Somali army clashes with rebel forces for control of key city Baidoa

What the report says

Somalia’s federal army said it repelled opposition fighters in Baidoa after hours of fighting that erupted before dawn on Monday, according to Al Jazeera. The city, the largest in Somalia’s South West State, was the focus of clashes between federal forces and fighters loyal to the state’s former president, Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen.

Al Jazeera reported that the Defence Ministry said the attackers used vehicles packed with explosives and that federal troops killed 30 assailants. The ministry also accused Laftagareen’s forces of fighting alongside the al-Qaeda-linked armed group al-Shabab. In contrast, Laftagareen’s camp said in a Facebook post that its fighters had taken the city centre, showing the competing claims that often accompany such battles.

Residents told AFP the fighting was the most intense since the army took control of Baidoa in March. Doctors Without Borders said several wounded people reached its hospital, and the clashes reportedly unfolded on two fronts. Baidoa, about 245 km northwest of Mogadishu, shelters large numbers of displaced people and sits in a politically sensitive region.

The report places the violence in the context of Somalia’s wider power struggle after Laftagareen cut ties with Mogadishu in March over constitutional changes pushed by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Those changes altered the country’s power-sharing arrangement and helped trigger unrest, including fighting in the capital. The renewed violence in Baidoa adds to Somalia’s broader instability and humanitarian pressures.