ROXBURY—The District 7 City Council race was already a circus — eleven candidates clawing for the seat left vacant by disgraced ex-Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson. Now it’s been hijacked by a bitter Somali feud that’s turning polling sites, mosques, and even Dunkin’ Donuts into political battlegrounds.

According to police reports first obtained by the Boston Globe, candidate Said Ahmed was booted from an early voting site in Roxbury after allegedly harassing Somali voters who weren’t supporting him. Witnesses said he played translator, pressured voters, and hounded Healey administration official Deeqo Jibril — until election officials finally threw him out.

But Ahmed didn’t stop there. The very next day, Jibril filed another police report claiming Ahmed was prowling around a Dunkin’ and outside the Islamic Society of Boston mosque, warning people to stay away from her and claiming she secretly worked for the FBI. (She once got an FBI community award in 2019, but has never worked for the agency.)

Jibril, who ran for council in 2021, says this smear campaign has been going on for years — from Facebook rants he later deleted, to rumors about her sexuality, to whispers in the Somali community that she’s “not a good Muslim.”

“He’s going too far,” Jibril told the Globe. “I want my peace of mind. I don’t have time for harassment.”

Ahmed, a Roxbury track coach who flamed out in a State House race last year, brushed it all off when reporters pressed him. “That is her right [to file a police report], and she can exercise that,” he said. “It’s a he-said, she-said.”

But Ahmed is facing heat from inside the race too. Rival Said Abdikarim said he saw Boston election officials repeatedly ordering Ahmed’s campaign to step back from voters. His campaign manager went further — accusing Ahmed’s relatives of serving as translators, standing too close to the polls, and even texting voters photos of filled-in ballots to show them how to vote.

“If you were there, you would have thought we are not in the US, the way this gentleman and these people were acting,” Abdikarim fumed to the Globe. “You cannot intimidate and bully your way to convince someone to vote for you. That is not how democracy works.”

Now, with Roxbury’s Somali community at the center of the storm, the District 7 race has gone from crowded to combustible — a mix of mosque drama, FBI rumors, and a stinging charge that one rival isn’t just a bad candidate, but “not a good Muslim.”

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article included the wrong photo of a person named Said. The image has been removed.