Visual Timelines · 1991–2026
When the state collapsed in 1991, no authority replaced it. Fifteen years of clan war, failed intervention and stillborn governments left a space that an Islamist movement filled in 2006 — and that a foreign invasion turned into a jihadist insurgency.
Al-Shabaab lost Somalia's cities after 2011 but not its capacity to strike, inside the country and across the region. This timeline follows the structural turns that made today's threat: who held power, who intervened, and how the war crossed borders.
Photo: US Department of State · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (US government) · original
State collapse
President Siad Barre fled Mogadishu before an armed, clan-based uprising, ending the military regime in power since 1969. No faction could replace him: the capital split between rival militias and state institutions dissolved. On 18 May the Somali National Movement proclaimed an independent Somaliland in the north-west — a claim no country recognised until Israel did in December 2025.
State collapse
After an arms embargo in January 1992 and a small first UN mission, the Security Council authorised "all necessary means" to protect famine relief. A US-led force landed in December; UNOSOM II took over in 1993. The battle of 3–4 October 1993 in Mogadishu killed 18 US soldiers. The last UN troops left on 2 March 1995, with no government in place.
Courts and insurgency
A coalition of Sharia courts defeated the capital's warlords and gave Mogadishu its first unified authority since 1991. The Transitional Federal Government, formed in Nairobi in October 2004, stayed confined to the provinces. Inside the Courts, veterans of al-Itihaad al-Islami — an armed Islamist group of the 1990s — and a militant youth wing, al-Shabaab, pushed the hardest line.
Courts and insurgency
Ethiopia launched a full offensive in support of the transitional government. The Courts' leaders fled, and government and Ethiopian troops entered Mogadishu on 28 December. Al-Shabaab, the Courts' militant wing, survived the collapse as an independent organisation and recast the war as resistance to foreign occupation — the turn from Islamist movement to insurgency.
Courts and insurgency
The African Union's Peace and Security Council authorised AMISOM on 19 January 2007 for six months; the UN Security Council endorsed it a month later in Resolution 1744. Ugandan and then Burundian troops held a few districts of Mogadishu against a growing insurgency. The mission lasted fifteen years before it was reconfigured as ATMIS in 2022.
Regional war
Suicide bombers struck the Kyadondo Rugby Club and an Ethiopian restaurant in Kampala, where crowds were watching the World Cup final. It was al-Shabaab's first attack outside Somalia, aimed at one of the two countries then providing AMISOM's troops. Uganda's High Court convicted seven men in 2016.
Regional war
Under AMISOM pressure, al-Shabaab pulled its fighters out of Mogadishu overnight on 6 August 2011. In October Kenya sent troops across the border (Operation Linda Nchi); they joined AMISOM in February 2012 and took Kismayo, the group's last major port city, on 28 September 2012. The insurgents lost the cities but not the war in the countryside.
Regional war
In a video, al-Shabaab's leader Ahmed Abdi Godane pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and Ayman al-Zawahiri accepted it, formalising ties that predated the announcement. Months later Somalia adopted a provisional constitution (1 August) and its parliament elected Hassan Sheikh Mohamud president (10 September), ending the transitional period: a jihadist franchise now faced a permanent federal state.
Regional war
Gunmen attacked the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi and held parts of it for four days. Kenya's president gave the official toll as 67 — 61 civilians and six members of the security forces. Al-Shabaab claimed the attack; it had repeatedly threatened to retaliate for Kenya's intervention in Somalia two years earlier, turning a regional war into a threat to East African cities.
Regional war
Four gunmen attacked Garissa University College in north-eastern Kenya and killed 148 people before security forces ended the siege, in which the attackers died. It was the deadliest attack in Kenya since the 1998 US embassy bombing. Eighteen months after Westgate, it showed that al-Shabaab could strike repeatedly inside Kenya, far from the Somali front lines.
Regional war
A small group led by Abdulqadir Mumin defected from al-Shabaab in the mountains of Puntland and moved to the Cal Miskaad range in Bari region, pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. Two jihadist organisations now competed in Somalia; UN sanctions monitors later described the Puntland branch as a financial hub of the Islamic State in Africa.
Regional war
A truck bomb exploded at a busy junction in central Mogadishu in the deadliest attack in Somalia's history. No group claimed it; the government blamed al-Shabaab, and a military court convicted the leader of the cell in 2018. The toll rose for weeks: a government committee counted 512 dead by December 2017.
Total war and persistence
After al-Shabaab's siege of the Hayat Hotel in Mogadishu killed at least 21 people, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared "total war" on the group. Government troops and clan militias (macawisley) pushed it out of towns in Hiraan and Middle Shabelle. On 29 October al-Shabaab answered with twin car bombs at the Education Ministry that killed at least 121 people.
Total war and persistence
Puntland launched Operation Hilaac against Islamic State–Somalia in the Cal Miskaad mountains with about 4,000 troops, supported by international air strikes. Officials told UN monitors that around 900 fighters were killed, and Puntland declared the group eliminated in October 2025, although unofficial estimates cited by the monitors say a small force remains. Puntland reported 241 of its soldiers killed.
Total war and persistence
Al-Shabaab opened a major offensive towards Lower Shabelle and Hirshabelle with more than 3,000 fighters, according to UN monitors, retaking ground lost in 2022–23 — Adan Yabaal in April, Moqokori in July — and pressing towards Mogadishu. From mid-2025 the offensive slowed, and Somali and AU forces retook and defended some key towns near the capital.
Total war and persistence
Parliament extended the president's and legislature's terms from four to five years; Puntland, Jubaland and South-West suspended ties with Mogadishu, and federal forces took Baidoa as South-West's leader resigned. The underfunded AU mission, AUSSOM, is authorised until 31 December 2026. UN monitors describe al-Shabaab shifting to targeted operations. Elections are set for April–May 2027.
Scroll or drag the timeline; use the arrow keys between events. Select an event for details, map and sources.
Each map shows the places of the events of one phase in colour, and those of earlier phases in grey. They show the reach of the conflict — not territorial control, which no open source maps consistently for the whole period.
Death tolls are official figures as reported by the cited sources; where counts differ, the range is given.
Terrorism, here, means violence by a non-state group against civilians or symbolic targets to intimidate a population or pressure a government — the attacks in Kampala, Nairobi, Garissa and Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab is also an insurgency: it fights the state's forces for territory and runs its own taxation and courts. Much of Somalia's war is armed conflict between organised forces, which is why battle deaths (ACLED) far exceed terrorism deaths (Global Terrorism Index).
State violence by Somali or foreign forces, including air strikes, is recorded as such and never labelled terrorism.
Every event rests on at least one identified document. Links open the original source; certainty labels follow the portal's source and confidence criteria.
1 · The Somali state collapses
Places: Mogadishu · Hargeisa
Uncertainty: Contemporary sources date Barre's flight from the capital to 26 or 27 January 1991.
The photograph shows the 'Green Line' that divided north and south Mogadishu between rival factions, in January 1993.
Photo: PH1 R. Oriez, US Navy · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (US military) · original
2 · UN intervention and withdrawal
Places: Mogadishu
No authoritative source establishes the number of Somalis killed in the October 1993 battle; it is not given here.
Photo: TSgt Perry Heimer, US Air Force · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (US military) · original
3 · The Islamic Courts take Mogadishu
Places: Mogadishu
Uncertainty: Sources date the final takeover of the city to 4 or 5 June 2006.
Photograph: the transitional president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and prime minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi in Brussels, March 2006.
Photo: Georges Boulougouris, © European Union · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · original
4 · Ethiopia invades; al-Shabaab goes its own way
Places: Mogadishu
Researchers date al-Shabaab's emergence as a separate organisation to 'around December 2006'; there is no single founding act. Photograph: Ethiopian troops in Somalia, by then serving in the African Union mission, February 2014.
Photo: AMISOM Public Information · Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · original
5 · The African Union sends AMISOM
Places: Mogadishu
Photograph: Ugandan AMISOM soldiers on the northern outskirts of Mogadishu, November 2011.
Photo: AU-UN IST / Stuart Price (AMISOM Public Information) · Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · original
6 · Kampala: the war crosses the border
Places: Kampala
Uncertainty: Reported death tolls range from about 74 to 76; 76 is the figure cited when the Ugandan High Court convicted seven men in 2016.
Photo: Todd Huffman · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 · original
7 · Al-Shabaab loses the cities
Places: Mogadishu · Kismayo
Uncertainty: Kenya's Ministry of Defence dates the crossing to 14 October 2011; most reports give 16 October.
Photograph: a Burundian AMISOM soldier in Mogadishu, August 2012, one year after the withdrawal.
Photo: AMISOM Public Information · Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · original
8 · Formal merger with al-Qaeda
Photograph: President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in London, February 2013, five months after his election.
Photo: DFID – UK Department for International Development · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 · original
9 · Westgate, Nairobi
Places: Nairobi
Photo: Anne Knight · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · original
10 · Garissa University College
Places: Garissa
The interior minister reported at least 147 dead on the day; 148 is the toll reported at the first anniversary.
Photo: Adam H T Geelle · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · original
11 · Islamic State splits off in Puntland
Places: Bosaso
Photograph: Bosaso, Puntland's main port, January 2025.
Photo: Sam Wilson · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · original
12 · Zoobe junction bombing
Places: Mogadishu
Uncertainty: Figures differ: 358 (government, 20 October 2017), 512 (government committee, December 2017), 587 (Voice of America, 2021) and 655 (response committee, March 2018). None is presented here as final.
Photo: AMISOM Public Information · Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · original
13 · 'Total war' and the clan militias
Places: Beledweyne · Mogadishu
Photograph: Somali National Army Danab soldiers at a graduation ceremony, October 2024.
Photo: Capt. Darryl Padgett, US Army (SOCAFRICA) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (US military) · original
14 · Puntland's war on Islamic State
Places: Bosaso
Uncertainty: All casualty figures are official Puntland figures as reported to the UN Panel of Experts; they have not been independently verified.
15 · Al-Shabaab strikes back
Photograph: Ethiopian ATMIS troops leave the Maxaas base after handing it to the Somali army, August 2024 — the drawdown that preceded the offensive.
16 · A contested state at war
Places: Baidoa · Mogadishu
The electoral commission announced on 15 October 2026 parliamentary elections for 15 April 2027 and a presidential vote for 15 May 2027; the opposition rejects the plan. Photograph: President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the Global Gateway Forum in Brussels, October 2023.
Photo: Nicolas Landemard / European Union, 2023 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · original
Events were selected for the structural change they mark — in power, in actors or in geographic reach — rather than for their death toll alone. Each one rests on at least one primary or independent source; UN Security Council resolutions and reports, African Union communiqués, government documents, academic research and contemporaneous reporting were preferred in that order.
Figures are given only when an identified source publishes them; estimates and official claims are labelled. Where sources disagree on a date or a toll, the entry says so. Information is current to 15 October 2026.
