General Jimale Jama Takar has brought his militia into the Puntland Defence Forces, ending a long and violent dispute with the Puntland administration. Elders and officers attended the ceremony. Jimale served as a junior officer in the 21st battalion of the former Somali National Army before joining the Somali Salvation Democratic Front during the civil war. When Puntland was founded in 1998, he folded his men into the Puntland Darawish, and former President Abdirahman Farole later made him a general. His brigade, numbering between 600 and 700 men and armed with heavy machine guns and artillery, fought al-Shabaab in the Galgala mountains. It also defended the Nugal coast during incursions at Garmaal and Suuj in 2016. The force later adopted the name Danab and answered only to Jimale. His fighters joined the Dhulbahante side in the Las Anod war in February 2023, and two months later he deployed them to Garowe in support of politicians opposing President Said Abdullahi Deni’s push for direct elections. At least ten people were killed in the ensuing confrontation in Garowe. Unpaid salaries and clan grievances kept the brigade outside the Puntland security structure for another three years. The report says Mogadishu had spent two years building armed clients inside Puntland, recruiting fighters from Galkayo and coastal districts, arming a force calling itself PSF, and appointing a commander to a 54th Division that Puntland did not recognise. Jimale’s decision reinforces Puntland’s cabinet decree requiring a single command for armed forces. In the same week, a former NISA commander for Gedo announced he had joined Jubaland, while Puntland absorbed fighters in Galkayo, Bosaso and Carmo. His fighters join Puntland while it holds the Galkayo line, garrisons Bosaso and Carmo, and continues pressure on Islamic State remnants in the Calmiskaad range. For Puntland, bringing a former dissident brigade under one command reduces the burden of watching an armed force that had long operated independently.