AUSSON, Al-Shabaab and the fractured path to Somali stability

By Simon Mulongo 

Last week’s Extraordinary Summit of the African Union Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) to the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) concluded with bold declarations —more troops, stronger coordination, firmer resolve.

Yet behind the banners and carefully worded communiqués in Kampala, an anxious undercurrent defined the summit’s real tone. 

With al-Shabaab’s resurgence intensifying and internal cohesion within AUSSOM fraying, the mission faces what many quietly concede is its most precarious moment since launching on January 1, this year. 

The group’s ongoing Operation Ramadhan — marked by increased frequency and reach of attacks, including a failed assassination attempt on President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on March 18 — has underlined the insurgency’s enduring potency. 

Reports indicate a 50% surge in al-Shabaab activity across central and southern Somalia this year alone. 

Entire districts once reclaimed now face renewed contestation, with government forces increasingly overstretched and retreating. In response, TCCs pledged an additional 8,000 troops, largely from Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Burundi. 

Yet many diplomats and analysts agree: the challenge now goes beyond numbers. It is funding, moreover some partners are distancing themselves from supporting the mission.

The diplomatic rift 

On April 18, Somalia declared Ambassador Sivuyile Thandikhaya Bam, AUSSOM’s acting head, persona non grata. 

The expulsion has been both silently and openly enacted, marking the fourth removal of a senior AU official and five UN envoys since 2019, casting a long shadow over the summit. 

Officially, Bam was accused of unauthorised engagement with clan leaders. Unofficially, his departure exposed a widening fault line between the Somali Federal Government (FGS) and its international security partners. 

This repeated pattern of expulsions suggests a deeper structural issue. While Somalia asserts its sovereign right to demand respect for political protocols, the AU and its partners are left grappling with an increasingly volatile operating environment — one in which mandates can be upended not by battlefield losses, but by political misunderstandings and mistrust. 

In remarks before his departure, Bam warned that AUSSOM was facing “a gathering storm,” not only from the battlefield, but from its own $90.4m funding shortfall for the first half of this year. 

Of that, nearly $45m remains unpaid from the January-March quarter alone. 
The financial pressure has already slowed civilian, individual police officers and military staff officers deployment and limited operational reach, especially in contested zones.

Simon Mulongo

Firepower and fragility 

At the heart of this crisis is a deeper question: what does stabilisation mean and who gets to defi ne it? In Mogadishu, officials increasingly view AU-led missions as overreaching. 

“We welcome partnership, not patronage,” President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud emphasised during the summit — an unmistakable signal that Somali leadership wants greater control over the terms of security cooperation. 

One senior Somali diplomat put it more bluntly: “The AU is welcome, but Somalia must lead. Sovereignty is not negotiable.” Meanwhile, al-Shabaab is filling the governance vacuum with brutal efficiency. 

In many rural districts, the group collects taxes, settles disputes and even distributes food.

For some communities long abandoned by formal institutions, this order — however coercive — is more consistent than the state.

A mandate at risk  

Despite the summit’s formal pledges, concerns about AUSSOM’s viability linger. The European Union, once a major donor, has already scaled back its funding, amid concerns over transparency and measurable impact. 

Both IGAD executive secretary Workneh Gebeyehu and President Yoweri Museveni issued strong calls for African-led solutions and warned against the dangers of external dependency. 

Yet the very foundations of that African-led approach are being tested—from within. 

The Kampala summit may have reaffirmed commitment, but whether that commitment can be translated into lasting stability depends on more than troop deployments or budget pledges. 

It demands rebuilding trust — between the AU and the Somali government, between international partners and local actors and within Somalia itself. 

AUSSOM remains on the ground. But if it is to endure as more than a symbolic presence, it must redefine its role not just as a security mechanism, but as a facilitator of a Somali-led future. 

In a region where peace is fragile and fatigue is rising, clarity of mission and cohesion of purpose are no longer luxuries — they are necessities.

The writer is security expert