Issue No. 883

Kismaayo talks collapse as rift widens again

The weekend's Kismaayo talks were never likely to succeed. The political chasm between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Jubaland President Ahmed Madoobe was vast, forced apart by the government's military manoeuvres in Ras Kambooni last December and Gedo this year. Since Madoobe's withdrawal from the National Consultative Council in late 2024 and subsequently the federation, Villa Somalia has been hellbent on destabilising the Jubaland leader-- whom it still does not recognise. Nevertheless, some, not least Nairobi, had hoped that with Somalia's political temperature so fraught, Hassan Sheikh might suddenly come to his senses, offering concessions that could yet pave the way for a broader dialogue and settlement necessary for peaceful elections in May 2026. Instead, the federal president appears content with merely the optics of having visited Kismaayo, with the machinations for 'New Jubaland' being revived upon his return to Mogadishu.

Pressure from a number of angles had been mounting on Madoobe for some time to meet with Hassan Sheikh in Kismaayo. A Kenyan facilitated call between the Jubaland leader and the federal president in August was explicit that Madoobe would not cede ground on any direct elections deal with Villa Somalia and insisted on the presence of a trusted third-party mediator, the lifting of the farcical arrest warrant on him and recognition of his status as Jubaland president. The political deadlock between Mogadishu and Kismaayo has dragged on for nearly a year, with the recent meeting coming almost exactly 12 months after Madoobe withdrew from the National Consultative Council and orchestrated his own re-election, securing a comfortable third term. In turn, Villa Somalia, having failed to violently oust Madoobe with the Ras Kambooni debacle, where hundreds of Somali National Army (SNA) soldiers were routed across the Kenyan border, turned its attention to the Mareehaan-majority Gedo and has sought to expel the Jubaland administration's presence there as well, much like Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo in 2019. Dozens have been killed in subsequent clashes between SNA troops and Jubaland forces in the strategic border town of Beled Hawo, also flaring tensions within neighbouring Mandera.

Such deteriorated relations between Jubaland and Villa Somalia made the buildup of the talks in Kismaayo frosty at best. Still, there were delegations from Ethiopian and Kenyan intelligence to help facilitate, with the latter spearheaded by Noordin Haji, Nairobi's chief of intelligence. Haji has sought to play the role of mediator in recent months, maintaining close relationships with both Kismaayo and Mogadishu. And for both Nairobi and Addis, Gedo remains a key buffer zone against the penetration of Al-Shabaab into their countries, with Madoobe a long-trusted interlocutor. Despite this, the talks on Sunday got off to an inauspicious start, with Mogadishu rocked by the complex Al-Shabaab attack on the National Intelligence and Security Agency compound at Godka Jila'ow into the early hours of the morning.

Despite the clear parameters of what was required to move the needle, Hassan Sheikh offered no such concessions in Kismaayo. Instead, talks broke down almost immediately, as the federal president refused to compromise on the two central elements of their discord —Madoobe's re-election in November 2024 and the format of the next federal polls scheduled for May 2026. Extraordinarily, Hassan Sheikh further insisted that Madoobe must return to the National Consultative Council, which has essentially been rendered a vehicle for the president's own Justice and Solidarity Party. Not only intended to sabotage the talks with the view of continuing to push for a term extension, but it was also an apparent snub to the Kenyans, who had deployed not insignificant political capital to bring the two parties together.

Further, such opening positions could never be accepted by Madoobe, particularly coming in the wake of the formalisation of a new, broader opposition coalition ahead of the Kismaayo talks — 'The Council for Somalia's Future.' Made up of Puntland, Jubaland, and the National Salvation Forum (NSF), it has been clear for some time that these parties have sought to coordinate resistance to Villa Somalia's dangerous antics. Still, the formal announcement of the new coalition is a significant development, and will make it considerably more complex for Villa Somalia to prise off and co-opt elements of the mounting opposition. In Kismaayo, Madoobe insisted that he would not agree to any side deal with Hassan Sheikh on the electoral format without consulting with his Council members. How this new coalition evolves and its next steps remain to be seen, but the Hawiye elements are again seeking to rally the simmering discontent in Mogadishu against the violent land clearances, with major protests scheduled for tomorrow. Moreover, amid the revival of 'New Jubaland,' it is improbable that the new opposition coalition will sit on its haunches, with the Council anticipated to host talks in either Garowe or Kismaayo in the coming weeks.

On the other hand, Villa Somalia has sought to portray the Kismaayo meeting as solely a bilateral effort with Madoobe, obscuring the role of the Kenyan mediators in an attempt to underscore that Hassan Sheikh can travel the country at will. And having secured the photoshoot, it is probable that Mogadishu will again cast the Jubaland leader as somehow an obstructionist to pave the way for 'New Jubaland' - borrowing directly from the government's Sool playbook to cleave out contested territory by exploiting longstanding Mareehaan grievances. Yet the project remains unlikely to be sustainable in the long term without the unified support of the Mareehaan. Among other influential Mareehaan sub-clans, the majority of the Reer Hassan have remained loyal to Madoobe, partly because his vice-president is drawn from their sub-clan. 

Nor has Villa Somalia helped its cause by deploying such deeply unpopular characters, such as Abdirashid Janaan-- wanted for human rights violations-- and the Minister of Internal Security, Abdullahi Sheikh Fartaag, to spearhead the carving out of Gedo. Instead of heralding a new democratic administration in Garbahaarey, further intra-Mareehaan conflict, with intermittent killings and clashes having pockmarked the town in recent weeks, should be anticipated. And--again-- it is Al-Shabaab that stands to gain from such vapid antics, further opening the door for the jihadists to consolidate their hold across large swathes of the strategic tri-border area. 

In 2013, Hassan Sheikh was forced to travel to Kismaayo to entreat with Madoobe, having failed to oust the then-newly elected Jubaland president after stoking violence in the vital port city. In the wake of Jubaland emerging as a Federal Member State in a process supported by Addis and Nairobi, the federal president threw weight behind the warlord Baare 'Hiiraale', triggering violence on the streets of Kismaayo. But his thwarted antics then proved a critical inflexion point in Hassan Sheikh's first term, with the president then able to hear that further attempts to forcibly impose Mogadishu's will would only result in further bloodshed. Sadly, today, with much eerily reminiscent of both 2013 and 2019, Hassan Sheikh appears unwilling to learn the same lessons —no matter the cost to the dangerously frayed political settlement of Somalia.

The Somali Wire Team