GAROWE, SOMALIA – Hours after his forces took the PSF camp outside Galkayo, President Said Abdullahi Deni went on television to claim the victory and name its target. The Galkayo operation, he said, is a message to everyone working against Puntland’s statehood. Behind the words stood the morning’s arithmetic. His forces held the camp, 101 prisoners and 60 wounded. A second federal member state lined up behind the Galkayo operation by nightfall.
What Deni said and to whom
The Puntland president delivered the televised remarks on Wednesday from the presidency in Garowe, flanked by the Somali and Puntland flags. “The forces carried out a planned operation against a camp into which the federal government had lately been hauling weapons and war materiel,” he said. “The step the forces took is a message to everyone working on anything hostile to Puntland’s statehood.” Responsibility for the clashes, he said, rests with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose mandate expired in May. He urged him to “change course before the crisis deepens.”
He paired the warning with an open door. Federal-aligned officers still in the area should “hasten to comply with the government’s orders before action is taken,” he said; they know whom to contact and can “become part of their government.” “The forces present in Puntland today are Puntland’s forces; no other force exists here,” he added, calling on the young men in the ranks to hand themselves in and join the Daraawiish. For the politicians he accused of stirring “lies and noise,” he kept one line: “Militarised politics is not possible in Puntland.”
The framing completes a sequence Garowe has built all summer. Puntland accused Mogadishu of smuggling weapons in June and warned Galmudug about arms transit in July. It confirmed Tuesday’s interception within hours. Now it presents the Galkayo operation as the lawful answer to all of it, and Deni spent his remarks reading that public record back.
The count from the captured camp
The security services put numbers behind the speech. Wednesday’s dawn assault on the camp near Galkayo’s airport ended with 101 detainees, the police command said, plus 60 wounded fighters also in custody. Families may collect the wounded, apart from officers and serious-crime suspects. Among the named prisoners are Giijaale Cabdi Baydhabo, who led the Galkayo militia, his deputy, and Mahad Mowliid, who ran the Somali Police database. Images circulating on X identify another detainee as Cabdulqaadir Cismaan, known as Shiine, a federal police officer and deputy commander of the JIT special unit.
The inventory reads like a supply manifest for the war Puntland says Mogadishu is waging. Rifles, ammunition, military vehicles, police uniforms, boots and handcuffs came out of the camp. Some of the gear, Puntland says, came from Chinese government donations to the Somali Police Force. A day earlier, clan militiamen had seized the weapons shipment offloaded in south Galkayo for the same garrison. The Galkayo operation closed the ledger on both deliveries at once.
Jubaland joins the accusation
By evening, Kismayo had made it two states. Jubaland issued a statement accusing the federal government of creating instability in Puntland, particularly in Galkayo. It backed the Galkayo operation outright. Weapons and military equipment were being moved into peaceful areas, it said, while Somali forces fighting al-Shabaab faced shortages of arms and supplies. The developments, Jubaland warned, threaten security, stability and the reconciliation work that holds the city together.
The charge lands on ground this week prepared. Senior army commanders say the brigade lost at Teedaan pleaded for ammunition. At the same time, cargo planes flew federal weapons toward the Puntland confrontation. Jubaland’s statement makes the same accusation in a government’s voice. It comes from the administration whose forces hold the southern al-Shabaab front. Two of the three states carrying Somalia’s real wars have now said publicly that Mogadishu is arming the wrong one.
A message aimed past Mogadishu
The Chinese-aid detail was chosen for an audience beyond Villa Somalia. Donor-supplied police equipment surfacing in a rebel camp is the exact scenario partner capitals fund safeguards to prevent. Puntland placed it on the record a week after AFRICOM conditioned engagement on ending the political infighting. Deni’s statehood phrasing does similar work. It recasts the PSF remnant as an armed group inside Puntland’s jurisdiction, which makes the Galkayo operation law enforcement in Garowe’s ledger.
His mandate language did the rest. Calling President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud a leader whose term expired in May puts Deni in step with the opposition leaders who spent Tuesday warning of civil war. His pre-emptive assignment of responsibility positions Garowe for whatever comes next. The address reads as a closing argument prepared for foreign judges, delivered while the evidence was still being counted in Galkayo.
Where the Galkayo operation leaves the map
Villa Somalia stayed silent through Wednesday night, as it has through every stage of this confrontation. Its instrument in Puntland is gone and its resupply route is exposed. In Puntland custody sit 161 of its aligned fighters, commanders included. The amnesty window gives the rank and file a way out. Every man who walks through it thins whatever force Mogadishu meant to rebuild. The prisoners give Garowe leverage and a stage: expect tribunals, presentations and testimony that keep the camp’s story running for weeks.
The risks have moved. A federal government that lost its foothold can recruit another, and the Bosaso front remains armed. Galmudug now hosts the remnants that fled south across a city both administrations claim to protect. Deni closed by demanding a change of course from a government that has answered every setback this summer with escalation. The Galkayo operation settled who holds one camp. The message attached to it is a bet that Mogadishu’s backers, watching a police unit’s donated gear surface in a rebel armoury, will settle the rest.
