Last week, the brief glimmer towards a path to resolving Somalia's turgid political impasse was extinguished almost as soon as it emerged. The Council for the Future of Somalia (CFS) was supposedly heading to Mogadishu, including Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni and his Jubaland counterpart Ahmed Madoobe, for talks with Villa Somalia, though their scope remained murky, and optimism that the government would be willing to consider compromise remained dim. But even these initial talks —and the first face-to-face meeting between Deni, Madoobe, and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Mogadishu for well over two years —were doomed from the off.
At the 11th hour on 19 January, Villa Somalia tried its old hand once again. With the opposition’s deadline looming the next day—and risking the emergence of a parallel process—the Office of the Prime Minister, not even the president, issued a cagey statement calling for a national consultative forum in Mogadishu on 1 February. No agreed participants, no apparent agenda, and held in a city where Jubaland President Ahmed Islam 'Madoobe' has an outstanding arrest warrant, it appears to be another non-starter; just another bout of lip service with federal elections just a few months away.
At the end of November, the residents of Mogadishu will be able to supposedly participate in their first direct elections since the late 1960s. Though having repeatedly postponed the polls, the handpicked Independent National Electoral and Boundaries Commission (INEBC) has set the date of the district council elections for 30 November, asserting that close to a million people have registered in the capital for the grand event. And yet, as ever, with the Hawiye-dominated politics of Mogadishu still so frayed and the polls considered a flimsy attempt to foreground a term extension for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the exercise in direct democracy is hardly laudable.
Obscurity and discord appear to be the name of the game this week in Villa Somalia. Hostility between South West President Abdiaziz Laftagareen and a slice of the splinter national 'opposition', Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden and Mohammed Mursal, two former speakers of parliament, bubbled over publicly, with the former barring these latest Villa Somalia allies from travelling to Baidoa. In Hirshabelle, meanwhile, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud appears to be gearing up to oust his fellow Justice and Solidarity Party (JSP) member in Jowhar, Ali 'Guudlawe'. And preparations for the district-level Banaadir direct elections continue apace, with the date now scheduled for 30 November and nearly 1 million people dubiously registered. But make no mistake; the political churn is a tool for Villa Somalia to muddy its principal obligation to hold federal presidential elections in May 2026.
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.
At dawn on Friday morning, Al-Shabaab launched yet another raid on government bases in central Somalia-- this time at El Dheer in the Galgaduud region. In typical Al-Shabaab style, suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (SVBIEDs) were deployed to trigger the assault, intended to scatter their enemies and blow a hole in perimeter defences before allowing fighters to swarm their target. We have seen these tactics employed time and again, and yet government forces still seemed unprepared-- after some fighting, all three SNA 77th, Gorgor, and ma'awiisley bases were overrun by the jihadists, dispersing government forces towards the coast in the aftermath. And having overrun these bases, inflicting-- according to their propaganda-- dozens of government casualties and seizing significant quantities of weapons and ammunition, Al-Shabaab had succeeded in their military objective.
For Nairobi, Jubaland has long been a frontline against Al-Shabaab, a key staging post from which the jihadists have launched attacks on Kenyan soil. Amidst a seesawing relationship between Nairobi and Mogadishu, the southernmost Federal Member State (FMS) has always been a buffer zone for Kenya, with many thousands of soldiers having been posted into Jubaland in an attempt to inoculate North-Eastern from the jihadists' infiltration. But over several years, the battleground has nevertheless morphed, with Kenya's borderlands having transformed into the site of a low-level militant insurgency, and with Manda Bay an epicentre of the fight against Jaysh Ayman, Al-Shabaab's semi-autonomous wing in Kenya. Much has changed over the past decade, including the steady advance of Salafist thought in these peripheral areas, but there has been one constant-- Ahmed Madoobe, the Jubaland president.
After several days of intense speculation, Somalia's principal national opposition alliance —the National Salvation Forum (NSF) —hit back on Sunday against the splinter electoral deal. A lengthy riposte was issued, dismissing the deal between Villa Somalia and four now-former NSF members as a cosmetic "self-serving" agreement. Despite the government's offering some partial concessions and it being heralded as a mark of genuine consensus, with the NSF core outside the tent, as well as Puntland and Jubaland, the electoral crisis is far from over. Villa Somalia's attempts, meanwhile, to sell this as the 'final' deal and garner some positive headlines with the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York this month, have largely flopped.
After months of simmering tensions within the Leysan sub-clan of the Digil-Mirifle, a complex reconciliation process is bearing fruit. Partly stemming from enduring frustrations with South West President Abdiaziz Laftagareen, the conflict between Leysan militias and his government gradually morphed in the past year into an intra-clan conflict. Several dozen militia members have been killed in the intermittent fighting in and around Berdaale in particular, as well as 5 civilians. Now, however, after intricate negotiations, it appears that the Leysan militias positioned a few kilometres from the town for over a year may soon be reintegrated into the formal security architecture, hopefully soothing rifts within the sub-clan.
Clashes from Mogadishu to Gedo as talks collapse On the eve of Eid al-Adha, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) addressed the nation. With a resurgent Al-Shabaab bearing down on Mogadishu and under intense domestic and international pressure, the president begrudgingly agreed to open dialogue. The Somali National Army (SNA) had proven itself badly inept, and the impetus for Villa Somalia to retreat from its centralising and autocratic agenda was considered not just political but essential for the country's national security. But the president was never serious. And in the weeks that followed, HSM has weaponised the painstaking talks with the National Salvation Forum (NSF) to stave off international scrutiny, while further consolidating his rigged direct electoral plan through his Justice and Solidarity Party (JSP) and carving out clan enclaves in Sool and Gedo. Though the imminent danger to the capital-- from Al-Shabaab-- has passed for the time being, with fighting erupting in the streets of Mogadishu and violence simmering in the Mareehaan-dominated region of Jubaland, the talks appear to have finally broken down.
Sequels are rarely as good as the original movie, and 'threequels' even less so. The ongoing Ugandan People's Defence Force (UPDF)-led and Somali National Army (SNA) offensive in Lower Shabelle is following the same tired plot as its predecessors, and as anticipated, it is playing out in a toe-curling fashion. First, there was the unsuccessful Operation Leopard Hunt-- to dislodge Al-Shabaab from several of the strategic 'bridge towns' of Lower Shabelle, namely Sabiid, Bariire, and Awdheegle, then there was Operation Badbaadho, to again, clear the jihadists from the towns. And now, over five years on Badbaadho, we are seeing the same story play out in Operation Silent Storm, albeit with a greatly demoralised and degraded SNA.
In the 21st century alone, Palmyra, Tigray, the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Odessa, and Khartoum, and many more besides, have all borne witness to targeted cultural violence, wiping out centuries and millennia of worship, artefacts, and unique histories that can never be reclaimed. Some have been targeted for theological or religious reasons– such as the ancient sites in Palmyra by Daesh– or part of a broader genocidal attempt to stamp out a civilisation– as was the case in Tigray– or simply greed– like the looting of the Khartoum museums by the Rapid Support Forces. But in many cases, it denotes a rewriting of history, an attempt by a political movement or armed group to coerce and impose their particular vision for the country on the objects, buildings, and cultural identities that comprise it.
Last week, a new Somali federal state entitled "North Eastern State of Somalia" (NES) (Dowlad Goboleedka Waqooyi Bari Soomaaliya) was proclaimed and endorsed by Villa Somalia. The culmination of a months-long project directed by the Ministry of Interior, the transformation of the Laas Aanood-based SSC-Khaatumo administration into a supposed 'federal state'-- the first since Hirshabelle-- is being hailed by Somali nationalists as a victory against the 'secessionism' of Somaliland and Puntland's independence from Mogadishu. Though not in full control of either, NES is meant to encompass both Sool and Sanaag, and has been finally bulldozed into existence in the face of public opposition from Puntland, Somaliland, and much of the Warsangeli that the new state claims to represent. The cynical electoral politics of Mogadishu are pushing northern Somalia and Somaliland to the brink of conflict once again.
Gedo has long served as a useful barometer for the health of relations between Nairobi, Mogadishu, and Addis. Straddling the tri-border Mandera Triangle, the Mareehaan-dominated region of Jubaland has been a key staging post for Al-Shabaab's continued infiltration into Kenya and Ethiopia for years. And as such, both Nairobi and Addis have a vested stake in Jubaland as a security buffer zone against the jihadists, developing close ties with key political actors within Gedo and the southern Federal Member State-- which they helped co-establish in 2013. Over a decade later, with Hassan Sheikh Mohamud back at the helm in Mogadishu, the focus has returned to Gedo, as he has resorted to a well-known destabilising playbook by attempting —and failing —to wrest the Mareehaan into Villa Somalia's orbit. But amid the government's months-long campaign to destabilise Gedo, including seizing Garbahaarey and Luuq from control of Jubaland to carve out Darood tents for its rigged elections, Addis has remained silent-- until now.
Another week, and the federal government's destabilising antics have threatened to tip yet more of the country into open conflict. Never mind Al-Shabaab seizing Mokoqori in Hiiraan and routing the Hawaadle ma'awiisley, Villa Somalia's attention remains trained on pressing ahead with its unilateral one-person, one-vote (OPOV) agenda. In recent months, an increasingly central plank of this has become SSC-Khaatumo, the Dhulbahante-dominated administration in the contested Sool region, with its interim president Abdikhadir Ahmed Aw-Ali 'Firdhiye' a prominent member of the new Justice and Solidarity Party (JSP). In exchange, an unconstitutional federal member state-formation process has been accelerated, attempting to 'merge' Sool-based SSC-Khaatumo with a fringe group from the Warsangeli-majority Sanaag region, similarly claimed by both Puntland and Somaliland
After months of climbing tensions, Somalia's federal government and the so-called 'national opposition' are now tentatively engaged in dialogue. Last week, the second round of talks took place at Villa Somalia, with renewed hope for a breakthrough on a roadmap for the federal elections scheduled for May 2026. Meanwhile, the newly established National Dialogue Forum should further help diminish the potential for violence on the streets of Mogadishu. Yet, the bonhomie between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the coalition Somali Salvation Forum (SSF), led by former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, cannot mask the fact that the road ahead will be fraught with hurdles as Villa Somalia continues to press ahead with its destabilising electoral agenda.
Strolling through Galkacyo in Puntland and Kismaayo in Jubaland in the early 1990s, it was not uncommon to see young Somalis wearing t-shirts adorned with 'Galkacyo and Kismaayo are free' or words to a similar effect. Amid the rampaging forces of General Mohamed Farrah Aidid in central Somalia, the t-shirts neatly encapsulated a sentiment of broader pan-Darood solidarity at a moment of intense political instability and armed conflict in the Hawiye-dominated centre of the country. As Mark Twain once said, 'History doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme,' and the warming ties between Jubaland and Puntland over thirty years later in opposition to Mogadishu have echoes of the early days of the civil war amidst the broader strained Hawiye-Darood relations today.
In the early 2010s, a select group of Somalia's allies came together to form C6+, a forum to discuss how best to support the country's state-building process. Including the African Union, Kenya, Ethiopia, the US, the UK, and the EU, the platform was intended to coordinate responses and help steer Somalia's fragile political settlement towards a more devolved, consensus-oriented model after years of riven violence. Its legacy is certainly mixed, and though it has often been accused of absenteeism, members of the C6+ did eventually help steer an accommodation in 2021 amid Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo's attempts to unilaterally extend his term. And being one of the few remaining checks on the federal government, it also happens to be Villa Somalia's latest target in its campaign to dismantle any dissenting voices.
Somalia's latest plunging crisis has divided not only the usual domestic political actors but the 'international community' as well - if such a thing even exists anymore. Though nominally on the same page in regard to fighting Al-Shabaab, foreign perspectives on the diagnosis of Somalia's ills – and the appropriate remedies -- have proven radically different. And since Al-Shabaab's dramatic territorial advances beginning late February, many of the international responses to the country's escalating political and security emergencies have been working at cross purposes with one another. Meanwhile, Villa Somalia's interactions with foreign partners have continued to vacillate between blatant rent-seeking and hypernationalism.
Over the weekend, Mahad Salad was returned to head up Somalia's National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA). After a 14-month break, the Egyptian-trained former spy chief has returned to the position he held between August 2022 and April 2024. The restoration of Salad, who belongs to the Hawiye/ Habar Gidir/ Ayr sub-clan, comes amid twin threats to Villa Somalia-- the serpentine encroachment of Al-Shabaab on Mogadishu and the massing of political opposition in the capital. Historically lenient towards the jihadist group, Salad is unlikely to afford the same generosity to the government's opposition as the head of NISA, as his predecessor did. Simultaneously, the removal of Abdullahi Mohamed Ali 'Sanbaloolshe,' could seriously undermine the ongoing ma'awiisley operations by his Hawaadle sub-clan against Al-Shabaab in Hiiraan, one of the few forces leading the frontline resistance.