Garowe, Puntland, Somalia Bt Ismail H. Warsame Mohamed Affey has spent recent weeks recounting his years as a Kenyan diplomat and mediator of the Mbagathi Somali National Reconciliation Conference, 2002-2004, in a series of interviews with Juxa Video. The episodes cast Kenya as a steady, even-handed host guiding Somali actors to consensus. What Affey omits … Continue reading OpEd: Correcting the Record: What Mohamed Affey Left Out About Mbagathi →
Somalia’s federal system is being tested on five fronts at once: the reach of federal authority, the legitimacy of constitutional amendments, security relations between Mogadishu and the states, fiscal federalism, and an increasingly disputed presidential mandate. None of these is a manufactured grievance. They are, as a matter of plain constitutional analysis, genuine problems of … Continue reading Puntland’s Constitutional Crossroads: Federalism, Confederation or Separation? →
No Due Process At Sea: Turkey’s Unilateral Strikes And The Case For A U.S.-Puntland Alternative – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/31082026-no-due-process-at-sea-turkeys-unilateral-strikes-and-the-case-for-a-u-s-puntland-alternative-oped/
Garowe, Puntland, Somalia By Ismail H. Warsame Before Puntland existed as a political concept, the territory it now occupies was a patchwork of self-governing sultanates. The Sultanate of Hobyo (Obbia) and the Majeerteen Sultanate (Migiurtinia), along with the Nogal region, operated as Italian protectorates under treaties signed in 1889 and 1905. Italian oversight, on paper, … Continue reading Northeast Somalia’s Colonial Consolidation: The De Vecchi Record -OpEd →
By Ismail H. Warsame Garowe, Puntland, Somalia; Toronto, Canada — The Cameroon-flagged cargo vessel MV Lutuf, hijacked by pirates on Aug. 17 off the coast of Puntland’s Nugaal region, is free. On that single fact, Mogadishu and Garowe agree. On almost everything else, they do not — and the gap between their two accounts says … Continue reading OpEd: Freed Ship, Fractured Story — Mogadishu and Puntland Give Conflicting Accounts of the MV Lutuf’s Release →
The Baidoa Trap: AUSSOM Risks Becoming Mogadishu’s Political Enforcer – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/30082026-the-baidoa-trap-aussom-risks-becoming-mogadishus-political-enforcer-oped/
By Ismail H. WarsameGarowe, Puntland, Somalia; Toronto, Canada A memo does not normally announce a mission’s decline. But read closely, the African Union’s Aug. 21 directive authorizing the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) to join the Federal Government of Somalia’s “military operations against the Al-Shabaab terrorist group and its affiliate militias/armed … Continue reading AUSSOM’s Coup de Grâce: A Dying Mission Rebrands a Political War as a Terror War →
Puntland’s Quiet Confederation: While Mogadishu Fights Over A Broken Constitution, Garowe Has Already Moved On – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/28082026-puntlands-quiet-confederation-while-mogadishu-fights-over-a-broken-constitution-garowe-has-already-moved-on-oped/
The EconomistMiddle East & Africa | Irro’s gambit“Somaliland wants to help secure the Red Sea”Aug 20th 2026 | Nairobi The Economist’s argument that Somaliland can help secure the Red Sea by trading military access and port facilities for recognition is more aspirational than credible. Somaliland does have strategic geography, an improving port at Berbera, and … Continue reading Somaliland’s Red Sea Gambit Won’t Buy Statehood →
The Unbalanced Approach Of Djibouti To The Somali Civil War – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/27082026-the-unbalanced-approach-of-djibouti-to-the-somali-civil-war-oped/
