Apparently following up on a recent go-ahead call to militarily engage the Republic of Somaliland which the federal government of Somalia at Villa Somalia gave the federal state, Vice President Ahmed Elmi Osman ‘Crash’, toured army positions at Tukaraq, Somaliland, Tuesday.
The Puntland VP was accompanied during the ‘inspection’ tour by General Yassin Omar Dheere, the Dervish (Puntland Army) commander, Ex-Internal Security Minister, General Khalif Essa Mudan whos is presently a leading member of a committee charged to re-align the Puntland Federal State ragtag armed forces, as well as other high-ranking military and government officers.
The visit, according to reports coming out from the area aimed to boost the morale of armed units who are often left short of even the barest minimum of supplies and on months on end with no salaries.
The VP promised the units he inspected better quarters, better rations and more regular pay – a line that was not new to the armed militias most of whom had never been drafted into a formal army.
VP Crash also told them that they will be better trained in an academy he and his government were planning to build in an undisclosed area in Puntland
Vice President Crash, himself a former army career officers, hails from Sool region over which, along with large areas of Buuhoodle and Sanaag regions of Somaliland, federal Somalia disputes with Somaliland using Puntalnd as an advance, prong front to physically draw Somaliland into a proxy war.
Somaliland military advance to close off its borders with former Italian Somalia as drawn in the 1930s stopped at Tukaraq some 60 kilometres short of the boundary line on behest of the international community, especially the UN, EU and IGAD, who mediated/brokered a ceasefire in 2018.
The renewed moves, following the call to war by Federal Somalia on March 18, will certainly be viewed as belligerent by the Republic of Somaliland which has not yet officially responded to the VP tour.
The eastern border with Federal Somalia took shape through a series of treaties known as the British-Italian Protocol between 1991 and 1994. The delimitation of the ‘spheres of influence of Great Britain and Italy in Eastern Africa’ was signed at Rome, Italy, on the 24th March, and the 15th April, 1891.
