South West State leader Aden Madobe has met Ethiopian military officers in Baidoa amid renewed fighting with forces loyal to ousted regional president Abdiaziz Laftagareen. Reports say the Ethiopians insist their role is limited to fighting al-Shabaab.
Aden Madobe, who leads Somalia's South West State administration, has met senior Ethiopian military officers in Baidoa to discuss security in the city, Garowe Online reported on 31 October. The talks focused on security arrangements and preventing attacks by fighters loyal to the former regional president, Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen.
According to reports cited by Garowe Online, Ethiopian commanders have declined to take sides, maintaining that their responsibility is to support operations against al-Shabaab rather than to become involved in a political conflict between Somali factions. Ethiopian troops are deployed in parts of South West State as part of international security efforts. Madobe also met the commander of the African Union force's Sector 3 on 30 October, Shabelle Media Network reported, in a meeting publicly described as focused on operations against al-Shabaab.
Renewed fighting outside Baidoa
The meetings follow clashes on 26 October at Burjeedka (Burijeed), on Baidoa's southern outskirts along the road to Mogadishu. South West State's information minister, Nur Siidow Baaba, described a "large-scale operation targeting terrorist groups", while army commander Abdullahi Hassan said: "We inflicted heavy casualties, while two of our soldiers were killed," AFP reported. A pro-Laftagareen commander, Hassan Abdulkadir Mohamed, said his forces had forced federal troops into "a humiliating retreat to Baidoa".
No verified casualty figures were available, and a landmine had struck regional security forces near the same area the day before, Hiiraan Online reported. AFP said airstrikes killed at least three members of a pro-Laftagareen militia in Wajid district, Bakool region, the previous week.
Background
Federal forces seized Baidoa in March after a dispute between Laftagareen and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's government over the region's leadership and constitutional changes, and Madobe took over the administration. Laftagareen has since made repeated attempts to retake the city, including a September attack by thousands of his fighters that left at least three dead, according to AFP.
Baidoa hosts hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict, drought and insecurity and is a major humanitarian hub, Hiiraan noted. The fighting coincides with the closure on 31 October of the UN's political mission in Somalia, UNTMIS, with no replacement mechanism agreed to mediate Somalia's unresolved dispute over elections.
Photo: Aden Madobe, then Speaker of the Federal Parliament, at Villa Somalia in Mogadishu, July 2023. ATMIS Somalia, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.