U.S. Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry ar­rived in So­ma­lia on Tues­day with promises of re­open­ing the U.S. em­bassy in the cap­i­tal, Mo­gadishu, and broad­en­ing Wash­ing­ton’s as­sis­tance to So­ma­li­a’s se­cu­rity forces. Ker­ry’s unan­nounced visit, the first by a U.S. sec­re­tary of state, re­flects Wash­ing­ton’s ef­forts to push back the al-Shabab ter­ror­ist group and strengthen its pres­ence in the Horn of Africa.

We all have a stake in what hap­pens here in So­ma­lia. The world can­not af­ford to have places on the map that are es­sen­tially un­governed,” he said dur­ing his brief stopover. So­ma­lia has spent a decade fight­ing the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab. The clan-based group has been be­hind nu­mer­ous piracy at­tacks and gun-and-bomb as­saults, both in So­ma­lia and in neigh­bor­ing Kenya.

So­ma­li­a’s in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions had crip­pled its fight against al-Shabab. Kerry said the Mo­gadishu gov­ern­ment, with the help of the U.S., the United Na­tions and the African Union force, had made progress on uni­fy­ing the na­tion and push­ing al-Shabab out of ma­jor pop­u­la­tion cen­ters. “So­ma­li­a’s re­turn to ef­fec­tive gov­ern­ment is a his­toric op­por­tu­nity for every­body to push back against ex­trem­ism and to em­power peo­ple in a whole coun­try to be able to live the promise of their na­tion,” the sec­re­tary said.

Kerry met with So­ma­li­a’s Pres­i­dent Has­san Sheikh Mo­hamud as well as Prime Min­is­ter Omar Ab­di­rashid Ali Shar­marke. The meet­ings were held in­side an air­port com­plex pro­tected by walls of sand­bags.

U.S. exit from So­ma­lia

The United States pulled its diplo­matic pres­ence and forces out of So­ma­lia in 1993, af­ter mili­ti­a­men shot down a U.S. Black Hawk he­li­copter, killing 18 sol­diers whose bod­ies were then dragged through the streets. The al-Shabab ex­trem­ists emerged out of the civil war chaos of that time.

But there is con­cern that the So­mali gov­ern­ment is floun­der­ing, said Vanda Fel­bab-Brown, a se­nior fel­low at the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion, a pub­lic pol­icy re­search group in Wash­ing­ton. She said Ker­ry’s visit un­der­scored Wash­ing­ton’s de­sire to not only push back the mil­i­tants who have been on the of­fen­sive, but also to con­sol­i­date re­gional coun­tert­er­ror­ism ef­forts and spur So­ma­li­a’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship to­ward bet­ter gov­er­nance.

It is, she said, a piv­otal po­lit­i­cal and coun­tert­er­ror­ism mo­ment. “With­out a more in­clu­sive, com­pe­tent and ac­tu­ally gov­ern­ing gov­ern­ment, one can kill many mil­i­tants and many oth­ers will sim­ply come up out of frus­tra­tion,” she said. “So, it is also man­ag­ing the do­mes­tic po­lit­i­cal is­sues in So­ma­lia that spurred Ker­ry’s visit.”

State De­part­ment spokesman Jeff Rathke ac­knowl­edged that the al-Shabab mil­i­tants are a threat.

“Al-Shabab re­mains a dan­ger­ous ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion,” he said. “They’ve car­ried out at­tacks in Kenya, most re­cently, and so that is an is­sue of con­tin­ued vig­i­lance and con­cern by the United States, by So­ma­lia, and by our in­ter­na­tional part­ners.”

So­ma­lia For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­dusalam Hadiye Omer told VOA that Ker­ry’s visit proved his coun­try has moved for­ward.

“It’s an his­toric visit. It’s the first time that a U.S. sec­re­tary of state vis­its So­ma­li­a’s cap­i­tal, Mo­gadishu,” he said. “This shows the world that the So­ma­lia gov­ern­ment is func­tion­ing and that So­ma­lia has turned around and is open for busi­ness, and that we are re­build­ing So­ma­lia.”

Chal­lenges for AMI­SOM

But while al-Shabab no longer con­trols ma­jor cities in So­ma­lia, Fel­bab-Brown said forces of the African Union mis­sion in So­ma­lia, or AMI­SOM, face a tough year ahead. A stronger U.S. pres­ence could help them with needed lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port.

Al-Shabab “no longer con­trols ma­jor cities, but they con­trol most of the ac­cess routes,” she said. “They pre­vent AMI­SOM from ef­fec­tively mov­ing through­out the ter­ri­tory, and of course any­one else, in­clud­ing the So­mali gov­ern­ment.”

Kerry said the coun­try’s progress has opened the door for the U.S. to be­gin set­ting up a diplo­matic mis­sion in Mo­gadishu. The U.S. mis­sion to So­ma­lia is cur­rently based at the em­bassy in neigh­bor­ing Nairobi, Kenya.

In Feb­ru­ary, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama nom­i­nated Kather­ine Dhanani to serve as the first U.S. am­bas­sador to So­ma­lia since 1991. Dhanani has yet to be ap­proved by the U.S. Sen­ate.

Kerry on Mon­day met with Kenyan Pres­i­dent Uhuru Keny­atta to dis­cuss ways to more ef­fec­tively deal with threats posed by al-Shabab. The mil­i­tants have killed hun­dreds of civil­ians in Kenya. In 2013, they at­tacked shop­pers in a Nairobi mall, killing 68 peo­ple. This year, they stormed Garissa Uni­ver­sity Col­lege and shot dead 147 stu­dents.