On Saturday, after several rounds of secret voting in Addis Ababa, Djiboutian Foreign Minister Mohamoud Ali Youssouf was elected to serve as the next African Union (AU) Commission Chair. He defeated former Kenyan PM Raila Odinga, who dropped out in the 6th round after successive neck-and-neck ballots, with the long-serving Kenyan opposition leader ahead in the first two rounds. Following the elimination of the Madagascan candidate, however, Youssouf inched ahead, and it soon became apparent that Raila would be unable to obtain the 2/3s required of the 49 AU member states.
Between 2010 and 2016, over 6,000 Somali children were forcibly recruited into armed groups, and 2,000 in 2018 alone — the highest number recorded globally. Some were as young as 8. Since the collapse of the state in the early 1990s, Somalia has served as an example of how instability and social fragmentation can fuel the exploitation of children in conflict. Today, Al-Shabaab is widely regarded as the most culpable of Somalia's myriad armed forces for their indoctrination and abduction of children into their ranks.
Political jockeying ahead of the 2027 presidential elections in Kenya is already underway. With the William Ruto administration nearing its third year and its approval ratings remaining slumped, the president appears to have shifted into campaign mode. In early February, accompanied by senior Cabinet officials, President Ruto embarked on a significant tour of North Eastern Kenya, offering several incentives to the long-marginalised border region that backed Raila Odinga in the 2022 polls. Among these was the pledge to abolish ID vetting, the reopening of the Garrissa passports office, and promising livestock vaccinations to open up market access. With support for the central government dwindling in the vote-rich Mt Kenya region and elsewhere, President Ruto's northern charm offensive is no coincidence—it's a political insurance policy.
The federal government has taken another leaf out of the Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo playbook– attempting to break up MP and opposition meetings in Mogadishu. In January, a missive was sent out to several hotels to inform them that any such meetings are banned without prior federal approval. And on Monday, federal MP Dahir Amin Jesow accused Villa Somalia of directing soldiers to break up a hotel gathering of 5 opposition parties in Mogadishu. As Villa Somalia lauds the opening of the registering of political associations and the promise of 'one-person, one-vote' (OPOV) elections, it is simultaneously working to choke the country's fragile civic and democratic space. The need for a transitional political arrangement only continues to grow.
Since the beginning of the year, the schism within and between the two factions of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) has continued to deepen. The two groups-- led respectively by TPLF Chairman Debretsion Gebremichael and TIA President Getachew Reda-- have dug in despite multiple mediation attempts.
Reports of a government offensive in the Hiiraan region recall the heady days of the 2022 ma'awiisley offensive against Al-Shabaab that left the jihadists bloodied and on the back foot. At that time, community defence forces from the Hawaadle rose up against Al-Shabaab in protest against the group's pitiless 'taxtortion' during a time of brutal drought, and succeeded in dislodging the extremists from significant parts of Hiiraan, Middle Shabelle and Galmudug. Known as the 'ma'awiisley' for the typical 'ma'wiis' (sarongs) that Somali men wear, it was a clan and community-led offensive that the fresh Hassan Sheikh administration eagerly appropriated as a 'success story' for the federal government. Today, once again, scenes of young men with AK-47s battling Al-Shabaab along the Shabelle River valley are being touted as a token of Villa Somalia's counterterrorism zeal.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's attempts to mimic his predecessor, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, continue to fragment the country. In late 2019 and early 2020, the disruptive president and his spy chief, Fahad Yasin, deployed hundreds of federal troops and National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) operatives to the Gedo region of Jubaland, having been unable to dislodge regional President Ahmed Madoobe from Kimsaayo after his re-election in August 2019. Alongside security forces, cash was poured in to leverage the Mareehaan-dominated districts of Luuq, Dollow, Beled Hawo, Garbaharey and Bardheere away from Madoobe's Ogaadeen-majority administration. Sporadic deadly violence erupted between federal and regional troops as Al-Shabaab expanded and consolidated its presence in Gedo, which has not diminished since.
The military balance in Sudan continued to shift in 2025, with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) making significant territorial gains against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since capturing Wad Maddani on 11 January, the Sudanese army has steadily advanced along the Blue Nile and to the north, east and south in Khartoum. And in late January, for the first time since the war began, the Sudanese army was able to break through to its besieged General Command headquarters. These advances have now allowed SAF to position itself to assert near-full control of the capital in the coming days. The RSF, meanwhile, has preferred to fight only minor rearguard actions, as it transfers fighters, vehicles, and material from central Sudan towards its western heartlands in Darfur. With the RSF's renewed devastating assault on El Fasher in North Darfur ongoing, the 'Libya-style' split of the country appears only a matter of time.
Puntland's 'Operation Hilaac' (Lightning) continues to progress against the Islamic State-Somalia (ISS)-- and with a new partner. On 1 February, the Trump administration ordered its first drone strikes on an ISS position in the Al-Miskaad mountains near Dhasan village, one of the jihadist's key command-and-control bases. It was the fourth set of strikes of the offensive overall, with the UAE having also conducted three others against the extremist group. According to US President Donald Trump on social media, the strikes targeted a senior ISS operational leader, though his identity remains unconfirmed.
Since its inception, Brigade N'Hamedu, also known as the 'Blue Revolution,' has focused on targeting the pro-Eritrean regime's cultural festivals-- long used to fundraise, intimidate potential opposition, and serve as propaganda tools. While Brigade N'Hamedu is not Eritrea's first diaspora-based opposition movement to challenge these notorious events, its scale and scope have set it apart from previous efforts. The movement gained particular momentum toward the end of 2022, with protests aimed at exposing and resisting the transnational and domestic repression orchestrated by the Eritrean regime and its diaspora institutions garnering significant attention.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's plans to impose a patently unworkable one-person, one-vote (OPOV) model are pushing Somalia to the brink. The country is deeply fractured, with Jubaland and Puntland disengaged from Mogadishu and a host of others resistant to Villa Somalia's Islamist centralising agenda. The national opposition is vowing to resist a perceived choreographed plan by the Somali president to either rig dubious OPOV polls or seek a term extension. Meanwhile, rumours are rife in Mogadishu that clans are stocking up on arms and militias are mobilising. There are fears the growing political strain could trigger the fragmentation of the military and security services.
In 2022, during Somalia's prolonged drought, temperatures regularly exceeded 32°C, displacing over a million people and killing thousands. While the increasing regularity of Somalia's ever-more extreme drought-flooding cycles is generally understood, one of the more overlooked climate threats —known as 'wet bulb temperature' (WBT)— is likely to have a significant impact on the country.
The sudden suspension of US foreign aid is already having major reverberations around the Horn of Africa. Just days after Donald Trump's inauguration for his second non-consecutive term, a sweeping 90-day pause to foreign assistance was announced by the State Department– now led by Marco Rubio.
The troubles of the latest African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia rumble on. Nearly a month since its supposed launch, the funding black hole remains, numbers and composition of the troop-contributing countries (TCCs) are undecided, and the domestic political wrangling continues. Though the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) nominally began on 1 January 2025, even the UN Security Council Resolution 2767, adopted at the end of December, has allowed 6 months for the "realignment of troops and the transfer of locations." In other words, though the signage may have been changed, AUSSOM remains a shamble, and the security auspices bleak.
Last week, peaceful demonstrations were staged in Mekelle, protesting the unconstitutional denial of education to hijab-wearing girls in several schools in Axum, Tigray
On 25 January, dignitaries from Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia gathered in Dire Dawa in Ethiopia's Somali region to celebrate UNESCO's recognition of Xeer Issa, the customary legal system of the Issa clan, as "intangible cultural heritage." Headquartered in Paris, UNESCO's enshrining of Xeer Issa, rather than any of its other Somali counterparts, has been in part driven by its study and promotion by francophone Djiboutians. While it has been asserted that Xeer Issa is a particularly sophisticated example of oral Somali jurisprudence, which is debatable, UNESCO's recognition also raises questions about singling out a particular sub-clan when innumerate variations exist in all Somali-speaking regions.
On Monday, Somalia's Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission announced that an initial 300 polling stations had been identified for voters to cast their ballot in the upcoming one-person, one-vote (OPOV) elections. According to Villa Somalia's rhetoric, these OPOV elections would transform the country away from the 4.5 clan system-- and the first federally overseen direct polls in Somalia in decades. The reality is rather different.
On 6 January, South Sudan's First Vice President, Riek Machar, received a report from the Administrative Assembly of Abyei. The report-- presented by the region's Chief Administrator Dr Chol Deng Alak-- was an endorsement of a boycotted referendum in 2013, which showed overwhelming support by the Ngok Dinka majority for Abyei's integration into South Sudan.
'Isbaaro' (checkpoints) are a ubiquitous part of life for many Somalis. Decades after the 'isbaaro wars' of the 1990s, dozens are still dotted across Main Supply Routes (MSR) in central-southern Somalia, placed on the entrances of towns or serve as ad hoc, impermanent structures on more minor roads. Reflective of the contested patchwork of forces and administrations that comprise Somalia, while successive federal governments have pledged to tackle the entrenched issue, the checkpoints remain.
Last week, Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) Major General Alemeshet Degife gave an interview for state television. The controversial senior military commander, returned in November 2020 by PM Abiy Ahmed for the Tigray war, spoke about a number of topics, including the status of the Fano insurgency in Amhara and Ethiopia's relationship with Eritrea and Egypt.