Somalia: Puntland seizes third federal base

MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Puntland security forces seized a third military base from Somalia’s federal government on Saturday, part of a sweeping campaign to strip Mogadishu-aligned troops from the region and place the use of force exclusively under regional authority.

Regional police said in a statement that they had taken control of a federal government base in the town of Carmo, in Bari region, roughly 100 kilometres from the commercial port city of Bosaso. The takeover was carried out without clashes, police said, and was accompanied by the dismantling of what they described as militias accused of plotting to destabilise the regional administration.

The Carmo operation extends a rapid succession of base seizures across Puntland’s northeastern territory over the past week, each testing the reach of the federal government and the cohesion of its forces stationed outside the capital.

A week of retreats

The campaign began days earlier when regional forces took a federal base in Bosaso peacefully, after government troops stationed there surrendered without resistance. It escalated sharply on Wednesday, when Puntland forces captured a large military complex in Galkayo following a gunfight that left dozens wounded, though no fatalities were confirmed.

Analysts have described Wednesday’s fall of the Galkayo complex as the most significant setback President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration has suffered at the hands of a federal member state since the Raskamboni debacle of 2024, when more than 1,500 federal forces were routed by Jubaland regional troops. That earlier collapse followed a bitter dispute over the re-election of Jubaland President Ahmed Madobe, a vote Mogadishu branded a sham, rigged and unacceptable.

A widening pattern

Taken together, the Bosaso, Galkayo and Carmo operations point to a coordinated effort by Puntland’s administration to dismantle the federal government’s remaining military footprint in the region and assert unchallenged control over armed force within its borders – a trajectory that echoes, and now risks compounding, the precedent set by Jubaland two years earlier.

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