“Some forces are being paid today and then it will take them four or five months to get another salary,” he said. “You cannot expect those forces to be loyal and defend the country when they’re not getting … what they’re entitled to.”
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But the insurgents aren’t the only ones who have changed their tactics. The peacekeepers now have 70 bases dotted throughout the city, and are expanding at a rapid rate, pulling troops from positions they consider more secure to move closer to insurgent positions.
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International donors are trying to find a way of paying soldiers directly to stop commanders from stealing their wages.
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“I have talked to them and asked them to come back,” Ondoga said. “They have their own problems … when the commander is injured, they will leave.”
Some of the problems were political as well, he said. The commander in chief of the army has recently been replaced, and the president and prime minister are publicly feuding. The prime minister faces a vote of no confidence on Saturday. Somali armed forces are basically militias loyal to a single individual; if his political fortunes take a downturn, they will often simply go home.
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This is one of those deals where you read the articles and the situation on the ground, and it just screams some very obvious solutions. For one, if international donors do not want Somali soldiers to leave the post as soldiers, then make sure they get paid their salaries. If leaders are stealing from the troops, then sidestep the leaders and pay them with mobile cash. Try it, because it just might work.
If these soldiers depend upon the international donors directly, then they won’t have to depend upon the power and influence of their specific warlord/politician. They could actually keep fighting, and not worry about their next pay check. It would also force leaders to find new ways of winning over the attention of their troops, other than holding their pay checks over their heads.
The other one that makes sense is to protect these key leaders. Actually assign PSD teams to protect these folks, if in fact they are so important to the Somali soldiers. If they are hard to kill, then maybe this might provide a little more stability to the whole thing. Those leaders might be able to focus more on managing a country, and less on protecting themselves.
Finally, it looks to me like the AU is in a prime position to follow in the same footsteps as the Marines and Army in Iraq back before the surge. All they need is some guidance and possibly a little technological and strategic help. A leadership team from AFRICOM or a PMC could do such a thing. Because these bases could easily be called COPS, and these AU forces should be mimicking the same COIN strategies:
The standing operating procedure (SOP) for the unit typically focused on: (1) Planning and establishing the COP; (2) Ensuring route security so each outpost could be kept resupplied; (3) Clearing operations after the COP had been stood up to clear IEDs and find weapons caches; and (4) Census patrols to follow after the clearing operations to consolidate the position and gradually work its way into the human terrain of the area – the real target of MacFarland’s campaign.
I won’t even attempt to discuss the AU’s dire need of manpower, and given the rush job that they are doing right now, it sounds like they are in a dire need of strategy. Yet again, there are plenty of PMC’s who could stand up a security force to support this operation, or the US military or one of it’s partners could send some professional forces. If this is truly important to the west, and we do not want islamic extremists to win in Somalia, then the time is now to do something about it. Or we could watch as the AU struggles with what little resources it has against a ruthless enemy? –Matt
PM: Somalia to open 2nd front against insurgents
AU peacekeepers expand bases in Somali capital
Somalia: Suicide Bomber Attacks at Presidential Gates
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PM: Somalia to open 2nd front against insurgents
KATHARINE HOURELD
Sep 17, 2010
Several thousand Somali forces trained in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya will open a second front against Islamist insurgents by year-end in Somalia’s south and central regions, the prime minister said Sunday.