Issue No. 737

Deni vs Diyaano plays out in Mogadishu

Yesterday, Somali Police Commissioner Sulub Ahmed Firin was replaced. His tenure was somewhat controversial, if pretty standard for many of Somalia's security officials, having overseen several major security lapses in Mogadishu and accusations of corruption. Firin will now head up the deputy transport docket at the behest of his erstwhile ally, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre. More notable, though, is Firin's replacement as Police Commissioner - the former Puntland Security Force (PSF) Commander General Asad Osman Abdullahi 'Diyaano.'

Diyaano is a long-time political opponent of Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni, a co-founder of the Mideeye political association and former regional presidential candidate in the 2019 elections. He is best known, however, for his time commanding the PSF, a once-disbanded but still highly influential force based in Bosasso, the commercial capital of Puntland. Diyaano's highly political appointment comes just days after heightened tensions between troops loyal to his family and those aligned with the Deni administration in the port city, which resulted in the shuttering of Bosasso's international airport for several days. The PSF appear to have been seeking to prevent the landing of an Emirati flight in Bosasso carrying military equipment for the UAE-backed and rival unit-- the Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF).

It is no coincidence that Diyaano has been subsequently appointed to a senior federal security posting at this moment—Villa Somalia has been quietly stoking the security deterioration within Bosasso for several weeks and spies an opportunity to heap further pressure on Deni. It is the latest shot across the bow by Mogadishu to Garowe in the past 18 months, with the northern Federal Member State (FMS) leadership and Villa Somalia still split over the country's political direction, particularly the centralising rewriting of the Provisional Constitution. Diyaano's appointment can be read as part of a broader attempt to undermine Deni. 

A central plank of this strategy has been the suspension of federal financial assistance to Puntland and its withholding of international development projects. While the Puntland president has secured direct bilateral assistance from the UN, he is still feeling the heat, and Villa Somalia likely calculates it can further squeeze Deni by undermining his hold in Bosasso through Diyaano's elevation and the PSF. It was in this context that at the Puntland Development and Research Centre's conference earlier this week, Deni emphasised he was open to negotiations with the federal government, even while senior regional officials continue to slam the Hassan Sheikh administration.

But Villa Somalia's latest appointment may well doom any likelihood of reconciliation between Deni and the federal government before the 2026 presidential elections and sow further division in Bosasso. The news of Diyaano's appointment was greeted with celebratory gunfire by his forces. While no fighting has erupted between the quasi-presidential guard PMPF and the PSF, there are real dangers that the Diyaano appointment could upset the fragile equilibrium in the vital port city. The roots of the Deni-Diyaano family divide date back several years, but in late 2021, it erupted into an outright turf war in Bosasso over three days that left dozens dead and thousands displaced. The clashes were sparked by Deni's attempted sacking of Diyaano as a PSF commander and replacing him with a loyalist. 

It proved to be far from straightforward. Diyaano belongs to the Bah Dir Rooble sub-clan of the Osman Mohamud sub-clan that dominates much of northern Puntland. The PSF is intimately tied to Diyaano's family, with his father, Osman Diyaano, its first commander when it was reconstituted as a counterterrorism force from the Puntland Intelligence Service in 2010 with American support. Its headquarters were also established on the Diyaano family property on the outskirts of Bosasso, while close family members were recruited to key roles within the PSF. The force primarily consisted of Osman Mohamud members, with the US channelling weapons, salaries, and ammunition directly through the Diyaano family rather than through the Puntland administration. This dynamic was further complicated by the Special Operations Command-Africa directly transferring the PSF's equipment to the Diyaano's when the US eventually withdrew its support for the PSF in October 2021. 

Subsequently, when Deni sought to replace Diyaano in late 2021, he was also laying claim to the political and economic influence that his family had established in Bosasso. While a truce was soon brokered, that, too, proved to be highly controversial. In January 2022, Majerteen elders facilitated politicised negotiations between Diyaano and Deni that were wielded to secure concessions from the Puntland president. The elders insisted that Diyaano be reinstated as PSF leader, that P&O Ports be expelled from managing Bosasso's port and that state ministries based in Garowe be relocated to the city, among other demands. Deni partly acquiesced and instated Diyaano as the head of the Puntland Security Commando Forces, having broken the PSF into two. Amin Haji Khair was appointed as head of the new Puntland Intelligence Special Forces. 

The violence was subdued, and tensions remained dormant-- but the questions of control and influence in Bosasso and Puntland have remained. Diyaano's Mideeye association vocally opposed Deni's attempt to hold a version of one-person, one-vote elections for the regional presidential elections in January 2024. And the revenue that comes from Bosasso's port remains contested as well, with several patronage networks and communities laying claim to it. With the near-total severing of federal financial support, this stream has become critical for Deni and others to sustain their respective forces and administrations in recent months.

Appointing Diyaano to head the police force makes some sense and is a better appointment than Firin, who lacked security experience and scraped through his tenure saddled with controversies. But it is also the latest highly political manoeuvre by Villa Somalia in recent months as it attempts to cajole and corral FMS leadership to come behind its unilateral political agenda. In Galmudug, this has seen the arming and empowering of militia leaders like Liban Shuluq, while federal lawmakers from South West State have been prevented from travelling to Baidoa amid the rift between Villa Somalia and the Abdiaziz Laftagareen administration. Best international practice has established that rebuilding after a protracted conflict is best approached as a consensus-based exercise. HSM’s apparent determination to divide and rule Somalia’s FMSs is clearly heading in the opposite direction.

By the Somali Wire team