According to the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu, the SNA has received more than 60 tonnes of weapons and ammunition from the United States to help in operations against the al-Shabab militant group and for the future training of a highly skilled infantry brigade.
According to a statement released by the embassy on Wednesday, the weapons arrived at Mogadishu’s international airport on two U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo planes. The minister of defence and commander in chief of Somalia’s armed forces, as well as Tim Trinkle, the charge d’affaires for the embassy in Mogadishu, met the planes at the airport.
“Sixty-one tonnes of AK-47s, heavy machine guns, and ammo,” the U.S. statement said in reference to the weaponry.
The statement added, “This military support will support the current SNA operations against al-Shabab in Galmadug and Jubaland States and the next intake of the SNA Danab Advanced Infantry Brigade, for which the recruitment process has already started.
For information leading to the “identity or location” of al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamed Rage, the State Department has also announced a brand-new $5 million prize.
The group’s principal spokesperson since 2009 has been Rage, also known as Ali Dheere. His involvement in the preparation of militant assaults in Kenya and Somalia, according to the State Department, is well known.
Al-Shabab had previously held control of many towns and villages in central Somalia, but the Somali National Army, working with a number of local clan militias, launched an offensive there last year that was successful in regaining control of those locations. Al-Shabab had run these locations under its customarily strict interpretation of Islamic law.
In order to prevent the retaken territories from falling under the hands of the militants, analysts have cautioned that Somalia’s federal and state governments must uphold security and offer economic assistance in those areas.
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During a meeting in Washington this week to review Somalia’s security, state-building, development, and humanitarian goals, officials of Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States raised that concern.
Participants supported the Somali government’s emphasis on counterterrorism and capacity building, according to the U.S. State Department, which released a statement on Tuesday.
The statement read, “The partners agreed to increase coordination of international security support, and the significance of ensuring prompt delivery of stabilisation assistance to recently liberated areas.
The participants pledged to assist Somalia’s attempts to fulfil the standards for managing its arsenal of weapons and ammunition, which the U.N. Security Council must do before it can fully relax its arms embargo on the Federal Government of Somalia, according to the statement’s addition.
A long-standing arms embargo on Somalia has been maintained by the Council, but it has yet to be lifted out of concern that terrorists or other non-governmental entities would obtain weapons there.
According to the U.S. Embassy, the weapons that arrived in Mogadishu on Tuesday “are marked and registered pursuant to the Federal Government of Somalia’s Weapons and Ammunition Management policy, designed to account for and control weapons within the Somali security forces and weapons captured on the battlefield.”
State Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for Somalia, Ali Mohamed Omar, described the conference this week in Washington as “fruitful” in an interview with VOA Somali Service.
“Our goal was to present our allies with our requests for training, logistics, stability resources, humanitarian help, and development, and our partners’ purpose was to discuss how to better support Somalia, especially the war against al-Shabab,” said Omar.
He continued, “We are awaiting their reaction to our demands and the assistance we have requested, as well as any choices towards enhancing the coordination of their support for Somalia.
“A very productive meeting,” Somalia’s national security adviser, Hussein Sheikh-Ali, tweeted following the Washington gathering.
