A deadline has been set. Ignore it, the opposition warns, and Somalia risks sliding into a constitutional and security crisis.

Somalia’s fragile political equilibrium is facing a new test after the Somali Future Council issued a one-month ultimatum to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, demanding the convening of inclusive national election talks by January 20, 2026.

In a communiqué released at the conclusion of meetings held in Kismayo between December 18 and 20, the newly formed alliance warned that failure to act would force it to take steps toward organizing an alternative electoral process. The stated aim, the group said, would be to prevent a constitutional vacuum, avert a security breakdown, and reduce the risk of renewed terrorist violence.

The warning goes beyond procedural complaints. During the Kismayo conference, opposition leaders accused the president of presiding over systemic governance failure, alleging that his administration has deepened political divisions, weakened institutions, and stalled development.

The communiqué charged that constitutional amendments have been pushed through without consensus, oversight bodies sidelined, and some federal member states allowed to overstay their legal mandates—changes the group described as a fundamental distortion of Somalia’s political order.

Security featured prominently in the criticism. The Council argued that the fight against Al-Shabaab has lost momentum, with morale within the armed forces eroded by corruption, favoritism, and abuse of power. In their assessment, stalled counterterrorism efforts now intersect with political paralysis, amplifying national risk rather than containing it.

The alliance also painted a bleak economic and humanitarian picture, accusing the federal government of enabling corruption, forced displacement, and the sale of public land. These practices, it said, have undermined confidence among both domestic and foreign investors while worsening hardship for vulnerable communities.

Despite the confrontational tone, the Somali Future Council left the door open to dialogue. It said it is ready to engage the president on a negotiated and transparent election—one it claims should be more advanced and credible than the 2022 process, strengthen local representation, and restore parliamentary legitimacy.

The group firmly rejected ongoing elections in the Banadir region, arguing they amount to a one-party process that violates citizens’ rights. Without resolving the legal status of the capital, the Council said, such elections are unconstitutional. The timing is sensitive: the National Independent Electoral Commission plans to hold one-person, one-vote local council polls in Banadir on December 25.

Formed in October, the Somali Future Council brings together the leadership of Puntland, Jubaland, and members of the Somali Salvation Forum. United by opposition to unilateral electoral moves, the alliance has rejected proceeding toward 2026 polls without broad national consensus.

At the core of the standoff lie unresolved questions: the election model, timing, security conditions, constitutional amendments, and control of the electoral process itself. Analysts warn that pushing ahead without major stakeholders risks reshaping Somalia’s politics in destabilizing ways. In a system long dependent on negotiated balance, they argue, consensus is not a luxury—it is the only viable guardrail against post-election unrest.

One of Somalia’s most reliable partners has not paid on time—and the delay is rippling through an already fragile budget.

The Somali government has confirmed a delay in receiving its annual budget support from Turkey, a key development and security partner, as the country approaches the end of the fiscal year under mounting financial strain.

Finance Minister Bihi Iman Egeh told local media that Turkey has yet to disburse the expected $30 million in budgetary support for this year, breaking a pattern of consistent payments in previous years. “Turkey has been providing budget support regularly in past years,” the minister said. “This year’s support, amounting to $30 million, has been delayed and was not paid on time as usual.”

Egeh said the federal government has relied more heavily this year on assistance from other international partners, including the European Union, the United Nations, and several allied countries, to cover core budget needs. He did not indicate when the Turkish funds might be released.

The delay has drawn attention because of Turkey’s prominent role in Somalia over the past decade, spanning development projects, humanitarian aid, and security cooperation. Ankara has been one of Mogadishu’s most visible partners, making the late disbursement notable even in the absence of an official explanation.

The issue comes at a sensitive moment for Somalia’s public finances. The federal government’s budget—valued at more than $1 billion—has yet to receive parliamentary approval, further tightening cash flow and complicating planning for both federal institutions and regional administrations.

Somalia continues to face persistent fiscal challenges, with government operations heavily dependent on external budget support. The delayed Turkish contribution highlights the vulnerability of that model, particularly when expected funds do not arrive on schedule, and underscores the broader financial pressures confronting the Somali state as the year closes.

He was preparing to leave Somalia with his pregnant wife. Weeks later, he was shot dead in the street.

A young rickshaw driver who had recently won the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery was shot and killed late Sunday in Mogadishu, police and relatives said, abruptly ending his plans to migrate to the United States with his pregnant wife.

The victim, Abdirisaq Abukar Mohamed, was driving his three-wheeled motorized rickshaw in the Dayniile district when armed men opened fire, striking him in the chest and throat and killing him at the scene, according to family members. He was pronounced dead shortly afterward.

Somali police said a suspect has been arrested and an investigation is underway. In a statement posted on Facebook, Dayniile district police said officers detained Abdullaahi Ahmed Geedi in connection with the killing and that he will be transferred to court. Authorities have not disclosed a motive, and it remains unclear whether the shooting was targeted or random.

Abdirisaq’s wife, Asho Abdi Mohamed, said she learned of her husband’s death through a phone call placed from his mobile phone minutes after the shooting.
“Someone answered his phone and contacted the last person he had called, saying the owner of the phone had been killed,” she said. “That person then reached us, and we went to the area and confirmed his death.”

His body remains at the morgue of Mogadishu’s Erdogan Hospital, formerly Digfeer Hospital. Relatives said the family has delayed burial until those responsible are fully identified and brought before the courts.

“As long as there is uncertainty about who carried out the killing, the family has decided not to bury him,” said Yusuf Absuge, a relative. “Anyone involved must be held accountable.”

Abdirisaq and his wife were among this year’s recipients of the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery, commonly known as the green card lottery. They applied in 2024 and were notified of their selection in May. Asho said she submitted the application and included her husband as her spouse, resulting in both being selected.

The couple had been scheduled to attend their visa interview earlier this month at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok but postponed it until February 2026 because Asho is in the final month of pregnancy. Abdirisaq was killed before the rescheduled appointment.

Asked whether she plans to continue the immigration process alone, Asho said her immediate focus is grieving.

Abdirisaq earned a living as a rickshaw driver, a common and often precarious form of transport in Mogadishu. He also held a diploma in laboratory science, completed in 2023, balancing his studies with work. The couple married in July 2024 and were expecting their first child.

In recent years, a number of rickshaw drivers—mostly young men—have been killed in Mogadishu under unclear circumstances, fueling concerns about the safety of informal transport workers in the capital. Police said their criminal investigations unit continues to examine the circumstances surrounding Abdirisaq’s death.

The Fifty-Year Fantasy: Mogadishu Plans a Vote While Missing a State.

The Federal Government of Somalia’s latest announcement—a supposed return to direct, one-person, one-vote elections in Mogadishu after half a century—is being celebrated by officials as a democratic milestone.

In reality, it is a political hologram: visible from afar, dazzling in theory, but impossible to touch in the physical world. You cannot stage a national election in a capital where the government struggles to secure its own ministries, let alone guarantee a safe path to a polling station.

Former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, in one of the few grounded interventions from the political class, has rejected the plan outright. His reasoning is austere and irrefutable: there is no viable legal foundation, no credible security environment, and no political consensus.

A direct vote, he argues, cannot be conjured from thin air. Trying to launch this electoral experiment without agreement from the opposition is not reform—it is denial. It resembles announcing the launch of a national airline before building a runway.

The government’s counterargument, delivered by Defense Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, accuses critics of sowing instability. It is a familiar posture for governments under strain: redefine scrutiny as sabotage, label disagreement as danger.

Fiqi’s assurances that institutions are aligned and security has “significantly improved” directly contradict the lived reality of the citizens he claims to protect.

If Mogadishu were secure enough to hold a direct election, the opposition would not be able to undermine it simply by boycotting. The entire process would speak for itself.

What is unfolding is the quintessential example of the Somalia Paradox. Mogadishu produces sophisticated policy frameworks, glossy future-vision documents, and high-level conferences in world capitals.

Yet the state repeatedly struggles to execute tasks as basic as municipal governance. Announcing a direct election without resolving structural fragmentation—especially the deeply embedded 4.5 clan quota system—is not democratization. It is theatre.

Voters do not cast ballots on PowerPoint slides. Democracy does not flourish in security briefings or donor conferences. It grows only when a citizen can walk to a polling place without anticipating an explosion, an armed checkpoint, or a militia roadblock.

Somalia’s promise of a one-person, one-vote election will remain what it has been for decades: a beautifully designed blueprint taped to a building with no foundation.

A menu with no kitchen. A state announcing elections before it has secured the street outside the polling station.

Until the federal government confronts this reality—rather than crafting elaborate fantasies for external consumption—the dream of direct elections will remain exactly that: a dream performed, applauded, and forgotten, long before a single ballot is ever cast.

Somalia’s Game: Playing Washington and Beijing While Targeting Somaliland

Mogadishu’s Disinformation Machine Turns on the UAE

Turkey Withheld Explosive Intelligence Linking Somali Officials to Terror Network

Mogadishu Crisis Deepens: Photographer Arrested, Resident Shot Dead, Families Displaced

The UAE’s Unforgiven Wrath: Will Fiqi’s Blood-Stained Legacy Finally Meet Justice?

U.S. special operations forces joined Puntland’s elite counterterrorism units in a major assault on an Islamic State stronghold in Somalia’s Balade Valley, according to Somali security officials briefed on the operation.

The coordinated strike—one of the most significant joint actions in Puntland in recent years—unfolded overnight, when U.S. troops were inserted into the rugged valley aboard MH-60 helicopters while MQ-9 Reaper drones conducted precision strikes on suspected militant compounds in the Habarbakuuje and Mareero areas.

Security officials said the targeted enclave had served as a fortified hideout for a small but hardened ISIS cell, including foreign fighters from Syria, Turkey and Ethiopia.

The assault triggered an intense gun battle that lasted between two and four hours as militants attempted to repel advancing forces from defensive positions carved into the mountainsides.

Early assessments indicate that a senior ISIS commander and several of his aides were killed, with officials estimating between five and ten militant casualties.

Joint forces also destroyed weapons stockpiles and equipment believed to support the group’s gold-mining operations—an increasingly critical revenue source fueling ISIS activities in Puntland.

Puntland authorities have vowed to dismantle ISIS networks across the region by the end of 2025, and U.S. support has expanded in recent months.

American drones and intelligence assets have targeted ISIS hideouts across the Bari mountains, helping push fighters from their traditional strongholds into more isolated terrain.

A Puntland security official said the latest operation reflects “tightened coordination” with U.S. forces and forms part of a broader campaign to degrade ISIS’ financial pipelines and operational reach.

Washington has not yet publicly commented on the strike, but U.S. counterterrorism operations in northern Somalia are typically authorized under long-standing missions aimed at disrupting transnational extremist groups.

Somalia’s largest opposition alliance, the Somali Salvation Forum, has accused government security forces of carrying out forced evictions, unlawful arrests and the killing of a civilian during operations in Mogadishu’s Yaqshiid district.

In a statement released Saturday, the Forum expressed condolences over the death of Abdullahi Abdi Raage, a longtime resident of the Buulo-Geesaale neighborhood. According to the group, Abdullahi was fatally shot while speaking out against what residents described as forced displacement by security personnel.

The opposition bloc also condemned the arrest of Himilo Media photographer Abdullahi Mohamed Ali (Saawey), who was detained while documenting the evictions, and criticized what it called the unlawful detention of Kamil Abdi Macow, an employee of the Mogadishu municipal government.

The Forum accused security agencies of using excessive force and carrying out operations in violation of the law, alleging that the actions had resulted in civilian casualties and heightened fear among residents.

The group urged authorities to halt evictions immediately and to uphold civil rights and press freedoms. It also called on President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and national security leaders to hold officers accountable for abuses, warning that continued violations risk deepening public mistrust and damaging Somalia’s international reputation.

Somalia’s federal government has been forced into full digital retreat after its much-hyped E-TAS travel system was hit by a massive security breach that exposed thousands of travelers’ private data — another humiliation for Mogadishu’s fragile institutions and a stark warning from the United States about the dangers of its failed digital governance.

The Somali Immigration and Citizenship Agency (SICA) admitted on Sunday that “unauthorized actors” infiltrated the new platform, stealing sensitive information and forcing officials to shut down the entire system. The breach, confirmed by U.S. Embassy officials in Mogadishu, reportedly compromised data belonging to more than 35,000 travelers.

A U.S. Embassy security alert described the exposure as a serious cyber threat and urged anyone who used the system to assume their personal information had been compromised. American officials said the breach could enable “identity theft, phishing campaigns, and digital targeting” of Somali citizens and foreigners alike.

While Mogadishu scrambled to contain the damage — forming an emergency “national investigative committee” — critics across the region saw the collapse as a symptom of a deeper problem: a federal government obsessed with control, yet incapable of protecting even its own systems.

The irony is bitter. Just weeks ago, Mogadishu was trying to force its E-TAS system on Somaliland and Puntland, insisting that all travelers — even those entering Hargeisa — must apply through its portal. Somaliland immediately rejected the order, declaring that only visas issued by its own immigration authority are valid within its borders. Puntland followed, calling the federal system “illegal.”

Now, the very system Mogadishu tried to impose on others has imploded — leaving the world questioning whether the federal government can manage even basic cybersecurity, let alone national sovereignty.

Somaliland officials have repeatedly warned of the dangerous centralization of data in Mogadishu’s hands, calling the system “a political tool masquerading as modernization.” That warning now appears prophetic. While the federal platform bleeds private data into the dark web, Somaliland’s secure, independent visa system continues operating smoothly, trusted by international partners and airlines.

The episode has exposed not just technical incompetence, but deep insecurity in Mogadishu’s leadership — a government chasing “recognition” abroad while losing credibility at home. For Somaliland, it is vindication: a digital fortress standing firm while its southern neighbor collapses under the weight of corruption and envy.

Somalia’s Political Map Shifts as Top Leaders Unite Behind Former PM for 2026 Race.

A group of prominent Somali political figures announced on Monday the formation of a new political alliance, declaring they will field former Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdoon “Saacid” as their presidential candidate in Somalia’s 2026 elections.

The coalition, known as the National Sovereignty Alliance, brings together nine senior politicians from across political organizations, parties and regional constituencies.

Several members have previously held national cabinet posts or leadership roles and have now resigned from their respective parties to join the new bloc.

In a joint statement, the alliance’s leaders said their decision followed a series of meetings assessing what they described as Somalia’s deteriorating political, security and economic conditions.

Their statement cited concerns over “the erosion of national unity, the collapse of the economy, the neglect of social services and the loss of public confidence in the Somali state.”

The alliance named the following figures as founding members:

1. Abdikarim Hussein Guuleed

2. Fahad Yasin Haaji Daahir

3. Mohamed Abuukar Islow Duale

4. Thabit Abdi Mohamed

5. Guuleed Salah Bare

6. Abdi Adan Hoosow

7. Abdirizak Khilaaf Ahmed

8. Faarax Ali Shire

9. Duale Adan Mohamed

The new political front is entering a landscape marked by shifting alliances and intensifying maneuvering ahead of the 2026 presidential race.

With Shirdoon positioned as its candidate, the National Sovereignty Alliance framed its formation as a response to a country in need of renewed direction and stronger governance.