Not to be AS sympathizer, but in my opinion, it's stupid to not have talks. It's impossible to beat AS unless you bomb Jilib and all the areas controlled by them, which will cause millions in civilian casualties.
Unless beating them means killing every human in AS ruled territory, there wouldn’t be millions in civilian casualties. Around 350,000 Germans died in WW2 by the Allied bombing campaigns.
The phase one war against Al Shabab stalled because Duduble and Murusade (pro al shabab clans) protested and stopped the FGS from bombing the khawarij, crying about how strategic military strikes on them will lead to civilian casualties. Galmudug and Hiirshabelle are open flat grasslands, with no forests and mountains to hide in. A military plan focused only on achieving victory, would have wiped them out by now. Instead, they are taking back the territories that were liberated from them and reversing the gains made.
There are no wars of liberation that have no civilian casualties, so if you are using that as an excuse and hugely exaggerating and making it out to be the worst of crimes, then it simply means you don’t see them as an enemy. Are the hundreds of thousands that died of famine, starvation and drought becsuse of Al Shabab, not civilians anymore?