Issue No. 321

Apathy pervades the Djiboutian population. A week tomorrow, on April 10, the country will head to the polls, with President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh seeking a 6th— essentially uncontested — term in office. With his coronation inevitable, his family's dynastic rule over this rentier city-state will be extended once more. But in a region wracked by armed conflict and geopolitical contestation, the ageing Guelleh's capacity to manage the familial, ethnic, and regional fractures within and without grows ever more complicated. And Djibouti's apparent stability is no product of institutional strength, but rather an increasingly fractious balance of external rents and coercive control-- underpinned by geopolitical relevance.

In the 17th century, the Ottoman polymath Kâtip Çelebi penned 'The Gift to the Great on Naval Campaigns', a great tome that analysed the history of Ottoman naval warfare at a moment when Constantinople sought to reclaim maritime supremacy over European powers.

Villa Somalia has prevailed in Baidoa. After weeks of ratcheting tensions, South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen proved a paper tiger this morning, unable to resist the massed forces backed by Mogadishu. After several hours of fighting, Somali National Army (SNA) forces and allied Rahanweyne militias now control most of Baidoa and, thus, the future of South West. In turn, Laftagareen is believed to have retreated to the protection of the Ethiopian military at Baidoa's airport, with the bilateral forces having avoided the conflict today.

Last October, Al-Shabaab Inqimasin (suicide assault infantry) overran a National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) base in Mogadishu, freeing several high-ranking jihadist detainees and destroying substantial quantities of intel. A highly choreographed attack, the Inqimasin had disguised their vehicle in official NISA daub, weaving easily through the heavily guarded checkpoints dotting the capital to reach the Godka Jilicow compound before blowing open the gates with a suicide car bomb. In the months since, Al-Shabaab's prodigious media arm-- Al-Kataib Media Foundation-- has drip-fed images and videos drawn from the Godka Jilicow attack, revelling in their infiltration of Mogadishu as well as the dark history of the prison itself. And in a chilling propaganda video broadcast at Eid al-Fitr last week, it was revealed that among the Inqimasin's number was none other than the son of Al-Shabaab's spokesperson Ali Mohamed Rage, better known as Ali Dheere.

The Rahanweyne Resistance Army (RRA) did not emerge from a shir (conference) in October 1995 to defend a government, nor to overthrow it. Rather, the militia —whose name was even explicit in its defence of a unified Digil-Mirifle identity —arose from the ruin of Bay and Bakool in the years prior, and decades of structural inequalities.

War has been averted in Tigray-- for now. In early February, tens of thousands of Ethiopian federal soldiers and heavy artillery streamed northwards, readying themselves on the edges of the northernmost region for seemingly imminent conflict.

The battle for South West—and Somalia's political future—continues apace. With the brittle alliance between South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud having broken down spectacularly, the federal government is pouring in arms and forces to oust the Digil-Mirifle leader. Staring down the barrel of the formal opposition holding three Federal Member States and, with it, greater territory, population, and clan, Villa Somalia is looking to exploit intra-Digil-Mirifle grievances—and convince Addis—to keep its monopolistic electoral agenda alive. But this morning, Laftagareen announced a 9-member electoral committee to hastily steer his re-election, bringing the formal bifurcation of the Somali state ever closer.

The worm, it seems, has finally turned. After years serving as a prop for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's monocratic aspirations, Abdiaziz Laftagareen, the leader of South West State, has clapped back against Villa Somalia, accusing the federal government of – among other things - dividing the country, monopolising public resources, colluding with Al-Shabaab, and leading Somalia back into state failure.

Last April, General Sheegow Ahmed Ali-- once the highest-ranking military officer hailing from the Somali Bantu-- died in ignominy in a Mogadishu hospital. A senior commander who had previously spearheaded operations in south-central Somalia, Sheegow had been summarily sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2023 for operating a militia in the capital. His death-- mourned widely and protested in Mogadishu and Beledweyne-- returned the spotlight to the pernicious issues of discrimination in the Somali National Army (SNA).