Somalia's Security Question

01 Introduction

For nearly two decades, Somalia's national security has rested on an African Union force operating under three successive names: the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), and, since January 2025, the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM). Each transition was framed publicly as a step toward greater Somali ownership of the country's security. In 2026, that framing has been overtaken by events. AUSSOM is operating at a fraction of its required budget, and on 1 July 2026 the United States formally notified the African Union that it would not continue funding UNSOS, the logistics office that sustains AUSSOM's daily operations, beyond 31 December 2026. Somalia may therefore face a substantial reduction in international security support on a timeline dictated by donor budget politics rather than by an assessment of Somali institutional readiness.

This article asks a narrower and more testable question than whether Somalia should be self-reliant. It asks whether Somalia currently has the deployable capacity to absorb the responsibilities AUSSOM performs, what a realistic transition would require, and what is actually known, as opposed to claimed, about troop numbers, costs, and the division of combat responsibility between Somali and international forces.

02 From AMISOM to ATMIS to AUSSOM

AMISOM deployed in 2007 under a mandate to protect Somalia's transitional federal institutions. By 2011 it had pushed Al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu, and over the following decade it extended operations across southern and central Somalia in support of successive Somali governments. ATMIS succeeded AMISOM in April 2022 with an explicit drawdown mandate: full security handover to Somali forces was targeted for the end of 2024. That handover proved premature. Somali forces struggled to consolidate and hold territory recaptured during the 2022 to 2023 offensive against Al-Shabaab in central Somalia, and the group regained ground in parts of Hirshabelle and Galmudug during 2023 and 2024.

AUSSOM launched in January 2025 as a restructured mission rather than a simple continuation of ATMIS. It carries a reduced force ceiling of approximately 11,900 to 12,600 personnel, depending on the phase of deployment, and is explicitly framed around a phased transition to Somali ownership. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2809 authorized the mission through December 2026, with the African Union's own planning documents projecting a final exit around 2029, subject to joint technical assessments of the security situation on the ground.

03 AUSSOM's current operations

As of mid-2026, AUSSOM's deployed strength stands at approximately 11,826 uniformed troops, 680 police officers, and 85 civilian staff, distributed across five sectors and 49 locations covering roughly 400,000 square kilometers of south-central Somalia. Troop-contributing countries include Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Egypt, the last of which replaced Burundi's contingent during the transition from ATMIS to AUSSOM, with each contributor holding a distinct sector.

Public discussion in Somalia often reduces AUSSOM's role to a binary claim, either that the mission does not fight Al-Shabaab at all, or that it remains the primary combat force. Neither characterization holds up against the available evidence. AUSSOM contingents protect strategic infrastructure, including airports, ports, government facilities, and supply routes, and they hold territory that Somali forces have already cleared, which allows the Somali National Army to concentrate its own manpower on further offensive operations rather than garrison duty. During major operations such as the 2025 Shabelle offensive, AUSSOM contingents fought alongside Somali units rather than remaining exclusively in a rear-guard capacity.

"Somali forces increasingly lead ground offensives, while AUSSOM and allied airpower provide force protection, territorial holding capacity, and enabling support that Somalia cannot yet fully replace on its own."

At the same time, United States Africa Command has continued to provide direct air support to Somali-led ground operations, including strikes coordinated with the Federal Government of Somalia in March 2026.

04 The Somali National Army: capacity and contested metrics

Any rigorous assessment of Somalia's security self-reliance must begin by acknowledging that Somali National Army troop strength cannot currently be stated as a single reliable figure. Estimates from credible sources vary by more than a factor of two, depending on which forces are counted and whether the figure reflects nominal enlistment or operational readiness. Table 1 summarizes the principal published estimates.

The gap between nominal and deployable strength is the more consequential fact than any single headline number. Somalia's most operationally reliable formations are its foreign-trained elite units: the Danab Brigade, trained and equipped by the United States, with roughly 1,700 to 2,000 operationally active personnel, and the Gorgor brigades, trained and equipped by Turkey, with an estimated strength of roughly 6,000. Beyond these units, the broader Somali National Army includes forces of uneven training quality, some with origins in earlier clan-based militias, and inconsistent integration into a unified command structure. The Somali Ministry of Defence's stated ambition of building a 100,000-strong army, announced in November 2025, should be understood as a political target rather than a currently funded or achievable force structure, given existing recruitment, training throughput, and salary constraints.

05 The political economy of security financing

The financial position of both AUSSOM and the Somali National Army is precarious, and the two funding problems are related but distinct. AUSSOM's approved budget for the 2025/26 fiscal year is estimated at between $166.5 million and $190 million, yet pledges as of early 2026 totaled only $48.6 million, leaving the mission funded at roughly one quarter of its stated requirement. The more acute vulnerability lies with UNSOS, the United Nations logistics office that supplies AUSSOM with fuel, transport, medical care, and troop stipends, and which operates on an approved budget of approximately $481.7 million for the 2026/27 fiscal year. On 1 July 2026, the United States, which funds roughly 26 percent of the assessed United Nations budget, formally notified the African Union Commission that it would not support the continuation of UNSOS beyond 31 December 2026. This decision does not by itself terminate AUSSOM's mandate, which the United States has indicated it would not oppose renewing through the Security Council, but it removes the mechanism that currently keeps the mission operationally functional.

The European Union remains the most consistent external funder of African Union missions in Somalia, having contributed close to €2.8 billion since 2007, including an additional €75 million approved in April 2026 through the European Peace Facility. The United States has separately provided approximately $1.6 billion in bilateral support to troop-contributing countries and an additional $2 billion through UNSOS, with total United States security assistance to the mission estimated at approximately $3.6 billion since 2007. Even with continued European support, however, no single donor or combination of currently committed donors is positioned to fill a UNSOS-sized gap on short notice.

Proposals to redirect AUSSOM funding directly into Somali National Army salaries understate the structural obstacles involved. AUSSOM funding flows through United Nations and African Union assessed and voluntary financing mechanisms that carry legal restrictions on end use and cannot simply be reassigned to a national government payroll. Somali forces, by contrast, are paid through separate and considerably less predictable bilateral and domestic government channels, and troop stipend delays have already been documented as a recurring problem within AUSSOM itself, a mission with far more institutionalized financing than Somalia's own army. A credible transition strategy would require the construction of new, dedicated, and predictable financing architecture for Somali forces, rather than the simple transfer of an existing peacekeeping budget line.

06 Combat responsibility: who is fighting Al-Shabaab

The question of who bears primary combat responsibility against Al-Shabaab resists a simple answer, and the evidence supports neither the claim that Somali forces do all the fighting nor the claim that AUSSOM avoids combat. Available reporting on operations since 2025 indicates that Somali forces, including the Danab and Gorgor brigades, have led the majority of offensive ground operations, particularly in the Shabelle and Hiran regions. AUSSOM's role in these operations has centered on holding cleared territory, protecting logistics corridors and strategic infrastructure, and, in specific joint operations, providing direct combat support alongside Somali units. United States airpower, deployed through Africa Command, has supplemented this arrangement with precision strikes coordinated with the Federal Government of Somalia, most recently in March 2026.

This division of labor carries an important implication for withdrawal planning. Somali forces have shown a growing capacity to conduct offensive operations, but their capacity to hold and administer recaptured territory without external support for logistics, air cover, and rear-area security remains substantially less developed. The 2025 Shabelle offensive illustrated this pattern directly: Somali forces achieved territorial gains, but Al-Shabaab's shift toward asymmetric, hit-and-run tactics has forced a doctrinal shift toward more permanent garrisoning of strategic rural hubs, a mission that currently depends in part on international force protection.

07 Three scenarios for Somalia's security transition

08 Conclusion

Somalia's security debate is frequently framed as a binary choice between continued dependency and full sovereignty. The evidence reviewed in this article supports a more precise conclusion: Somalia is being pushed toward greater self-reliance on a timeline set largely by donor budget decisions in Washington and Brussels, rather than by a conditions-based assessment of readiness in Mogadishu. The Somali National Army has made real and documented progress, including an expanding elite corps, more consistent international training partnerships, and a growing operational tempo against Al-Shabaab. At the same time, credible estimates of deployable Somali troop strength remain well below the government's stated ambitions, and Somali force financing is, if anything, less predictable than the AUSSOM budget it is meant eventually to replace.

Absent these conditions, the risk is not that Somalia fails to become self-reliant, but that self-reliance is declared by donor exit before it has been achieved on the ground.