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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.
21 min read 25 Mar
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.
20:23 min read 23 Mar
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.
18:32 min read 18 Mar
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).
22:23 min read 16 Mar
The Horn of Africa's political fate has always been wired to external commercial interests, with its expansive eastern edge on the Red Sea serving as an aorta of trade for millennia. A Greek merchant's manual from the 1st century AD describes the port of Obone in modern-day Puntland as a hub of ivory, tortoiseshell, enslaved people and cinnamon destined for Egypt. Today, as so often quoted, between 12-15% of the world's seaborne trade passes along the arterial waterway, with the Suez Canal bridging Europe and Asia. But well before the globalised world or the vying Gulf and Middle Powers over the Red Sea's littoral administrations, the logic of 'gunboat diplomacy' underpinned the passage over these seas.
19:31 min read 13 Mar
At the collapse of the Somali state in the early 1990s, the bloated, corrupt, and clan-riven national army was nevertheless in possession of vast quantities of light weapons. Much of it sourced during Somalia's ill-fated alliance with the USSR and later Western and Arab patrons, government armouries were soon plundered by warring militias across Mogadishu, Kismaayo, Baidoa, and every garrison town as the country descended into chaos, providing the ammunition for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
22:24 min read 11 Mar
The Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch recounts that King Pyrrhus of Epirus, after defeating the Romans at Asculum in 279 BC, lamented, "One more such victory over the Romans and we are completely done for." After almost four torturous years, the same might be said for any more supposed 'victories' for the incumbent federal government of Somalia. To nobody's surprise, the constitutional 'review' process undertaken by Somalia's federal government was never about implementing direct democracy after all. It was, as widely anticipated, a thinly veiled power grab intended to centralise political power, eviscerate Somalia's federal system, and extend the term of the incumbent president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM). And so, at the 11th hour and with less than 70 days remaining in his term of office, HSM declared Somalia's new constitutional text 'complete' and signed it into 'law.'
20:27 min read 09 Mar
On 4 March 2026, Somalia's Federal Parliament hastily ratified dozens of controversial constitutional amendments, thus finalising President Hassan Sheikh's tailor-made Constitution. Speaker Aden Madobe has now declared the new revised Constitution effective immediately. In doing so, the speaker and his government have deliberately destroyed the existing social contract agreed upon by the people of Somalia.
20:08 min read 06 Mar
Ramadan is known as the 'Month of Mercy', typically characterised by forgiveness and reconciliation within the Islamic world. Not so in Somalia, where Villa Somalia's ruinous push to 'finalise' the Provisional Constitution has taken another grim twist in recent days. The collapse of opposition-government talks on 22 February was inevitable, with Villa Somalia's flippancy evident in the needless arguments over venue and security personnel.
17:05 min read 04 Mar