By Ismail H. Warsame/Garowe/Toronto
There are political defeats announced at press conferences, and there are defeats revealed by abandoned camps, surrendered weapons and disappearing columns of armed men. What unfolded across Puntland in recent weeks belongs firmly to the second category.
In barely three weeks, Puntland State dismantled what it describes as a federally sponsored parallel security network operating inside its jurisdiction. What began with defections and armed confrontation ended with bases abandoned, fighters surrendering or integrating into Puntland forces, and federal-aligned commanders reconsidering their loyalties.
Villa Somalia may dispute Puntland’s interpretation. What is much harder to dispute is the outcome: the parallel armed structure challenging Garowe’s authority has largely disappeared from Puntland territory.
That is no small development.
The Collapse Came Quickly
The unraveling accelerated around July 20, when Puntland forces intercepted a PSF column near Laag, capturing fighters and thirteen vehicles. It was an early indication that the armed formation confronting Puntland authorities was losing both territorial freedom and organisational cohesion.
Then came the defections.
Scores of fighters crossed over near Galkayo airport. More surrendered around Bosaso. Bases that had once projected defiance began emptying.
By August 4–5, Galkayo had become the most dangerous point of confrontation. Puntland forces and the remaining federal-aligned elements faced one another in a city already carrying enough historical baggage to make any armed adventure there reckless.
A child reportedly died during the violence. That death must remain part of the record. Political victories should never turn civilian casualties into footnotes.
Puntland nevertheless moved decisively.
On August 5, the government issued a 48-hour ultimatum to armed formations operating outside its security command: surrender, integrate or face enforcement action. Politicians and officials accused of supporting parallel forces were warned of possible prosecution.
The message was unmistakable:
Puntland would no longer tolerate two governments, two chains of command and two competing security authorities inside one state.
What followed was less a prolonged battle than an institutional collapse.
A key PSF position in Bosaso was vacated. Federal-aligned forces in Armo withdrew. Remaining forces holding camps north of Galkayo subsequently abandoned their positions and moved southward.
The militia architecture that had taken money, political effort and recruitment to assemble came apart with remarkable speed.
Danab, Takar and the Limits of Parallel Command
The story did not end with the PSF.
At Ligle camp outside Garowe, Brigadier General Jimcaale Jaamac Takar had commanded forces associated with the federal security structure while operating beyond Puntland’s normal chain of command.
That arrangement was always politically combustible.
Following mediation by Nugaal traditional elders and a committee chaired by former Puntland President Senator Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, Takar agreed to return his forces to Puntland’s security structure and register them under the Daraawiish command.
This was perhaps more significant than capturing another military camp.
Puntland achieved through negotiation what otherwise might have required another confrontation.
There is a lesson here for both Garowe and Mogadishu: Somalia cannot build national security by manufacturing competing armies inside federal member states.
A national army cannot become a national institution if every political dispute produces another battalion, another commander, another payroll and another flag of convenience.
The Bigger Problem: Clan Militias
Puntland should resist the temptation to declare the job finished.
Federal-aligned formations were only part of a much older security problem.
Galkayo, Bosaso, Qardho, Garowe and other Puntland centres have struggled with armed groups whose loyalties are sometimes stronger toward subclan, politician or patron than toward constitutional authority. Revenge killings, privately maintained battle wagons and politically connected militias did not originate with Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and they will not disappear merely because the PSF confrontation has subsided.
WDM has repeatedly argued precisely this point.
If Puntland insists that Mogadishu cannot maintain an armed organisation outside Puntland’s lawful chain of command, Garowe must apply exactly the same principle to everybody else.
There cannot be one law for a federally sponsored militia and another for the battle wagons parked behind the compound of an influential businessman, politician or clan notable.
One Puntland requires one constitutional security authority.
No exceptions.
From Defeat to Demobilisation
Perhaps the most consequential part of Puntland’s response has been what happened after the surrender.
Instead of treating every former fighter as a permanent enemy, Puntland has begun registering, retraining and absorbing eligible personnel into its own security institutions.
That is the correct institutional instinct.
The fighter is not necessarily the political project that recruited him.
Many young men carrying rifles in Somalia follow salaries, commanders, clan pressure or immediate circumstances rather than sophisticated constitutional theories. Punishing an entire rank and file for the political calculations of those who organised them would merely manufacture another pool of disgruntled armed men.
Disarm them. Vet them. Train them. Discipline them. Put them under one lawful command.
That is how a militia disappears.
Simply chasing it into another district is not demobilisation.
Puntland had every political reason to regard these men as adversaries. Instead, absorbing those willing to submit to state authority turns yesterday’s security problem into tomorrow’s institutional asset.
That is not weakness.
It is statecraft.
Villa Somalia Has Questions to Answer
This episode raises questions extending far beyond Puntland.
Why was the Federal Government supporting or maintaining security formations inside a federal member state with which it was already engaged in a profound constitutional dispute?
What national security objective required competing armed command structures in Bosaso, Garowe or Galkayo?
Why was political dialogue apparently less attractive than recruitment?
And if internationally donated police equipment was indeed redirected into these formations, another question becomes unavoidable: were resources intended to strengthen Somalia’s national security institutions being used in an internal political confrontation?
Somalia has Al-Shabaab controlling territory. ISIS has demonstrated its capacity in the northeast. The country remains dependent upon international security assistance.
Under those circumstances, spending scarce resources constructing parallel security structures against a federal member state is not national security.
It is political adventurism dressed in uniform.
Raskamboni Was the Warning
There is also an uncomfortable precedent.
The Raskamboni confrontation in Jubaland demonstrated the danger of deploying federally controlled forces into an unresolved political dispute with a federal member state. Large numbers of Somali National Army personnel were displaced, surrendered or crossed into Kenya during that confrontation.
Whatever competing narratives surround Raskamboni, one lesson should have been obvious:
The Somali National Army cannot become Villa Somalia’s enforcement department for settling federal political disagreements.
A national army belongs to the nation.
Once soldiers are perceived as instruments for removing regional administrations, intimidating political opponents or restructuring local power arrangements, the institution ceases to look national to the communities it is supposed to defend.
Puntland has now delivered essentially the same warning from another direction.
Once may be dismissed as a mistake.
Twice begins to look like policy.
Mogadishu’s Expensive Nothing
And what exactly does Villa Somalia have to show for this Puntland adventure?
Empty camps.
Captured vehicles.
Surrendered fighters.
Commanders returning to Puntland.
Weapons absorbed into the very security structure the project was apparently intended to challenge.
If the objective was to weaken Puntland, the result has been almost comically opposite. The confrontation has given Garowe political justification to consolidate its security apparatus, absorb irregular forces and insist more forcefully than before upon a monopoly of legitimate force.
Mogadishu supplied the crisis.
Puntland converted it into consolidation.
There is an old political rule worth remembering: never spend enormous resources building your opponent’s argument for him.
Galkayo Must Never Become the Battlefield
Yet Puntland should take no victory lap through Galkayo.
That city is too important and too fragile.
Its communities have spent years rebuilding relationships after devastating cycles of conflict. Its division between Puntland and Galmudug makes every military movement politically sensitive. A careless deployment, inflammatory speech or armed provocation can transform an administrative disagreement into something far more dangerous.
The death of a child during the latest confrontation should therefore haunt every official involved.
Galkayo does not need another militia.
It does not need Mogadishu’s militia.
It does not need Puntland clan militia.
It does not need Galmudug clan militia.
It needs police, courts, accountable government, commerce and peace.
Above all, the people of Galkayo should not be made collateral damage in somebody else’s struggle for political supremacy.
The Quiet Triumph
Puntland’s achievement is consequently larger than the capture of a few camps.
Within weeks, it confronted an armed challenge, survived the confrontation, encouraged large-scale defections, negotiated the return of an important commander, absorbed surrendering personnel and reasserted its security command across much of its territory.
That is a politico-military achievement.
But its real significance will depend on what comes next.
If Garowe merely replaces federally aligned armed groups with tolerated clan militias, nothing fundamental will have been achieved. If politically connected gunmen remain untouchable while ordinary citizens face the law, the victory will be hollow.
If the battle wagon of a federal proxy is illegal, the battle wagon of a clan elder, businessman, opposition politician or government ally must be equally illegal.
There can be no selective monopoly of force.
But if Puntland uses this moment to establish one security command, one legal order and one standard for every armed group, then something considerably more important will have occurred.
It will have converted a political confrontation into institutional consolidation.
Villa Somalia, meanwhile, should study what happened rather than attempt to rebuild what has just collapsed.
Somalia cannot afford governments financing Somali guns to confront other Somali guns while Al-Shabaab watches from the sidelines.
The Federal Government has enough enemies.
It does not need to manufacture new ones among its own federal member states.
Puntland has made its position unmistakable: federalism does not mean surrendering self-government, and national security does not mean planting parallel armies inside constituent states.
Mogadishu tested that proposition.
For now, Puntland has answered it on the ground.
And the answer came not from another communiqué, another constitutional seminar or another Villa Somalia speech.
It came from militia-empty camps.