The UK Foreign Office has spent around £24 million since 2013 assisting an armed police squad in Somalia whose counter-terrorism operations are shrouded in secrecy.
Funding for Somalia’s Goodir Unit is intended to stop attacks by Al Shabab, the Al Qaeda-linked militant group in East Africa that claims to have recruited British Somalis from London, Cardiff, Birmingham and Bristol.
But despite operating for more than eight years, its officers had failed to arrest any British nationals in Somalia by May this year, Declassified has found, The revelation, which comes in a freedom of information response from the Foreign Office, follows the murder of Sir David Amess, the veteran Conservative MP stabbed to death on Friday.
The alleged killer is Ali Harbi Ali, the son of Somali immigrants, who had been referred to the Prevent counter-extremism scheme.
While his motive remains unclear, Scotland Yard have said it will probe any potential links between him and Al Shabab or Islamic State, who may have radicalised him online, Ali’s father, Harbi Ali Kullane, has condemned the attack. He previously worked for Somalia’s UN-backed prime minister, a politician targeted by Islamic extremists.
Kulane has been pictured with British diplomats in Mogadishu, where the UK embassy works with the Goodir Unit. Britain’s ambassador to Somalia, Kate Foster, visited the squad to discuss its future as recently as June.
In 2019, UK diplomats gave the Goodir Unit £81,000 worth of ammunition and ballistic shields. The Somali police did not respond to our questions about how many terror suspects the Goodir Unit has killed or captured, Al Shabab, which means The Youth in Arabic, was formed in the early 2000s with the aim of expelling foreign forces from Somalia and implementing its extreme interpretation of Islamic law, which is opposed by the country’s Sufi Muslim majority.
Private companies
The Foreign Office has paid several companies to train the Goodir Unit. One contractor, Axiom International, is led by former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord John Stevens, Axiom received £646,000 in 2017 to train the Goodir Unit, according to the government’s contract finder website. The tender notice explained: “The Goodir Unit comprises a hard arrest unit, the Rapid Reaction Team and an investigative unit, the Counter Terrorism Unit.”
It added: “The objective of the project is to train the police units to such a standard that they can conduct compliant independent day/night detention operations, fully competent in the recovery, preservation and continuity of evidence.”
Another contractor, GardaWorld, has advertised for two “full time mentors” with “excellent inter-personal skills” to help Britain instruct the squad,Their recruitment advert said the Goodir Unit trains at Mogadishu airport, a heavily fortified part of Somalia’s capital that houses the British embassy – where diplomats live in a series of shipping containers.
Meanwhile Somalia’s president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed faces a legitimacy crisis after postponing elections when his mandate expired in February and has increased his executive powers, Whitehall efforts to train foreign forces for the so-called War on Terror have recently come under increasing scrutiny.
