UN Monitoring Group on Somalia

In short

The Monitoring Group was a team of experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General to investigate breaches of the UN arms embargo on Somalia. Its reports are among the most detailed public records of who armed and financed which forces. This page describes the group and records the main findings of one report, in its own words where it used strong language, without endorsing them.

Mandate

Resolution 1519 of 16 December 2003 set up a group of four experts based in Nairobi to investigate breaches of the embargo by land, air and sea, carry out field research in Somalia and neighbouring states, assess how well states could enforce it, and list violators for the Security Council committee set up under resolution 751 of 1992 (Wikipedia, UN Security Council Resolution 1519). It followed a panel created by resolution 1425 of 2002. From 2009, when sanctions were also placed on Eritrea, it covered both countries, and it later became a panel of experts (UN Security Council, sanctions committee 751).

The July 2012 report

The report sent to the Security Council on 13 July 2012 (S/2012/544) covered the last year of the transitional institutions. Its main findings, as stated in its summary, were:

• Public money. A World Bank-commissioned study found US$131 million of Transitional Federal Government revenue unaccounted for in 2009–2010, 68 per cent of recorded income; the group said "out of every US$ 10 received … US$ 7 never made it into State coffers", and that almost US$1.5 million of passport revenue went missing in 2010–2011.
• Al-Shabaab. The group said al-Shabaab had suffered military defeats and loss of territory and revenue, mainly at the hands of foreign forces; that it announced a merger with al-Qaeda in February 2012; and that a ban on Somali charcoal exports would hurt its income, but that the main importers, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, had not enforced it.
• Piracy. Fewer ships were hijacked because of industry measures, naval patrols and private guards; pirates were moving into kidnapping on land, and the group said senior officials had shielded "a notorious pirate kingpin" by giving him a diplomatic passport. See Piracy off Somalia.
• Arms. Yemen's arms markets remained the main source for non-state groups; foreign governments' supplies to the government and other forces were a secondary source.
• Foreign forces. It noted the arrival of Djiboutian forces in December 2011, Kenya's entry in October 2011 and move into AMISOM in June 2012, and Ethiopian operations from February 2012. See Foreign forces in Somalia.
• Eritrea. It found no evidence for claims that Eritrea flew arms to al-Shabaab in late 2011, but found that Eritrea kept links with arms dealers in Somalia.
• Civilians. It recorded attacks on civilians, rape, recruitment of children and forced displacement by armed parties, and said al-Shabaab blocked aid while officials and militias in government areas acted as "gatekeepers" to displaced people's camps.

(UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, S/2012/544, 13 July 2012)

Private security in Puntland

The same report said that Saracen International, and from late 2011 Sterling Corporate Services, trained the Puntland Maritime Police Force at a camp west of Bosaso, and called this "the most brazen violation of the arms embargo by a private security company". It said the programme was financed mainly by senior UAE officials; the UAE government officially denied involvement (S/2012/544, paras 61–64). See Puntland security forces.

Later reports

Later reports continued to track arms and finance. A 2016 report named Iran, Libya, North Korea and Sudan among sources of illicit arms (Geeska, 7 February 2024).

Reports of 2013 to 2017. The summaries of the group's next four reports said:

• July 2013 (S/2013/413). Al-Shabaab had lost towns, including Kismayo, to AU and national forces, but still controlled most of southern and central Somalia with about 5,000 fighters, and had shifted to guerrilla warfare. Godane's hold on the group rested partly on the Amniyat, which the report described as al-Shabaab's "secret service", built as "a clandestine organization within the organization". The group called the 2012 merger with al-Qaeda "largely symbolic". It also said about 80 per cent of withdrawals from the Central Bank were for private purposes, and that US$12 million of US$16.9 million transferred to it could not be traced (S/2013/413, 12 July 2013).
• October 2014 (S/2014/726). Al-Shabaab could no longer match its strength of 2009–2010 but had "evolved in qualitative terms" after Godane's purge of dissenters in 2013, and was exporting attacks such as the one on Nairobi's Westgate mall. More than 13,000 weapons and about 5.5 million rounds had been notified for the government since the embargo was eased, and some had been diverted to Mogadishu's arms markets. The report described clan fighting in Lower and Middle Shabelle with an "alleged role of senior army officers and soldiers", and clashes in Sool between Somaliland forces and forces of Puntland and Khatumo (S/2014/726, 13 October 2014).
• October 2016 (S/2016/919). States had notified more than 20,000 weapons and 13 million rounds for the government's forces since March 2013, while arms sent to regional forces outside the government flowed "de facto unchecked". Al-Shabaab had moved away from the charcoal trade, often attacking charcoal burners and traders, and taxed sugar, farming and livestock instead. Civilians were harmed by al-Shabaab attacks, by international forces "including as a result of the use of aerial weaponry", and by clan fighting involving federal and regional forces and militias (S/2016/919, 31 October 2016).
• November 2017 (S/2017/924). About one weapons shipment a month was reaching Puntland, mainly from Yemen, and the group recommended no further easing of the embargo. Al-Shabaab had resumed taxing charcoal on its way to the ports of Buur Gaabo and Kismayo, earning at least US$10 million a year, with Dubai the main destination. The Islamic State faction had briefly held Qandala. Fighting in Galkayo and Lower Shabelle displaced more than 180,000 people, and checkpoints on supply routes "often manned by national and/or regional administration forces" extorted aid convoys (S/2017/924, 2 November 2017).

The 2019 report (S/2019/858). By 2019 the work was done by the Panel of Experts on Somalia, under Security Council resolution 2444 (2018). Its first final report, dated 1 November 2019, said in its summary that:

• al-Shabaab's use of roadside and other improvised bombs had reached "its greatest extent in Somali history", up by about a third in a year, and that blast analysis showed it had made its own explosives since at least July 2017;
• al-Shabaab had begun taxing imports through Mogadishu port, and could raise money in areas it did not hold;
• the suicide bomber who killed Mogadishu's mayor, Abdirahman Omar Osman "Yarisow", on 24 July 2019 had worked at the regional administration under a false identity;
• al-Shabaab and the Islamic State faction fought each other in Puntland and Mogadishu in late 2018 and early 2019, and the Islamic State faction was linked for the first time to a plot abroad, against St Peter's Basilica in Rome;
• 15 civilians were killed by regional security forces during protests in Baidoa after the arrest of Mukhtar Robow in December 2018, and members of the South West State parliament received US$20,000–30,000 each to elect a preferred candidate;
• of army soldiers listed in 2017–2018 records it checked, fewer than half appeared in the 2019 biometric registration of the Somali National Army, and fewer than a fifth of one sector's soldiers issued government-marked weapons in 2017 did.

(UN Panel of Experts on Somalia, S/2019/858, 1 November 2019)

The 2023 report (S/2023/724). The panel's report dated 2 October 2023 said in its summary that al-Shabaab remained "the most immediate threat", with its ability to carry out complex attacks "undiminished", though the government offensive had "dented" its hold on retaken areas; that the Islamic State faction was largely confined to Bari and had lost its finance chief Bilal al-Sudani in January 2023; that fighting in Las Anod was destabilising; that captured ammunition, some made as recently as 2020, showed al-Shabaab still had an "uninterrupted illicit supply"; and that heavily armed clan militias in the member states were a continuing oversight problem (UN Panel of Experts on Somalia, S/2023/724, 2 October 2023).

Sources differ

• Findings and responses. Parties named in the reports could reject them; in 2012 the UAE government officially denied involvement in the Puntland programme (S/2012/544).
• Verification. The 2012 report itself said independent verification was "severely hampered" by lack of access, witnesses' fear of reprisals and denial by officials (S/2012/544).

Read the primary sources yourself

• UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, report S/2012/544 (2012): PDF.
• UN Panel of Experts on Somalia, reports S/2019/858 (2019): PDF and S/2023/724 (2023): PDF.
• UN Security Council, sanctions committee 751: page.