How Hassan Sheikh’s “New Blood” Government Revives Brotherhood Playbook.
Mogadishu has officially joined the chorus of Middle Eastern and African factions fabricating narratives against the United Arab Emirates, echoing a tactic first perfected by Sudan’s rival warlords, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti).
According to regional security analysts, the campaign traces its roots to a coordinated online operation originally launched by Burhan’s media proxies.
Four X (formerly Twitter) accounts — @agaraad, @dee_luulis @Elshmael and @egaraad — were identified as the central pillars of the digital smear network, each masquerading as independent users but managed by the same operator.
The accounts specialize in circulating anti-UAE rhetoric and amplifying narratives designed to legitimize Burhan’s embattled rule while undermining Gulf states seen as unsympathetic to his regime.
Now, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration appears to have imported that model into Somalia’s political discourse.
In recent days, Mogadishu’s Defense Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi accused the UAE of transporting “mercenaries and weapons” to Sudan and Chad via Bosaso Airport in Puntland — a region that cut ties with the federal government two years ago.
Diplomatic sources dismissed the claim as “implausible,” noting that Bosaso is under autonomous Puntland control, not Mogadishu’s jurisdiction, and that no credible evidence has been presented to support the allegation.
Fiqi’s background has further fueled skepticism. A graduate of Sudan’s International University of Africa, an institution long associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Fiqi has faced scrutiny since a 2013 UN report alleged his prior connections to al-Shabaab.
Critics argue that his recent accusations against the UAE are part of a broader ideological campaign by Somalia’s ruling “New Blood” faction — a Brotherhood-linked movement that has cultivated deep ties with political and religious networks in Sudan, Qatar, and Turkey.
Within Mogadishu, several senior officials in Hassan Sheikh’s government trace their political and educational lineage to Brotherhood institutions abroad.
Fara Abdiqadir, the current Minister of Education, is regarded as one of the intellectual architects of the New Blood ideology, while the administration’s domestic support base leans heavily on the hardline al-Itisam Party, often described by Somali scholars as the Brotherhood’s East African political wing.
Al-Itisam’s leadership operates primarily out of Nairobi, under Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Omal, while its Somali branches are supervised by Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad — a close clan ally of the president.
The movement promotes the vision of a “Greater Somalia” extending into eastern Kenya, Somaliland, Djibouti, and Ethiopia’s Somali region — a territorial and ideological expansion that directly challenges Somaliland’s sovereignty.
Tensions between the Brotherhood network and Somaliland clerics have recently spilled into the open.
Sheikh Abdullah Barabrawi, a respected Salafist preacher in Hargeisa, came under attack from al-Itisam operatives after publicly denouncing the group’s agenda and its hostility toward Somaliland.
His defiant rebuttal, shared widely on social media, struck a chord with ordinary Somalilanders — exposing how distant the Brotherhood’s transnational ambitions are from local sentiment.
Analysts say the Mogadishu government’s growing reliance on ideological narratives and digital propaganda mirrors a regional trend — where Islamist-aligned factions employ disinformation as a substitute for policy.
For the UAE, whose humanitarian and development footprint across Somalia remains extensive, the accusations are unlikely to damage relations with regional partners.
But they underscore how fragile governance in Mogadishu has become — driven less by national interest than by the ideological imperatives of a ruling elite shaped by foreign movements.
