I did some digging about this matter to see if something registered in the available online archives -- what I found was validating, indeed. There seemed to have existed a Bah-Xarla group in the Awdal region. To give context to what "bah" means in the Somali clan context:
"Bah" in Somali is a common shared grouping supplementing uterine links, i.e., shared mother on top of shared father. In agnatic clan systems, weaker, larger family units can form closer collateral ties because their agnatic counterparts might be politically larger and more powerful. What the weaker do to strengthen their standing is they grow a supplementary unity based on a shared mother, not shared with the other stronger same-father descended groups, given these family units formed out of polygamous marriages. I imagine this can take form for many reasons, not only under the pressure of outside but to increase land and resources, political influence, even a way to fix internal disputes between the ones that share a mother, etc.
Here is a model for that:
B, C, and D share the same mother, so their descendants form a "bah" to grow stronger, for example, avoiding getting overshadowed by a stronger sibling sub-clan (A) that shares the same father lineage (X) yet has another mother. It is finding a genetic reason to establish a merger to grow stronger.
Going back to the Xarla thing with this in mind, bah-Xarla exists among Dir, once again appearing more than one way associated with the Dir:
That screenshot was taken from a
General Survey Somaliland Protectorate 1944-1950, taken in Zeila and Borama district
. One can see that Adawi Abdallah, Ali Abdallah, and Gedi Abdallah, all Ciise agnatic brothers, shared a uterine tie, i.e., the same mother who was Xarla. Their other brothers had Guragura and Forlaba mothers, respectively, so they formed other uterine ties. Now, this further builds the case that Xarla was Somali and those Abdallah Khaireh agnatic brothers had a mother highly likely under Dir, given what we know that they are under Ciise in Djibouti, while also here showing they even strengthened further with other Ciise clans by way of marriage. This bolsters the claim that Xarla lived among Dir deep in Somali places. Any notions of saying they are of Habash or non-Somali origin is long eliminated at this point -- entirely intellectually and historically irrelevant -- now we are only practically talking about an internal Somali matter.
I have more.
Another source claimed Xarla resided since old times in the land of Ciise:
The Japan Times 1972-01-10: Iss 26234 mentioning Harla and Yaroun being massacred by Ethiopians and designating them under Ciise:
Everything up to now is consistent with what my grandmother told me and what we know about them, proven consistently here, and this Japanese source from the early 70s again shows such proof. But let me go further.
Yaroun is another sub-clan of Ciise:
It all ties together consistently.
These are not some mythical people from a distant past lost in time. My family knew them, born and bred Somalis in Djibouti as Dir today. While talking with my mother about Djibouti, she described her childhood with information about the various groups in that country. Something that led me to this deeper digging. What started the whole conversation was very interesting and peculiar, but I think this is quite long.