Al-Shabaab Assaults Ceel Dheere, Galmudug; SNA Repels After Brief Overrun — Most Significant Galmudug Attack Since March

Al-Shabaab fighters attacked government positions in Ceel Dheere town, Galmudug State, briefly overrunning SNA army positions and entering the town before Somali National Army troops pushed the militants back toward Ali Yabal village. The government claimed 47 militants killed against 5 soldiers lost in the fighting — figures that remain unverified by independent monitors. The International Crisis Group's CrisisWatch database described it as the most significant attack in Galmudug since March 2026, underscoring that Al-Shabaab retained offensive capacity in central Somalia even as the group's occupation of Adan Yabal in neighboring Hiiraan continued uncontested.