A Raxanreeb correspondent filed this report from Beledweyne
Beledweyne is one of the four districts of Hiiraan, a land-locked region between Middle Shabelle and Galguduud regions, and is the seat of the regional governor. The district was controlled by Al Shabaab before Ethiopian forces kicked out the Alqa’aida affiliate but it is Djibouti’s AMISOM forces who are endearingly or sarcastically — depending on your viewpoint–known as Hiil Walaal ( A brother’s succour). Last month the AMISOM spokesman Ali Hamud, from Djibouti, likened Al Shabaab tactics to Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli troops.
The district is the scene of an increasing tussle between Hawaadle and Gugundhabe clans. Each clan claims to be entitled to rule the region because of numerical superiority. Clashes between rival clans are rare in Hiiraan. From time to time AMISOM and Ethiopia forces face hit and run attacks or road-side bombs by Al Shabaab. Only Buuloburde district is still under Al Shabaab.
Raxanreeb correspondent travelled to Beledweyne via Buuloburde. Al Shabaab operatives, hunting people it views as government informers or journalists who wrote reports critical of Al Shabaab or who work for websites or news organisation that call Al Shabaab ‘extremist group’, searched the lorry I was travelling in.
Beledweyne is a politically charged city. Traders in the city fear clan rivalries may be breeding ground for Al Shabaab recruitment. Yesterday Hawaadle and Galje’el elders separately declared they had withdrawn support for Somalia’s Federal Government . Elders of both clans singled out the Minister for Interior, Abdulkarim Guled, a member of Damul-jadid ‘New Blood’( An Islah faction and president Hassan Sheikh’s inner circle) for criticism. A Hawaadle elder said the minister visited Dhuusamareeb district of Galguduud region and laid wreaths at “graves of six men” killed in Al Shabaab suicide bombing in May 1, 2012 but denied Beledweyne similar honour ” although 70 people including a minister and an ambassador were killed in an Al Shabaab suicide bombing in 2009.”
Galje’el elders’ criticism was not less biting. One elder said minister Abdulkarim’s way of appointing a district commissioner to replace another he appointed in the same week was a farce. ” He came here as a national minister but when he went to Galguduud he behaved like a clan minister. Hiiraan is not Bandiiredley’” one elder said. Bandiiradley is a village in Mudug region, the minister’s clan constituency. The minister faces similar accusations from Biyamaal clan in Marka city (Lower Shabelle region).
Hiiraan elders’ disillusionment with the Somali Federal Government has thrown a spanner in the president Hassan Sheikh’s works to line regional administrations with appointees to consolidate his inner circle’s grip on the Federal Government.
RBC News
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