Somalia

After a protracted, hotly contested and sometimes violent electoral transition process, in mid-May 2022, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud assumed the presidency of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) for the second time. He arrived at a time when al-Shabaab remained a potent military force across significant parts of Somalia.

Fighters from Somalia's Al-Shabaab group on Tuesday overran a military base in the southern Jubaland region that they had lost to the army in January, a Somali officer and a local resident said.

The United States has donated more than 60 tons of weapons and ammunition to the Somali National Army, or SNA, to boost ongoing operations against the militant group al-Shabab and for future training of an elite infantry unit, according to the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu.

The Federal Government of Somalia has made significant progress since the Council last took up the situation in September 2022 — including on such national priorities as the fight against the Al-Shabaab terrorist group — senior officials told the Security Council today, as members warned that an ongoing drought is expected to render half the population food insecure by mid-2023 and place the country at increased risk of famine. 

The leaders of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia met Wednesday in the Somali capital to discuss the ongoing fight against al-Shabab militants. The security summit took place amid an offensive by Somalia and its allies against the Islamist militants.

The head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning World Food Program says support from donors like the United States and Germany have allowed it to postpone — though not entirely avert — famine in Somalia but stressed that “we’re not out of this yet.”

The Somali government says it has shut down the financial infrastructure that supports Islamist militant group al-Shabab.

The U.S. announced Sunday that it’s giving $9 million in new military aid to help Somalia's ongoing campaign against al-Shabab militants. It's the first such direct military support since U.S. forces returned to Somalia and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced an "all-out war" against the militants.

[…] Two cars packed with explosives were simultaneously detonated in Mahas – a town in Hiran where a major offensive was launched last year against the Al-Qaeda-linked militant group.

Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, in his New Year's Day speech Sunday, declared the country will eliminate al-Shabab Islamist militants this year.