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Somalia Asks UN to Delay Peacekeeper Drawdown after ‘Significant Setbacks’

Burundian soldiers, part of the African Union troops, march at their base in Mogadishu, Somalia, Jan. 24, 2011. (AP)
Burundian soldiers, part of the African Union troops, march at their base in Mogadishu, Somalia, Jan. 24, 2011. (AP)
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Somalia Asks UN to Delay Peacekeeper Drawdown after ‘Significant Setbacks’

Burundian soldiers, part of the African Union troops, march at their base in Mogadishu, Somalia, Jan. 24, 2011. (AP)
Burundian soldiers, part of the African Union troops, march at their base in Mogadishu, Somalia, Jan. 24, 2011. (AP)

Somalia has asked the United Nations to pause a planned drawdown of 3,000 African Union peacekeepers for three months to allow its security forces time to regroup after a militant attack forced them to withdraw from several recently captured towns.

The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), which is mandated by the UN Security Council, took over from another AU mission in April last year.

On June 30 ATMIS concluded the first phase of the drawdown of 2,000 troops and was due to enact a second troop withdrawal by Sept. 30, reducing its military personnel to 14,626.

In a Sept. 19 letter to the UN Security Council seen by Reuters, National Security Adviser Hussein Sheikh Ali said the government's year-long campaign to liberate areas from al-Shabaab militants in the central regions of the country had suffered "several significant setbacks" in recent weeks.

Ali said an attack by the extremists on Aug. 26 in Cosweyn in Galgaduud region had triggered the retreat of government forces from several newly captured towns.

Somalia's government has not provided a death toll for the attack, but one former official, citing military officers in Cosweyn, said as many as 130 soldiers may have been killed.

"This unforeseen turn of events has stretched our military forces thin, exposed vulnerabilities in our front lines, and necessitated a thorough reorganization to ensure we maintain our momentum in countering the al Shabaab threat," Ali wrote.

"Our forces require a period of respite for recuperation while we continue our advance."

Somalia's information and interior ministers did not respond to requests for comment.

Al-Shabaab has killed tens of thousands since 2006 in its fight to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed central government.

ATMIS is due to fully withdraw and hand over security responsibilities to the Somali state by the end of 2024. Somalia remains committed to that date, Ali wrote.

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Cash Crunch Leaves Syrians Queueing for Hours to Collect Salaries

Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP
Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP
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Cash Crunch Leaves Syrians Queueing for Hours to Collect Salaries

Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP
Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP

Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares's face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.
"I've been here for four hours and I haven't so much as touched my pension," said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.

"The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long," he continued.

Since the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception.

Decades of punishing sanctions imposed on the Assad dynasty -- which the new authorities are seeking to have lifted -- have left about 90 percent of Syrians under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.

The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet.

Prior to his ousting, Assad's key ally Russia held a monopoly on printing banknotes. The new authorities have only announced once that they have received a shipment of banknotes from Moscow since Assad's overthrow.
In a country with about 1.25 million public sector employees, civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs to make withdrawals, capped at about 200,000 Syrian pounds, the equivalent on the black market of $20 per day.

In some cases, they have to take a day off just to wait for the cash.

"There are sick people, elderly... we can't continue like this," said Abu Fares.

'Meagre sums'
"There is a clear lack of cash, and for that reason we deactivate the ATMs at the end of the workday," an employee at a private bank told AFP, preferring not to give her name.

A haphazard queue of about 300 people stretches outside the Commercial Bank of Syria. Some are sitting on the ground.

Afraa Jumaa, a civil servant, said she spends most of the money she withdraws on the travel fare to get to and from the bank.

"The conditions are difficult and we need to withdraw our salaries as quickly as possible," said the 43-year-old.
"It's not acceptable that we have to spend days to withdraw meagre sums."

The local currency has plunged in value since the civil war erupted in 2011, prior to which the dollar was valued at 50 pounds.

Economist Georges Khouzam explained that foreign exchange vendors -- whose work was outlawed under Assad -- "deliberately reduced cash flows in Syrian pounds to provoke rapid fluctuations in the market and turn a profit".

Muntaha Abbas, a 37-year-old civil servant, had to return three times to withdraw her entire salary of 500,000 pounds.

"There are a lot of ATMs in Damascus, but very few of them work," she said.

After a five-hour wait, she was finally able to withdraw 200,000 pounds.

"Queues and more queues... our lives have become a series of queues," she lamented.