Because really, there’s never enough guns in Somalia.
If you looked up failed state in the encyclopedia, a picture of a khat-chewing Somali toting an AK-47 he purchased off the street for a hundred dollars—if that—would be plastered front and center. The government controls a few blocks of Mogadishu—at best—while raging Islamist insurgencies have claimed most of the south and west of the country. Al-Shabaab, a hardline group comprised of the core of the former Islamic Courts Union, and suspected of ties to al-Qaeda, regularly engages African Union peacekeepers in gun battles and, on occasion, suicide attacks.
Somalia poses several problems to the internationalal community. Piracy is ripe off Somalialand’s (an autonomous northeastern region of the country) shores, and it is widely assumed Al-Qaeda militants are relocating to the region as South Asia becomes an increasingly more difficult place to operate. Refugees from the widespread fighting are pouring into countries in the area (particularly neighboring Kenya), positing a possible threat to the stability of the hole of the Horn of Africa.
Yes, the transitional federal government needs greater supply and better quality of weapons. But even then, success against the militants is not guaranteed. Only more African Union peacekeepers (with a much greater mandate to pursue militants), and, perhaps, an intervention by a coalition of interested parties in the region (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda) will make the security situation in the country more manageable. Somalia has been in a state of open conflict for nearly twenty years, and it doesn’t look to end anytime soon.
