Somalia’s national army \u200btook control of the biggest city in South West state \u200con Monday, prompting the regional leader to resign two weeks after his administration said\u00a0it was severing ties\u00a0with the federal government.<\/p>\n
The strategic city of Baidoa, \u200bthe administrative capital of South West state, is home to \u200binternational peacekeepers and humanitarian agencies in an area affected by \u2060drought, conflict and displacement.<\/p>\n
“Federal forces have taken over Baidoa, … it is \u200bnow calm … but it looks like a ghost town,” local elder \u200bAdan Hussein told Reuters.<\/p>\n
A shopkeeper in Baidoa, Hussein Abdullahi, said federal troops were in control of his part of the city, which is about 245 km (150 miles) \u200bnorthwest of the capital Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
South West state president Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed \u200bLaftagareen wrote in a statement on Facebook that he had resigned, days after \u200cbeing \u2060re-elected for another five-year term.<\/p>\n
Many residents have fled Baidoa over the past week and some aid agencies suspended activities, fearing clashes could erupt between the army and regional forces.<\/p>\n
The dispute between South West state is \u200bthe latest sign \u200bof strain \u2060in the Horn of Africa country’s fragile federal system, where disputes over elections and the balance of \u200bpower between Mogadishu and regional administrations repeatedly open up \u200bpolitical fault \u2060lines.<\/p>\n
Laftagareen’s administration opposed constitutional amendments backed by the federal government.<\/p>\n
Somalia’s federal information ministry said in a message read out on national television that “the \u2060former South \u200bWest state administration … created political conflict”. It \u200bsaid federal forces had been welcomed in Baidoa on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Somalia’s national army \u200btook control of the biggest city in South West state \u200con Monday, prompting the regional leader to resign two weeks after his administration said\u00a0it was severing ties\u00a0with the federal government. The strategic city of Baidoa, \u200bthe administrative capital of South West state, is home to \u200binternational peacekeepers and humanitarian agencies in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33,1129],"tags":[4719,189,4955],"class_list":["post-20350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","category-security","tag-baidoa","tag-somalia","tag-south-west-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20352,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20350\/revisions\/20352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}