In the same year the Somali government prohibited the sale and cultivation of the stimulant narcotic plant, qat (Catha edulis), which had become a flourishing cash crop in the north western regions. However progressive and well intentioned, this move was interpreted in the north as a further attack on Isaq enterprise and commercial activity. These individual sources of frustration were exacerbated at a more profound level by the large refugee presence in the north and the increasing trend toward direct military rule from Mogadishu. Tension was compounded by such misunderstandings as the arrest on charges of subversion, at the end of 1981, of over forty prominent local civil servants, doctors, teachers and businessmen who had joined forces not to overthrow the regime but simply to improve the quality of the local public services.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 599