The Lasanod administration’s decision to give mining companies operating in Sanaag a 30-day deadline to obtain official licenses marks a significant escalation.
What has long been a political and territorial dispute is now shifting into a direct contest over natural resources and the power, legitimacy, and revenue that flow from them.
Sanaag’s ambiguous status lies at the center of this tension. The region is under Somaliland, but claimed by both Lasanod and Puntland and is shaped by overlapping political loyalties and shifting local administrations.
Lasanod, while geographically situated in Sool, has recently asserted a degree of autonomy that places it somewhere between Somaliland and the federal system in Mogadishu, and increasingly aligned with neither.
By invoking constitutional authority to justify its licensing mandate, Lasanod is attempting to operate not merely as a local administration but as a government capable of regulating economic activity, enforcing laws, and building its own fiscal base independent of Hargeisa or Garowe.
Its focus on the mining sector is strategic. Sanaag is home to significant gypsum, salt, and potential metal deposits that have long been exploited informally by companies operating with minimal oversight.
Bringing these operations under a licensing regime gives the administration control over who can extract resources and grants access to a potentially lucrative stream of revenue. This shift explains why Puntland reacted so sharply.
Garowe has long considered parts of Sanaag within its jurisdiction, and the Lasanod order challenges Puntland’s territorial claims, threatens companies operating under its authority, and risks setting a broader precedent in a federal system where local administrations can assert control over strategic assets.
Mining companies now find themselves caught between competing authorities. Their decision to comply with or reject the Lasanod directive carries practical and political weight.
Compliance would extend a measure of recognition to the Lasanod administration, while refusal could prompt attempts at enforcement—raising the risk of confrontation between local forces and Puntland-aligned actors. Either choice could reshape the balance of power on the ground.
The stated rationale for the ban includes concerns about unregulated extraction and environmental degradation, but the broader context suggests that control of licensing fees and regulatory power is a central motive.
In a landscape where institutions are fragile and political competition is intense, natural resources often become tools for leverage, patronage, and consolidation of authority.
The danger is that a system designed to regulate the sector could instead replicate old patterns under a new banner, with local communities and the environment seeing little benefit.
This episode underscores a larger shift in the dynamics of the Somali territories: the gradual movement away from identity-based politics toward economic contests over land, revenue, and resource sovereignty.
The Lasanod administration’s approach is calculated, forcing companies and neighboring governments to respond and positioning itself as an actor with both political ambition and economic priorities.
Whether this dispute evolves into a negotiated framework or a trigger for renewed conflict will shape the region’s stability in the months ahead.
For outside observers and policymakers, the mining ban illustrates how resource control is becoming the next major fault line in the Horn of Africa’s political landscape.
In a region where authority is contested and institutions remain fragile, the struggle over extraction rights may prove as consequential as the territorial disputes that preceded it.
