However, the serious disturbances which marked the political scene in Hargeisa in 1947, though connected with a proposed merger of the S.N.L. and S.Y.L., were apparently not motivated by traditional Isaq-Darod antagonism. They were produced, in fact, it seems, by a split within the Isaq themselves, one party favouring the new alliance, while the other, being more conservative, supported the Isaqiya association. One of the two factions concerned consisted mainly of Habar Yunis clansmen who had recently lost their traditional position as the main source of employees in government service. The loss of this lucrative and influential monopoly, which dated from the earliest days of British rule, had been hastened by the new administrative policy of seeking to relate the employment of Somali personnel to the relative strengths of the various clans.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 366