Signs of hope in Somalia, but the mission goes on

Al Shabab militants who surrendered a key port town does not mean the insurgency is over yet

After years of support from the UN and African Union fighters, Somalia seems to be putting the extremist group Al Shabab behind it. Photo: AFP / AU-UN IST / Tobin Jones

When Al Shabab fighters withdrew from Barawe this week as Somali and African Union troops converged on the port town south of Mogadishu, it meant the Al Qaeda-affiliated militants had lost their capital. Charcoal exports from Barawe generated an estimated $25 million (Dh28.8m) a year for Al Shabab, helping fund its aim of toppling the UN-supported Somali government, and the port was also used to bring in fighters and weapons.

Barawe's fall represents the latest in a series of significant setbacks for Al Shabab, coming a month after US air strikes killed the group's supreme leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane. This is by no means the end of Al Shabab, which will probably change tactics to become more of a traditional guerrilla force based in the rural areas where it retains control, it seems to be the beginning of the end for a group that just three years ago controlled Mogadishu.

Just as it represents a blow to Al Shabab’s prospects, it serves as a vindication for the international community – and especially the African Union, six member states of which have contributed forces to fight alongside the Somali national army since 2007. They have helped stabilise a country that until very recently was the archetype of a failed state.

As the campaign against ISIL’s forces in Iraq and Syria demonstrate, fighting insurgencies is no easy business. Just as ISIL has attracted fighters because of its recent military successes, so too will Al Shabab’s waning effectiveness serve to dissuade some from joining its ranks. This can only be good news for Somalia and its neighbours. While this success has to be applauded, Somalia must not be considered to be a problem solved and resources redeployed elsewhere. History has shown repeatedly that only with the formation of a functioning civil society, including an economy in which ordinary Somalis believe they have the ability to forge a living, will the appeal of insurgency diminish.

Somalia is already reaping the benefits of its increased stability, with the diaspora beginning to return from the places where they sought refuge during the darkest hours of the past 20-plus years. Their presence is a powerful bolster to the Somalian economy. Just as military defeats seem to indicate the beginning of the end for Al Shabab, this is the start of the next phase in Somalia becoming a functional country once more.