On the Horn’s dilemma: meeting Somalia’s president

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See mintmobile.com. Hello, and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist in New York. I'm John Fassman. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Pilots trained by Western militaries often wind up in a cockpit of commercial aircraft. Some end up as instructors. But driven by high salaries, some have been training Chinese military pilots to the consternation of Western governments. And some of the greatest players of all time are rolling back the years at the World cup in Qatar, Messi and Ronaldo among them. But football genius doesn't guarantee an appearance at the tournament. We pick a fantasy team of the stars who never made it. But first, Over the weekend, gunfire was heard outside a hotel in a central district of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Inside the hotel, forces from Al Shabaab, a jihadist group affiliated to Al Qaeda, had laid siege. More than 60 people were taken hostage. On Monday, government forces stormed the building. Fifteen people died, including eight people staying at the hotel. The incident marks part of a continued campaign by Al Shabaab to overthrow the Somali government. And it's still an extreme version of Islamic law. In late October, they claimed responsibility for a car bomb in the capital that killed over 100 people and wounded several hundred more. That was the worst attack in the country in over five years. The Somali government retaliated, authorizing a US military strike that killed 17 members of Al Shabaab. Somalia's army and clan militias later killed at least 20 more fighters in towns in central Somalia. And the U.S. state Department offered $10 million for information about key leaders of the group. It's all part of a recent ramp up in pressure on the terrorist organization, a policy led by the country's recently re elected president, Hassan Sheikh Mohammed.

Let me just put this here and we'll just leave that.

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Yeah.

Oh, good.

Well, thanks. I met with the President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohammed, in the Presidential palace in Mogadishu, the capital that's known as Villa Somalia.

Tom Gardner is the economist, East Africa correspondent.

Hassan Sheikh was re elected earlier this year. He was previously president between 2012 and 2017. And since coming back to power, he's made a huge effort to combat Al Shabaab. And I had the opportunity to talk to him about how that effort is going.

Before that. Tom, let's take a step back. Tell us about the fight against Al Shabaab.

So Al Shabaab arose in Somalia about 15 years ago in the vacuum that occurred in the aftermath of the collapse of the Somali Central state in the 1990s. Since then, it's grown to become Al Qaeda's most lethal and wealthiest affiliate. It controls large parts of Somalia. Large parts of Somalia are simply off limits, not only for foreigners like me, but also for the President himself. The country is also in the grip currently of a famine, the worst drought in four decades, following repeat rain failures and, of course, global food price rises in the wake of the Ukraine war. A lot of those areas most affected by the famine are in fact those areas controlled by Al Shabaab. These are some of the most fertile parts of the country. When I met with the president, he explained how Al Shabaab has thrived because the government over the last 15 years has done little to combat them and also done little to provide services and governance in these places where Al Shabaab is embedded.

There was no Somalia authority. Somali government was not a driver for the war against Al Shabaab.

Yeah.

Main reason may be lack of experience, a lack of commitment, a lack of whatever sold me so many things.

So, as he says, there's not been a concerted effort to repel Al Shabaab, particularly in the last five years or so. His predecessor was essentially missing in action for five years and did not confront the jihadists. He, however, has been making the fight against Al Shabaab a cornerstone of his policy.

So tell us more about that. What has his policy been? What is he doing?

Well, in contrast to previous campaigns, including his own government campaigns in his first term, where the focus was sort of exclusively military and focused on repelling Al Shabaab, expelling them from the territories they control. They're still doing that, but there has been a shift in the approach. For example, Mukhtarobo, who was once a feared leader of Al Shabaab, who once had a $5 million American bounty on his head. He's now cabinet minister. He's the minister for Religious affairs. And that was one of the first moves the new president made, was to appoint him to his cabinet. And that's an example, I'd say, of the president attempting to experiment, to look for new ways to counter the group. And it's part of a more holistic plan as well.

And tell us more about that plan.

So the way the president describes it, there's essentially three planks to it. There's the military, but there's also ideology. And there's this recognition of the need to win the ideological fight, as the President says, to reclaim the Islamic narrative from Al Shabaab as well as taking it on militarily.

When you kill Al Shabab later the second day, you have one who is more extreme than the previous one. So we killed the founder, we killed many other places, but still there are other leaders who are driving the business of Assha. So now we decided to keep continuing on the military side. That's very important, essential, the central pillar. We decided to continue, but we decided to add two more variables on the equation. One is Shabab is a faith based or ideology based organization. So we have to open a front there to fight. Ideologically, they claim that they are propagating Islam. We need to tell our people that they are not propagating Islam, but they are using. We need to show our people that this is a group of mafia, shrouded or covered with an Islamic blanket show. So we need to remove that blanket and show the people that this is a group of mafia.

One way they're trying to do this is through the education system to instill in schools that there is a different message within Islam. And for example, after the interview, we attended a conference, the president and I, where he spoke with religious leaders who were discussing the Islamic curriculum in schools. That's why, for example, one of the recent car bomb targets in Mogadisha was the education ministry.

And we heard the president mention two other variables of the equation I think was the phrase he used. What are the other parts of his plan?

Well, the other one is economic or financial. It's to do with money. It's cutting off the funding streams for the group, limit their ability to operate. I mean, the thing you need to understand about Al Shabaab is it's essentially able to tax businesses across Somalia, even inside Mogadishu. So he needs to be able to put a squeeze on them financially in order to make this fight sustainable.

The third front that we decided to open was economic one Al Shabaab is collecting a huge revenue from the local people, from the rural area, from the cities, from everywhere, from the port, from the seaport. So we decided to close those tabs of financial tabs so that it's not easy for them to. To do what they want to do or they are going to do.

And that's been really important. Al Shabaab has been driven out recently from most of Iran, a region north of Mogadishu which borders Ethiopia. By doing so, that has severed their access to lucrative trade routes.

So these policies have been successful?

Well, it's too early to say that, but it has created an environment, I think, for a more sustained fight against Al Shabaab. And it is true, I'd say, that his administration has made some real strides against the jihadists in recent months. In the summer, for instance, there was this local clan revolt against Al Shabaab's increasingly onerous tak demands in the context of this appalling drought. And that has spread. And what the president has done is back these clan militias, known as the Mawislay, who have been spearheading these uprisings in several districts in the federal state of Hershabele. That's one of Somalia's five federal states. These clan militias have the support now of the national army and American airstrikes, too. The result, according to the government and diplomats as well that I spoke to, is that 10 major towns in Harran and dozens of villages are back under its control. So in that sense, there is this kind of rare feeling of optimism in Somalia, a country which has been fairly fruitlessly battling the jihadists for the best part of two decades now.

And of course, in that battle, jihadists also get a say as well. And Al Shabaab responded with a large scale attack in the capital. How much work is there yet to do?

It's certainly not going to be a quick fix, and indeed, it may get worse before it gets better in terms of these large scale retaliatory suicide bombings that we saw. I mean, Al Shabaab also has a record of quickly seizing back territories it has lost. Ultimately, there will, I think, need to be dialogue between the jihadists and the government at some point to fully bring the violence to an end and to put a lasting settlement in place. For now, however, the president is focused on making sure his government wins the ideological battle as well as the military one, and taking every opportunity he can to speak out against Al Shabaab.

Whether I'm in the mosque or in young people's event, or religious or elders that's the message to us all the time.

Yes, I think there are reasons to be optimistic now, but I think we need to remember there have been moments in the past where Al Shabad appears to be on the retreat and it's fought back. So this is going to be a long battle. But Hassan Sheikh Mohammed, the president, does seem at least to be on the right track.

All right, Tom, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

Back in April, a Chinese fighter jet crashed in a rural part of of central eastern China. The two pilots safely ejected and they landed on long grass, where they were quickly surrounded by locals who recorded the encounter. Who is that? Asked one of the villagers, pointing to one of the pilots, a white man with red hair who apparently spoke in English. This is our instructor, said the other pilot in Chinese. Don't take photos, choose them. The relationship between the west and China might be increasingly strained and their militaries ever more at odds. But despite that growing tension, some Western Air Force pilots are heading to China to share their experience. And some governments aren't happy about it.

Last month, Britain's Defense Ministry said it was trying to stop China from hiring its former RAF pilots to train the People's Liberation Army Air Force. That's the Chinese Air Force.

Shashank Joshi is the Economist's defense editor.

Officials said that a company called the Test Flying Academy of South Africa, this is a private company, had been hiring up to 30 former Royal Air Force pilots to work in China. And it was attracting them with enormous salaries, way more than they could earn in government service flying for Western military. So it was offering them something like $270,000 a year. And this is astonishing, the idea that you have these people trained on some of the West's most advanced aircraft with all of these secrets in their head, training a country that is increasingly seen as a serious military challenger and a threat.

Are these recruiting efforts aimed just at British pilots?

Well, in the days after Britain's announcement, it became clear that, no, it absolutely is not limited to just British pilots. They seem to be going really all over Western countries with experienced militaries. So Australia's shadow defence minister said that at least two Australian fighter pilots had been approached and had declined. Australia's defence minister said he was scandalized by the news that Australians were being targeted. He said it was outrageous that people might work for China. New Zealand's Defence Ministry told me when I asked that four of its former personnel have been employed by the same South African flying academy in France. There were reports several French pilots had been training China's Air force. And then there's a fascinating case of Daniel Duggan, who's a former American fighter pilot. He used to fly for America's Marine Corps and he was the owner of an aviation consultancy in China. He was recently arrested in Australia at the FBI's request. We don't know what that was about. The charges are sealed. But it seems to fit into the same pattern of China trying to absorb some of this foreign military aviation expertise from some of its most serious Western rivals.

This sort of thing seems instinctively wrong to me. But does it contravene any rules?

Well, funnily enough, it seems not. Officials say that the British pilots involved don't seem to have broken the Official Secrets act, which is Britain's National Security Law. And the company involved, the Test Flying Academy of South Africa, a spokesman for them told me that Western governments knew what these pilots were doing. It said they had met with the Ministry of Defense, they'd met with Western governments, they had talked about this as recently as September, and that no objections were raised. And what the academy says is that they only teach basic flight training, things like aerodynamic stability, how to keep a plane level. They told me there's nothing here that, that you wouldn't get from a normal flight school syllabus. But the Western governments involved, including the British government, they don't believe that for a second. They absolutely think that the Chinese government is trying to get secrets.

What has the reaction been from Western governments?

Well, Western governments, John, are worried that China's aim is to understand the tactics of the Western jets and of course, helicopters as well, that it might one day have to fight in a war over Taiwan. They also argue that the foreign expertise might help the People's Liberation army, the pla, close the technology gap with its Western rivals. You know, the PLA, as we know it hasn't fought a major war since it fought Vietnam over 40 years ago. And we see from the Russian Air Force in Ukraine that even a very well equipped armed force can go badly wrong when it doesn't have a lot of experience in combat conditions. So what we're seeing from the uk, from Australia, from a number of other countries, is that they're trying to tighten the controls on what their retired service personnel can do to try and prevent this information from landing up in the hands of China. And clearly they don't trust the assurances that these guys are only discussing unclassified, open source, basic stuff. They think that sensitive tactics, sensitive procedures are falling into the Chinese government's hands.

Has there always been this sort of standoffishness between Western and Chinese militaries?

Well, no, there's a sense of scandal around this, but that's a reflection, I think, of how rapidly the West's relationship with China has deteriorated. If you look at the UK in China, for example, formal military exchanges between the British Armed Forces and the People's Liberation army were actually pretty common. Some years ago, you had PLA officers who attended Sandhurst, which is Britain's military academy, the equivalent of West Point. In fact, one of the attendees of Staff College in the UK was a guy called Zhang Zheng, who actually captained China's first aircraft carrier in the 2010s. And, you know, that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore. You don't really get Chinese recruits in British military institutions now, but this was pretty common. Now, those Chinese military students in the uk, the British officers assumed they were spies, right? The joke was they carried cameras, they asked very technical questions, they probed for details that were useful for the Chinese military, but they were kept away from incredibly sensitive stuff. And it was generally seen as a good thing that you were talking and conversing and getting to know these PLA officers who potentially you might be dealing with in the South China Sea or in the Pacific.

Was Britain an outlier in having that sort of military to military contact?

Not at all. A lot of governments did this. New Zealand's Defence Ministry signed an agreement to train the PLA as recently as 2019, I think Canada's government did winter training with the PLA just a few years ago. Australia, I was told, hosted Chinese officers at its defence academies and military institutions until again just a few years ago, until the relationship broke down during the pandemic. Even America, John, invited the PLA to its RIMPAC naval exercises off Hawaii in 2014 and 2016. And the idea was that these kind of routine engagements between Chinese officers and Western officers was a way of breaking down trust. You would get to know each other, you would build up familiarity, you would build up mutual understanding. You know, perhaps it would even lubricate trust between the two governments. And that was genuinely the sentiment. Of course, given all that has happened, given the dire state of relations between China and the west, the sense of open, untrammeled military competition, even the risk of outright war over Taiwan, all of that now, in hindsight, seems like spectacular wishful thinking.

It does, unfortunately. Thanks so much for joining us, Shashank.

Thanks very much, John.

The Football World cup taking place in Qatar has been much maligned.

Patrick Lane is a senior digital editor at the Economist.

One much talked about fact is that it's in Qatar at all. Even if you set aside the concerns about political and human rights, it really is an odd choice. A country of just 3 million people, the vast majority of whom are foreign workers, it has almost no footballing tradition. But the tournament has been lit up by some stellar performances from some stellar players. Kylian Mbappe is dazzled for France, who looks for Mbappe?

A French breakaway of the highest quality.

Luka Modric, has rolled back the years for Croatia. Argentina's Lionel Messi, the man who many consider to be the greatest player of all time, managed to do the same against Mexico at the weekend.

Lionel Messi. Messi's hanging. That's what they came for, the magic man.

And Cristiano Ronaldo, long a challenger for that crown with Messi, has steered Portugal into the last 16.

It's Ronaldo. It's one nil Portugal. And it's a moment of World cup history. Portugal in front.

But although the World cup brings together most of the world's best players, it doesn't have room for all of them. Football is a team game, and if your national team isn't good enough, or maybe if you don't get picked, you don't get to go, no matter how earth shattering your skills may be. In fact, the history of football is full of stars who never appeared on the game's greatest stage. Most of those who've missed out over the years have been from small countries without enough other good players to get through the qualifying stages. Liberia's George Weah is one of the best examples. In the mid-1990s, he was called by many the world's best player. He won league titles in France with Paris Saint Germain and in Italy with AC Milan. But he couldn't haul his country to a World Cup. Now George Weah was a national hero all the same. That no doubt helped him become Liberia's president in 2018. And although he was denied an appearance at the world's greatest football tournament, his son has avoided that same fate of missing out. Tim Weah is an American citizen and he's playing for the US squad in Qatar. And and he scored a crucial goal in the game against Wales.

Pulisic lays it through. It's we Timothy Wea for the usa.

For some other players, it was just the timing that didn't work out.

Now heard good dummy has Best up.

In front of him.

What a fine line shot.

Georgie Best, another great George. George Best played 37 times for Northern Ireland between 1964 and 1977. But his country didn't reach a World cup once between 1958 and 1982. So although he truly was one of the best, he never got to participate. And in Qatar, Wales have been playing in their first finals for 64 years. So although Gareth Bale has made it at last, plenty of great players didn't. But it's not just comparatively small countries like those that have seen s star players not play in the World Cup. Plenty of legendary players from bigger countries have missed out too. Take for one France's David Ginola. He was known for his flair, his creative touches on the ball, and he had an illustrious European career. But a critical mistake he made a careless cross that was picked up by an opposing player, led indirectly to a last minute winning goal for Bulgaria in a World cup qualifier in 1993. It cost France a place in the 1994 tournament and blighted Gynolas international career. He was criticized by name by his coach and was pretty much shunned by the national team. In 1998, France won the World cup on home soil without him. Perhaps the best of the World Cup's absent greats, Alfredo Di Stefano lost out on playing in the World cup with not just one country, but three. Born in Argentina in 1926, Di Stefano first didn't get to play for his native country after they withdrew from the 1950 tournament. He also missed out playing for Colombia after moving and playing league football there. He played for Colombia internationally a few times, but back then they were not part of FIFA. In 1953, Di Stefano moved to Spain, but with Spain too, he missed out on his chance. Spain missed qualifying for 1958 after being pipped by Scotland. And when the 1962 World cup in Chile came around, for which Spain did qualify, Di Stefano looked as if he would finally take part. Alas, he was injured before the tournament and although he travelled with the Spanish squad, he never saw the pitch. Not surprisingly, Even just in 2022 alone, you could fashion a pretty decent team of players from the countries that have failed to qualify. This is especially true if you stretch the rules a bit to include players who've featured in past tournaments. You could start with Italy, who despite having won four World Cups and being the current European champions, fail to qualify for the second time running. They still got plenty of stellar players. In a fantasy line up of a team made up of players not in Qatar, the Italians would be well represented. Gianluigi Donnarumma might be in goal, joined by Giovanni Di Lorenzo, right back Leonardo Bonucci who's a world class centre half. And then there's Federico Chiesa, a speedy goal scoring winger. Austria's David Alaba, Sweden's Victor Lindelof and Scotland's Andy Robertson would also be candidates for the defence. The strikers might include the graceful Mohamed Salah of Egypt and Liverpool fc. And then there are two Norwegians whose clubs are vying for the top spot in England's Premier League, Martin Odegaard, a midfielder who captains Arsenal. And we have to include the remarkable Erling Haaland, who's been banging in goals for Manchester City at an astonishing record setting rate.

Did it cross? Yes, it did. And Haaland's first chance of the game inevitably goes into.

Taken together, I think that has the makings of a squad that would at least reach the knockout stages. But the bitter reality of course is that none of them will have made an appearance in Qatar, let alone play together in a dream team. But while some supporters may be disappointed that they can't watch their country's football stars take part in a World cup spectacle, other unsentimental folk will be glad of their absence, the coaches and fans of their clubs. Because when European club matches resume after this month long international pause, these unlucky players who missed out on a ticket to Qatar will be refreshed and uninjured. And come the end of this disrupted season when the World cup will be fading in the memory that may make all the difference in the hunt for those competitive league trophies.

Now they're into the gap. Haaland has it. Haaland still Haaland Harland has his first City match ball. It will not be his last.

It's not just the finish. That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. Let us know what you think of the show. You can get in touch@podcastconomist.com and you can subscribe to the economist@economist.com intelligenceoffer the link is in the show Notes. We'll see you back here tomorrow.