Garowe (PP Commentary) — In 1995, the late Somaliland administration President Mohamed Ibrahim Egal told BBC Focus on Africa that “terrorists are in Laascaanood and Boorame.” In 2025, a former Al-Shabaab member, who grew up in Hargeisa, claimed he was trained to brainwash [(“tashkiilid”)] people of Buuhoodle into joining Al-Shabaab. “I refused to do that job, but a substantial number of people in Buuhoodle are Al-Shabaab members. I have surrendered to Puntland. I did not kill anyone. I want to be released so that I can join my extended family members,” the man told Puntland State prosecutors.
It would be unfair to take a leaf from the Somali secessionists’ book who lie about their fellow Somali citizens. Secessionists were up in arms when Al Jazeera published a report suggesting that key members of Al-Shabaab who hail from Hargeisa have a political agenda to keep the south in turmoil so that the north can secede.
Al-Shabaab operatives gather intelligence on assassination targets, tips off the assassin about nearby security personnel and misleads soldiers who arrive at the scene of the assassination by directing them to the wrong location of the assassin’s escape.
Under Puntland law, assassins and undercover agents of Al-Shabaab or Daesh are considered terrorists and murderers. Without undercover agents, Daesh or Al-Shabaab cannot carry out terrorist attacks. In 2015, Puntland State released Abdiwahid Gama’diid, a poet from Hargeisa who was a member of Al-Shabaab units near Boosaso. The late traditional leader of the Isaaq clan, Mohamed Abdulkadir, pleaded with King Burhan of the Darod clan, who lobbied the former Puntland State President, Dr Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, to release Abdiwahid Gama’diid. Nearly two years ago, Gama’diid joined Al-Shabaab in Jilib.
The mainstay of Al-Shabaab and Daesh is their undercover agents, who supply crucial intelligence on where to attack. The compartmentalised nature of Al-Shabaab prevents members of the assassination group from knowing each other’s first names. After extensive planning, the assassin, the target identifier and the back-up agent, who facilitates the assassin’s escape, receive their attack plans on the “assassination or suicide bombing day.”
Puntland’s counter-terrorism experience indicates that terrorist agents cause more harm than the Daesh or Al-Shabaab terrorists who pull the trigger or detonate explosives in public places to cause maximum death and destruction. In 2021, Puntland Post reported that operatives of an Al-Shabaab cell, captured and prosecuted by Puntland in North Gaalkacyo, were locals who masterminded and carried out assassinations.
To secure his release, the former Al-shabaab member chose to describe Buuhoodle as a terrorist hub. That is the hallmark of a terrorist psychopath, whose narrative is now being diabolically disseminated by secessionists and credulous individuals. Earlier this week, the International Crisis Group was promoting the narrative that clans in Calmiskaad are ambivalent about Daesh hideouts. ICG was pushing a terrorist narrative in an attempt to undermine the effectiveness of Puntland State’s counterterrorism operations against Daesh. It is unwise to validate the distorted narrative of Daesh and Al-shabaab terrorists who claim innocence despite evidence to the contrary.
© Puntland Post, 2025
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