Issue No. 811

Painting Disputed Laas Anood 'Blue'

Over the weekend, Somalia's PM Hamza Abdi Barre travelled to the disputed town of Laas Anood in the Sool region in what was billed as a 'historic' visit by Mogadishu and nationalist media-- the first by a sitting PM to the municipality in decades. Dozens of federal lawmakers and senior government ministers joined Barre on the highly choreographed visit, which had been trailed weeks in advance to the delight of hardline unionists and displeasure from Puntland and Somaliland. 

On Saturday early afternoon, PM Hamza landed at the dusty airfield in Laas Anood to a rapturous welcome. A large column of cars snaked its way to the centre of the town; a smiling Hamza Barre atop an SUV in his usual sunglasses waved to hundreds of residents lining the streets, waving the blue Somali flag. Women ululated and sang patriotic songs. Laas Anood, after all, was the spiritual birthplace of Somali unity and the anti-colonial movement. For a moment, the optics in Laas Anood looked ideal, almost unreal – the type of powerful manifestation of popular emotion and support that all politicians crave, and something which Mogadishu's bunkered leadership and enclave government deeply craved and denied them for decades. The realities of Barre's visit, however, are markedly different.

For Hamza Barre, the visit was the fulfilment of a personal goal beyond demonstrating solidarity with the SSC-Khaatumo administration, but to emphasise his relevance in broader pan-Darood politics. While the overshadowed politician hails from the Reer Abdille, an influential sub-clan of the transnational Mohamed Zubeyr, Barre has been badly wounded by his role in the Ras Kamboni debacle in late 2024. In particular, Barre's inability to keep his former close ally, Ahmed Madoobe, in Villa Somalia's camp, as well as a litany of unpopular blunders, has led to a growing chorus of calls for his resignation. With Puntland and Jubaland adrift from the federation, Barre's visit to Laas Aanood is both about cementing his legacy and an attempt to co-opt a new Darood constituency-- now the Dhulbahante-- to restore his relevance beyond his limited enforcer role for the president.

Still, while most of his government travelled to Laas Aanood over the weekend, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud appeared to narrow the visit's scope at the Antalya Forum in Türkiye. Barre's promises on Sunday that Laas Aanood and its environs would be formally recognised as part of the federal system and included within its development agenda jarred with the president's reference to the Laas Aanood conflict as a "local dispute" and odd assertion the visit was intended to promote peace, dialogue, and a prisoner swap. Hassan Sheikh's remark angered the SSC-Khaatumo administration, with one clan elder comparing it to "a stab in the back." Still, while there appears to remain some cleavages within the federal government over their approach to Laas Aanood and SSC-Khaatumo, there are a number of goals Mogadishu is likely seeking to achieve with Barre's visit.

The first and foremost reason is a flawed attempt to distract from the government's flailing political and military agenda. Manufacturing a surge of anti-secessionist sentiment against Somaliland within the government's diminished nationalist base is a blatant attempt to give it some political breathing room and shift the narrative. With Villa Somalia remaining unserious about its offer of 'national unity talks,' Laas Aanood is the perfect low-hanging fruit for its Islamist and unionist supporters. Barre's visit further enables it to claim a semblance of reach and influence in the north, even as it continues to lose ground to Al-Shabaab just a few miles from Mogadishu. Further, the invitation of SSC-Khaatumo leader Abdikhadir Ahmed Aw-Ali 'Firdhiye' to the National Consultative Council (NCC) meeting, scheduled for 1-2 May in Mogadishu, allows for some nominal Darood representation in the talks, with Jubaland not invited despite Madoobe's willingness and Puntland so far reluctant to engage. 

But these deliberate aggravations toward Puntland make any prospect of drawing regional President Said Abdullahi Deni back to the NCC or any other political forum even dimmer. Garowe has kept largely silent on the visit, likely not wanting to disturb the nationalist chest-beating and proclamations of an end to Somaliland's de facto independence. Any movement towards recognising the Dhulbhante and Warsangeli territories in Sool as a new Federal Member State (FMS), however, will not sit well with Puntland for a number of reasons, not least as it would threaten to reduce the region to a Majerteen enclave and reduce its federal parliamentary representation in turn. Tellingly, few Majerteen politicians accompanied the swollen government delegation to Laas Aanood, barring the police commissioner Asad 'Diyaano,' a major political rival of Deni. 

Another reason for Barre's visit was to scuttle SSC-Khaatumo's signalling that it would be amenable to reconciling with Hargeisa. Recent comments by Firdhiye suggested the Dhulbahante would engage the new administration in Hargeisa. For well over a year, to the frustration of elements within SSC-Khaatumo, Mogadishu has dangled the possibility of incorporating the administration into the federation as the country's 6th FMS-- despite not meeting most of the criteria. However, Mogadishu has preferred the state of 'frozen conflict' in Sool, reportedly channelling weapons to SSC-Khaatumo to quietly stoke the conflict and undermine Somaliland's claims over the region. Villa Somalia was also likely unwilling to form another Darood-majority FMS, which would result in an outnumbering of the Hawiye-majority regional administrations to Darood of three to two. But SSC-Khaatumo remains politically torn on multiple sides, particularly between Firdhiye's faction and the Al-Shabaab-affiliated group led by Dhulbahante militia commander Abdi Madoobe. How Barre's visit will impact these fraught factional dynamics within the town remains to be seen.

For Somaliland, Barre's visit has left it with few limited and mostly unpalatable options. Though Hargeisa has heavily protested Barre's visit, with Somaliland President's Spokesman Hussein Dayr calling it a "declaration of war," it was unable to prevent the visit, painfully underscoring that it does not currently control its 1960 borders at a moment when the US is reportedly considering recognising the polity. Lawmakers in Somaliland's House of Representatives, as well as politicians from the Kaah and Kulmiye parties, have lambasted Mogadishu, and it appears likely to have definitively sunk any prospect of talks or settlement with Hargeisa for the time being. While the incoming Adbirahman 'Irro' administration in December 2024 was receptive to restarting the paused Hargeisa-Mogadishu dialogue, the latter has almost done everything in its power to undermine this. Rather than mobilising ground forces, the Somaliland government has instead quietly signalled its unhappiness to international partners. But any provocative attempt by Mogadishu to conduct direct elections in Laas Aanood may push Hargeisa towards a militarised response, which would only cause fresh humanitarian suffering in turn.

In a single blow, Barre's trip undermined Mogadishu's relations with Somaliland, Puntland, and federal Isaaq lawmakers in the capital who protested the visit. While promising 'national unity', Villa Somalia instead is seeking again to foment yet another crisis and drive a fresh cleavage into the country to save it from ceding any political ground or influence. It has even signalled that it is interested in pursuing its unimplementable one-person, one-vote (OPOV) agenda in Laas Aanood, further adding to the increasingly widespread view that Hassan Sheikh only announced talks to draw the sting out of mounting international pressure. Hamza's foray into Laas Aanood is an extraordinary piece of political vandalism by Villa Somalia at the worst possible moment.

The Somali Wire Team