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Somalia: Country outlook
FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
OVERVIEW: Somalia's UN-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), led by a reputedly moderate Islamist president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, will continue to face a severe threat from its more radical, armed Islamist opponents. The ranks of the radical Islamists will continue to be swelled by highly committed and trained foreign jihadi fighters, many reportedly from Pakistan, whose presence in the country will continue to pose a serious threat to stability and the TFG. Unless international military assistance to the TFG is increased dramatically, the government's claim that it will defeat the insurgency by 2012 is implausible. In 2010-11 acts of piracy by Somalis off the Horn of Africa will remain alarmingly frequent, given the forecast continuation of instability onshore.
DOMESTIC POLITICS: Neither of the two main radical Islamist insurgency groups, al-Shabab (Youth) and Hizbul Islam (Party of Islam), has indicated a willingness to negotiate from a position of military strength, and together they continue to control most of central and southern Somalia, including much of the capital, Mogadishu. The two groups are allegedly funded and armed by the Eritrean government, as well as by global Islamist movements. Although they have collaborated on the battlefield in the past, recent hostilities between them are likely to persist, so the co-operation of both groups in any political deal cannot be assumed. The TFG, for its part, will seek to exploit the emerging rift between the two militias in order to co-opt their members and to increase tensions between fighters who refuse its overtures. Al-Shabab is accused by the US of having links with al Qaeda and espouses a similarly global jihadi ideology. Hizbul Islam, by contrast, is more domestically focused and claims that it would stop fighting if all "foreign forces" left Somalia. However, this would entail the departure of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom). As Amisom is vital in securing the TFG's limited authority over a small part of Mogadishu, such a concession will not be considered by the embattled administration. Although both of the main insurgent groups espouse a fundamentalist form of Islam, many of their recruits are primarily motivated by either economic necessity or fear of reprisal, and owe more immediate...