NAIROBI: The African Union called an emergency meeting on its military mission in Somalia on Friday after Washington announced it would end critical funding over the lack of progress against insurgents.

Somalia has been battling the Al-Shabaab insurgency for around two decades, but the group still controls vast swathes of the country.

The African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (Aussom) is the leading force supporting the Somali army, providing roughly 12,000 troops.

But in a letter to the AU, Washington said it was ending payments to the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS), which provides the bulk of funding to Aussom, at the end of this year.

The letter was confirmed by a senior African diplomat to the AU, who said the decision was “irreversible” and the mission is “finished”.

The AU Commission convened an “emergency meeting on the future of Aussom” on Friday.

“Without UN logistics, which were funded by the US... we will have to draw a line under our mission in Somalia,” the diplomat said.

In the July 1 letter, Washington said it would also block any further UN logistical support to Aussom at the Security Council.

The US has provided nearly $2 billion to UN missions in Somalia since 2007, and more than $1.6bn for African troops deployed in Somalia, as well as “hundreds of millions to Somali security forces, and billions more in humanitarian and development assistance”, it said.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2026