BAIDOA, Somalia (Axadle) – Baidoa was jolted by heavy fighting on Monday, as forces loyal to former Southwest State President Abdiaziz Mohamed Laftagareen mounted an attack inside the city, local sources said, while rival sides issued sharply conflicting accounts of the battle.
Residents described a succession of loud blasts echoing through Baidoa, with columns of dark smoke rising above several neighborhoods. Early accounts said multiple sites were hit during the clashes, among them a power facility and a base used by federal government forces.
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Ugaas Hassan, information minister for the faction aligned with Laftagareen, acknowledged that its forces had carried out the attack and said the operation unfolded in several consecutive waves.
New footage, moment when Laftagaren’s militias attacked #Baidoa this morning, one resident recorded. pic.twitter.com/byV9bZO92b
— Inside Somalia (@InsideSomalia2) September 28, 2026
Reports from the city also pointed to the use of an explosive-laden drone by opposition forces. If verified, its deployment would represent a significant turn in the confrontation now playing out in Baidoa.
Local sources said dozens of people had been killed or injured, though no precise casualty toll could be independently confirmed immediately.
The Somali federal government gave a markedly different version of events. In a statement carried by the Somali National News Agency (SONNA), the government said Somali Armed Forces had beaten back an assault involving Al-Shabaab fighters and militias allied with Laftagareen.
The government statement said the attackers sustained heavy losses and withdrew, leaving federal forces in control of Baidoa. It also claimed that the retreating fighters abandoned dead and wounded combatants on the battlefield.
Forces aligned with Laftagareen, however, offered their own account and claimed they had achieved gains in the fighting.
The rival narratives could not be independently reconciled in the immediate aftermath, and the scale of the damage and casualties remained uncertain.
The renewed violence deepens the standoff over Baidoa, a strategically important city in Somalia’s Southwest State, where a wider political and security dispute continues between federal authorities and forces loyal to Laftagareen.
– Axadle –
