U.S. and Turkish-trained elite soldiers defect to Somaliland 

Sources close to SNA told KON that the defected soldiers were the bodyguards of Somali senate speaker Abdi Hashi, who hails from Somaliland. Hashi is at loggerheads with Farmajo over the electoral process.

News Keydmedia Online
6 April 2021

HARGEISA, Somalia – Authorities in Somalia’s northern breakaway region of Somaliland displayed four soldiers they say have defected from the Somali National Army [SNA].

First lieutenant Jabir Ismail, lieutenant Mohamud Ahmed, lieutenant Yusuf Mohamed and sergeant Mohamed Hassan spoke to reporters in Hargeisa sitting next to top Somaliland army commanders.

The soldiers who served in Gorgor and Danab, SNA’s elite special forces units said they had received training both home and abroad by Turkish and U.S. military.

The defectors have appealed for forgiveness from the government and people of Somaliland, arguing that they have been initially brainwashed, mistaken for the unity of Somalia which they fought for years.

Sources close to SNA told KON that the defected soldiers were the bodyguards of Somali senate speaker Abdi Hashi, who hails from Somaliland. Hashi is at loggerheads with Farmajo over the electoral process.

SNA officials were unavailable for comment on the alleged defection when contacted by KON.

It is the first time that Somaliland has paraded defectors from the Somali National Army since it claimed to have seceded from greater Somalia in 1991, a year after the country’s civil war broke out.

For the past 30 years, Somaliland had failed to achieve international recognition as a sovereign country.

KEYDMEDIA English