Heavy fighting broke out in Baidoa, capital of Somalia’s Southwest State, coinciding with the planned swearing-in of newly elected regional lawmakers, in the latest flare-up of a monthslong power struggle between the federal government in Mogadishu and the regional administration.
Local police said a small number of armed men tried to create the appearance that the city was unsafe, blaming unnamed political figures for orchestrating the unrest, and said security forces had since restored order. Casualties were reported, though exact figures were not immediately confirmed. Somalia’s national army separately said it repelled an early-morning assault by al-Shabaab-linked fighters on the city’s outskirts, claiming to have inflicted heavy losses on the attackers.
The unrest traces back to March, when federal forces removed Southwest State President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed, known as Laftagareen, after he rejected constitutional changes pushed by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and pressed ahead with local elections the federal government had not sanctioned. Laftagareen has continued to assert he remains the region’s legitimate leader, and forces loyal to him have since mounted repeated attempts to retake Baidoa, leading to recurring clashes over the following months.
The federal government has since organized its own parliamentary elections in the state and is preparing for a presidential vote, moves that have deepened the rift rather than resolved it. The instability in Baidoa has coincided with rising tension in a separate federal member state, Galmudug, where a dispute between its regional president and Mogadishu has raised fears of a similar armed confrontation, with reports of troop movements adding to the unease. Somalia’s federal system has been repeatedly strained over the past two years by election disputes, an unresolved constitutional vacuum, and the long-running insurgency by al-Shabaab, which continues to exploit gaps left by the political infighting.
