Somalia: Government forces mass near opposition leaders’ homes

MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Large numbers of government forces have been deployed around the residences of Somalia’s former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire near Mogadishu airport. Local media increasingly report that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud intends to launch a military operation to disarm opposition leaders.

Military trucks and armoured vehicles were seen racing to the area on Saturday night, prompting fears that clashes could erupt overnight. As of Sunday, heavily armed units remained near the opposition politicians’ homes on Jayga Road.

Three-day ultimatum reported

Zakariye Timo-adde, an exiled Somali journalist, reported on Saturday night that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had told clan elders with ties to Sharif that he would launch an operation to disarm him within three days unless he laid down his weapons voluntarily. The journalist said the president had also rebuffed a proposal from Sharif to de-escalate the situation.

Somaliguardian could not independently verify the report. Government officials had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

On Sunday, a security official, whom local journalists identify as the commander of the forces assigned to the operation against Sharif and Khaire, wrote on Facebook that no one would be permitted to bear arms in Mogadishu. He described the measure as necessary for the security of the city and the safety of its residents.

Sharif urges dialogue

Sharif addressed the planned operation this week in guarded terms. He said the opposition were not enemies of the government and that nothing justified a government attack upon them. He urged the authorities to engage in dialogue with all those who hold differing views rather than resort to the gun, which, he said, serves neither the interests of the state nor the resolution of the present political deadlock.

Echoes of June

The deployment revives memories of two days of clashes in June between the guards of both former leaders and government forces. The opposition said the violence stemmed from separate attacks by government forces on compounds hosting its leaders. The fighting ended after international intervention and swift diplomatic efforts, which persuaded both men to return to their residences near the airport and the government to grant them safe passage.

Before the clashes of 3 June, the two men had set up temporary residences in Mogadishu neighbourhoods where their clans are powerful and predominant: Sharif in Abdiaziz district and Khaire in Howlwadag. They said they came under attack there, with the authorities using artillery and suicide drones.

Warnings of wider conflict

For many months, some Somali analysts have warned that such a conflict could pit clans against one another, much as the four-month clan war between General Mohamed Farah Aidid and Ali Mahdi did in the early 1990s.

Abdikarim Ali Kar, a former presidential spokesman, recently warned against the operation. He said that if the president believed he alone could defeat and disarm Sharif, events could just as easily turn against him, leaving Somalia in collapse on his watch and returning the country to full-scale civil war like that of 1991. He added that the airport, close to the opposition leaders’ residences, would be caught in the crossfire and forced to close.

It is also widely argued that such a war could help militants infiltrate the capital and drain state resources, with insurgents still holding areas less than 30 kilometres from Mogadishu. It is not yet clear whether the government is determined to launch the operation, or how far it would go.

Turkish support and Sharif’s standing

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has secured substantial military support from Turkey, which has heavily armed government forces. In recent months, Turkey has also moved to provide air support when federal forces engage opposition fighters, as was seen repeatedly in clashes between the government and forces loyal to the ousted Southwest State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen.

Sharif led the Union of Islamic Courts, which drove the powerful warlords from Mogadishu in 2006. He later led the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, one of the armed groups that fought Ethiopian forces after their invasion in late 2006, and subsequently became president. During his presidency he fought the militant group Al-Shabaab, which nearly captured Mogadishu in 2009, coming within a few metres of his seat at Villa Somalia before withdrawing under pressure from African Union forces.

Sharif is widely believed to be well armed and to enjoy the full backing of his Harti Agoonyar clansmen of the Abgaal, the clan to which President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud also belongs, though from a different sub-clan, Wacaysle.

Analysis

To President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Sharif is the lone thorn in his side: the sole impediment to his reported ambition to cling to office in the manner of his Djiboutian ally, Ismail Omar Guelleh. Heavily armed and sustained by the steadfast allegiance of his clan, Sharif is the only figure with the means to mount formidable resistance against any attempt to prolong a tenure for many more years without recourse to an election. Whether that thorn can be plucked with ease, however, remains profoundly uncertain.

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