The turning point may have come when the foreign forces in Somalia started cooperating, Thomas suggested. “I think the catalyst is the actual coordination between Kenya, Ethiopia, the Somali government, AMISOM, and the proxy militias that all of these groups used to combat al Shabaab,” he said. “It’s only recently that they had a coherent and collective vision in terms of how to defeat al Shabaab on the battlefield.” The U.S. has contributed to this effort as well. “The entry of unmanned U.S. drones flying over their positions has somewhat limited al Shabaab’s mobility,” Mohammad Ademo, a journalist, political analyst, and founder of the Horn of Africa-focused website OPride, wrote in an email. And in July, the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake reported on the full extent of American security cooperation with the Somali government, which included the deployment of special forces and the training of intelligence officials.
At the Atlantic, by Armin Rosen.
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