By the time Defence Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi boarded his plane out of Beledweyne on Saturday, militia fighters from a rival clan had already moved to encircle the airstrip. He escaped. The political fallout did not.
Wararka Soomaaliya
Fiqi’s remarks – that Somalia’s opposition leaders were alive solely because President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had chosen to spare them – detonated across a country already teetering on the edge of renewed conflict. Within hours, former intelligence chief Abdullahi Mohamed Ali Sanbalolshe had issued a sweeping public rebuttal, alleging that the defence minister’s words were not a threat but a confession: that the government had planned on June 3 to kill him, former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire
Somalia’s constitutional crisis – already the most volatile the country has faced in years – had just become something more dangerous.
“Lucky to Be Alive”: The Remarks That Ignited a Nation
Faahfaahinta
Fiqi delivered his statement in Beledweyne, the Hiran regional capital that serves as both his constituency and Sanbalolshe’s political stronghold. He was responding to an interview the former spy chief had given earlier in the week – footage that spread rapidly across Somali social media, drawing millions of views and triggering anger from authorities.
In that interview, Sanbalolshe alleged that President Mohamud had personally ordered an assault on a compound on June 3 where he, Khaire, and over sixty clan leaders – including the Murursade Ugas – were gathered. The attack, he said, was designed to kill them all in one place. He added that had the president possessed warplanes, he would have bombed the compound without hesitation.
Fiqi’s rebuttal was blunt and unsparing: the opposition should consider themselves fortunate to be breathing. Their survival, he said, was an act of presidential mercy – and nothing more.
Saamaynta
For opposition leaders listening, the message was unambiguous. It was not a denial of “murderous” intent. It was, in their reading, an acknowledgement of it.
Sanbalolshe Responds: “This Is Proof, Not a Threat”
Sanbalolshe answered in a long statement on Facebook on Saturday. He did not treat Fiqi’s words as an aberration. He treated them as evidence.
Wararka.so waxay kuu soo tebineysaa wararka ugu dambeeyey ee Soomaaliya iyo caalamka. Si aad ula socoto wararkii ugu dambeeyey, booqo boggayaga.
