they were expert snitchers for siyaad barre. They were the ones who snitched my grandfather and he was arrested for 7 years in xamar prison.
other than that its true they were elite forces tbhThey where formidable, definitly was the second most powerful institution after the military.
A well oiled machine, that even conducted covert and sometimes even overt foreign mission.
Lack of civil oversight over the forces & military intelligence units led to chronic corruption and rights abuses.
In all honesty we must rebuild them again but with enhanced oversight.
They were a domestic surveillance force with unlimited power, they could detain you and you wouldn't know if you lived to see another day. Their main source of domestic intelligence was their snitches all over the country and internationally it was the Soviet Union until 1977 when domestic affairs became main objective. They had a torture centre called Godka where they used electric shock, raping females and drowning. Today that centre is used by the NISA (the current intelligence agency) to torture people so watch out next time you are in Somalia.