The Plunder of Sudan's National Museum A camera shakily pans around a room in Sudan's National Museum in Khartoum. Except for a few smashed cabinets...
Somalia's Last Chance Saloon At the 11th hour, with Al-Shabaab literally at the gates of Mogadishu and only under immense international pressure, has Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud reluctantly reached out to the national opposition. On 30 March, exactly one year after forcing sweeping constitutional amendments through parliament that all but eviscerated the federation, the president called – through gritted teeth - for a national conference to forge "unity" in the face of looming defeat and possible state collapse. Villa Somalia has pushed the country's fragile, transitional political model to the brink, with the jihadists having taken ready advantage of the chaos. But while the prospects of talks have been tentatively welcomed in some corners, their parameters remain unclear. What is apparent, though, is that the federal government will have to abandon its monopolistic constitutional and electoral agenda if it is to stall Al-Shabaab's advance and begin patching up Somalia's elite political consensus.
As Al-Shabaab continues to advance ever closer to the Somali capital, and the threat of Mogadishu's capture appears increasingly real, the jihadist group has telegraphed neither its purposes nor political demands. While plenty of comparisons may have been made to the sudden fall of Damascus at the hands of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) earlier this year, there are several key differences, not least the careful recalibration of the Syrian group's image away from its jihadist roots. Al-Shabaab, on the other hand, has displayed little willingness to consider any ideological concessions or negotiations since it first emerged over 20 years ago. For a rebel group that believes it is on the cusp of victory, Al-Shabaab remains obdurately inscrutable, leaving its opponents and onlookers to divine its true intentions.
On the night of 26 January 1885, thousands of assembled Sudanese Mahdist forces broke through the defences of the Egyptian garrison in Khartoum, ending a 10-month siege on the capital. The trigger of the Mahdist assault was an advancing British military expedition intended to relieve their besieged Egyptian counterparts, with London having subjugated Cairo in 1882. They arrived two days too late to the capital, however, and subsequently withdrew from the country, ending the Turco-Egyptian rule over Sudan. Subsequently, the fall of Khartoum to the Mahdists, an Islamic political movement, ushered in the 13-year period known as the 'Sudanese Mahdiyya' until its overthrow by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1898.
Another day and more territory in central Somalia falls to Al-Shabaab. Just this morning, in the Masjid Ali Gadud district, jihadist fighters launched a dawn raid on a Somali National Army (SNA) base, seemingly overrunning the camp and killing several government soldiers. Across the Shabelles, Al-Shabaab is continuing to dictate the battlefield, and with the extremists' progress unmistakable, the threat to Mogadishu continues to grow. Yet Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's government remains waiting for a foreign deus ex machina rather than consider conceding political ground within the Abgaal and at the national level to halt their advance.
While international attention has been trained on the political schism within Tigray and the drumbeat of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Fano insurgency in the Amhara region has escalated further. On 19 March, several of the most prominent Fano militias launched "Operation Unity" in the Amhara region, targeting dozens of Ethiopian military installations and inflicting significant casualties. The attack across Gojjam, Gondar, and Wollo demonstrated a previously unseen level of coordination between these Fano factions.
A powerful caucus of Hawiye clan chiefs is conducting discreet talks with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Mogadishu to defuse Somalia’s worsening political crisis, aggravated in recent weeks by the ongoing Al-Shabaab offensive in the Shabelle Valley and the attempted encirclement of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The initiative is still in its infancy, the details still somewhat hazy, and there is no guarantee it will succeed, but it does certainly offer a realistic prospect of ending the escalating divisions and political stalemate in Somalia.
Last Saturday, 15 March, a young man named Mohamed Jama Gahnug doused himself in fuel and set himself ablaze in Berbera, Somaliland, after – though accounts differ – being ignored by his girlfriend. Just a couple of days later, in the same city, another man, Ali Mohamed Abdalle, consumed poison following an argument with his partner. Both men survived, though Gahnug suffered severe burns, and Abdalle is still recuperating in the hospital. The two men’s extreme reactions to rejection in just a handful of days have reignited widespread discussions about love and tragedy in Berbera – after all, is Berbera not the quintessential home of tragic love, the city of Elmi Boodhari’s epic ancient romantic tale?
Eritrea and Ethiopia are unmistakably preparing for war. Since the Pretoria agreement in 2022 that ended the Tigray war, ties between the allies in the conflict have steadily worsened. From the misleading heights of the 2018 Addis-Asmara rapprochement, bilateral relations today are at their lowest ebb in years. In recent weeks, senior Ethiopian federal officials have increasingly resurfaced forceful historical, anthropological, and economic justifications for restoring 'access' to the Red Sea through Assab. Any Ethiopian attempt to seize the strategic port city, however, would likely come as part of a broader push for regime change in Asmara. In turn, both sides have further begun mobilising significant forces in anticipation of renewed conflict, while Eritrea has also sought to rally support from its allies in Cairo and Riyadh. But with the Horn of Africa and the fragile security of the Red Sea region so unstable, any return to war in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea would be calamitous.
Al-Shabaab's offensive momentum continues across central Somalia. Yesterday morning, as President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud travelled to Mogadishu's airport to depart for Adan Yabaal in Middle Shabelle, a major improvised explosive device (IED) was remotely detonated near his presidential convoy. Thankfully, the president was unharmed, but the explosion pulled down buildings at the Ceel-gaabta junction and wrecked a bulletproof SUV in the convoy. Several people were consequently killed in the blast, including two journalists, Mohamed Abukar Dabashe and Sultan Ayub Wardhere, while a number of presidential red berets were also injured. The condemnation of the attack in Mogadishu was swift, with the UK calling it a "cowardly act."
Since the beginning of March, the destabilising schism within and between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) has rapidly escalated. The TPLF faction, led by Debretsion Gebremichael and backed by the majority of the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) leadership, has now consolidated its hold on central and north-eastern Tigray and moved to assert itself over key towns, including Adigrat and parts of Mekelle. Amid the broader strains, this appears to have triggered the departure of TIA President Getachew Reda from Tigray for Addis, possibly ending his fraught time as regional leader. While the possibility of armed intra-Tigrayan conflict remains unlikely for now, the concerning backdrop of escalating Addis-Asmara tensions threatens to plunge the broader region into renewed conflict. On 10 March, TIA Vice-President General Tsadkan Gebretensae publicly warned of a return to war.
Over the weekend, large groups of Al-Shabaab fighters infiltrated areas close to the Somali capital Mogadishu, the bulk of them in the direction of Afgooye. Local media reported Al-Shabaab (AS) ‘sightings’ two nights in a row in multiple locations such as Ceelasha Biyaha and Sinka Dheer. According to local sources, Al-Shabaab reassured the public it had no intent to trigger fighting and ‘harm civilians’ or ‘change people’s lives’. The aim, Al-Shabaab told the residents of these districts, was to take over Mogadishu and create a ‘just Islamic state based on Islamic sharia.’ It would seem AS’s tactics are partly psyops, the aim being to project soft power, reassure civilians, and demonstrate confidence and reach. However, these types of deep incursions into enemy territory from multiple directions may also signal a far bolder military strategy: to steadily take control of Mogadishu as Somalia’s feckless federal government unravels.
Somalia appears on the brink of another seismic political change. Under growing political strain and losing ground to a resurgent Al-Shabaab, the possibility of Mogadishu's fall or negotiated capitulation to the jihadists in the coming months continues to grow. With Al-Shabaab rapidly taking advantage of the growing political chaos, Somalia's transitional federal project is more imperilled than ever. The country's regression from a fragile state to a failing one seems increasingly inevitable.
In early November 2020, as Ethiopian federal troops and their allies invaded Tigray, Addis directed the severing of all telecommunications and Internet services to the region. For the next two years, the world's most prolonged Internet blackout was imposed on Tigray, lasting 670 days until its eventual restoration only after the Pretoria agreement in December 2022. The veil thrown over Tigray had numerous damaging consequences, not least the hardships faced by Tigrayans in both documenting the litany of human rights violations against them and revealing these atrocities to the world. While Tigray's blackout is one of the most extreme examples, with conflict and political repression proliferating across the Horn of Africa, government internet shutdowns are becoming far more commonplace.
The first phase of Al-Shabaab's offensive surge culminated yesterday morning in a devastating complex attack on a hotel in Beledweyne. At least 10 people were killed after the jihadists detonated a car bomb before storming the Qaahira Hotel, targeting a meeting of Gaalje'el elders who were mobilising clan militias in western Hiiraan against Al-Shabaab. The intention was clear—to violently disrupt the assembling of ma'awiisley against Al-Shabaab in Hiiraan and to intimidate clans contemplating resistance.
Renewed conflict may be looming in Ethiopia's Somali region. Having given up arms in 2018, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) has warned that it is considering a return to insurgency after months of deteriorating relations with the federal government. Last week, ONLF Chairman Abdikarim Sheikh Mahdi 'Maaday' confirmed that the party was exploring all eventualities in light of Addis's refusal to implement key articles of the 2018 peace agreement. The risk of a return to conflict had been apparent for some time, with the ONLF voicing increasing frustration at its own marginalisation as well as perceived infringements on the Somali Regional State's (SRS) independence and rights.
Once again, Somalia is quietly heading towards a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe. Intersecting threats of rising conflict and worsening drought are estimated to push an additional one million people into 'crisis' levels of food insecurity between April and June 2025. The prospect of 4.4 million people at IPC Level 3 hunger could arguably not come at a worse moment, with the international aid and development architecture paralysed by the savaging of USAID. In 2022, Somalia narrowly avoided famine due to coordinated humanitarian efforts, but it is unlikely to receive such assistance this time around.
Somalia's incumbent political elite remains engaged in a grand national self-construal project to recast the image of the country. At the enterprise's core is the notion that Somalia is 'rising' or 'risen,' and the narrative is becoming ever more feverish and urgent. It is partly animated by 'positive psychology'; the desire, perhaps, to project a 'positive image' of Somalia and boost Somali self-esteem, but it is also driven by a negative impulse – hostility to the 'fragile state' lens through which most of the world views Somalia.
The seemingly inexorable slide towards widespread conflict in South Sudan continues to gather pace. In recent weeks, escalating violence between government forces, opposition groups, and various militias has destabilised multiple regions while the fragile national ruling coalition looks ready to splinter-- again. Rising tensions between the two principal signatories of the 2018 peace agreement-- President Salva Kiir and First Vice-President Riek Machar-- and their dominant factions threaten to plunge the volatile country back into widespread violence.
The final domino for Villa Somalia's ill-conceived one-person, one-vote (OPOV) elections may be about to topple. After multiple false starts, it now appears that over two years since his term expired, South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen plans to conduct his own indirect regional elections absent from the federal government. With Darood-majority Puntland and Jubaland having withdrawn from the federation, only South West remained as the only non-Hawiye majority Federal Member State (FMS) tied to the OPOV plans, offering Villa Somalia a fig leaf of legitimacy. But with pressure still mounting on President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the country badly adrift, Laftagareen appears to be poised to secure his position for the foreseeable future-- with Ethiopian support.