Reuters/Nairobi

Somalia needs more support for its national army and new investment to create jobs to help it fight Al Shebaab Islamist militants, the foreign minister said yesterday.
Al Shebaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, has been driven into smaller pockets of territory by an African Union force and Somali troops, but showed it still packs a punch earlier this month by retaking a town and killing 12 Ugandan troops at a base.
Soldiers and Al Shebaab clashed south of Mogadishu yesterday. Nine rebels and at least one soldier were killed, officials said.
Foreign minister Abdusalam Omer told Reuters that support for Al Shebaab was “shrinking” but he said the battle against the group that wants to topple the Western-backed government demanded a “holistic” approach to security and the economy.
“We need more training, we need more arms and we need more trucks, but equally important we need jobs. We need people to come and invest,” he said in a phone interview from Britain, home to one of Somalia’s biggest expatriate communities.
Somalia has been making a fragile recovery since president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in 2012 after more than two decades of conflict and chaos. New buildings have risen out of bomb sites in Mogadishu, many financed by returning Somalis.
But much of the 11mn population lives a precarious existence, some reliant on aid and others living in rural areas where Al Shebaab still has a powerful influence.
Omer said he would judge his tenure at the foreign ministry by whether he met targets he had set himself for attracting investment. Omer was formerly central bank governor, but left in 2013 in the wake of a UN report alleging corruption that he strenuously denied. The government also dismissed the charges.
He aims to secure commitments worth about $500mn in the last three months of the year and $1bn in 2016, saying Somalia offered opportunities in fishing in the Indian Ocean, developing oil fields and boosting agriculture.
Somalia exported a record 5mn head of camels, sheep, cattle and goats to the Gulf and other Arab markets last year, up from 4.6mn in 2014. The trade accounts for 40% of Somalia’s gross domestic product, according to UN figures.
As part of his bid to attract investors, Omer said he would hold meetings in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on September 15. One target would be to attract another international airline to Mogadishu airport, he said.
Turkish Airlines is the only major international carrier now flying in and out of the Somali capital.
“What we expect is to have another airline to come to Somalia, directly serving the Middle East and the outside world,” he said, adding he had held talks with Gulf carriers. Investors will still face challenges in Mogadishu, however.
The capital faces frequent bomb and gun attacks from Al Shebaab. Foreign visitors or diplomats travel in armed convoys, while Somali returnees running businesses often complain about security and weak rule of law.
The International Monetary Fund, in its first review of the economy in quarter of a century, said the economy expanded 3.7% in 2014. Omer said 2015 growth could reach 6%.
Parliament is reviewing a new investment law that would cover issues such as legal protection and land leases for investors, the minister said.
“The issue is really that we need to stand on our feet,” he said. “We need to feed our children, we need to pay our soldiers, and in order to do that we need investment in Somalia.”
Fifteen fighters from Al Shebaab were killed yesterday when Somali police, soldiers and African Union peacekeepers repelled an attack on a police station, security officials said.
The AU mission tweeted that four government soldiers were injured in the fighting in the southern town of Qoryooley.
Al Shebaab, however, said it had killed five police officers. Three of them were captured alive and beheaded, the group told pro-Islamist radio Andalus.
The AU has more than 20,000 peacekeepers in Somalia to help the government battle Al Shebaab.
The US has reopened its diplomatic mission to Somalia, the US state department said yesterday, marking the latest step to restore diplomatic ties since the US withdrawal from the war-torn nation in the early 1990s.
However, the mission will be located not in Somalia, but in the US embassy in neighbouring Kenya with the US representative travelling back and forth from Nairobi, the department said.
“US officials will continue to travel to Somalia to conduct official business as security conditions permit,” department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
“The new mission reflects a continuation of US efforts to normalise the US-Somalia bilateral relationship,” he added.
US officials have said they eventually hope to establish the mission in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
While other Western nations have already established embassies, the United States is moving more slowly and has said more progress is needed in Somalia.
In 1991, the US closed its embassy in Somalia as the African nation plunged into civil war. The United States again recognised Somalia in early 2013, and, in May, Secretary of State John Kerry made a surprise visit to the nation to announce the move toward restoring diplomatic ties.
A few days later, Washington’s nominee to be the US ambassador to Somalia withdrew for personal reasons.
President Barack Obama has yet to name a replacement, according to Kirby, who said the mission will be led by a Chargé d’Affaires until the US senate confirms another ambassador.