On 1 July 2026, the United States informed the African Union (AU) that it would block any renewal of United Nations (UN) logistical support for the AU Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) once the mission’s current mandate expires on 31 December 2026. A diplomatic note came from the US Mission to the African Union (USAU) and was addressed to the AU Commission. It stated that Washington would not oppose the UN Security Council renewing AUSSOM’s mandate in December, but would oppose any renewal that includes the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) or any other UN logistical and operational support.
UNSOS is the UN-run logistics arm that keeps AUSSOM functioning. It handles food, fuel, water, medical evacuation, engineering, communications equipment and transport for troops, and it reimburses troop-contributing countries (TCCs) for contingent-owned equipment lost or damaged in combat. Without it, AUSSOM has no independent supply chain of comparable scale.
A US State Department spokesperson said that Washington has already put nearly $2 billion into UNSOS and its predecessor since 2007, plus about $1.6 billion in bilateral support to TCCs. The spokesperson said Somalia “has been unable to independently sustain progress” made against al-Shabaab or take ownership of its own security functions, and that the US “should not continue to fund a mission that has not met core objectives”. The information delivered threatens the funding backbone of the roughly 12,000-strong force that has spent nearly 2 decades fighting the al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab.
FORCE AND BUDGET FIGURES
AUSSOM deploys about 11,826 uniformed personnel, 680 police officers, and 85 civilian staff across 5 sectors and roughly 400,000 square km of south-central Somalia, according to figures reported by The EastAfrican. UNSOS operates on an approved budget of about $481.7 million (approximately $500 million) for the 2026/27 fiscal year; AUSSOM’s own troop and police budget was set at $166.5 million for the June 2025 to July 2026 period. Only a fraction of that budget was actually raised, and the mission carries $93.9 million in unpaid arrears to TCCs inherited from its predecessor, the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).
AUSSOM is the newest name for an AU operation that began in March 2007 as the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). It became ATMIS in 2022 and AUSSOM in 2025. UN logistics support has run continuously since 2009, first through the UN Support Office for AMISOM and then, from November 2015, through UNSOS.
The pressure on AUSSOM comes as the Somali National Army (SNA) remains a work in progress. A recent European Union Agency for Asylum assessment cited in regional reporting puts SNA strength at roughly 32,000 on paper but only about 19,000 realistically deployable, with cohesion undermined by clan-based recruitment patterns, uneven training and equipment, and infiltration by al-Shabaab. Ahmed Koshin, a former director general in Somalia’s defence ministry and now a member of parliament, said that “the peacekeeping mission is in danger because ultimately you need to be able to support and sustain these forces”.
Turkey has trained and equipped the Danab Commando Brigade, an elite Somali special-operations unit, and has supplied Bayraktar Akinci unmanned combat aerial vehicles to support strikes on al-Shabaab positions. In June 2026, Somali National Army Commander Major General Ibrahim Mohamed Mahmoud met Egypt’s Defense Attache, Major General Ahmed Fathi Abdelsattar, to discuss expanding Egyptian military cooperation, including within the AUSSOM framework. The European Union announced an approximately $81 million package for AUSSOM’s military component in April 2026, covering troop reimbursements and non-lethal equipment after 2 years of negotiation.
The note cited “internal rivalries and political infighting” among Somali leaders as a factor limiting the benefit of international support. Therefore, the U.S. frustration is not purely operational. The decision also lands amid broader Trump administration rhetoric toward Somalia, including remarks made in December and at the World Economic Forum that drew condemnation from Somali officials and diaspora communities.
AU planners now have roughly 6 months to revise contingency options that the Peace and Security Council had already asked for, at its 1342nd session in April, before the US note changed the underlying assumptions.