Armed and insecure

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educed by almost half as incidents of shelling in densely-populated Mogadishu between troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia and non-state armed group Al-Shabaab became less frequent”. 597 The situation continued to improve in 2013 (41 incidents, 408 casualties, 82 per cent of whom were civilians). 598 In both 2012 and 2013, Al-Shabaab in Somalia was “the world’s 5th largest non-state user of explosive weapons”; the latter year included 11 suicide bombings. 599 Since, the percentage of civilian casualties has oscillated drastically: from 82 per cent in 2013 to 46 per cent in 2014 and 64 per cent in 2015. By other measures, there was some stability: 44 incidents, 620 casualties (including from aerial explosive weapons and suicide attacks) and a ranking of 12 th in 2014; and 45 instances of explosive violence with 700 casualties, rendering Somalia the 13 th most affected country in the world in 2015. 600 It should also be noted that in recent years Somali territory has been host to one of four international coalitions in the world that use explosive weapons (AMISOM), even if earlier potentially illegal patterns of use have subsided. 601 Somalia has likewise been highly affected by landmines, cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war (ERW). 602 Between 1999 and the end of 2014, Somalia (excluding Somaliland) suffered at least 3,094 mine/ERW casualties, with 1,149 killed and 1,518 injured. 603 In 2014 alone, 30 were killed and 54 injured; over 83 per cent were civilians, and almost half were children. 604 DRONES One of the forms of explosive violence in Somalia comes from the sky: US armed drones have been recorded as being in use over Somalia since 2011 (at that point launched from Ethiopia). This is a case of new technology continuing standing policy: the US has been utilising explosive weapons in Somalia for decades—since before the infamous ‘Black Hawk Down’ in 1993, through to air strikes in the south targeting Al-Qaeda in 2007—and continues to have extensive involvement in Somalia. 605 597 “At the same time, a sharp rise in IED and grenade incidents was recorded in neighbouring Kenya as a result of a spillover in violence related to the ongoing conflict in Somalia.” AOAV, ‘An Explosive Situation, Monitoring explosive violence in 2012’. 598 Even though it rose to seventh place globally, as dynamics in other countries also shifted. AOAV, ‘Explosive events, monitoring explosive violence in 2013’, April 2014, http://aoav.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AOAV-Explosive-Events-2013.pdf. 599 Ibid. 600 AOAV, ‘Explosive States, monitoring explosive violence in 2014’, May 2015, https://aoav.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/AOAV-Explosive-Statesmonitoring-explosive-violence-in-2014.pdf; AOAV, ‘Unacceptable Harm: AOAV’s Explosive Violence Monitor 2015’, April 2016, https://aoav.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2016/04/Unacceptable-Harm-AOAVs-Explosive-Violence-Monitor-2015.pdf. 601 In 2015, the other coalitions were MINUSMA in Mali, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and the US-led coalition against al-Qaeda and ISIS-linked elements in Iraq and Syria. AOAV, ‘Unacceptable Harm: AOAV’s Explosive Violence Monitor 2015’. 602 Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor, ‘Somalia, mine action’, November 2015, www.the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2016/somalia/mine-action.aspx. Cluster munition remnants have been found along the border with Ethiopia, and are probably left over from the border conflict there decades ago: Cluster Munitions Convention, ‘5th Meeting of States Parties to the Cluster Munitions Convention’ September 2014, www.clusterconvention.org/files/2014/09/Somalia.pdf. 603 For the remaining 347 casualties it was not known whether they survived their injuries. Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor, ‘Casualties and Victim Assistance’, July 2015, www.the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2016/somalia/casualties-and-victim-assistance.aspx. 604 Ibid. 605 See for example: War is Boring, ‘Somalia’s Got a New Commando Squad’, July 2014, https://warisboring.com/american-commandos-secretly-training-thenew-somali-army-861e0f87cd86#.langt9vaa; Foreign Policy, Exclusive: U.S. Operates Drones From Secret Bases in Somalia’, July 2015, http://foreignpolicy. com/2015/07/02/exclusive-u-s-operates-drones-from-secret-bases-in-somalia-special-operations-jsoc-black-hawk-down/. 132 PAX ! Armed and insecure
As such, in 2014 Somalia was one of six nations to suffer the recorded 47 drone attacks globally. 606 That year, the US drone programme in Somalia notched perhaps its biggest ‘success’, killing Al-Shabaab founder Ahmed Godane. Today, drone operations are secretively run out of the southern coastal city of Kismayo, as well as an airstrip in central Baledogle (in addition to known bases in Djibouti and, formerly, Ethiopia) by up to 80 members of the Joint Special Operations Command. 607 In June 2016, a US drone believed to have taken off from Baledogle crashed onto Al-Shabaab dominated territory, not the first such UAV lost in Somalia. 608 Though exact numbers remain elusive given the secrecy of the programmes, some estimates assert that the US launched at least 26 drone attacks on Somalia’s territory since 2011, with 11 taking place in 2015 and eight in 2016 up to the end of May. 609 Another monitoring programme notes at least 17 drone attacks in the period under review. 610 Regarding casualties, somewhere between 219 and 383 people have been killed, though the number of confirmed civilian deaths (at least three, possibly up to ten) is likely to be severely underreported. 611 Another database, which covers both drone and other (conventional) strikes estimates that between 299 and 343 militants and between 28 and 40 civilians have been killed by the US in Somalia since 2003. 612 In March 2016, an aerial strike that included drones on an Al-Shabaab training camp about 200 kilometres north of Mogadishu reportedly killed 150 fighters, making it one of the largest such attacks ever. 613 However, taking the numbers for this and other attacks at face value would be naïve: a study on Pakistan drone attacks showed that claims of zero civilian deaths were simply false; rather, attacks probably killed around 45 civilians. 614 Dynamics in Somalia are likely to be similar, and the number of civilian casualties since 2011, though unknown, is probably significantly higher than reported. 615 The legality, morality and effectiveness of such attacks have 606 AOAV, ‘Explosive States, monitoring explosive violence in 2014’, May 2015. The other countries were Afghanistan, Mali, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen. 607 Foreign Policy, ‘Exclusive: U.S. Operates Drones From Secret Bases in Somalia’, July 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/02/exclusive-u-s-operates-dronesfrom-secret-bases-in-somalia-special-operations-jsoc-black-hawk-down/; Intercept, ‘Target Africa’, October 2015, https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/. 608 Dalsan, ‘Somalia: U.S. Drone Lands in Alshabaab Territory’, June 2016, http://allafrica.com/stories/201606130292.html. 609 Bureau of Investigative Journalism, ‘Get the data: Drone wars’, www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/. 610 International Security, ‘Drone Wars Somalia: Analysis’, http://securitydata.newamerica.net/drones/somalia-analysis.html. 611 Bureau of Investigative Journalism, ‘Somalia: reported US covert actions 2001-2016’, February 2012, https://www.thebureauinvestigates. com/2012/02/22/get-the-data-somalias-hidden-war/. See full database at: ‘US strikes in Somalia, 2007 to present’, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1- LT5TVBMy1Rj2WH30xQG9nqr8-RXFVvzJE_47NlpeSY/edit#gid=0. 612 International Security, ‘Drone Wars Somalia: Analysis’. 613 Al Jazeera, ‘US: More than 150 al-Shabab fighters killed in air raid’, March 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/drone-strike-somalia-kills-150- fighters-160307170607675.html. 614 “America hasn’t killed a handful of innocents or a few dozen in the last 8 years. Credible, independent attempts to determine how many civilians the Obama administration has killed arrived at numbers in the hundreds or low thousands. And there is good reason to believe that they undercount the civilians killed.” The Atlantic, ‘The Obama Administration’s Drone-Strike Dissembling’, March 2016, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-administrationsdrone-strike-dissembling/473541/; Bureau of Investigative Journalism, ‘Drone strikes in Pakistan, US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ are untrue’, July 2011, www. thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/07/18/washingtons-untrue-claims-no-civilian-deaths-in-pakistan-drone-strikes/. 615 Intercept, ‘Nobody Knows the Identities of the 150 People Killed by U.S. in Somalia, but Most Are Certain They Deserved It’, March 2016, https:// theintercept.com/2016/03/08/nobody-knows-the-identity-of-the-150-people-killed-by-u-s-in-somalia-but-most-are-certain-they-deserved-it/. PAX ! Armed and insecure 133
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Armed and insecure An overview of a
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Armed and insecure An overview of a
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MSF NISAT-PRIO OCHA OHCHR RECSA RPG
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Weapon Use 68 Military Spending and
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Agents of Political Conflict in Afr
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Saudi Arabia Map 2 Horn of Africa S
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unacceptable humanitarian harm caus
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corruption, Somalia ranks last in t
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A few lessons learned can be mentio
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1. Sudan Once the continent’s lar
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iggest perpetrator of this type of
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documented, a few of which will be
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The relentless bombing and constant
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107mm mortars, as well as reportedl
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weapon systems are Russia, China, U
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small arms and light weapons (SALW)
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ocket launchers are also promoted.
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which they deemed ineffective. 124
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Spotlight: Children killed and maim
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© Enough / Amanda Hsiao South Suda
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!Abyei South Sudan Juba The Sudanes
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“Hundreds of extra-judicial killi
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embargo on South Sudan. 161 In earl
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implement” the remainder of the c
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thought to have been considerable,
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Equatorian leaders complained to th
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Spotlight: An Armed Newborn—Pre-i
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3. Uganda With a population slightl
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civil disobedience”—led to anot
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against the arrest and beating of a
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nonetheless killed 725 civilians in
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Concerning major weapons systems, t
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SU-30s do not appear to meet any ob
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the aim of offsetting the North’s
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Spotlight—Uganda and South Sudan:
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© Pete Lewis / UK DFID Refugee she
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Page 111 and 112: Eritrea Asmara severe drought and f
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