Troops loyal to Somalia’s Federal Government in Mogadishu are not yet ready to stand on their own against al-Shabaab militants in the country’s south, the U.S. Defense Department said in a new report.
Despite some successes, the Somali National Army – backed by African Union and U.S. forces – have made little progress in recent months on Operation Badbaado, a joint effort to secure rural areas south of the capital, according to a Pentagon Office of the Inspector General report presented to Congress on Tuesday, February 11.