’s sovereignty over Puntland and Somaliland.

The overlapping domestic and regional crises with Ethiopia, Puntland, and Somaliland have weakened the SFG’s counterterrorism efforts. The SFG has given priority to these issues over its counterinsurgency campaign against al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab, undermining the fight against the group and contributing to its retaking territory in central Somalia.[42] The fallout surrounding the Ethiopia-Somaliland port deal has also weakened counterterrorism cooperation with Ethiopia and the UAE, which have been critical partners in recent years. CTP assessed that Somalia’s agreement with Turkey alienated the UAE, which is close to Ethiopia and competing with Turkey for influence in the region, contributing to the UAE decreasing financial and training support for Somali forces.[43] The diplomatic standoff between Ethiopia and the SFG also jeopardizes military cooperation with Ethiopian forces fighting al Shabaab in Somalia, which the SFG had hoped to use as part of a counterinsurgency offensive in southern Somalia.[44]

Somalia

Author: Liam Karr

Al Shabaab launched a complex attack targeting a district capital in south-central Somalia, underscoring al Shabaab’s ongoing resurgence in areas that Somali forces liberated during the 2022 central Somalia clan uprising and counterterrorism offensive. Al Shabaab launched a three-pronged complex attack involving a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED) targeting three security checkpoints and the regional intelligence headquarters in Bal’ad on April 6.[45] Bal’ad is a district capital 25 miles north of Mogadishu in the Middle Shabelle region. Somali officials claimed that security forces repelled the attack and killed 11 militants at the cost of at least four Somali soldiers.[46] The attack is the second involving a SVBIED in central Somalia and the fourth across the country since the beginning of Ramadan on March 10.[47]

Figure 5. Al Shabaab Contests the Shabelle River Valley in Central Somalia

Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.

Al Shabaab had not conducted an attack of this scale in the western half of the Middle Shabelle district since September 2023, when it launched an offensive to reestablish itself in the area. The group conducted an offensive in the neighboring Jowhar district in August and September that involved a separate SVBIED attack on Jowhar town.[48] The group also launched an unsuccessful large-scale operation to establish a lodgment on the east bank of the Shabelle River.[49] The offensive and operation were 30 and 50 miles north of Bal’ad, respectively.

Al Shabaab had not conducted an attack this sophisticated in the Bal’ad district specifically since Somali forces cleared al Shabaab from most of the Middle Shabelle region in the fourth quarter of 2022.[50] Somali forces and local clan militia cleared al Shabaab from the Bal’ad district in October 2022 and liberated the last al Shabaab–controlled town in the wider Middle Shabelle region—nearly 125 miles northeast of Bal’ad—on December 22.[51]

Figure 6. Somali Forces and al Shabaab Contest Central Somalia: August–September 2023

Source: Liam Karr.

Al Shabaab threatens to reestablish a foothold in the Middle Shabelle region through its control of the west bank of the Shabelle River. CTP assessed in October 2023 that al Shabaab would be able to use these havens to continue manufacturing VBIEDs and staging fighters for attacks like the April 6 attack on Bal’ad.[52] Several unconfirmed claims on Twitter say that the group sent a separate group of fighters across the Shabelle River in early April 2024 to reestablish a foothold in various rural areas of Middle Shabelle, repeating the tactics of its failed offensive in September 2023.[53] Al Shabaab has used a combination of SVBIED and large-scale infantry assaults to successfully retake areas of north-central Somalia, where the group’s havens, supply chains, and local bomb-making facilities have remained similarly intact.[54] Somali forces will eventually have to clear these remaining areas to safeguard their successes from 2022.

 

March 14, 2024

Africa File, March 14, 2024: Foreign Fighters and Jihadi Rivalry in the Sahel; Somalia Backslides

Liam Karr

Data Cutoff: March 14, 2024, at 10 a.m.

To receive the Africa File via email, please subscribe here. Follow CTP on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

The Africa File provides regular analysis and assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’ activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US personnel and interests.

CTP rebranded the Salafi-Jihadi Movement Weekly Update and its related special updates to be named the Africa File on February 23, 2024. The name “Africa File” better reflects the updates’ Africa-centric nature in recent months. “Africa File” also better reflects CTP’s efforts in recent months to cover a wider range of national security interests on the African continent in addition to the Salafi-jihadi movement.

Key Takeaways:

  • Sahel. The Islamic State’s Sahel Province (ISSP) has established itself as a hub for foreign fighters, raising its transnational threat risk to Northwest Africa and Europe. ISSP and al Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate have both taken advantage of an informal détente to improve their positions in the Burkinabe, Malian, and Nigerien border region. However, recent clashes indicate that sustained fighting between the groups may resume, which would draw resources away from their campaigns in adjacent areas and toward each other.
  • Somalia. Somalia’s inability to maintain its security forces is undermining its ability to contest al Shabaab across the country. Somali troops unexpectedly withdrew from recently liberated areas of central Somalia, allowing al Shabaab to retake key towns. This development threatens Somali control of Harardhere, a district capital and one of the major gains of the central Somalia offensive that began in 2022. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considering cutting training and funding programs for Somali forces, undermining security in Mogadishu and the Somali Federal Government’s (SFG) plan to eventually assume control for its own security.

Assessments:

Sahel

ISSP has expanded its areas of control and established itself as a hub for foreign fighters from North Africa and Europe since early 2023, which increases the group’s transnational threat risk. ISSP began resurging in the tri-border area of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger after the withdrawal of French forces in 2021. The UN observed that the territory under ISSP control doubled between 2022 and the first half of 2023, including swaths of northeastern Mali that its al Qaeda–linked rivals and communal militias previously controlled.[1]

An informal détente with al Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate, Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM), since July 2023 has enabled ISSP to consolidate control over these areas. The rate and severity of clashes between JNIM and ISSP had significantly decreased in the tri-border region of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger after July 2023. This trend was most evident in northeastern Mali, where the two groups fought several large-scale battles between August 2022 and July 2023.[2] Both groups lost hundreds of fighters and used sophisticated systems such as vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and in-battle drone reconnaissance.[3]

The rate of engagement in this area has significantly fallen since the beginning of August 2023.[4] The severity of these clashes has significantly decreased over the same period, with only one recorded fatality in northeastern Mali since August, compared to 95 in the first seven months of 2023.[5]

Figure 1. Inter-Jihadi Clashes in Northeastern Mali, 2023–24

Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.

ISSP began increasing political and governance efforts during the spring of 2023, implementing various economic, health, infrastructure, judicial, and security initiatives.[6] These policies included regulating water tower usage, reopening weekly markets, financing health services, and providing security patrols around towns and for traders traveling to nearby markets.[7] ISSP also carried out Shari’a punishments at least five times in the Gao and Menaka regions between June and November 2023.[8] The group has also besieged Mali’s easternmost regional capital, Menaka town, causing a humanitarian crisis as the town grapples with inflation and refugees that fled ISSP’s violence.[9]

The détente with JNIM also likely enabled ISSP to increase its activity across the Malian border into Niger after the July 2023 Nigerian coup.[10] The group killed more than twice the number of Nigerien soldiers and civilians during the last five months of 2023 than it did in the first seven months before the coup.[11] This included a large-scale ambush that killed dozens of Nigerien troops in October.[12] The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project and local reports on X (Twitter) noted that ISSP expanded the rate and geographic scope of its zakat collection activities, which is an obligatory religious tax in Islamic law that Salafi-jihadi groups use to mask forcible extortion.[13]

Figure 2. ISSP Area of Operations

Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.

The larger areas under ISSP control have become a destination for foreign fighters, increasing the transnational threat the group poses, especially to Europe. UN Security Council reported in August 2023 that IS recruiters and facilitators had established transit corridors between southern Europe and the Sahel.[14] Moroccan security forces have since disrupted three IS cells facilitating foreign fighters’ travel to ISSP in Mali in October 2023 and January–February 2024.[15] Swedish police also warned on March 8 that they had seen an increased interest in radicalized individuals attempting to travel to Africa to join IS affiliates.[16]

The presence of foreign fighters previously led to an increase in Salafi-jihadi groups’ external attack plots.[17] Foreign fighters are more hardened ideologues that ascribe to transnational Salafi-jihadism and are not as interested in the local aims or grievances that motivate local militants. Many foreign fighters have also demonstrated an interest in returning to their countries of origin to organize attack plots after being further radicalized in an active conflict theater.[18] The IS network in northwest Africa has also already shown an interest in organizing external activity, given that the UN Security Council reported that it had organized a now-disrupted attack cell operating out of Morocco and Spain.[19]

JNIM has used the truce to exploit the withdrawal of UN forces from northern Mali and the arrival of the Malian army and Wagner Group mercenaries in northern Mali. UN peacekeepers, which had protected population centers and facilitated a 2015 peace deal between the Malian government and separatist rebels, began drawing down in June 2023 after the Malian junta requested they leave the country. The peacekeepers withdrew from Mali by December 2023.[20] The Malian army and its Wagner Group auxiliaries backfilled the UN peacekeepers, which renewed fighting between security forces and the separatist Tuareg rebels that had de facto controlled northern Mali since the UN-backed 2015 peace agreement.[21] The Malian army and the Wagner Group took control of these major population centers and their attached military bases by the end of 2023.[22] 

JNIM has taken advantage of the Malian army and Wagner Group mercenaries’ arrival to boost its local legitimacy among alienated civilians. JNIM has increased the rate and severity of its attacks in northern Mali since the UN troops began withdrawing in June 2023, indicating it has been reallocating resources away from ISSP and toward the evolving situation in northern Mali.[23] The Malian army and Wagner Group forces have spread human rights abuses against civilians in the towns and surrounding areas since entering the area.[24] JNIM exploits these abuses to frame itself as a local protector fighting against abusive security forces and evil foreign mercenaries, boosting its local legitimacy and recruitment numbers as a result.[25]

JNIM has selectively chosen its engagements in northern Mali, likely to sideline and co-opt rebel groups and establish itself as the sole legitimate actor in the region. CTP previously assessed that JNIM would benefit from the resumption of hostilities in the north due to the group’s strong ties with separatist rebels and their communities, which would need JNIM support to resist security forces.[26] These ties have not translated to a blank check of support from JNIM to the rebels, however. The separatist rebels bloodlessly abandoned symbolic strongholds that they had held for over a decade to Malian and Wagner forces, indicating that JNIM did not support the rebels to hold these population centers despite possible coordination on smaller-scale attacks.[27]

The rebels’ losses undermine their legitimacy as an effective resistance to the Malian government. JNIM’s emir attempted to co-opt the rebels’ legitimacy by framing fighting as a religious struggle, not a battle for “decentralization” or equality between northern and southern Mali.[28] Al Qaeda affiliates successfully co-opted the Tuareg separatist cause in 2012 and channeled that momentum into taking over most of northern Mali before the French military intervention undid these gains.[29] At least one rebel commander and a group of rebel fighters defected to JNIM for unspecified reasons on March 8, 2024, underscoring the risk that JNIM will repeat this phenomenon.[30]

ISSP and JNIM recently fought in northeastern Mali for the first time since December 2023. This clash could signal an end to the informal détente and draw resources away from both groups’ other campaigns in adjacent areas of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and toward each other. ISSP attacked JNIM militants in northern Mali on March 8 and 9.[31] One of the attacks killed a local JNIM commander, increasing the chances of retaliation and escalation.[32]

Figure 3. ISSP and JNIM Contest the Tri-Border Region

Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.

The killed JNIM commander operated closer to central Mali and the Burkinabe and Nigerien borders, however, which could contain resumed fighting in this area and allow a more localized truce in northeastern Mali to continue. ISSP and JNIM fighters operating around the central Mali–Burkina Faso border and in Burkina Faso also experienced a clear decrease in the rate of engagements and fatalities, but overall violence in this area notably stayed at a higher level than in northeastern Mali. Engagements declined from 12 instances in the first seven months of 2023 to five instances since August, and fatalities decreased even more sharply over the same periods, dropping from 135 to 19.[33]

Different JNIM subgroups operate in central Mali and Burkina Faso than in northern Mali.[34] The subgroups in central Mali and Burkina Faso have more ethnic Fulani militants, similar to ISSP, whereas the JNIM fighters in northern Mali are predominantly Tuareg or Arab.[35] This ethnic overlap in central Mali and Burkina Faso means that ISSP and the JNIM subgroups in the area are directly competing for popular support and cannot as easily appeal to interethnic grievances, adding a different dimension to the inter-jihadi rivalry in this area.[36]

Figure 4. Inter-Jihadi Clashes in Central Mali and Burkina Faso, 2023–24

Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.

Somalia

Somali troops and local militia abandoned several recently liberated towns in central Somalia’s Mudug region on March 11, which enabled al Shabaab to recapture these areas. Somali forces withdrew from Ba’adweyne, ’Aad, and ’Amara towns (also spelled Bacadweyne, Caad, and Camara) between March 9 and 11.[37] Somali media have given several reasons for the withdrawals, including lack of salary payments and rotations, bribes, and political infighting.[38] Somali troops withdrew from a fourth town, Hinlabi (alternatively spelled as Xinlabi), on March 14.[39]

This rapid and sudden backsliding reversed the only major counterterrorism efforts the SFG made in central Somalia in the first quarter of 2024. Somali forces that secured the towns in September 2023 had cleared entrenched al Shabaab resistance in nearby rural areas with the help of US air support in January and February 2024, which Somali officials said resulted in hundreds of al Shabaab casualties.[40]

Al Shabaab could take advantage of the gaps to threaten Somali forces holding Harardhere, a major port and district capital that Somali forces captured for the first time in over a decade in January 2023.[41] Al Shabaab has used hinterland support zones to stage large-scale attacks involving hundreds of fighters and suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices that overran Somali bases further south in southern Somalia.[42] The group’s capture of towns near Harardhere provides such staging grounds and improves resource access. Harardhere’s capture has been one of the major achievements of the central Somalia counteroffensive campaign that began in 2022, as it was one of two district capitals that Somali forces captured that were previously governed by al Shabaab.

Figure 5. Somali Forces Withdraw from Key Towns in Central Somalia

Source: Liam Karr.

The UAE suspended the salary payments for several Somali National Army units in Mogadishu, likely due to a recent al Shabaab attack.[43] Emirati military personnel in Somalia are helping train thousands of Somali soldiers to combat al Shabaab. The Emirati training is part of a military cooperation agreement between Somalia and the UAE that began in 2014 and expanded in 2022 after a multiyear pause.[44] The training program is a major part of the SFG plans to strengthen Somali security forces before the scheduled withdrawal of African Union troops at the end of 2024.[45] At least two Emirati-trained Somali battalions deployed in Mogadishu have helped improve security in the capital throughout 2023, decreasing overall al Shabaab attacks and fatalities compared to 2022.[46]

Somali media reported that the suspension of payments is the beginning of cuts to Emirati support for the Somali National Army.[47] The death of four Emirati trainers in an al Shabaab attack at a UAE-run military base in Mogadishu on February 10 may have prompted the UAE to scale back support.[48] Domestic casualty aversion has contributed to the UAE’s withdrawal from closer and more strategically critical theaters, such as Yemen in 2019.[49]

Somalia’s growing ties with Turkey are also undermining the UAE’s geopolitical position in Somalia and decreasing its incentives to stay in the country. Turkey and Somalia signed a bilateral maritime agreement in February that authorized Turkey to build, train, and equip the Somali navy and deploy ships to combat illegal activity and remove “any external violations or threats” to Somalia’s coast.[50] In exchange, Turkey received economic stakes in development projects in the Somali exclusive economic zone.[51]

The agreement strengthens Turkey’s position in critical waterways off the Somali coast at the expense of the UAE. The SFG was considering a similar deal with the UAE for over a year before signing the 2024 deal with Turkey.[52] The UAE has pursued other efforts to increase its influence in these waters, such as supporting Ethiopia’s ambitions to gain Gulf of Aden port access, which would establish another pro-Emirati client port. The UAE’s previous support for an Ethiopian stake in the Emirati port in Somaliland 2018 and its ties to the Ethiopian government have led multiple media outlets and CTP to assess that it at least tacitly supports Ethiopia’s 2024 port deal with Somaliland, a de facto independent breakaway  region of Somalia.[53] CTP previously assessed that the Somalia-Turkey agreement partially aims to deter the Ethiopia-Somaliland port deal, making the development a double blow to the UAE.[54]

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