Puntland

Building a state from below

Somalia’s central government collapsed in 1991, and leaders in the north-east wanted to restore security and basic government while staying part of Somalia.^[3] By 1998 clans elsewhere were setting up their own states: Somaliland was consolidating its hold in the north-west, the Digil and Mirifle were seeking a state in Bay and Bakool, and a Hawiye-led alliance was cementing its power in Mogadishu.^[2] The Majerten and their Harti cousins, the Warsangeli and Dhulbahante, feared being left behind, and saw that holding territory would strengthen their hand in any talks to rebuild a national government.^[2]

On 5 May 1998 a conference of Darood/Harti elders in Garowe resolved to declare a regional administration called Puntland, covering seven regions of north-eastern Somalia, including Sool and Sanaag.^[2] Puntland marks its founding on 1 August 1998.^[3] The name comes from the mythological “Land of Punt”.^[2] Its backers favoured the “building blocks” idea: rather than recreate a single central state, each of the four major Somali clan groups would build a “block” within a loose federal or confederal structure.^[2]

Abdullahi Yusuf, leader of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front, a north-eastern rebel movement, was chosen by the elders as president.^[2] When his term ended on 30 June 2001 he refused to step down. Elders appointed a caretaker president, and an old rival, Jama Ali Jama, won the elections that November; Yusuf refused to recognise the result and took power back by force. He left in 2004 after being elected president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government.^[2]

Inside Somalia, on its own terms

Puntland’s founders chose to stay in Somalia, unlike Somaliland.^[2][3] But its constitution, unveiled in June 2009, gives Puntland the status of an independent state until a federal constitution is ratified by Puntland and approved by referendum.^[2] It began operating as a regional state more than a decade before Somalia adopted its provisional federal constitution in 2012.^[3]

In January 2023 Puntland walked out of the National Consultative Council, the forum where federal and state leaders meet.^[6] On 30 March 2024 Somalia’s federal parliament approved constitutional changes that included direct presidential elections and let the president appoint the prime minister without parliament’s approval; critics said they concentrated power in the president’s hands.^[7][1] The next day Puntland’s cabinet withdrew its recognition of federal institutions and said it would exercise “the powers of an independent State” until a federal constitution was ratified by Puntland and approved by referendum.^[4] It did not declare independence and still calls itself part of Somalia.^[3]

In June 2025 Puntland’s president met Jubaland’s in Garowe, and the two rejected the 2024 amendments.^[5] In July 2026 Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said that “there is nothing between Puntland and the federal government”, as cooperation between their ministries had stopped.^[8]

“Pending the completion of the Federal Constitution, ratified by Puntland, and approved by a popular referendum, Puntland State shall have the status of an independent State.”^[2]

Sool, Sanaag and Las Anod

Somaliland counts Sool and Sanaag as its own territory.^[5] But the Dhulbahante and Warsangeli who live there are Harti clans, and in 1998 their elders on the whole backed the Puntland project, despite widespread misgivings in the two regions.^[2] Puntland’s founding plan included eastern Sool and eastern Sanaag, and control of the area has long been contested between Puntland, Somaliland and local administrations.^[3] In October 2007 Somaliland forces took Laascaanood (Las Anod), the capital of Sool.^[2] Crisis Group reported in 2009 that many Dhulbahante felt wronged by both Somaliland and Puntland.^[2]

In early 2023 a Dhulbahante conference in Laascaanood declared that Sool and Sanaag were part of the Federal Republic of Somalia and that Somaliland’s forces should leave; fighting followed.^[9] After fighting escalated on 25 August 2023, Somaliland’s forces retreated to Oog and the Dhulbahante militia took more territory.^[10] The administration that emerged in Las Anod, SSC-Khaatumo (Sool, Sanaag and Cayn), became the basis of a new state.^[3] A conference held under the federal interior ministry, despite strong opposition from influential clan leaders, declared the North-East State of Somalia on 30 July 2025.^[5] The same day Puntland’s assembly denounced the federal government’s “unconstitutional interference” in Sool and Sanaag, and on 2 August Somaliland’s cabinet said Sool, Sanaag and Togdheer were its territory.^[5] Somalia now counts the North-East State as its sixth federal member state; Puntland rejects it.^[3]

Port, pirates and militants

Bosaso, Puntland’s main port on the Gulf of Aden, is its commercial centre.^[3] The city grew fast in the early 1990s, when it had the only relatively safe port in Somalia and became a hub for livestock exports and consumer imports. Income from the port supported Puntland’s creation in 1998.^[11] In 2017 Puntland gave a port concession to P&O Ports, a subsidiary of Dubai’s DP World. Disputes delayed the upgrade, and P&O left in 2019 after its port manager was killed by gunmen. DP World came back in July 2022.^[11]

The first Somali pirate gangs formed in the late 1990s in poor fishing communities such as Eyl, on Puntland’s coast, and Hobyo and Harardheere further south. Their core members are thought to have been fishermen who lost their livelihoods to overfishing by foreign trawlers. In April 2009 Puntland’s new government began a crackdown on the gangs.^[2] More recently Puntland’s forces have fought Islamic State in Somalia: in the six months to March 2025, with international help, they began a major operation in the Cal Miskaat Mountains of Bari region.^[6]