On many issues, decisions were also taken by the influential circle formed around the President’s formidable first wife and her son General Maslah. This entrenchment and expansion of Marehan power was particularly striking in the army, where by the middle of 1987 it was estimated that as much as half the senior officer corps belonged to the President’s clan or related clans, the proportion being even higher in the artillery and tank brigades based in the capital in the new southern command unit headed by Siyad’s son General Maslah.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 604