Op-Ed: Somaliland’s Internal Security Challenges: How Do We Deal With Eastern Fragile Areas?

By. Abdifatah Barawani, Researcher, Political and Security Analyst

Introduction

A great deal of expectation has been placed on the newly elected government of Somaliland for various sectors to be reformed and make a better system and governance that can sweep out the shame of the LasAnod conflict and could pave the way for successful and sustainable governance. Somaliland people are curious about what is going on in eastern regions, not all regions but perhaps some of them, which I always labeled as just ‘fragile areas,’ not entire regions. But besides suggesting any significant, touchable policies and strategies towards these areas, first we should clarify what these tensions arise from and on what grounds they are based. 

Let us glance at a brief history of these areas. Since the collapse of Somalia’s revolutionary regime in 1991 and the success of the SNM front that captured most of the Somaliland regions, the political leaders of the SNM decided that they shouldn’t retaliate against the paramilitaries and militias of the Dhulbahante and Warsangeli (Harti Darod) backed up by former dictator Siad Barre (Marehan Darod) to suppress the Isaaq clans, and seriously, they were an armed community, including the previous arms given by the regime and also the new ones that were handed over by Abdiasis Ali Barre to them when he was defeated by the SNM in 1991.

In the Burco conference that was declared on Somaliland’s independence on 18 May 1991, which was based on the legal and historical grounds of British Somaliland on 26 June 1960, all the major Somaliland-inhabited tribes, including the Harti, Isaaq, Isse, and Gedabursi, etc., attended. But perhaps due to the conflict-affected situation, the Burco declaration and the Harti delegates were not fully satisfied at that time, and later they had interpreted the conference into a peace and reconciliation conference rather than a government and independence conference from the collapsed Somalia. For the Harti elites, it was just a matter of capacity and a weakened position that waits for the first chance.

The new government of Somaliland was not capable of controlling all regions and districts, since the country recently came out from a devastating war and bloodshed, and everywhere there were militias, arms, explosions, destruction, economic collapse, and poor governance structures. But all the tribes that attended the Burco conference became active members in the new interim government in 1991-1993, and another conference was held in Borama to elect a new president and build a new government.

Unfortunately, a new civil war between SNM-Garhajis and Egal’s new administration broke out in late 1994, which lasted until late 1996, that severely damaged the social cohesion and weakened the new delicate government. In that era, some political elites, notably the chief Garaad of Dhulbahante, Garaad Abdiqani, and others like Ali Khalif Gallaydh, suggested a proposal of power sharing and reform of the government, but the president at that time, Mohamed Egal, was not concerned about their issue, nor did he respond carefully to their ideas and ignored them at all.

For that misunderstanding and disregard, since the new Somaliland government was based on clan legitimacy of the Burco conference, it similarly paved the way that also Warsangeli and Dhulbahante clan elites and chiefs attended the new Harti conference in Garoowe, which led to the establishment of the Puntland regional state in 1998. That was the first breakdown of the clan legitimacy, and the emergence of chaos, political conflicts, and regional administration interventions led by Puntland to Somaliland territories. Egal never minded the Garoowe conference, nor did he care much about the 2001 Carta conference in Djibouti, and he even didn’t possess any capacity and administration to control all the Somaliland territory. Until his death, his narrow focus was only busy in the interior Isaaq clan territories.

The Emergence of Puntland as a Potential Threat

Beginning in 1998, most of the strategic Dhulbahante territories were under the Puntland administration until 2007, when the former president of Somaliland, Dahir Riyale, launched an operation to capture the capital city of the Sool region, LasAnod, and forcibly expelled the Puntland administration and its allied agents. Since 2007, Somaliland has not established a well-functioning and effective system of governance in LasAnod, nor formulated or put any strategy to control these fragile and clan-dynamic areas. Additionally, Somaliland, with its corrupted armed forces and weak civil authorities, was controlling these territories through third-hand Dhulbahante agents, bribing, and divide-and-rule tactics to suppress the insurgents, but it was not a long-term, stable, and reliable strategy that Somaliland could sustain its authority in these areas.

Somaliland in Sool was a government with weak roots that couldn’t access its people directly and delegated its authority and responsibility to a third agent that brokered the Dhulbahante community and Somaliland government. In other regions like Sanaag, notably East Sanaag had never been under the Somaliland government; previously it was no ‘man’s land’ where the Warsangeli militia controlled it, which had sometimes been under Somaliland due to its bribing and economic gains, but never any administration belonging to Somaliland fully or partially controlled the East of Sanaag. What is surprising is that the Warsangeli have always exploited the Somaliland opportunities and Puntland benefits but have never been loyal to any of them. They see themselves as civilized and intelligent, but their double agent character is what Somaliland needs to be carefully understood and not be deceived.

Khaatumo as an Internal Insurgent Concept

Later political-clan conferences attempts have been made by the Dhulbahante elites, including Boocame in 2007, Nairobi in 2009, Taleex in 2011, and Khaatumo conferences by Ali Khalif Galaydh, SSC insurgents by Xaglatoosiye, and some other notable chiefs that each of them was serving an independent agenda and political interests. But most of them have failed due to internal misunderstanding, Puntland and Somaliland intervention, and lack of political maturity by the elites. In 2012, the bloodshed and armed conflict in Buuhoodle, although Somaliland succeeded in capturing the whole affected area, unfortunately withdrew its forces without a clear and reasonable strategy, followed by a peaceful agreement with SSC elites.

But what was surprising is that not a single village under the SSC control was handed over to Somaliland, including the capital town of Buuhoodle, nor have any disarmament processes been made while at the same time the SSC leaders like Xaglatoosiye were granted such higher figure political offices in the Somaliland government. Somaliland has never put its foot in Buuhoodle, a significant border town in the Togdheer region that served as a major mobilizing ground for the anti-Somaliland insurgents throughout the post-1991 political conflicts. 

In the middle and late 2017, a final peace and political agreement was reached between the Somaliland government and Khaatumo, led by Ali Khalif Galaydh, but that agreement had lacked any reliable and effective political implementing authority since the succeeded government of Somaliland by Muse Bihi failed to resume the implementation process and ignored the whole agreement and became unsuccessful while Ali Khalif Gallaydh passed away in 2020.

After two years, in late 2022, the so-called Dhulbahante elders and elites met in Jigjiga, Ethiopia, and issued a declaration calling the Somaliland government to withdraw completely from Las Anod and all other inhabited Dhulbahante territory. Sequentially, internal chaos, mass mobilized riots, and disturbances started in the capital city, LasAnod, followed by armed groups and elders crossing the border and being admitted to the city and launching a full-scale attack on Somaliland officials and armies. Somaliland withdrew completely from the city without any counterattack to the militia and non-state armed groups.

After several months of bloodshed and war, the Somaliland armed forces were defeated on 25^th August 2023 and completely withdrew their forces from most of the Sool region, except the Ainabo district. What was a devastating embarrassment and misfortune is that about several hundred of prisoners of war, and most of Somaliand’s military hardware in Sool had been captured by the Khaatumo insurgents.

What is unacceptable and impossible, but surprisingly is that former Somaliland government led by incompetent Muse Bihi have never responded effectively and gently from that multi-dimensional strategy beginning from Jijiga, which seems intervention and supported foreign initiative, the Somali federal government of Hassan Sheikh and Puntland administration interventions with their vast multi-support to Khaatumo, the Ethiopian Somali Regional Liyuu Police whose fought in the Khaatumo side against Somaliland forces, the millions of dollars from the world supported to Khaatumo forces by its diaspora which is clearly seems financial crime intended to destabilize the peace and security of Somaliland. Somaliland’s institutions of foreign diplomacy, intelligence, military, and defense all became useless and dysfunctional in dealing with such destabilizing insurgent groups and failed most of the warfare aspects, including media communication, diplomacy, intelligence gathering, military, and counterinsurgency activities. 

Current Security Challenges

In the aftermath of 25^th August 2023, the Khaatumo armed groups victory became a full pride and arrogance tool to a level of clan irredentist rhetoric tendencies that claiming Khaatumo’s territory should be Erigavo, the capital city of the Sanaag region, which is now under the control of the Somaliland government; the Caynaba, which is the current headquarters of the Somaliland armed forces defeated in Sool; and some other notable districts and towns in the Togdheer region. The unstructured militia and armed groups of Khaatumo started a new provocative clan warfare targeting the bordering neighbors that is still under the Somaliland government and launched full wide-scale attacks on Qorilugud, Coodanle in Togdheer, Buqdharkeyn in Sool, Fiqi Fuliye, Dibqarax, Dhuurmadarre in Sanaag, and so on.

With such acts of violence, burning, looting, and else led to another Somaliland local clan mobilization, since there isn’t any effective Somaliland authority that could defend their territories and guarantee a mutual peace and security; therefore, they’ve decided to mobilize themselves with such names like SSB and G36, which stand just the same as Khaatumo-SSC armed groups of Dhulbahante versus SSB-Habarjeclo and G36-Garhajis armed groups in Sool, Sanaag, and Togdheer regions. 

Although SSB and G36 are unlike SSC-Khaatumo and believe Somaliland state and authority and genuinely haven’t seen a national security threat in the short term, perhaps there could be a long-term threat to the stability and the principle of the monopolization of violence by the state, since clan arming has practical historical examples of damaging and ruining the governmental authority to control fragile areas. Furthermore, they could be a national security threat to any process of building national armed forces and would dismantle any governmental security initiative to build an effective security and governance system that guarantees the stability and security of eastern regions.

In line with this threat, there could also be several national threats related to the possibility of exploitation or taking advantage of non-state armed groups within the territory of Somaliland, including the SSC and others by hostile foreign entities. Foreign malign intentions could use these groups as anti-Somaliland tools to undermine the government or proxy war agents. The armed groups of Dhulbahante in Somaliland since 1991 have become effective instruments employed by Somalia and Puntland to deteriorate and hinder the stability and security of Somaliland. Same as this scenario, any non-state armed group existing in the territory of Somaliland, whether supporting the Somaliland authority or opposing it, tends to be a long-term national security threat and a factor for destabilization of the internal stability of Somaliland.

In a pragmatic and strategic perspective, what I would like to suggest to the new government of Somaliland led by the WADDANI party and Abdirahman Irro could be as follows:

1)    Building Effective Security and Governance Institutions

In the eastern region, the security crisis has been a result of the lack of effective security and governance institutions. Beginning with the national armed forces, one of the major government apparatuses, necessarily requires a wide-scale and deep-rooted reform by transforming the national security apparatus completely. Somaliland demands a well-conscripted army, a young generation, a very transparent framework, well-trained personnel, effective HR management without any corruption, enough and avoidable salaries, modern and reliable arms and military hardware, coupled with strong military leadership under civil authority and guidance through the ministry of defense (MoD).

For that matter, the MoD and other joint security institutions should formulate and develop a defense and national security strategy, a national security policy, and other security sector guidelines. They should be careful to assess, plan, choose effective and efficient options, and implement through concerned institutional structures and lines. It is also significant to take into account the other core security institutions, including the police reform into civil structures and authorities, the criminal investigation department’s development with modernized systems, equipment, and effective governance.

Also, the aspects of police intelligence gathering, well-trained police officers, law enforcement capacity building, arms and equipment, efficient administration, well-formulated policies and guidelines, and effective leadership under the ministry of interior/security. Another milestone for all our security efforts is the reform and building of the National Intelligence Agency and also the Military Intelligence Department of Armed Forces. These two are very crucial and worthy of attention. The national intelligence should be reformed completely from various dimensions, including the conscription of carefully choosing higher intelligent citizens who are well educated, have a patriotic spirit, are loyal, are well trained, have enough salary, and take care of, and serve for the securing and guiding of the national aspirations and goals.

Various under departments and sub-sections should be taken into account and built carefully and efficiently, like, but not last, the department of information gathering, department of information analysis, various and modern information-gathering techniques, methods, and tools, department of monitoring to countering-espionage from foreigners and also interior threat agents, other including training department, equipment and technological department, research department. foreign intelligence department, which is core to our foreign information gathering with sub-sections based on geographical ground in Europe, Africa, America, Asia, and elsewhere.

Our intelligence community is our national asset. The level of information we have on what is going on in our interior territory, neighbors, far neighbors, regional, continental, and the world is proportional to the level we could respond to the right and appropriate steps towards the global trends and our internal issues.

In addition, the governance structure in the civil administration is also important to take into account. Most notably the coordination of towns and villages, the districts, and regional levels into the national level in various sectors, including security, intelligence, military, administration and management, finance, communication, logistics, technology, and others. The level of coordination, cooperation, and communication lines of our geographical structures in the country is so significant to the effectiveness of the administration of the government. We could mobilize and coordinate the geographical structure of administration within the lines of national ministries and also specialized bodies like councils or committees through consistent and updated meetings, briefings, and communication frameworks.

2)    Nationalization of Non-State Groups

After a well and effective national security apparatus reform, Somaliland should take emergency steps to nationalize the non-state armed groups and also to disarm the clans completely. Before any reform step was taken, the non-state armed groups stood to defend their villages and people, so without any reliable and strong national army, the armed groups couldn’t be nationalized. It’s a matter of time and circumstance, but it shouldn’t ever last long, as we discussed before; they could be a growing national security threat.

The process of disarming the non-state groups should be carefully handled and managed through societal and local grassroots efforts. Although most of the trust and authority lies with the newly elected government, we should also take into account the responsibility lines and conflicts of interest of these groups. One of their major mobilized actors was the clan chief, so they should be the front line responsible for the dismantling and disarmament procedures.

I would specifically suggest that the members of these groups should be kept aside first from security leadership positions entirely until they’ve trained and integrated orderly and systematically into the national security structures and systems. Security leadership positions shouldn’t be used as granted gifts and politically mistreated tools to appease certain members or elites, since it could have serious security implications that will damage the transparency and formal standard procedures of the reform.

3)    SSC Countering Strategy

The so-called ‘SSC’ insurgent has been deep-rooted in the modern historical landscape of Somaliland since the British Somaliland era. In the pre-colonial era and colonial era, these areas were severely backward and were lived in by barbaric societies that were very far from civilizations and coastal access cities. They haven’t been known for a culture of accepting diversity and interaction among neighbors and a progressive mentality.

These areas have been controlled mostly by the Mad Mullah and his armed robberies, which were the most costly and difficult for the British colonial administration until full operational offensive attacks on land and in the air were launched in the 1920s throughout all rural areas and villages controlled by the group, coupled with several socio-economic strategies to weaken their economic sources like the pastoral economy and else.

It had taken approximately thirty years to eliminate the Dervish militia led by the Mad Mullah. It seems that nowadays the same scenarios have come back, and we need to understand the root grounds for the insurgency, formulate strategies and policies, and implement them in these fragile areas. It could be as follows:

3.1. Politically

The elites of the SSC are now seemingly united but don’t have much essence since most of the areas are under young armed militia, which even assassinated some of the clan chiefs who worked on peaceful efforts. As I mentioned earlier, the strategy of ‘divide and rule’ in their elites was not an effective and long-term reliable strategy, although it could act as a short-term strategy, but perhaps I would recommend that politically we should persuade and find some influential Somaliland supporters, whether from the local clan chiefs or politicians or even a new elite created by the Somaliland authorities.

We should also bear in mind that it’s crucial to coerce and defeat other sections of the political elites, or otherwise they’ll get a second chance at reviving that, which could be another threat as previously occurred, or at least they may persuade and intimidate each other. That could be a substantial gate to at least influence part of them, no matter if it sustains as long as we shall develop a joint strategy that can address various dimensions but is not only included in political matters.

One of the political failures that former Somaliland governments committed was that they haven’t harnessed and taken care of their SSC-sided elites, notably Ali Khalif Galaydh and his long-standing peace and political agreement, and Garaad Jama Garad Ismail, and others. It was one of the major mistakes that led to new strong insurgencies in late 2022. Another problematic negotiation with the SSC political elites also lacked a pure pragmatic assessment and monitoring capacity, since the former agreement with SSC elites in 2012 hadn’t handed over any single village to the Somaliland government, which represents the naivety of the Somaliland politicians at that time.

Another political step, besides the internal processes, should be coupled with foreign isolating and diplomatic warfare against SSC worldwide connections so that it should never happen again: the shame of continuous foreign support given to the SSC-Khaatumo insurgents throughout their history by foreign entities. That will damage and sweep out any internal peace and reconciliation dialogue between local elites and the respective current governments, the effectiveness of counter-insurgency operations, and even the reputation of the Somaliland government in regional and global efforts of statehood and recognition.

Whether we negotiate and mediate, hold peace dialogues, or make agreements with the foreign supporting entities, or realistically we stand to defend our respective responsibility with state power and institutions, it has to be prevented all in all that SSC-Khaatumo pseudo-administration to still find any foreign support to destabilize Somaliland peace and order. There shouldn’t be any reason we accept or normalize that SSC acts as a tool used by alien agents to dismantle the sovereignty and independence of Somaliland.

3.2. Economically

In the matters of economy, it is the most significant source of the survival of Khaatumo insurgents. Historically, as the British colonial documented, their sole economic backbone was the pastoral economy that they’ve been funding their insurgency activities. These days, their sole financial funding relies on pastoral livestock, foreign diaspora, foreign state support, and small-scale businesses they have in the neighboring countries and far neighboring countries. How do the insurgents survive and finance their operations and armed militias? This is what Somaliland intelligence should search for and find reliable information besides the above public widespread assumptions.

We should first begin and formulate strategies intended to weaken and control their local native economic sources, including the pastoral livestock, modern financial banks, businesses shared with other Somaliland-controlled cities, and the growing small-scale businesses. All of these factors contribute to the financing of the violent conflicts and insurgencies locally and make it possible to survive in the long term without hindering their operational and standing militias.

The coordination and the growth of their local economy that is totally independent from the institutional lines of the Somaliland government will establish permanent destabilizing economic sources with no regulation at all and perpetually contribute to the mass-scale violent operations by their militias in the country.

Another way of reducing their financial sources, especially those from the outside, is to make an appropriate and strong financial policy towards diaspora communities and their host countries. First, we should identify, gather information, assess, and document the locations, individuals, communities, associations, routes, and systems of the financial transactions they got from abroad. Then, we should first inform the respective governments concerned and their financial and security institutions while critically addressing that their local financials have been used to destabilize the stability and security of Somaliland.

Since most of the countries have clear and reliable rules and regulations concerning financial terrorism and financially sponsored political conflicts. Also, we should take measurable steps concerning our internal financial and security institutions so that any transaction and economic cooperation with such entities listed as terrorism financers and individuals could hinder their legitimate operational status in Somaliland territories.

In addition, Somaliland has to make a list of those entities and individuals who are not allowed to set foot on Somaliland territories, operate in their business, or live without any liable responsibility and accountability for their activities. Furthermore, we have to take into consideration the states sponsoring their activities and their intentions. Statecraft is such a controversial aspect, and we should deal with it with careful assessments. Various states that are well known or even anonymous support the SSC insurgencies for diverse objectives.

Those states that objectively and principally intend to harm and destroy Somaliland, like Somalia, we shouldn’t compromise our sovereignty and long-standing aspirations; it is sufficient for our defense policies and strategies against them. But some countries that misunderstood or miscalculated our foreign relations and the positions we have stood on certain global issues are what require careful assessment and dealing with those misunderstandings with effective diplomatic communication and political dialogues. We should never underestimate this issue at all.

3.3. Socially

For societal level, these pure pastoral communities with no access in coastal areas, less modern and developed, it is suitable to take part in their integration and to civilize them to a certain extent. We should dilute their demography into the other Somaliland communities in order to civilize and create a fully integrated society in all regions of Somaliland. We have to develop a demographic engineering strategy similar to the other countries that have solved multi-ethnic challenges and ethnic homogenous dominated areas throughout the history of state and society relations.

In the current context, the regions they are claiming the so-called ‘SSC’ narrative are not purely single-community or clan-dominated regions, but several clans live and share together with very close proportions. Sanaag, Sool, and the district of Buuhoodle are not solely belonging to the Dhulbahante insurgent militia, but perhaps other remarkable clans live and have notable districts and villages, including Jibrahil, Fiqishini, HabarYoonis, Gahayle, Habarjeclo, Warsangeli, Gabooye, and others.

In the areas lived in by the pure Dhulbahante clan, Somaliland has to change the ethnic makeup of those districts and alter it into some other clans to shift the ethnic balance and create a demographic balance between diverse Somaliland clans and promote favored ethnic inhabitants through state-directed movements and procedures, including migrations and settlements of certain communities.

It should also take into account that Somaliland is still working under the geographical and administrative district and regional borders of the former Siad Barre regime, which serves almost the interest of SSC insurgency narratives, so it must redraw new borders of the regions and districts in Somaliland and integrate them into various different clans to new formal permanent villages, districts, and regions under the Somaliland government.

Additionally, Somaliland should also use pronatalist policies and programs to infiltrate those single clan-dominated areas and promote the loyal clans and their respective birth rates in those districts. That’s the most important strategy to dilute the pure, violent, and challenging single clan and make ethnic restructuring and better controllable clans with such close population rates.

Furthermore, we should take into account the process of villagization in those areas, and that could be a suitable strategy to mobilize and integrate diverse clans that can jeopardize any attempts of local insurgency against Somaliland in those areas and hinder any foreign-exported initiatives towards the diluted single violent clan, since various and different clans, some of which support the Somaliland authorities firmly, will oppose those attempts at all costs.

3.4. Militarily

Lastly, besides all the above-mentioned points, war is inevitable. To defeat the insurgents and militia and coerce the non-state armed groups is the sole responsibility of the state and its various apparatuses. In any war with SSC armed groups, it depends on our military and administrative capabilities. As I have discussed earlier, we need to reform and build our national armed forces to such a reliable extent. For that matter, in the realm of defense and security, we should bear in mind that any war relies on three levels of warfare: strategic level, operational level, and tactical level.

Somaliland needs to formulate and develop a grand strategy or military strategy and coordinate the instruments of its national power to achieve this certain national security objective. Somaliland needs a plan in which political and military objectives work together in order to achieve victory on and beyond the battlefield, and it should also involve the preparation and practical guidance for preparing armed forces and the leadership of the armed forces, the political decision-making, the allocation of national instruments of power, both material and personnel, and commitment to those assets on a defined geographical scale.

A notable example of this grand strategy, although it’s not formulated formally, is the informal grand strategy employed by the SSC-Khaatumo elites in late 2022, which was a coordinated instrument of their power to achieve the withdrawal of Somaliland from LasAnod completely, including how they used the media, how they communicated, how they mobilized their elders and clan chiefs, social media campaigns, finance and economic mobilizations, and their political and diplomatic messages to the international community. Clearly, it was an entire coordinated activity intended to damage the reputation of Somaliland and to defeat its authority severely. Unfortunately, there is not any single grand strategy or strategy formulated formally or even informally from the side of Somaliland. Big shame!

Secondly, the operational level involves how to employ the military forces in the theater of war to gain an advantage over the enemy and attain strategic goals through the design, organization, and conduct of major operations in a given time and space. The military operational campaigns depend on ‘where’ and ‘when’ to conduct a campaign and are solely based on certain objectives, like the threat and limitations imposed by geographical, economic, and cultural environments, as well as the numbers and types of military resources available to the state.

So, we should consider and carefully plan and prepare all those matters at the operational level before deciding on any offensive operation against SSC insurgents. In this operational level, we could illustrate examples like how Khaatumo militias in late 2022 planned to capture the city of Las Anod from Somaliland as they united and focused their power on urban warfare; the urban warfare was the comparative advantage of their militia, since they could not launch a face-to-face long-term operation against Somaliland armed forces. Furthermore, their snipers and the positions they put on were another operational level advantage for them, since they’ve targeted numerous high-ranked military officials of Somaliland from very far positions.

In the tactical levels, it is concerned with the approach to combat or fight, the dispositions of military equipment and personnel, the use of various arms and equipment, and the execution of attacks or defenses. Through history until modern times, the tactical levels involve the application of four different battlefield functions, including (1) firepower, which is the military ability to use diverse weapons to destroy the targets and is included with countless various kinetic or firepower military equipment and ammunitions; (2) mobility, which determines how quickly the fighting forces can move, or the military units, weapon systems, or even armed forces can move toward the military targets; (3) protection, which deals with the safeguarding of military personnel, equipment, and facilities from threats; (4) Shock action, or shock tactics, is an aggressive maneuver attack that places the enemy under psychological pressure by rapid advance with the objective of causing the enemy to retreat.

In this third level, although few examples exist in the Somali context, the Somaliland armed forces were mostly defensive in the last war of Sool in late 2022 until August 2023, while the SSC insurgencies didn’t have enough firepower, mobility, and protection, but besides that, they’re brilliant on how to launch shock actions and attacks. They never hold any prisoner of war except the last battle on 25^th August, but in all previous wars, they’ve killed the prisoners, the wounded combatants, and humiliated them in various inhuman ways, including castration, slaughtering, and others. Although they’ve blatantly violated the international humanitarian laws, they’ve ruthlessly used those tactics as a shock and psychological warfare against the armed forces of Somaliland.

Conclusion

In summary, the new Somaliland government is awaiting a huge bottom-up approach reform of the institutions of the government, most important to the security sector and administration. Despite the extremely restricted capacity, resources, and time, everything has begun in such a framework of scarcity throughout state historical reforms. Where the difference lies has always been in the courage, vision, and loyalty of the political leaders.

The new Somaliland government should take into consideration the massive political mistakes by the previous government and learn the lessons and results that arise from them. The political agreements with any such armed groups should first be based on a clear assessment, evaluation and have mutual benefits from both sides. Also, they should have strong implementing institutional capacity and not be something based on the good intentions of some leaders.

Lastly, I would recommend that Somaliland be cautious when deciding specific foreign decisions without careful assessment that could result in the emergence of new adversaries without plausible reasons. We could get de jure recognition and political cooperation without sacrificing or surrendering our nation to any proxy of war or other state’s interests in the region.

About the Author:

Abdifatah Hassan Mohamed (Abdifatah Barawani) is a researcher, political and security analyst. He has a BA in Political Science, and MA in International Cooperation & Humanitarian Aid.

Email: barawaani@yahoo.com

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