The US State Department opposes the UK Foreign Office on the attempted coup in Hargeisa. The Americans accuse the dissident leader of being close to radical Islamists.

Following the attempted constitutional coup on 26 October by the Minister to the Presidency Hersi Ali Haji Hassan (ION 1414), two diplomats at the British embassy in Addis Ababa, Cat Evans and Lizzie Lovett went to meet the Somaliland authorities on 11 November. According to our sources, they asked for the reinstatement of the 13 ministers and deputy ministers who had supported Hersi Ali Haji by resigning. The latter are members or close to the London-based Islamist group ed-Dam al Jadid (new blood), an offshoot of the al-Ittihad al-Islamimovement. This faction, which has good relations with the Conservative Party of UK Prime Minister David Cameron, already helped PresidentHassan Sheikh Mahamoud take power in Somalia. 

To counter UK’s support to the troublemakers, the US dispatched its Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to Djibouti on 13 November. The Americans are concerned because they suspect Hersi Ali Haji’s brother, also a member of ed-Dam al Jadid, of being linked to the Al-Shabaab radical Islamists. The latter works for the Somalian funds transfer company Dahabshiil, which is already in the US crosshairs. It suspects it of funding Al-Shabaab and the perpetrators of Somaliland’s attempted coup to overthrow President Ahmed Mohamed Mahamoud, aka Silanyo. Hersi Ali Haji Hassan is also a cousin of Dhabshiil’s founder, Mohamed Said Duale. In mid-November, the latter met with the presidential for Somaliland’s ruling party Kulmiye, Musa Bihi Abdi, to assure him of his commitment to help maintain political stability in Somaliland.