This story comes from the AFP.
> 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 Islamist insurgents.
> Somalia has been battling the Al-Shabaab insurgency for around two decades but the Islamist group still controls vast swathes of the country.
> The African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) is the leading force supporting the Somali army, providing roughly 12,000 troops.
> But in a letter to the AU dated July 1, 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.
This seems like a big deal to me. Unless Washington is cooking up another plan to tackle Al-Shabaab, the funding will need to be replaced by someone else. If it is not replaced, then Al-Shabaab will conquer more and more of Somalia and destabilise the whole region and the Red Sea area further (with piracy). Hopefully there is either a plan being cooked up in Washington D.C. or supplementary funding that can come from elsewhere.
Posted by Top_Lime1820