American forces in Somalia are unwanted

By Julius Mbaluto

Well, US presence in Somalia has been extremely controversial since the early 90s, and, you know, subject to which a movie was made Black Hawk Down. So the thing is at the moment US forces have been in Somalia in the name of fighting, Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group.

In the past, we have seen their approach or methodology used by the US forces not working in Somalia. I'll give you an example, sometime back early 90s or late 90s after many years of civil war in Somalia, Kenya’s leadership called the Somalia warring parties in Nairobi, and they created what they were calling a transitional central government. Elections were conducted in Kenya and then authority taken back to Somalia to govern.

Now, of course, Kenya is a good neighbor they were trying to ensure these people in their neighboring country. But the moment they went, the transition of the central government began to roll. We saw the involvement of America sending troops and supporting Ethiopia. And that was the end of the transitional central government and emergency of the Islamic government that came in to declare children law across the country. Then after that is when the bulk of Al-Shabab, the current terror group began.

Has America been successful? No. It was actually Kenya's defense forces which went inside Somalia, and they managed to push back the activities of the Al-Shabaab military group. The later, we see, Kenya Defense Forces being incorporated into Africa Union force, Amazon, and since that time, it's not just been America. These American troops are very, very... They're not that many. They're not that much. Their impact alone cannot work. There is a lot of work that has been done by Amazon forces.

So, will they withdraw? I don't think it is very consequential. I don't think it would make a huge difference. By the way, Somalia’s narrative, they don't want forces in Somalia. They don't want any forces for their country. Will they govern themselves? Probably, if they are given the chance, why not?

One of the greatest crying points of Somalia are Somalian people has always been, whether it's Amazon forces, or whether US forces, or whether it be elections of their government. They just want to do it themselves. They don't want America to be involved. They don't want Amazon to be involved, but can they contend with the forces of Al-Shabab? We find that Al-Shabab, most of it, get irritated by presence of the US.

We've seen anytime America tried to attack any point of them quickly they came to attack Kenya, Kenya is America. And America is Kenya, so we may see a different picture emerging we may see different situations if they are gone. American forces are withdrawn, because maybe then Al-Shabaab may stop attacking Kenya because most of the assailants have attacked Kenya because they think Kenya as an ally of the US. So celebration? Not quite. Internally Somalia needs to do a lot of work for its own security operations.

Trump orders Pentagon to pull nearly all troops from Somalia

US President Donald President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to withdraw nearly all of the hundreds of American troops deployed to Somalia.

Julius Mbaluto, Founding Editor of Informer East Africa Newspaper: Julius is currently the host for Global Radio Show, known as “Global Conversations” on Colourful Radio. He is an award- winning International Journalist and a mentor to Journalism students at City University. He is the Founder and Chief Editor of Informer East Africa Newspaper published in the UK. Mbaluto’s broadcasting career began at Carlton Television. He then joined ITV and, later, the BBC.

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