Issue No. 975

A Murder Most Foul – New Unrest In Hiiraan

While Mogadishu’s elite were ensconced in the Hangar complex last week praising Turkey, berating its critics, and proclaiming a ‘New Somalia’, the country's periphery told a vastly different story - one where "old Somalia," with its deep-seated clan feuds and the brutal calculus of blood and retaliation, remained stubbornly intact.

The major news that galvanised Somalia was not the strategic communication conference at the Hangar organised by the Turkish President, but rather the national anguish riveted on the random lynching of a Somali National Army soldier in Hiiraan by a clan mob hunting for rival clan members to kill.

A short video showing the last moments of the SNA soldier, Ahmed Shire Hussein, begging his captors for mercy went viral. In the video, he calls the invisible man interrogating him abti (maternal uncle), saying he was sick, hungry, and on his way to his family, creating huge revulsion inside Somalia and among Somali communities in the diaspora.

In Somali culture, abti is a powerful bond. To invoke that potent word and then fail to receive mercy is a profound taboo, which is why the killing has triggered such widespread grief.

What followed, we may never know for certain. Media reports suggest the soldier, a Hawaadle/Harun, was tortured, decapitated, and his body left in the open unburied for days. He may not have been alone, as some reports claim he was accompanied by two others.

The incident occurred in Ceel Baraf, an Abgaal/Agonyar territory in Middle Shabelle. It is an active combat zone but also a major flashpoint for intra-Hawiye tensions and tit-for-tat violence. In December 2024, six SNA soldiers were killed in the same district. While the army has pledged a probe, Shire’s death has also triggered heated exchanges in parliament, fuelling contentious debates within the Hawaadle community.

Bad blood

The killing of Ahmed Shire has triggered anger in Hiiraan. The Hawaadle clan chief Ugaas Yusuf Ugaas Ahmed Ugaas Khalif visited Buulo Burte where the funeral ceremony was held. An angry Ugaas Yusuf vowed retaliation and urged all Hawaadle men of military age to prepare themselves and for Hawaadle businessmen to contribute money to the cause.

The rivalry and bad blood between the Hawaadle and Abgaal clans are not new. Beneath the surface of regional politics lies a long-standing history of friction, with this recent tragedy serving as the latest violent manifestation of deep-seated animosities that continue to fracture the social fabric.

The Hawaadle are among the major clans in Hiiraan who deeply resent the political dominance of the Abgaal within the federal state of Hirshabelle. This power imbalance has fuelled local grievances for years, as the Hawaadle feel marginalised and systematically excluded from equitable governance in their own region.

This marginalisation is particularly bitter given recent history; the Hawaadle uprising in 2022 led to major, historic victories for the Ma’wiisley militia against Al-Shabaab. Yet despite bearing the brunt of the frontline fighting and spearheading the anti-terror offensive, the clan was ultimately let down by the central authorities.

Instead of being rewarded, its key leaders—such as ex-NISA DG Sanbaloolshe and ex-Hiiraan Governor Ali Jeyte—were sidelined, and its local forces were starved of essential funding and resources. To compound these grievances, Gudlaawe, an Abgaal, is now being groomed to continue serving as president of Hirshabelle, entrenching the very imbalance that sparked the tension in the first place.

Political economy

Beyond pure political ambition, this friction is deeply rooted in the cold economics of survival and resource control. The Shabelle River acts as the region's economic lifeline, making Hiiraan an agricultural goldmine and a vital commercial hub for livestock trade and transportation routes linking the south to the north. In a territory where formal state institutions are weak, control over municipal tax revenues, major market centres like Beledweyne, and profitable highway checkpoints constitutes the ultimate prize.

The federal structure of Hirshabelle has turned this wealth into a zero-sum game. Local leaders in Hiiraan have repeatedly clashed with the administration in Jowhar over the allocation of regional revenues, refusing to see locally collected taxes funnelled out to a centralised authority they feel does not represent them. When public administration looks less like governance and more like an economic occupation, local checkpoints transform into lucrative clan fiefdoms, and minor resource disputes rapidly escalate into deadly flashpoints of violent retaliation.

Mediation

Renewed inter-clan conflict in Hiiraan will be disastrous. It will certainly scuttle Villa Somalia’s prospects of launching a new offensive against Al-Shabaab and make it significantly harder for the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) to remobilise the vital Hawaadle militias.

The tragic incident in Ceel Baraf is symptomatic of persistent localised impunity and the inability of the state to institute a modern, equitable system of uniform justice. In fact, by integrating controversial elements of qisas—hard retributive justice—into the new Penal Code, Somalia is inadvertently promoting the entrenched culture of aar-goosi and aano qabil (clan-based blood feuds and retaliation).

In conclusion, the FGS has little credibility in stemming localised intra-clan animosity; its overall attitude towards clans remains largely predatory and opportunistic. Former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, perhaps the single most credible leader in Somalia for this crisis, must be encouraged to step forward and calm the growing unrest in Hiiraan.

Because Sheikh Sharif belongs to the Abgaal/Agonyar—the clan associated with the perpetrators of the killing—a direct meeting between him and Ugaas Yusuf, the Hawaadle clan chief, would serve as a potent symbol. Such a traditional reconciliation effort is likely the only way to rein in the hardliners on both sides who are currently seeking blood revenge.