The Somali Reconciliation Narrative Contested in Dhaxalreeb Interview

**General Mahad appears to sidestep questions on alleged conflicts of interest in South West State, instead using the moment to advance unsubstantiated claims of “betrayal.”**

Mogadishu (PP Commentary) — In the latest episode of interviews on the Djibouti-sponsored Arta Reconciliation Conference for Somalia in the year 2000, Abdi Ahmed Bafo of the Dhaxalreeb Centre interviewed the former Commander of the Somali Custodial Corps, Brigadier General Mahad Abdirahman. The interview was conducted on 15/11/2025. Mahad is a father-in-law of the former South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen.

The release of the Dhaxalreeb interview coincided with the Gaylan Media interview conducted with Mahad in Nairobi earlier this week after he was released from house arrest in Mogadishu. Mahad was put under house arrest in Mogadishu before being sacked when President Laftagareen declared that the South West State had cut ties with the Federal Government of Somalia.

General Mahad claimed that the founding President of Puntland State, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, had colluded with Ethiopia to prevent the Rahanweyn Resistance Army from forming an administration with a status similar to the Puntland Administration. Prior to these allegations, Mahad claimed that in 2000 Hassan Shaatiguduud, the founding chairman of the RRA, was urged by Ethiopia to return from an official visit in Saudi Arabia and rejoin the Arta Reconciliation Conference. “Ethiopia controlled the RRA” he said.

Mr Bafo gives General Mahad a free pass. He does not challenge the General on the fact that he, his son-in-law (former) South West State President Laftagareen and the late Shaatigudud belong to the same Hariin sub-clan of the Mirifle (Rahanweyn).

Abdi Ahmed Bafo fails to press General Mahad on the now-defunct Rahanweyn Resistance Army, notably avoiding any challenge over why he accuses his opponents of “betrayal” while portraying his late distant cousin, founding RRA chairman Hassan Shaatiguduud, as a hero, raising serious questions about journalistic rigour and accountability.

Mr Bafo does not pose questions when the opportunity presents itself. For example, when General Mahad said that during the Mbagathi Kenya-sponsored Conference for Somalia between 2002 and 2004, Ethiopia insisted on having its agenda implemented in the conference as a precondition for participation, Mr Bafo did not proceed to ask: What did Ethiopia want to achieve in a reconciliation conference organised by Kenya for Somalia?

The whole interview turned out to be an opportunity for General Mahad to utter unsubstantiated allegations against people who can no longer defend themselves. Abdallah Derow Isaaq, the former Speaker of the Somalia Federal Parliament who was assassinated in Baidoa in 2006, is another victim of misrepresentation by General Mahad.

That General Mahad is unapologetically pro-Shaatigudud, and that he considers opponents of the founding RRA chairman as traitors who betrayed the cause of Digil and Mirifle, is all too clear in the interview.

The Dhaxalreeb Centre interview was expressly released to rebut the Gaylan Media interview with the former Commander of the Somali Custodial Corps in Nairobi. That goal seems to have been attained because Mr Bafo has never taken the opportunity to remind General Mahad that at least those former RRA commanders he accuses of betrayal differed with him and his cousin Shaatigudud over policies, and whether such political disagreements merit being framed as crude character assassinations and the spread of baseless allegations.