Somali Civil War

The Somali Civil War (Somali: Dagaalkii Sokeeye ee Soomaaliya; Arabic: الحرب الأهلية الصومالية al-ḥarb al-’ahliyya aṣ-ṣūmāliyya) is an ongoing civil war that is taking place in Somalia. It grew out of resistance to the military junta which was led by Siad Barre during the 1980s. From 1988 to 1990, the Somali Armed Forces began engaging in combat against various armed rebel groups, including the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in the northeast, the Somali National Movement in the Somaliland War of Independence in the northwest, and the United Somali Congress in the south. The clan-based armed opposition groups overthrew the Barre government in 1991.

Various armed factions began competing for influence in the power vacuum and turmoil that followed, particularly in the south. In 1990–92, customary law temporarily collapsed, and factional fighting proliferated. In the absence of a central government, Somalia became a "failed state". This precipitated the arrival of UNOSOM I UN military observers in July 1992, followed by the larger UNITAF and UNOSOM II missions. Following an armed conflict between Somali insurgents and UNOSOM II troops during 1993, the UN withdrew from Somalia in 1995. After the central government's collapse and the withdrawal of UN forces, there was some return to customary and religious law in most regions. In 1991 and 1998, two autonomous regional governments were also established in the northern part of the country: Somaliland and Puntland. In the south Islamic Sharia courts began proliferating in response to lawlessness. This led to a relative decrease in the intensity of the fighting, with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute removing Somalia from its list of major armed conflicts for 1997 and 1998.

In 2000, the Transitional National Government was established, followed by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004. The trend toward reduced conflict halted in 2005, and sustained and destructive conflict took place in the south in 2005–07, but the battle was of a much lower scale and intensity than in the early 1990s. In 2006, Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia to depose the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and install the TFG. The ICU effectively disintegrated, and soon after a large scale insurgency began against the occupation as other Islamist groups formed and established themselves as independent actors. Most notably Al-Shabaab rose to prominence in this period, and has since been fighting the Somali government and the AU-mandated AMISOM peacekeeping force for control of the country. Somalia topped the annual Fragile States Index for six years from 2008 up to and including 2013.

In October 2011, following preparatory meetings, Kenyan troops entered southern Somalia ("Operation Linda Nchi") to fight al-Shabaab and establish a buffer zone inside Somalia. Kenyan troops were formally integrated into the multinational force in February 2012. The Federal Government of Somalia was established in August 2012, constituting the country's first permanent central government since the start of the civil war. In 2023, the Las Anod conflict broke out in the northern part of Somalia between SSC-Khatumo and the Somaliland Army. International stakeholders and analysts subsequently began to describe Somalia as a "fragile state" that is making some progress toward stability.