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.
Fiddling While Middle Shabelle Burns On Tuesday in Mogadishu, hundreds of people, mostly students, were bussed into Shangani to line up and obtain voter ID cards in a highly choreographed affair. Among the first in line was the mayor of Mogadishu, participating in a stunt that Villa Somalia continues to frame as the next step to achieving the first national one-person, one-vote (OPOV) elections since 1967. But rather than realising the long-thwarted democratic aspirations of the Somali people, it is simply another damaging spectacle, just as PM Hamza Barre's trip to Laas Aanood was, that further diminishes the chance of any positive outcome from the upcoming 'national dialogue' process. With Al-Shabaab having seized Adan Yabaal in Middle Shabelle and a host of other strategic locations this morning, Villa Somalia is fiddling while Rome burns.
Cheap Talk: No Signs of National Unity A distinct lack of urgency surrounds Somalia's supposed 'emergency national dialogue.' On the eve of Eid, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) reluctantly announced a national dialogue process in the face of collapsing security across the Shabelles and the growing threat to Mogadishu from Al-Shabaab. The Hawiye national opposition, Jubaland President Ahmed Madoobe and others have cautiously welcomed the offer, though they have sought greater clarity on a number of points, not least the scope of discussions. In the week since the announcement, however, Villa Somalia seems to have reverted to 'business as usual', exhibiting the same myopic and unilateral behaviour that precipitated the country's current crisis.
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.