Summary
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is currently seeking to strengthen civilian protection in Somalia while moving on the offensive against al-Shabaab. By drawing lessons from Afghanistan, where the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has been faced with the same kind of insurgency-scenario and the measures taken to protect are very similar, this policy brief highlights the limitations of an approach to protection that focuses merely on protecting civilians from ‘collateral damage’ in the fight against insurgents. First, civilians in this scenario tend to care more about the total number of deaths than who is actually responsible. Similarly, they are often more worried about the presence of violence than that of either party. Second, even when territory is successfully seized at minimum civilian costs, it does not necessarily reduce the threat to civilians from insurgents as they will then have stronger incentives to use violence. Third, even in areas where the threat from insurgents is successfully reduced, this threat may only shift elsewhere, because insurgents can attack anywhere and still achieve the same destabilising effect. The biggest challenge for AMISOM will be to mainstream protection into its operations in ways that will not merely reduce the threat from AMISOM’s own forces, but also the threat from al-Shabaab in areas they capture.
This will require a mission-specific strategy for protecting civilians that considers why and how insurgents like al-Shabaab use violence against civilians in the first place.