The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, also known as the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia was an armed conflict lasting from mid-2006 to early 2009. It began when Ethiopian military forces, supported by the United States, invaded Somalia to depose the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and install the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The conflict evolved into a military occupation and a rapidly escalating anti-Ethiopian insurgency. By 2008, insurgents had recaptured the majority of territory lost by the ICU during the invasion. The conflict caused the second largest population displacement since 1991.
Ethiopian military involvement began in mid-2006 in response to the rise of the ICU, which operated as the de facto government in southern and central Somalia. To reinforce the weak, Ethiopian-backed TFG, troops from the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) began deploying into Somalia in June. Six months later, backed by a covert US military contingent, the ENDF launched a full-scale invasion aimed at regime change. The conventional war lasted just over a week. Overwhelmed, the ICU began disintegrating during the fighting, precipitating a withdrawal from battlefield positions and the Fall of Mogadishu in the final days of 2006.
In early 2007, an insurgency emerged centered on a loose coalition of ICU loyalists, volunteers, clan militias, and various Islamist factions, among which al-Shabaab eventually assumed a pivotal role. In the same period, the African Union (AU) established the AMISOM peacekeeping operation, sending thousands of troops to Somalia to bolster the besieged TFG and ENDF. The Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), a political successor to the ICU, further incited the insurgents. Over the following two years, the ENDF, TFG, and AMISOM became entrenched in a protracted struggle against an escalating insurgency, leading to the displacement of nearly one million inhabitants from Mogadishu.
By the end of 2007, ENDF troops were bogged down in a multi-front war with no prospect of victory. While Mogadishu witnessed fierce fighting, insurgents launched offensives across southern and central Somalia in late 2007 and 2008, regaining territory previously lost by the ICU. In 2008, al-Shabaab began taking control of significant tracts of southern Somalia, governing territory for the first time. The Ethiopian military occupation faltered, and by autumn 2008, more than 80% of the territory the ICU lost during the invasion had been recaptured by the insurgency.
The TFG remained weak and divided. Piracy off the coast of Somalia, previously suppressed by the ICU, proliferated greatly. By December 2008, the overwhelming majority of TFG security forces had deserted, and the TFG was only able to control parts of Mogadishu and the city of Baidoa. TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf resigned soon after, stating that he had lost control. The insurgency had effectively won.
At the end of 2008, the ARS was assimilated into the TFG in an attempt to halt the growing insurgency and form a representative government. During January 2009, former head of the ICU Sharif Ahmed was elected president. Declaring victory and claiming to have eradicated the 'Islamist threat', the ENDF withdrew from Mogadishu, ending the two-year occupation. Most territory lost by the ICU had been recovered by insurgents, including much of Mogadishu. Years into the present phase of the civil war, Ethiopia became re-involved and joined AMISOM in 2014 to counter the growth of al-Shabaab.
Disputes between Somalia and Ethiopia over the Ogaden (now the Somali Region) date to Ethiopian Emperor Menelik's expansions into Somali lands during the 1890s, initiating the process of incorporation into the Ethiopian Empire. Several decades of growing tension and conflict culminated in the 1977–1978 War where Somalia launched an invasion to assist the Western Somali Liberation Front in the hope of incorporating the Ogaden into a unitary 'Greater Somalia'. Major conflicts between Ethiopia and Somalia since the latter's independence in 1960 include:
1996–2003 border incursions during the Somali Civil War. Ethiopian troops had been crossing into Somalia since 1996 to support militias in regions such as Bay, Puntland and Gedo.
In 2000, the first successful attempt to form a government since the collapse of Somalia's central authority in 1991 led to the creation of the Transitional National Government (TNG). Ethiopia opposed the TNG, fearing that Somali reunification would reignite claims on the Ogaden region. In response, Ethiopia supported groups in Somalia that resisted the TNG and actively sponsored the formation of opposition alliances to preserve its strategic interests. After the 9/11 attacks, the Ethiopian government labelled TNG leaders as Islamic extremists who were pro-Bin Laden. Al-Jazeera later described Ethiopia as, "...one of the biggest beneficiaries of the demise of the Somali state and its fragmentation."
The TNG later failed and was instead replaced by the rise of Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in the years following, which occurred concurrently with the escalating insurgency in the Ogaden waged by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). A strong Somali state not dependent on Addis Ababa was perceived as a security threat, and consequently the Ethiopian government heavily backed the formation of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004 and the presidency of Abdullahi Yusuf on the grounds that he would give up Somalia's long standing claim to the Ogaden. Yusuf was previously a member of an Ethiopian-backed coalition of warlords that had undermined the TNG, and decades prior to that had led Somali rebels who assisted invading Ethiopian troops during the 1982 Ethiopian–Somali war.
Since the initial conquest of the Ogaden, and well into the 2000s, the presence of Addis Ababa in the Somali inhabited lands had been almost purely military in nature. The Ethiopian government was also determined never to permit a reprise of the 1970s Ogaden War. The Ogaden lay at the heart of the dispute between the ICU and the Ethiopian governments. Following their ascent to power, senior ICU officials accused Ethiopia of mistreating the Somalis under its rule and declared that the Ogaden could not be forgotten, bound to them as it was by blood. The ONLF maintained a covert relationship with the ICU and regarded the courts as a natural ally. The Islamic Courts in Somalia represented the first instances of political Islam gaining prominence in Africa during the Post-9/11 era and consequently became a target of the Bush administration.
Information warfare, disinformation and propaganda
Even before the beginning of the war, there have been significant assertions and accusations of the use of disinformation and propaganda tactics by various parties to shape the causes and course of the conflict.
Eastern African countries and international observers had feared the Ethiopian offensive may lead to a regional war, involving Eritrea, which has a complex relationship with Ethiopia and who Ethiopia claimed to have been backing the ICU. The Eritrean government denied claims of sending troops to Somalia, and no evidence exists to support such reports. Despite providing backing for the ICU, no Eritrean presence was discovered in the country during the war except for journalists who were arrested and accused of being soldiers.
Ethiopia also denied deploying troops in Somalia for months despite being widely reported. The TFG also denied the presence of Ethiopian forces in Somalia, even after Ethiopia had admitted its troops were inside Somalia.
The majority of Somali society, including much of the newly formed Transitional Federal Government, deeply opposed any foreign military intervention. With significant Ethiopian support, Abdullahi Yusuf was elected as the TFG president under a warlord-dominated government, and, under Ethiopian direction, he appointed a prime minister with connections to then-Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. These close connections to Addis Ababa were a driving force behind the invasion and provoked the ICU into later adopting a bellicose stance. During a 2004 visit to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, when President Yusuf first requested 20,000 Ethiopian troops enter Somalia to back his government. A 2005 African Union fact finding mission to Somalia found that the overwhelming majority of Somalis rejected troops from neighboring states entering the country. Despite significant opposition within the TFG parliament, President Yusuf made the unpopular decision to invite Ethiopian troops to prop up his administration. As an institution, the TFG did not consent to or approve of the Ethiopian military intervention. No parliamentary approval was given for a decision openly opposed by a significant portion of the government. The leadership of Islamic Courts Union were infuriated by the TFG administration's push to deploy international troops, insisting that only a homegrown solution could address Somalia's problems.