MOGADISHU, SOMALIA – The al-Shabaab offensive sweeping across central Somalia is not winning on firepower alone. It is winning on distraction. While government forces clashed with opposition militias in Mogadishu on June 3 and 4, the insurgents pressed their advantage in Hiiraan and the Shabelle valleys. The al-Shabaab offensive thrives in exactly this kind of fragmentation, where the state turns its guns inward. Furthermore, elite units trained for counterinsurgency are now guarding political flanks instead of frontlines. The result is a war effort pulled in two directions at once.
The geography of the fighting tells the story. Al-Shabaab has re-infiltrated rural districts of Middle Shabelle, Lower Shabelle, and Hiiraan that government forces once cleared. In mid-June, the group seized the town of El Hareeri in Hiiraan, pushing out the army and allied militias. Consequently, the corridors leading toward the capital look more exposed than they have in years. The al-Shabaab offensive is steadily undoing the gains of the 2022 campaign.
This reversal is not new, but it is accelerating. The Somali Digest reported earlier how al-Shabaab had reversed two years of army gains, and how the group retook territory while federal forces targeted Jubaland. The current al-Shabaab offensive follows the same logic. Notably, the insurgents advance fastest whenever Mogadishu looks elsewhere.
Air power has not closed the gap either. Sustained American airstrikes through 2025 ranked among the heaviest on record, as Al Jazeera reported. Yet bombing thins the ranks without holding ground. Therefore, the al-Shabaab offensive regenerates faster than strikes can suppress it.
A Crisis the Insurgents Can Use
The political timing is the heart of the matter. Hassan Sheikh’s term expired in May, yet his constitutional gambit extended his mandate and triggered open confrontation with the opposition in Somalia. According to a June analysis , that crisis pulled counterinsurgency units toward internal rivals just as the campaign was already slowing. Therefore, the al-Shabaab offensive gains twice, once from the diverted troops and once from the spectacle of a divided government.
Narrative is its own weapon. Al-Shabaab presents itself as a disciplined alternative to a leadership consumed by infighting. Every clash between federal forces and federal states feeds that message. Similarly, the group exploits the rift between Mogadishu and regions like Galmudug, which recently rejected federal elections with a show of force. As a result, the al-Shabaab offensive harvests recruits and taxes from communities that have lost faith in the state.
The group also fills the vacuum with governance. In districts the army cannot hold, al-Shabaab runs courts, settles disputes, and collects levies, building the quiet administration that outlasts any raid. The federal government, by contrast, keeps alienating the clans it most needs. The above reportnotes that security forces even raided a gathering attended by former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire, a move that risks pushing clan constituencies further from Mogadishu. Accordingly, every heavy-handed act in the capital ripples outward into the countryside the insurgents are contesting. The al-Shabaab offensive, in this sense, is as much administrative as it is military.
There are limits to the group’s momentum; Somali forces continue to inflict losses. Joint operations in Jubaland have pressed the group in the south. Yet these tactical wins rarely hold without follow-on stabilization. In other words, the army clears ground that the state cannot then govern. The al-Shabaab offensive keeps flowing back into the gaps.
A More Dangerous Enemy
The threat is also evolving technically. United Nations reporting cited by regional outlets indicates that al-Shabaab fighters received drone training in Yemen, with networks linked to the Houthis supplying expertise and possibly hardware. So far the group has used drones mainly for surveillance. However, even limited strike capability would shift the balance against Somali troops already short of equipment and air cover. Consequently, the al-Shabaab offensive could grow more lethal just as foreign support contracts.
The regional dimension deepens the worry. Ties to the Houthis place al-Shabaab inside a wider network stretching across the Gulf of Aden, where smuggling routes carry weapons and expertise in both directions. A movement once read as a local insurgency now sits within a transnational arms ecosystem. Therefore, degrading it will demand more than Somali troops and foreign stipends alone.
That convergence is the real danger. The African Union mission faces a deep funding shortfall, the national army leans on shrinking logistics, and the government burns its focus on political survival. The Somali Digest has tracked that erosion on the group’s edge after the ATMIS exit. Meanwhile, the insurgents adapt and advance. The al-Shabaab offensive does not need to capture Mogadishu to win; it only needs the state to keep fighting itself, and for now, that is precisely what Villa Somalia is doing.
