Recent battlefield gains by an Islamist insurgency in Somalia have prompted some State Department officials to propose closing the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu and withdrawing most American personnel as a security precaution, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.

But other Trump administration officials, centered in the National Security Council, are worried that shutting the embassy could diminish confidence in Somalia’s central government and inadvertently incite a rapid collapse. Instead, they want to double down on U.S. operations in the war-torn country as it seeks to counter the militant group, Al Shabab, the officials said.

The rival concerns are being fueled by memories of foreign policy debacles like the 2012 attack by Islamist militants who overran the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the abrupt collapse of the Afghan government as American forces withdrew in 2021.

They also underscore the broader dilemma for the Trump administration as it determines its strategy for Somalia, a chaotic and dysfunctional country fractured by complex clan dynamics, where the United States has waged a low-intensity counterterrorism war for some two decades with little progress.

The considerations are appearing to pit President Trump’s top counterterrorism adviser, Sebastian Gorka, who has a hawkish approach to using force against militant Islamists, against more isolationist elements of Mr. Trump’s coalition. That group, sick of the “forever wars” that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, does not see a major U.S. interest in Somalia.

Last week, Mr. Gorka convened an interagency meeting at the White House to begin to grapple with an approach, according to officials briefed on its findings who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations. The meeting is said to have ended without any clear resolution.

Under presidents of both parties, the United States has pursued a policy of propping up Somalia’s weak central government by training and equipping vetted units of its special forces, known as the Danab, and by using drone strikes to provide close air support to them as they battle Al Shabab, which has ties to Al Qaeda.

The policy is intended to lay the groundwork for the Somali government to eventually maintain security on its own. But, just as in places like Afghanistan, that has yet to happen. Conditions have worsened amid reports that some Somali forces have not stood and fought, and as President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is said to have alienated not only members of rival clans but some of his own supporters.

The National Security Council and the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.

A State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday that the embassy in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, “remains fully operational” and that the department “constantly monitors and evaluates threat information and adjusts our security and operating postures accordingly.”

Maureen Farrell, who was the Pentagon’s top Africa policy official in the Biden administration, argued that there can be no purely military solution to Al Shabab. The United States should focus on dangerous hard liners while trying to pull the rest of the group into political settlements, she said.

“If we are thinking about reducing our presence, we should use that potential reduction to press for real progress in our goals,” said Ms. Farrell, who is now a vice president at Valar Solutions, a security consulting firm. “This is a once-in-a-decade chance to credibly say that we’re prepared to leave unless we see big changes.”

For most of his first term, Mr. Trump had escalated military efforts in Somalia, including by easing Obama-era limits on drone strikes. But in his final weeks in office, Mr. Trump abruptly switched gears and ordered most U.S. forces to leave Somalia except for a handful that guarded the embassy.

The military redeployed its forces to neighboring Kenya and Djibouti, but kept rotating them into Somalia for brief visits in continued support of Somali forces that the United States train and equip as partners. In 2022, after military leaders complained that moving in and out of Somalia was needlessly dangerous, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. let the military return to long-term deployments there.

There are currently 500 to 600 U.S. troops in Somalia, according to U.S. Africa Command. The new administration has also carried out several airstrikes against Islamic State elements in northern Somalia.

Several weeks ago, officials said, Al Shabab battlefield advances brought the group close to Mogadishu, prompting concerns about the safety of the U.S. embassy — a fortresslike bunker at its airport. The onset of rainy season has since slowed the fighting, buying some time.

Read more: Trump Team Divided Over Future of U.S. Counterterrorism Operations in Somalia

Source: NYTIMES