By Mohamed A Yasin

The explosion on Mogadishu’s sunbaked El-Gaabta road on March 18, sent plumes of smoke spiraling into the sky. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s armored convoy had passed moments earlier, narrowly escaping a mine intended for Somalia’s most guarded man. The message was unmistakable: “A snake in the grass threatens even the swiftest horse.” Mogadishu, once deemed a haven by national leaders, is no longer safe.

Al-Shabaab launched yet another attack, on the morning of March 19, the group rained mortars onto Halane Camp, the heavily fortified compound near Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport that houses foreign diplomats, United Nations agencies, and African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) troops. The attack, which triggered emergency alarms and sent passengers scrambling for cover inside the airport, unfolded just days after the U.S. Embassy warned of “imminent” assaults in the capital. Casualty figures remain unclear, but the bombardment—a direct challenge to the last vestiges of government authority—laid bare Mogadishu’s unraveling defenses. “He who ignores the drumbeat of war,” sighed an airport worker, “will dance to the sound of arrows.”

For weeks, President Mohamud and Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre had crisscrossed Mogadishu in a choreographed display of control. They shopped at gleaming malls, hosted carefully curated street iftars, and smiled for cameras. Yet behind the bravado, unease festered. During Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s February visit, Al-Shabaab delivered its own twisted welcome: artillery barrages shook areas near Mogadishu’s airport, underscoring the militants’ reach. The traditional dancers at the ceremony, handpicked from the President’s sub-clan and led by his relative, Chief of Protocol Hindiya Alasow, twirled to the dissonant soundtrack of distant explosions. “Pride rides out, but shame walks home,” muttered a shopkeeper near the presidential palace, his words echoing the growing disillusionment. Trust, it seemed, had become a scarce commodity in the corridors of power.

The failed assassination attempt coincided with a night of chaos. Hours earlier, Somali army soldiers and intelligence agents exchanged gunfire in the city, leaving three dead. Across the sea in Isparta, Turkey, two dozen Somali military trainees—members of a soccer team meant to symbolize camaraderie—were hospitalized after a brawl turned bloody. The incidents painted a portrait of a security apparatus unraveling, even as Al-Shabaab militants tightened their grip on towns less than 6 kilometers from Mogadishu. “When spiders unite,” goes an old Somali proverb, “they can tie down a lion.” But in this fractured landscape, unity remains a distant dream.

Now, in a move that has stunned observers, the government has ordered prison guards to swap jail keys for rifles and deploy to the frontlines. The decision, framed as a “tactical reinforcement,” reeks of desperation. It raises a haunting question: “Where are the arrows when the quiver is full?” Where are the 20,000 soldiers trained by foreign powers over the past decade?

A House Built on Sand

The roots of the crisis trace back to 2022, when President Mohamud launched a hasty military offensive against Al-Shabaab just two months into his term. Dubbed a “campaign of eradication,” the operation lacked coherent strategy. Troops were pulled from outposts across the country and funneled into Hirshabelle and Galmudug regions, while tribal militias—poorly integrated and under conflicting commands—were hastily recruited as allies. The result was catastrophic. Overstretched and undersupplied, Somali National Army (SNA) units were ambushed and annihilated. “He who digs a pit for others falls in himself,” scoffed a veteran officer, recalling how Al-Shabaab seized tanks, artillery, and arms abandoned by fleeing troops.

By 2024, morale had collapsed. Soldiers discovered their salaries and logistics funds stolen by corrupt commanders. Desertions soared; entire units melted into the bush. Tribal militias, left unpaid and unsupported, met the same fate. “A rope made of many threads is strong,” observed a Hirshabelle elder, “but when each thread rots, it snaps.”

Instead of addressing the military’s implosion, President Mohamud pivoted to politics. In early 2024, he unilaterally drafted a controversial constitution, bypassing federal states. Jubaland and Puntland, accusing Mogadishu of authoritarian overreach, severed ties with the federal government. The rift deepened when Mohamud deployed 1,000 elite SNA troops to destabilize Jubaland—only to see them routed in a single day by Jubaland forces. Humiliated survivors surrendered to Kenyan peacekeepers stationed nearby. “A leader who burns his village to roast a goat,” spat a Jubaland commander, “feeds no one but the crows.”

Al-Shabaab’s Resurgence

As Mogadishu fractured, Al-Shabaab regrouped. The group courted disillusioned tribal militias, allowing them to retain weapons and return home peacefully if they defected. They offered amnesty to SNA deserters, promising safety in exchange for surrendered arms. Meanwhile, their recruitment swelled, and their tactics evolved. Last week, the militants seized Balcad, a strategic district just a 25-minute drive from Mogadishu. In a brazen display of control, they emptied the town’s prison—freeing jailed comrades—and withdrew on their own terms, leaving residents in stunned silence. “The wolf does not mourn the sheep,” remarked a Balcad elder, his voice trembling.

By late 2024, the militants had opened multiple fronts: Middle Shabelle, Hiiraan, Galguduud, and Lower Shabelle. Today, their fighters loom just six miles from Mogadishu’s outskirts near Balcad, and ten miles southwest of the capital. “The hyena knows when the lion is sick,” said a trader in Afgoye, now a ghost town under Al-Shabaab’s shadow.

A Tale of Two Somalias

While Mogadishu reels, the semi-autonomous region of Puntland offers a stark contrast. Under President Said Abdullahi Dani, Puntland’s Operation Hillaac (Lightning) has dismantled ISIS strongholds in the arid mountains of Bari province within two months—a battlefield likened by commanders to the rugged terrain of Afghanistan. Unlike the flat plains of Hirshabelle and Galmudug, where Al-Shabaab thrives, Puntland’s security forces battled ISIS militants entrenched in caves and cliffs, cutting off supply lines and rallying local clans.

“A sharp knife cannot carve its own handle,” said a Puntland officer involved in the operation. “Victory comes when the people hold the blade.” Indeed, Puntland’s troops, buoyed by salaries paid through public donations—including contributions from its global diaspora—have maintained unusually high morale. This stands in sharp relief to the Somali National Army (SNA), where soldiers often fight hungry and unpaid.

The federal government, meanwhile, has withheld development funds earmarked for Puntland, including international aid, as punishment for its refusal to recognize Mogadishu’s contested constitution. Yet Puntland’s victories have continued unabated. “They starve us of resources, but we are fed by the trust of our people,” President Dani declared last week at a rally in Garowe.

Analysts argue the divergence stems from governance. Puntland’s hybrid model of clan consensus and accountable institutions has fostered public buy-in. In contrast, President Hassan’s administration is increasingly seen as a one-man regime obsessed with political vendettas and self-enrichment. “When the shepherd eats the sheep, the wolf need not hunt,” quipped a Garowe-based elder, alluding to Mogadishu’s corruption.

The Rot Within

The government’s claims of progress ring increasingly hollow. During a recent UDP party congress, Somalia’s Minister of Constitution and Justice brazenly declared on live television: “We annihilated all the officers who were a problem to us by sending them to the fronts to die. They won’t bother us anymore.” The targets, sources say, were largely officers from the elite Gorgor and Danab Brigades—units trained by Turkey and the U.S.—who had criticized corruption or resisted politicization. “A sword does not fear its own handle,” retorted a retired Danab commander, now in hiding. “But when the blade turns inward, the war is already lost.”

Federal officials continue to tout astronomical casualty figures for Al-Shabaab, claiming nearly 19,000 militants killed monthly through aerial bombardments. Yet independent analysts dismiss the numbers as fantasy. “Even the blind can see the lie,” scoffed a Mogadishu-based researcher. “If airpower alone could win wars, NATO would have crushed the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

Turkey’s Gorgor Brigade, an elite force of 6,000, once paraded through Mogadishu with Turkish-made armored vehicles. The U.S.-funded Danab Brigade, 2,000 counter-terrorism specialists, was touted as East Africa’s answer to special forces. Eritrea trained 5,000 more in secrecy, though many vanished into political limbo. Yet these units—costing millions to train and equip—are conspicuously absent from the battlefields of Middle Shabelle, where Al-Shabaab now flies its black flag over villages abandoned by fleeing troops. “The termite hollows the tree while the lion sleeps,” remarked a retired general, his voice bitter. Corruption, he implied, had gnawed away the military’s core.

The Pot Boils Over

Salaries meant for soldiers line the pockets of commanders. Elite units guard politicians’ villas or clan elders, not frontlines. Training missions fracture under shifting alliances: Ethiopia’s growing influence alienated Egypt and Eritrea, freezing cooperation. Meanwhile, young recruits languish in bases without bullets or boots, their morale as barren as the scrublands they’re meant to defend. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” sighed a Danab officer, now stationed at a Mogadishu checkpoint instead of the front.

Al-Shabaab, seizing the disarray, has launched its most aggressive offensive in years. Its fighters, unburdened by payroll disputes or political theatrics, now creep toward the capital. The group’s propaganda arm broadcasts footage of captured tanks and deserted barracks—a grim echo of the Taliban’s 2021 rout of U.S.-trained Afghan forces. “A house divided cannot stand,” warned a cleric in a Friday sermon, his plea drowned out by the crackle of nearby gunfire.

Epilogue: The Tipping Point

“This isn’t just a military collapse—it’s a moral one,” said Ahmed Omar, a Mogadishu-based security analyst. “When the music changes, so does the dance.” But Somalia’s leaders, he argued, are still dancing to a tune long faded.

Yet within the presidential palace, denial persists. Officials privately blame “foreign sabotage” for the army’s failures. Publicly, they vow victory, even as their own motorcades dodge bombs. “The axe forgets,” goes an African saying, “but the tree remembers.” For Mogadishu’s weary residents, however, the rhetoric rings hollow. At dusk, the city’s labyrinthine streets empty early. Markets once bustling with evening shoppers now shutter before sunset. The fear is palpable, whispered in tea shops and exchanged in glances: “Empty barrels make the most noise.” If the prisons are empty of guards, who will guard the prisons?

As the sun dips below the Indian Ocean, the stakes crystallize. Somalia’s government clings to a capital it cannot fully control, propped up by foreign funds and fading promises. Al-Shabaab, patient and predatory, watches—and waits. The world, yet again, holds its breath. “The watched pot never boils,” murmurs a diplomat in Nairobi, scrolling through updates. But in Mogadishu, the pot is already boiling over.

Mohamed A Yasin
Email: moyasin680@gmail.com