The United States is clear that it will not support the United Nations’ proposed funding model for the African Union security force in Somalia, placing a large question mark over the international mission to contain the jihadist Al Shabab group.

The UN Security Council is due to vote in mid-May on the “hybrid” funding model based on Resolution 2719, which allows African Union, or AU, peacekeeping missions in the continent to be at least partly funded by UN-assessed contributions.

When the Council voted in December to apply the model to the AU Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) — making the mission the first to use it — the US abstained, saying AUSSOM should not be the test case for Resolution 2719. The US deputy UN representative at the time, Dorothy Shea, also complained that the proposed hybrid version would effectively mean that UN members would pay 90 percent of the mission’s total costs, not the 75 percent that she said 2719 was intended to provide. (Shea is now interim chief of mission.)

The Council votes on the funding mechanism again on May 15, and a US State Department spokesperson made clear, in an email to PassBlue on April 8, that Washington had not changed its mind.

“The United States has taken a consistent position that Somalia is not the right context for the first application of UNSCR 2719. We also reject the idea of a ‘hybrid’ model of 2719, which undercuts the spirit and intent of the resolution.” Asked if this meant the US would veto the measure in May, the spokesperson said, “We do not preview any actions or comment on deliberative processes.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the issue in a report to a Council meeting on April 10. “I am deeply concerned at the lack of adequate financing for the mission thus far,” he said in the document. “I reiterate the recommendation, made by the chairperson of the AU and me, for the hybrid application of Security Council resolution 2719 (2023) to AUSSOM to ensure sustainable and predictable funding.”

The report described the severe humanitarian situation in Somalia, a country in the Horn of Africa where 4.4 million people are facing acute food insecurity, diseases such as cholera are common and violence against women and children is widespread.

The report made clear that the fight against Al Shabab is far from being the only conflict in Somalia — there are frequent armed clashes between rival clans and deep divisions between the Federal Government of Somalia in Mogadishu and some of the semiautonomous states that comprise the nation.

A Somali diplomat at the UN would not divulge to PassBlue the alternatives that the country might be exploring if the financing doesn’t come through. Somalia is currently a member of the Security Council.

Analysts say that AUSSOM is critical to maintaining relative stability in Somalia and is likely to remain in place even if the US cuts funding to it. A US-based expert on geopolitics at the UN told PassBlue that if the US abstains on the Council vote, it could leave decision-making in limbo, whereas a veto could at least move the matter forward to other possibilities.

“Everyone should be planning for Plan B,” said Omar Mahmood, a Kenya-based senior analyst for Somalia and the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group. The most likely scenario is that the mission will survive by trimming its operations to fit the non-UN financing that was still available, he said.

“If you cobble together what the EU is willing to provide, what the UK is willing to provide, the little bit the AU can provide, there is money for the mission, just not quite at the level that 2719 would clearly provide and what the mission was budgeting,” Mahmood said in a call with PassBlue.

“I don’t see the mission packing up and leaving,” he added, noting that the regional countries that are contributing troops to AUSSOM — Ethiopia, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda — had their own vital interest in containing Al Shabab. Approaches were also being made to Gulf countries for money, Mahmood said.

Joshua Meservey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, said: “There are conversations going on about funding, maybe one of the Gulf states contributes more. But it does seem clear the US is not willing to foot much of the bill, or maybe any of the bill, for AUSSOM, so that is a major challenge. I think there’s donor fatigue, very significant donor fatigue, from the Europeans, and from the Americans.”

The US has an important bilateral security relationship with Somalia, which includes frequent airstrikes on Al Shabab and an Islamic State chapter based mainly in the northern region of Puntland. The US has also set up and trained, and continues to support, the Somali Danab special forces brigade of about 2,500 soldiers.

Meservey, in a call with PassBlue, said the level of direct US involvement in Somalia was “a live debate” in the administration of President Donald Trump. “I think there is a process going on where they are reviewing their posture, including in Somalia, so I think everything’s on the table.”

An important factor in how the Trump administration formulates its Somalia policy is likely to be the links between Al Shabab, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda, and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, which is just across the Gulf of Aden.

On April 3, Gen. Michael Langley, head of the US Africa Command, told the US Senate Committee on Armed Services that he was “greatly concerned about indications of Houthi and Al Shabab collaboration.”

“If they [the Houthis] establish a foothold in East Africa, the threat to global trade and shipping would increase significantly, bringing a highly capable, belligerent actor into a region already struggling against ISIS and Al Shabab,” Langley said. He called the group “one of the deadliest terror organizations on the planet.”

In February, Al Shabab launched a fresh offensive, often using vehicle bombs. In March, it bombed a convoy in which President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia was traveling, though he escaped unscathed, and it has hit facilities on the edges of Mogadishu, the capital, with mortars and other weapons.

“Al-Shabaab has made some major military gains so far in 2025, particularly in central Somalia and areas south of Mogadishu,” said Liam Karr, Africa team lead with the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “Mogadishu is not at high risk of imminently falling, but these gains set conditions for al-Shabaab to encircle and more heavily infiltrate the city to degrade the security situation in the capital in the short term,” Karr said in an email.

Mahmood of the Crisis Group added: “A lot would have to happen for Mogadishu to be at risk of takeover by Al Shabab, and we’re not there. It’s talked about a lot on social media, but I think it’s a bit hyperbolic. Al Shabab’s focus during this offensive has been recovering areas lost to the federal government, especially in central Somalia, two years ago — not Mogadishu itself.”

Meservey said the failure of the Somali National Army (SNA) to develop the ability to take over from AU peacekeeping forces, despite many years of support and training from global and regional powers, particularly from Europe, was “one of the profound problems that the US and others involved in this counter-terrorism campaign face.”

“If they haven’t been able to get the SNA into fighting trim after all this time, can we reasonably expect that yet more investment, more training, will get them to the level they need to be? It is ultimately a governance problem. Because the Mogadishu government is so dysfunctional, it hasn’t been able to properly manage this process of getting a capable, functioning SNA together.”

The answer, Meservey says, is for Somalia’s governing elites “to get serious about the problem, actually start governing in a competent way. . . They spend so much of their time involved in petty political squabbling, it’s a huge distraction from fighting Shabab.”

His advice to Washington is to stop pursuing the “fantasy” of a centralized democratic government in Mogadishu. “When you look at the society and the culture and the history, there’s never been a strong centralized government other than the Mohamed Siad Barre regime, which was a brutal dictatorship and ended in flames of disaster. A fundamental ordering principle of Somali society is the clan. And clans are antithetical to centralized government.”

Somaliland, the northern region that unilaterally declared independence in 1991, shows how fragile the concept of Somalia as a single, united nation is. No other country has recognized Somaliland, but Meservey notes that some people in the Trump administration appear to be willing to consider US recognition.

The quid pro quo from Somaliland could be use of its port of Berbera on the Gulf of Aden, and even a possible openness to providing a new home for some of the Palestinians that Israel, with the support of Trump, wants to force from Gaza. In March, the Jerusalem Post reported that Somaliland told Israel’s public broadcaster KAN that it was willing to discuss the issue in return for diplomatic recognition.

Meservey pointed out some of the obvious flaws in any plan to relocate many reluctant and “restive” Gazans in a sparsely populated desert country with few resources. “Even if it’s 5,000, in a country that small, and so poor, that would just be immensely difficult.”

The State Department spokesperson referred questions about this topic to Israel. Asked if the Trump administration was considering recognizing Somaliland, the spokesperson said to PassBlue: “The US recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes the territory of Somaliland. The State Department is not in discussions with Somaliland’s representatives about a deal to recognize Somaliland as a state.”

Mohamud’s federal government has itself offered the Trump administration “exclusive” use of Berbera and another port in Puntland, even though its writ does not run in those regions, Semafor has reported.

Mahmood said the offer “reflects the current moment, which is that dealing with the US is transactional and you have to find ways to appeal to them. All actors in the region are trying to read the administration and establish a relationship based on something transactional with clear tangible benefits.”

Anton Ferreira

Anton Ferreira worked for 23 years as a correspondent and desk editor at Reuters. He started in Hong Kong and later worked long-term assignments in the Mideast, Latin America, New York City, Washington and South Africa. Ferreira is now based in South Africa.