Much of the credit for this successful manœuvre, which involved maintaining the support of both the Darod and Hawiye wings of the League, appears to lie with Adan 'Abdulle, later to become Somalia's first President. Faced with this defeat, Haji Muhammad Husseyn, who enjoyed a formidable reputation as an orator and who had in the past played an important part in the development of Somali nationalism, struck out on his own to form a new militant party called the Greater Somali League. To this new organization, known locally as 'Great', Haji Muhammad sought to attract support from the dissident flanks of the League and to exploit what remained of the Darod-Hawiye breach, after Adan 'Abdulle's intervention.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 411