Somalia is entering one of its most precarious moments in years. Washington has moved to terminate the UN’s logistical backbone for the African Union mission (AUSSOM) by year-end, even as it deepens direct engagement with Puntland, Jubaland and Somaliland outside Mogadishu. This week, both tracks converged: troop-contributing countries gathered in Kampala for an emergency summit on the mission’s survival, while a US congressional and AFRICOM delegation toured Kismayo, Garowe and Hargeisa. Together, these moves mark a shift from a Mogadishu-centric security architecture toward a more fragmented, regionally driven one — with real consequences for state-building, counter–Al-Shabaab operations and humanitarian access.
The UNSOS cutoff: the central shock
On July 1, 2026, the US Mission to the African Union informed the AU Commission that Washington would not support renewing the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) beyond AUSSOM’s current mandate, which expires December 31, 2026. The US said it would not oppose renewing AUSSOM’s Chapter VII mandate itself, but would oppose any renewal that includes UNSOS or other UN logistical or operational support — support that currently underwrites roughly $500 million a year in fuel, food, medical evacuation, transport and equipment reimbursement for AUSSOM’s approximately 11,800 uniformed personnel. Without it, the mission is widely assessed as operationally unsustainable heading into 2027.
This followed, but is distinct from, a separate January episode: the US suspended all assistance to the Somali Federal Government on January 7, 2026, after accusing officials of destroying a US-funded WFP warehouse in Mogadishu and seizing 76 metric tons of food aid. That freeze was short-lived — Washington resumed WFP food distribution on January 29 after Mogadishu acknowledged responsibility — but it set the tone for a year of hardening US frustration with the federal government’s governance and accountability, culminating in the July UNSOS decision.
Kampala: contingency planning under pressure
Uganda is hosting the second Extraordinary Summit of AUSSOM Troop-Contributing Countries (Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Somalia) at Speke Resort Munyonyo, July 29–31, under the theme “To Sustain the Stabilisation Process in Somalia.” Chiefs of defense met first, followed by defense ministers, with a heads-of-state summit closing the gathering. Uganda’s CDF, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has already warned that reduced funding is forcing troop-contributing countries to scale back operations and that “alternative arrangements” are now unavoidable. The summit’s recommendations go to the AU Peace and Security Council and, ultimately, the UN Security Council, which must decide in December whether — and in what form — AUSSOM continues.
Washington’s regional tour
The convergence is not accidental. This week’s Congress-AFRICOM delegation to Kismayo, Garowe and Hargeisa is the latest in a pattern of direct US engagement with federal member states that has intensified through 2026 — including a May visit by Acting Ambassador Justin Davis and AFRICOM’s Col. Shane Jones to Garowe, where talks centered on Puntland’s minerals, fisheries and oil potential rather than traditional aid. That visit came days after Puntland formally withdrew recognition of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration, when his four-year mandate expired on May 15 — a rupture that has hardened federal-regional distrust well beyond the routine friction visible in earlier disputes, such as Mogadishu blocking aircraft carrying armed security details for regional leaders ahead of unity talks.
Puntland, Jubaland and Somaliland control the ports, airports and counterterrorism assets that make them natural interlocutors as Mogadishu’s leverage erodes. Each has calibrated its response differently:
Puntland frames US engagement as validation of its role as security partner and investment gateway, pairing counter-ISIS gains in the Calmiskaad mountains with a “trade, not aid” pitch on minerals, fisheries and hydrocarbons. It has previously used access as leverage when it felt sidelined, and its withdrawal of recognition from Mogadishu signals it will keep doing so.
Jubaland stays close to Washington on counter-Al-Shabaab cooperation while keeping its language studiously “national unity” rather than separatist — pragmatic hedging rather than open rupture with Mogadishu.
Somaliland folds every high-level US visit into its long-running case for recognition, pointing to its elections and to Berbera’s port as evidence it is the more reliable partner — even as Washington officially maintains a “one Somalia” policy.
Across all three, the pattern is the same: public hospitality toward the US, private conditionality on funding and control, and hedging against a Mogadishu that may lose both AUSSOM’s backing and Washington’s patience at the same time.
Humanitarian and security stakes
Roughly 6.5 million Somalis face acute food insecurity in 2026, and any degradation of AUSSOM’s footprint risks further restricting humanitarian access in contested areas. Al-Shabaab retains the capacity to exploit reduced patrols and delayed logistics, and localized clan competition over land and water continues independent of the national-level crisis.
Three scenarios
Managed drawdown with regional compacts. Kampala produces a stop-gap financing plan, and the US formalizes bilateral security arrangements with the federal member states — stabilizing Somalia around a patchwork of externally backed regional security zones as Mogadishu’s authority narrows.
Operational contraction, insurgent gains. Without alternative financing, AUSSOM contracts to major towns, ceding rural ground to Al-Shabaab and worsening humanitarian access.
Political rupture. Deepening federal-regional mistrust — already visible in Puntland’s withdrawal of recognition — hardens into parallel governance, with federal member states and Somaliland negotiating security and economic arrangements directly with external partners, bypassing Mogadishu altogether.
The center is losing its monopoly on both security and aid. Increasingly, the Horn’s next chapter is being written as much in Garoowe, Kismayo and Hargeysa as in Mogadishu — and in Kampala’s emergency planning for AUSSOM’s survival.
