Puntland State’s new anti-terror law tests a familiar bargain: more security, fewer liberties
The ink is barely dry in Garowe. With a stroke of the pen on October 8, Puntland State President Said Abdullahi Deni signed into law a sweeping anti-terrorism bill that grants security agencies powers long sought, and just as fiercely debated. The legislation, approved by the regional parliament in late July, is now published in the official gazette and enforceable across Puntland State’s cities, coasts and mountain ranges.
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This is not just a routine legal update. It redraws the balance between state power and personal privacy in a region where the threat of extremist violence is real—and where the rule of law is still being built, not assumed. The law allows security forces to enter homes without a judicial warrant while pursuing suspected terrorists. It authorizes the monitoring of phone conversations for individuals believed to be linked to such activity. And it introduces heavy penalties—up to 20 years in prison, and in extreme cases, the death penalty—for those who join, aid or support designated groups.
Supporters will call it overdue. Puntland State has been wrestling with an entrenched ISIS affiliate in the rugged heights of the Bari region, where insurgents have exploited terrain, informant networks and local economic anxieties to survive. The government says the law’s final phase will target not just fighters, but the logistical and ideological pipelines that sustain them.
But the most consequential part of this story is not operational—it’s constitutional. Article 21 of the Puntland State Constitution protects against warrantless searches and surveillance, permitting exceptions only in urgent situations such as hot pursuit or attempts to stop a crime in progress. The new law appears to grant a broader and more durable mandate, raising the central question: can a region fighting an agile insurgency loosen its constitutional guardrails without eroding the very legitimacy it seeks to protect?
What the law changes—and why it matters
The headline shifts are clear:
- Warrantless entry: Security forces can enter homes or premises without prior judicial approval when pursuing terrorism suspects.
- Expanded surveillance: Authorities can monitor phone conversations of individuals suspected of extremist links.
- Harsher penalties: Long prison terms and potentially capital punishment for those found to have joined, funded or supported terrorist groups.
That toolkit lines up with a trend seen from Nairobi to Paris after mass-casualty attacks: granting executive branches and security services faster, wider leeway on searches, detentions and digital monitoring. Kenya’s 2014 security law widened arrest powers and drew court challenges; France brought parts of a longstanding state of emergency into ordinary law in 2017; the United States embedded expansive surveillance in the wake of the Patriot Act. Across continents, governments have argued that speed is the currency of counterterrorism.
Yet the hard-earned lesson from those same places is that emergency powers can outlast the emergencies that spawned them. They can be repurposed—subtly and slowly—for political ends far from their original remit. So rights advocates ask predictable, necessary questions: Who supervises the use of these powers? Where are the checks and balances? What counts as “suspected” involvement, and who defines it?
The constitutional friction
Puntland State’s constitution does not forbid decisive action. Article 21 carves out space for urgent interventions during active pursuits or when a crime is unfolding. The new law appears to stretch those exceptions into routine powers, allowing authorities to flip the default from “warrant first” to “search first, justify later” in terrorism cases. That’s a fundamental change in how citizens experience the state at their doorstep and on their phone lines.
There are ways to square the circle, and elsewhere governments that chose similar paths have introduced guardrails. These include short time limits for warrantless operations with mandatory judicial review after the fact; clear, narrow definitions of “terrorism” and “support,” so advocacy or journalism is not swept in; independent oversight bodies that can audit surveillance, publish annual transparency reports and sanction abuse. Sunset clauses—automatic expiry dates on extraordinary powers—force policymakers to revisit hard choices in the cool light of experience rather than in the heat of a crisis.
As of publication, Puntland State officials say the law now applies even to those already imprisoned on terrorism-related charges. That retroactivity will likely draw scrutiny from legal scholars and defenders of due process: a new norm applied to old cases is rarely simple, rarely uncontested.
The battlefield in Bari—and the war for trust
To understand the urgency driving Garowe, leave the capital in your mind’s eye and travel north to the Cal Miskaad mountains that cast their long shadow over the Bari region. That is where an ISIS-linked faction has endured for years, capitalizing on difficult terrain, a small smuggling economy and fear. Puntland State security forces, trained over time with foreign support, have chipped away at the group’s mobility, leadership and ability to tax or intimidate local communities. Each offensive is followed by a cat-and-mouse period in which militants scatter, regroup and test the perimeter again.
Winning this conflict has always required two victories: one on the mountain ridge, another in the neighborhood where a phone can be recharged, a bag of flour moved, a courier sheltered. The new law is aimed squarely at that second battlefield, where support is sometimes less coercion than calculation. If the cost of cooperation with militants rises, some will walk away. Yet if the cost of dealing with the state becomes arbitrary searches and open-ended surveillance, others will close their doors to both sides. Counterinsurgency strategists call it the “trust deficit.” People will take risks for a government they believe is accountable; they will hedge against one they fear.
Somalis have a saying: “Nabad iyo caano”—with peace comes milk. In practical terms, peace flows when security measures are precise enough to protect the many while isolating the violent few. That precision is not only technical; it is legal and moral, communicated through the rules that govern police conduct and the avenues citizens have to challenge it.
The global context—lessons and cautions
Across the world, anti-terror laws have evolved from blunt instruments into layered systems. France paired expanded search powers with tougher oversight. Kenya’s high court struck down and narrowed provisions that endangered press freedoms and fair trial rights. Ethiopia replaced a sweeping 2009 law with a narrower 2020 statute, though concerns remain about practice versus promise. The pattern is clear: reform is iterative. Laws are revised as abuses emerge, data accumulates and politics change.
For Puntland State, the test will be less about the text and more about implementation. Will judges be empowered to review operations quickly? Will parliament receive regular reports on how often warrantless entries occur and why? Will definitions of “support” distinguish between coerced assistance and deliberate abetting? And when the threat recedes, will the extraordinary become ordinary—or will the state have the courage to step back?
What to watch next
The coming months will reveal whether the law delivers measurable gains against ISIS cells in Bari. Expect more checkpoints, more targeted raids and, inevitably, more friction at the street level. Civil society groups, lawyers and religious leaders will push for clarifications and limits; families of detainees will test the courts. If the government can pair its new hard edge with public accountability—transparent reporting, independent oversight, fair trials—it may persuade skeptical citizens that the trade-off is temporary and necessary.
If not, Puntland State risks a scenario familiar across the Sahel and the Horn: a stronger security apparatus with less public cooperation, where fear suppresses the very intelligence that security forces need to prevent the next attack.
It is worth returning to a simple question: what does success look like? Fewer attacks, to be sure. But also fewer abuses. Trust earned, not demanded. A future in which the extraordinary powers a government grants itself today are not the ones it cannot live without tomorrow.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
