Washington is worried about Somalia. After 18 years of civil war, a insurgent group loosely aligned with Al Qaeda has threatened to conquer the country. In a March audio recording, Osama Bin Laden encouraged the hardline group Al Shabab to overthrow Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the leader of the U.S.- and U.N.-backed “transitional government.” This summer, Al Shabab surrounded the government’s Mogadishu headquarters, forcing African Union peacekeepers (pictured) to deploy tanks to help repel the attackers. And in July, the Obama Administration sent the defenders millions of dollars worth of small arms and ammunition, with more promised.

But the current strategy of propping up the weak transitional government will never work, according to one retired Somali freedom fighter.

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In the 1980s, Ahmed Egal helped found the Somali National Movement, which successfully fought back the forces of Somali dictator Siad Barre, in the country’s north. The freedom fighters then stepped aside, to allow clan leaders to organize a new government. Today, “Somaliland,” with 3.5 million people, is a rare bright spot on the Horn of Africa’s bloody landscape. It has its own laws, currency and army, and has remained peaceful, and growing, as the rest of Somalia has fallen apart. Still, no other country officially recognizes Somaliland, instead preferring to back the TFG.

“It is necessary to embrace the only peaceful, functioning, Muslim, representative government in the Horn of Africa, namely Somaliland,” Egal told me, for my latest piece in World Politics Review. Rather than sinking more cash into a doomed effort to save the transitional government, he said, the U.S. should ally with Somaliland and use it as a base for fighting Al Shabab. Egal envisions a new African Union peacekeeping force operating out of Somalia, alongside Somaliland forces trained and equipped by the U.S., Russia and the E.U.

It’s a controversial proposal, to be sure. Washington is steadfast in its support for the transitional government, and politely declines to recognize any new state that would shatter Somalia’s existing borders. But there is precedent for the U.S. backing a breakaway region of a troubled country. Washington is the major sponsor for South Sudan, a fully autonomous region of Sudan that is quietly arming itself with modern weaponry, in anticipation of a 2011 vote that could see South Sudan formally secede.

WIRED.COM

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1 COMMENT

  1. Ilaahay Haw naxariisto marxuun Ali maarshaal waxaa uu ahaa nin wacan oo
    yaqaana danta somaliland waxaa uu ahaa aasaaska xisbiga kulmiye
    waxaanu tacsi udiraynaa dhamaan dadkii uu ka geeriyooday
    isnaga ilaahay ha u naxariisto maarshaal

  2. waxaan ka tacsiyedeenya reerkiiisi iyo ehligii iyo umada reer somaliland geerida naxdinta leh ee ku timi alla aw naxariistay cali maarshaal nin aad iyo aad u qima badan ayuu ahaa dhawac weyna ay u geesatay geeridisu illaahay waxaan uga baryayaa in ina siiyo badalkiisiumada iyo dalkaba geerito waa xaq nina lagama dhaafayo inaa li laahi wa ina ilaahi rajucoon.

  3. there is nothing called somaliland when are you all going to realize that? its only issaq people who believe in this no other Somalis believe in this somalialnd business(issaqland) our view here in owdal is somalia is only one country one people

  4. Abdi walal you need help, with people has hard headed and full of spite is the reason why Somalia will never progress. Haters such as yourself never want for others what they want for themselves. You spend all your time on websites like this So that you can gather material to use to criticise this concept which your so against how sad. Read the following post it for people like you who use the same lines and excuss to belittle the unbelievable achievements of Somaliland.

  5. Abdi walal you need help, its because of people like you hard headed and full of spite why Somalia will never progress. Haters such as yourself never want for others what they want for themselves. You spend all your time on websites like this So that you can gather material to use to criticise this concept which your so against how sad. Read the following post it for people like you who use the same lines and excuss to belittle the unbelievable achievements of Somaliland.

  6. Issaq land yeh! Well my granmother has a sister who she reunited with after 47 years. Her sister moved to Mogdishu with her brother because there were no opportunities anywhere else. She married a local man there and was happy they had 7 kides together. Just before the war broke out her brother was one of the many who were draged from houses and shot dead. What was his crime? in 2006 when the Ethiopians were broght in by the Abdiallahi Yusful goverment, she fled the fighting they were turned away from puntland which meant they had to go through Ethiopia to get to where? SOMALILAND. Her children and friends are not Issaq but they are in S/land hoping and supporting its success. So talk to me about one people and one land.