Somali army captures strategic city as regional leader resigns
Baidoa, the administrative hub of South West state, is a key strategic center in a region shadowed by drought, conflict and displacement. The city also hosts international peacekeepers and humanitarian agencies, adding to its importance in a country...
Tuesday March 31, 2026
Somalia’s national army seized control of Baidoa, the largest city in South West state, on Monday, setting off a political rupture that ended with the regional president stepping down two weeks after he said his administration was cutting ties with the federal government.
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Baidoa, the administrative hub of South West state, is a key strategic center in a region shadowed by drought, conflict and displacement. The city also hosts international peacekeepers and humanitarian agencies, adding to its importance in a country where security and aid operations often overlap.
“Federal forces have taken over Baidoa, … it is now calm … but it looks like a ghost town,” local elder Adan Hussein told Reuters.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) northwest of the capital Mogadishu.
In a statement posted on Facebook, South West state President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen said he had resigned. His announcement came just days after he was re-elected to a fresh five-year term.
The take-over rattled residents, many of whom have fled Baidoa in recent days. Some aid agencies also suspended their work, concerned that fighting could break out between federal troops and regional forces.
The standoff in South West state is the latest evidence of tension inside Somalia’s fragile federal system, where recurring disputes over elections and the division of authority between Mogadishu and regional governments repeatedly expose political fault lines.
Laftagareen’s administration had opposed constitutional changes backed by the federal government.
Somalia’s federal information ministry said in a statement read on national television that “the former South West state administration … created political conflict”. It also said federal forces had been welcomed into Baidoa on Monday.
Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Additional reporting by Ammu Kannampilly; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Alexander Winning and William Maclean