A Hargeisa coup attempt failed when troops learned General Hersi disavowed it

Evidence

The attempted coup in Hargeisa was a shock not only to the government and the people of the country but even to some of the leading Northern politicians, as Egal’s statement indicates. Leaders of the coup informed the rank and file that the president had declared a state of emergency and had handed power to General Hersi. Then they immediately arrested the commanding military officers, who were from the South, and their police counterparts. Meanwhile, they made forays toward Burao and Borama. The explicit contradiction between the claim that General Hersi was appointed as head caretaker of the government and the arrest of the regional military officers was not lost on the regional police commissioner, Jama Mohamed Qalib, who was among those the coup leaders convened. For a brief duration coup participants controlled parts of the city, but once General Hersi announced that the mutineers’ claims were false and did not have his blessing, the rank and file realized the deceit and acted against the culprits, wounding and capturing a coup leader and killing another. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 630

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader Somali political-military dynamics chapter context — southern officers vs northern rank-and-file resentment pattern.