Fighting Al-Shabaab: What Next After Exit of ATMIS

Since 2022, the government of President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud has implemented a comprehensive strategy to drain the swamps of violent extremism in Somalia, effectively putting the al-Shabaab Islamist group on the backfoot. But the on-going drawdown of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) ahead of its final exit by December 2024 is creating a vacuum that militia is exploiting to stage a comeback. In the absence of a seamless transition to the proposed African Union Stabilization Support Mission (AUSSOM) in January 2025 and emerging geopolitical rivalries by troop...