In their first press statement since sworn in, the new National Election Commission has announced that the constitutionally mandated presidential elections scheduled for November 13th will be delayed. The Commission stated that elections will be held in nine months starting on October 1st, and cited time, technical and financial constraints as the reason for the delaying.
Somaliland National Electrol Commission scheduled to conduct the Presidential Election in 9 months, starting 1st October 2022, as the current scheduled date of 13 Nov, 2022 is not viable due to time, technical and financial constrains.
— Somaliland National Electoral Commission (SLNEC) (@SLNECHQ) September 24, 2022
The selections, confirmation by parliament, and swearing-in of the new National Election Commissioners have dragged on for months and were completed on September 7th, 2022. The previous Election Commission, led by Mr. Abdirashid Riyoraac, dissolved following a dispute among the commissioners and an accusation of corruption that prompted an investigation by the Auditor General’s Office.
The opposition has accused President Bihi of orchestrating the disbandment of the election commission to ensure elections are not held on time. President Bihi has countered the opposition’s accusation that the delay was caused by opposition members of parliament who failed to confirm replacement commissioners.
The opposition parties of Waddani and UCID have welcomed the statement from the Election Commission, although they have in the past opposed presidential term extension and staged protests where at least six civilians were killed and scores injured. It is unclear if the argument of which election, presidential or national political parties, comes first is settled between the President and the leaders of the opposition parties.
President Bihi has argued that the new parties currently amid registration are the only ones eligible to take part in Presidential Elections, whereas the opposition parties have argued that the President is trying to eliminate the current opposition parties and that the presidential elections come first.
Earlier this week, Members of Parliament approved a motion to amend the election laws Number 91/2022 and Number 14. The amendment ratified the combination of presidential and political party elections where the presidential elections will be participated by Waddani, UCID, and the ruling party of Kulmiye and the other parallel election will decide which of the new or existing parties will qualify as a national political party. Somaliland law stipulates that only three political parties can exist for a term of ten years. It is unclear if the Senate and President will approve the proposed amendment to codify it into law.
The National Election Commission’s statement that it cannot hold the presidential elections on November 13th, 2022 paves the way for the Somaliland Senate, which has the constitutional power to extend the presidential term to start deliberation and approve term extension for President Muse Bihi Abdi. In the past, the Senate has ignored the extension period recommended by the Election Commission and has given past Presidents two-year term extensions. This will be the sixth time presidential elections are delayed in Somaliland.
Despite the normalization of election delays and pitched political disputes in election season, Somaliland has earned high praises for its ability to hold one-person, one-vote elections and peaceful transfers of power. It is unclear if the latest delays in presidential elections and continued political jostling will effect in its quest for international recognition.
On December 28, 2018, Turkey named its former Ambassador to Somalia Dr. Olgan Bekar as a Special Envoy for Somalia and Somaliland Talks. Thought the former Ambassador to Somalia has had limited contact with the Government of Somaliland especially President Bihi’s current administration, he known to be very comfortable in navigating the political scene in Mogadishu.
In this report, we are examining Turkey’s history in Somaliland and Somalia and their role as mediators in the past talks.
Dr. Olgan Bekar, Turkey’s Special Envoy for Somaliland – Somalia with President Muse Bihi Abdi
Turkey is not the only country interested to have Somaliland and Somalia get back to the negotiating table and reach some sort of a settlement.
The topic has come up during President Muse Bihi Abdi’s meeting with the Ethiopian Prime Minister in Addis Ababa this week though it is unclear the extent to which they discussed the subject or if any concrete steps to get the two sides talking were agreed upon.
Somaliland and Ethiopian leaders meeting in Addis Ababa
It is important to understand that various stake holders have different expected outcomes of such talks and Somaliland might be the odd man out as it seeks to gain an amicable completion of its divorce from Somalia.
According to statement from Somaliland Presidency following President Bihi’s meeting with the new envoy Dr. Bekar on February 9, The President informed Dr. Bekar and the Turkish delegation that since past talks has not yielded any results all future dialogue between Somaliland and Somalia must include the international community.
Sources from Somaliland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation present in the meeting with the President and the Turkish delegation stated that President Bihi also informed the Turkish envoy that bringing a level of balance in how Turkey invests in Somalia and Somaliland is a good way to show Somaliland that Turkey is impartial and a friend to Somaliland.
To understand if Turkey can be an impartial and an honest broker on Somaliland and Somalia talks and its general standing in the world community, we have spoken to Mr. Michael Rubin who is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he researches Arab politics, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Iran, Iraq, the Kurds, terrorism, and Turkey.
President Bihi with Michael Rubin and Presidential Economic Advisor Dr. Osman Sh Ahmed
Somaliland Chronicle: Do you think it is wise for Somaliland to accept Turkey as a mediator in Somalia talks given the Turkish Gov support and massive investment in Somalia?
Mr. Rubin: Turkey does not have a track-record as an honest broker, and President Erdoğan has an ideological agenda which does not value Somaliland’s democracy and security. It is crucial to broaden any such mediation beyond a single country.
Somaliland Chronicle: In your latest article you wrote about Turkish support for terrorism and specifically for Al-Shabaab. What is Turkey’s reasoning for supporting Al-Shabaab?
Mr. Rubin: There is no single international definition of terrorism, and so Turkey often says it is combating terrorism, but denies groups like Al-Shabaab in Somalia or Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali are terrorists. Erdoğan’s goal is a more Islamist order. His fault, though, is confusing some Islamist movements with Islam itself.
Somaliland Chronicle: President Bihi recently met with a Turkish Envoy in charge of the Somaliland/Somalia talks, do you see any value in having Turkey to mediate or be part of those talks?
Mr. Rubin: Certainly, there is value in consultation with Turkey, as Turkey retains a diplomatic presence in both Somalia and Somaliland. President Bihi is correct, however, to seek a broader mediation rather than reliance on a single country.
As President Bihi informed the Turkish delegation, there is an imbalance in how Turkey provides and and invests in Somaliland and Somalia. Let’s break down what Turkey so far done in is to Somalia:
Turkey in Somalia
Security Influence
Turkey is Somalia’s true patron state, one of its most expensive efforts is to rebuild the Somali National Army from scratch and in its own image.
The largest military force in Somalia is of course AMISOM but Turkey’s military presence dwarfs that of any individual country in the AMISOM troops stationed in Somalia. In fact, Turkey’s largest military installation outside of Turkey is in Mogadishu.
Dr. Olgan Bekar with Somalia’s Prime Minister Hassan Khaire.
The 1.5 square mile Turkish military training installation is capable of churning out 1,500 fully trained and equipped soldiers at a time. This is according to Turkish and Somali sources familiar with the facility.
Below is a tweet from Turkish Embassy in Somalia showing images of Somali military personnel being trained in Turkey.
While Turkey rates as the 18th largest military in expenditure globally, it has a fledgling arms industry and rebuilding the Somali National Army represents a lucrative opportunity to supply it with the equipment it is manufacturing.
According to a recent VOA report, in what seems to be a clear violation of the United Nations Security Council’s weapons embargo on Somalia, Turkey has been supplying armament to units of the Somali National Army it has been training.
Public records show that Albayrak Group does not have a track record in managing world class ports, besides Mogadishu Port, it also manages and the Trabzon Port in the Black Sea on Turkey’s Northern border with Georgia.
Compared to Albayrak Group and the 2 ports it manages, DP World manages about 77 marine and inland terminals including Somaliland’s Berbera Port.
Other Turkish conglomerates such Enez-İnşaat and Kozuva Group are also active in Mogadishu.
Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle Airport has been managed by a Kozuva subsidiery, Favori Airports LLC,since September 2013.
Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle Airport
Here is the Somali Prime Minister Mr. Hassan Khaire thanking Qatar for funding road networks between Mogadishu, Afgoye and Jawhar and also thanking the Turkish Government, presumably Enez-İnşaat who according to him have “won” the contract to build said roads.
Turkey bills itself as Somalia’s rescuer and multiple visits by Erdoğan to Somalia especially in what is considered a relatively difficult time for the Somali people were designed to convey that exact message but economically, Turkey stands to gain more from Somalia and Mogadishu than it lets on.
Erdoğan and his wife in Mogadishu.
According to some estimates, the most profitable route in Turkish Airlines is the Mogadishu – Ankara route. And aside from the large visible projects, there are tens of thousands of Turkish citizens living and working in Mogadishu.
Getting involved in one of the least stable country in the world, Turkey is employing the concept of first mover advantage. This means less competition from the Chinese and other actors vying for influence in Africa.
Turkey heavy bet on Somalia and specifically Mogadishu is yielding economic results for Turkey beyond what Erdoğan has expected. In fact, Turkey’s largest embassy in the world is not where you would expect, like Washington DC, Brussels or Berlin, it is in Mogadishu, Somalia.
One of the most attractive features of Turkey’s patronage of Somalia is it is non-interference posture in Somalia’s domestic politics. It is worth nothing that Somalia ranked lowest in global corruption index and any country that is willing to look the other way is a welcome reprieve from the usual admonishment for President Farmajo’s weak administration.
Although this particular instance has been widely publicized by TIKA, Somaliland Chronicle has been unable to locate anything of note done in Somaliland either by Turkish Government or it is aid agency TIKA.
There are, however, multiple unfulfilled pledges by the Turkish Government in the past to help build roads in Somaliland according to multiple former and current Somaliland Government officials. None of these pledges have materialized.
One thing of note is that Turkey has been particularly adept in dangling a carrot of aid and development or simply inviting them to Istanbul on a whirlwind of meetings and tours to get them to buy into the importance of Somaliland and Somalia talks.
No other country has put so much effort to try to mediate Somaliland and Somalia as much as Turkey. In fact, this might be the only thing Turkey has done in Somaliland. There were many rounds of talks that hosted by the Turks in the past and personally supervised by President Erdoğan himself, unfortunately, these talks have been a disaster for Somaliland.
Turkey’s obsession with Somaliland is rooted in the simple fact that the rift between Gulf states of UAE and Saudi Arabia on one side and Qatar, Turkey and Iran on one side has been playing out in Somaliland and Somalia.
President of Somaliland HE Muse Bihi Abdi and DP World CEO Mr. Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem
The United Arab Emirates base in Berbera and DP World managing the Port gives the UAE and its ally Saudi Arabia an advantage and a foothold in the strategic 850 kilometers of Red Sea coastline with a direct access to Bab Al-mandab.
Turkey and Qatar has been spending heavily in trying to unseat the Emirates from both the military base and the Berbera Port by mobilizing the Somali government to oppose these deals. Additionally, Turkey has been advancing particular talking points that have been seeping into public discourse in Somaliland such as the importance of Somaliland – Somalia talks, the ramifications of hosting a foreign army in Somaliland via the UAE base and the deterioration of service at the Berbera Port. These same exact talking points are parroted by many civil organizations and opposition parties in Somaliland.
Somaliland has repeatedly signaled it’s willingness to talk to Somalia but its demand for the international community including the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union to get involved and President Bihi’s impossible task for the Turks to raise their level of support for Somaliland to something comparable to Somalia’s almost guarantees that Turkey’s role will be a lot smaller in future dialogue between the two countries.
A Comprehensive Academic Analysis with Strengthened Legal Argumentation and Annexes
Author:Edna Adan Ismail Former Foreign Minister of Somaliland (2003–2006) Location: Hargeisa, Republic of Somaliland Date: 22 April 2026
Introduction
The territorial status of Somaliland is rooted in a uniquely clear and well-documented colonial boundary regime established by Britain during the British Somaliland Protectorate (1884–1960). Unlike many African territories whose borders emerged from vague or inconsistently applied colonial demarcations, the boundaries of Somaliland were defined through a series of formal Anglo–Ethiopian, Anglo–French, and Anglo–Italian treaties that specified the Protectorate’s limits with remarkable precision.
These agreements placed Somaliland between Latitude 8° North and 11°30’ North, and between Longitude 42°45’ East and 49° East, creating a geodetically identifiable territorial space that Britain administered as a distinct political unit for seventy-six years.
These coordinates are not modern approximations; they reflect the exact geographic space recognized by Britain and other colonial powers throughout the Protectorate period. The boundaries were reinforced through diplomatic correspondence, official maps, and physical demarcation work—most notably the Anglo–Ethiopian boundary surveys of the early 20th century, which installed markers along the western and southern frontier.
As a result, when Somaliland attained independence on 26 June 1960—five days before the former Italian Somalia attained independence—Somaliland entered the international system with clearly defined and internationally acknowledged borders corresponding directly to the treaty-based limits established by Britain.
This historical clarity is central to understanding Somaliland’s contemporary territorial claim. The African Union’s foundational commitment to the principle of uti possidetis juris—expressed in the 1964 Cairo Resolution, which states that “all Member States pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence”—reinforces the legal continuity of Somaliland’s inherited boundaries.
It is therefore important for the African Union, the United Nations, and all member states to recognize that the principle of protecting the territorial integrity of former Italian Somalia cannot be interpreted as extending to Somaliland. Doing so would disregard the AU’s foundational legal doctrine and the historical record of decolonization in the Horn of Africa.
1. Colonial Foundations: Two Separate Territories Under Two Separate Colonial Powers
1.1 British Somaliland Protectorate (1884–1960)
Britain established the Somaliland Protectorate through treaties with Somali clan leaders beginning in 1884. These treaties created a defined territorial unit whose borders were later formalized through agreements with France, Italy, and Ethiopia.
The Protectorate was administered as a distinct political entity with its own capital, institutions, and international identity.
1.2 Italian Somalia (1889–1960)
Italian Somalia was a completely separate colonial territory, governed under Italian administration with different legal systems, administrative structures, and territorial boundaries.
Its borders were defined by Italy’s agreements with Ethiopia and Britain, and its colonial experience differed profoundly from that of British Somaliland. These borders were established through the same legal and diplomatic processes that defined other colonial territories in the region, including the former French Territory of the Afars and the Issas (now Djibouti).
1.3 No Shared Colonial Administration
At no point did Britain or Italy administer the two territories jointly. They were separate colonies, with separate borders, separate treaties, and separate paths to independence.
2. Independence in 1960: Two Sovereign States, Not One
2.1 The State of Somaliland (26 June 1960)
Through a Royal Proclamation issued by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the State of Somaliland became an independent and sovereign nation on 26 June 1960.
It was recognized by more than 30 countries, including permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Somaliland entered the international system with the same borders that Britain had administered for seventy-six years, corresponding directly to the treaty-defined limits established through Anglo–Ethiopian, Anglo–French, and Anglo–Italian agreements.
2.2 The State of Italian Somalia (1 July 1960)
Five days later, the former Italian Somalia became independent as a sovereign state. It was a separate state with its own borders and international recognition.
It is also important to note that Somaliland and Italian Somalia were inhabited by different clans, spoke different dialects, and maintained distinct cultural, legal, and customary traditions. The two territories did not share a unified social, linguistic, or customary identity prior to the attempted union.
2.3 The Attempted Union Between Two Sovereign States
When Somaliland became independent on 26 June 1960, it did so as a fully sovereign state recognized by more than 30 nations. Five days later, on 1 July 1960, the former Italian Somalia attained its own independence.
The two newly independent states then attempted to form a voluntary political union.
However, the legal instruments underpinning this union were never properly harmonized or jointly ratified. Somaliland’s legislature approved a different Act of Union than the one adopted in Mogadishu, creating a constitutional inconsistency that was never resolved.
2.4 The Union Did Not Erase Borders — It Was a Political Partnership
The union did not dissolve or merge the original colonial borders of the two states. Instead, it created a political partnership between two previously sovereign states.
Just like other sovereign states that entered voluntary unions—such as Senegal and Gambia in the Senegambia Confederation, Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic, and Jordan and Iraq in the Arab Federation—Somaliland and Somalia each retained their original borders throughout the duration of their political union.
2.5 Dissolution of the Union and Reversion to Original Borders
When the Somali Democratic Republic collapsed in 1991 following civil war, state disintegration, and the fall of the military regime, the political union between Somaliland and Somalia ceased to exist.
In accordance with international practice and the principle of continuity of statehood, Somaliland reverted to the borders it held when it had gained independence from Britain on 26 June 1960.
Conclusion
The legal and colonial foundations of Somaliland’s territorial status are distinct, well-documented, and grounded in internationally recognized treaties and principles.
Somaliland’s borders were clearly demarcated and administered separately from Italian Somalia throughout the colonial period and at the moment of independence. The attempted union between Somaliland and Somalia was a political arrangement that did not erase the original borders or the sovereignty of the two states.
Following the collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic, Somaliland’s reassertion of its independence and territorial boundaries is consistent with international legal principles, including uti possidetis juris and the continuity of statehood.
Recognition of Somaliland’s distinct legal status and borders is essential for regional stability, respect for historical treaties, and adherence to African Union commitments.
Official Colonial Maps of British Somaliland (1920s–1950s)
Annex 3: Legal Instruments and Declarations
Royal Proclamation of Somaliland Independence (26 June 1960)
Acts of Union from Somaliland and Somalia Legislatures (1960)
African Union Cairo Resolution on Borders (1964)
About the Author
Edna Adan Ismail is a pioneering nurse-midwife, humanitarian, and former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Somaliland. Widely regarded as one of the Horn of Africa’s most influential advocates for maternal health and women’s rights, she founded the Edna Adan Hospital and later established Edna Adan University to train future generations of healthcare professionals.
A lifelong campaigner against female genital mutilation and preventable maternal mortality, she became Somaliland’s first qualified nurse-midwife and its first female Foreign Minister (2003–2006). Her humanitarian work has earned global recognition, including the prestigious Templeton Prize, honorary fellowships from leading medical institutions, and multiple honorary doctorates.
She is the author of the memoir A Woman of Firsts, which chronicles her life in public service, healthcare reform, and the building of one of East Africa’s leading maternity hospitals. Her work continues to shape conversations on women’s dignity, healthcare access, and social reform across Africa and beyond.
Formally, the appointment of Michael Lotem as Israel’s first ambassador to the Republic of Somaliland is an administrative act, the credentialing of a diplomat to a post. In the context of the Horn of Africa’s convulsive geopolitics, it is rather more than that. It represents the transition from recognition to implementation: the first operational diplomatic relationship Somaliland has ever possessed with a UN member state, and a signal that Jerusalem intends to treat Somaliland not as a gesture of solidarity but as a functioning node in its Red Sea strategic architecture.
The reaction from Mogadishu has been swift, loud, and in at least one instance alarming enough to draw the attention of analysts who monitor the region’s most dangerous fault lines. What started as a formal diplomatic protest has escalated, within days, into rhetoric that raises a question few expected to be asking: is Somalia, under pressure and out of options, edging toward alignment with the Houthis?
Ambassador Lotem: Operational Depth for a Strategic Posting
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, chairing the Appointments Committee for Representatives Abroad, approved Lotem’s appointment on April 15, 2026. The posting will initially be non-resident. Lotem will be based in Jerusalem rather than in Somaliland, managing the bilateral relationship through visits and direct engagement. Israel has framed this as a transitional arrangement; Sa’ar committed to a resident embassy during his January visit to Somaliland, and the non-resident designation reflects the logistics of standing up a physical mission rather than any ambiguity about the relationship’s depth.
What Lotem brings to the posting matters. He is not a political appointee. He concluded a three-year tour as Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Seychelles in August 2025, and has since served as Israel’s non-resident economic ambassador to the African continent, a roving brief that has kept him actively engaged across the region’s institutional and commercial networks. Before East Africa, he served as ambassador to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, postings in contested geopolitical environments where Israeli interests operated alongside Russian, Iranian, and Turkish pressure. His career has been built in precisely the kind of space where diplomatic form and strategic substance must constantly be reconciled, and where the absence of that reconciliation is exposed.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 was the politically consequential rupture; Lotem’s appointment converts that rupture into a working relationship. Jerusalem is not merely acknowledging Somaliland’s existence. It is building the institutional infrastructure to give that acknowledgment operational meaning: in trade, security cooperation, water technology, and, depending on how bilateral discussions develop, potentially in the kind of strategic military positioning that Somaliland’s Gulf of Aden coastline uniquely enables.
Somaliland’s Ambassador
Somaliland moved earlier on its side of the exchange. On February 25, 2026, President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi Irro appointed Dr. Mohamed Omar Hagi Mohamoud as Somaliland’s first Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Israel, a resident appointment with a functioning embassy in Jerusalem. Dr. Hagi holds a doctorate in Politics and International Relations from Manchester Metropolitan University, served as the presidential adviser central to brokering the recognition, and previously served as Somaliland’s inaugural Representative to Taiwan from 2020 to 2025. His appointment to Somaliland’s highest-profile bilateral posting reflects the personal investment he brings to a relationship he helped create.
For Somaliland, the exchange of ambassadors is a milestone thirty-five years in the making. The challenge now is to build on it with the same strategic clarity and urgency that Israel is bringing to its side of the partnership, converting a historic recognition into a framework of mutual obligation with real operational content.
Mogadishu Condemns; Somaliland Rejects the Premise
Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued its response on April 15, 2026, describing Israel’s appointment as a “direct breach of Somalia’s sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity” in violation of the UN Charter and the African Union’s founding principles. The statement characterized Somaliland as “an integral part of the Federal Republic of Somalia” and demanded that Israel reverse course.
Somaliland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to engage the framing on Mogadishu’s terms. Its formal rebuttal dismissed what it called the “misleading claims” of the Somalian Government. The deliberate use of that formulation, rather than the Federal Republic’s preferred nomenclature, was itself a sovereign signal. Somaliland’s position is unambiguous: its independence dates to June 26, 1960, predates the union, and was recognized by the international community in its own right. That sovereignty, the statement held, “neither originated from, nor is contingent upon, any authority in Mogadishu.” The Somalian Government has “no legal standing to interfere in, comment on, or constrain Somaliland’s bilateral relations with any state.”
Somalia exercises no administrative, judicial, or security authority in Somaliland. It collects no taxes, operates no courts, and deploys no forces within its borders. Its claim to sovereignty is therefore not a functioning jurisdiction but a legal assertion unaccompanied by a single instrument of governance, advanced by a government that sustains itself only through the continued presence of African Union forces.
Somalia’s Paper Sovereignty and the E-Visa Gambit
The gap between Somalia’s claims and its capabilities is not only rhetorical. It is operational, and visible in the mechanics of travel itself. When Mogadishu launched its mandatory e-visa system in September 2025, requiring all international travellers to obtain Somali federal authorisation before boarding flights to any territory it claims including Somaliland, several airlines conditioned by booking systems that still route Egal International Airport under Somali airspace began demanding the document as a boarding condition. Somaliland’s Immigration and Border Control Department rejected the scheme outright: no visa or travel document issued by the Federal Government of Somalia would be recognised at any Somaliland point of entry.
The standoff produced a structural contradiction that persists to this day. Visitors to Somaliland must procure a Somali e-visa to satisfy the airline at the departure gate, then obtain a Somaliland visa-on-arrival from the republic that actually controls the airport. Mogadishu achieved the imposition of bureaucratic friction on travellers to a country it cannot govern, through an immigration authority it cannot instruct, enforced at a border it cannot patrol.
What the airlines are facilitating deserves plain language. Every passenger bound for Somaliland compelled to pay $64 to Somalia’s federal government is paying a toll to a jurisdiction with no authority over their destination. For the Somaliland diaspora, who constitute a substantial share of traffic through Egal International Airport, this is not a procedural inconvenience. It is systematic financial extraction in the name of a union they rejected in 1991. The Somaliland Chronicle has documented that Somalia’s e-visa system is not merely extractive but catastrophically negligent: a total data breach in late 2025 exposed the passport details, photographs, and banking information of over 35,000 travellers, including thousands of American citizens, in a system so poorly secured that researchers described the vulnerability as requiring no technical sophistication to exploit. The US Embassy in Somalia confirmed the breach and advised all applicants to assume their data was compromised. Airlines enforcing this system on passengers bound for Somaliland are not following international aviation protocol. They are taking operational instructions from Mogadishu and billing Somaliland-bound travellers accordingly.
This leaves Somaliland with leverage it has not yet exercised. Airlines that condition boarding on compliance with a foreign government’s visa regime, one that Somaliland has explicitly and lawfully rejected, are operating against the terms of the republic that hosts them. The current arrangement, in which Somaliland absorbs the indignity while airlines collect the fees, is a policy choice. Not an inevitability.
The OIC’s Predictable Echo
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation added its formal condemnation from Jeddah on April 16, 2026, expressing “strong condemnation” of Israel’s appointment, referring to Somaliland as a “so-called” region and reaffirming its “full solidarity” with Somalia. The statement called on all parties to abide by the UN Charter and international law.
The OIC’s position, while institutionally consistent, carries little practical weight. It possesses no mechanism to constrain Israeli or Somaliland behaviour, its framing tracks Mogadishu’s position almost verbatim, and its intervention adds political noise without shifting the underlying reality that produced the appointment.
The Bab el-Mandeb Threat: A Regime Running Out of Road
The most alarming development of the week had nothing to do with formal diplomacy. It came from the social media account of Abdullahi Warfa, Somalia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union, who posted on April 17, 2026 that any country “interfering in Somalia’s internal affairs and compromising its territorial integrity and sovereignty will face repercussions, including potential restrictions on access to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.”
Somalia’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ali Omar, speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, amplified the theme from the official register, warning that Israeli actions threatened to “create more difficulties in a region that is already fragmented” and cautioning against the risk of drawing non-state actors into the theatre.
Both statements represent a significant escalation, moving beyond legal objection or diplomatic protest into territory that experienced regional analysts are treating with genuine concern.
The Bab el-Mandeb connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and carries an estimated 10 to 15 percent of global seaborne trade. It is one of the world’s most consequential maritime chokepoints, and already a waterway under severe stress. The Houthis in Yemen have spent the better part of a year weaponising Red Sea access, targeting commercial shipping and drawing the United States and its allies into an active naval confrontation in the region. Against that backdrop, a Somali ambassador chose to invoke the same waterway as a coercive instrument. The parallel did not go unnoticed.
Rashid Abdi, a widely respected analyst of Horn of Africa affairs, identified three compounding failures in Warfa’s formulation. Under international maritime law, threatening to blockade a sea lane constituting international waters could itself be characterised as an act of war, a significant legal exposure for a government positioning itself as the aggrieved party under the UN Charter. At a moment when global markets are already reeling from Hormuz disruptions, threatening yet another chokepoint will generate alarm among the international partners Somalia depends on for budget support, security assistance, and diplomatic cover, not sympathy. And Somalia simply has no capacity to execute any such threat: no functional navy capable of projecting power to the strait, no expeditionary air force, no ballistic missile arsenal. Somalia’s actual physical presence at the Bab el-Mandeb is negligible.
What Abdi’s analysis leaves to be stated plainly is this: the convergence in language, logic, and strategic posture between Mogadishu and Sanaa is no longer incidental. The Houthis have declared any Israeli presence in Somaliland a legitimate military target. Somalia’s president has accused Israel of seeking a base to attack Yemen. Now a senior Somali diplomat is threatening the same waterway the Houthis have been blockading. A government that reaches for this particular playbook to protest the credentialing of an ambassador is not signalling resolve. It is signalling that every other instrument has failed.
For Washington, the picture is stark. The Trump administration is actively recalibrating its Horn of Africa posture, deepening engagement with Somaliland while scrutinising Somalia’s value as a partner. A Mogadishu positioning itself in rhetorical and strategic alignment with Iranian-backed militants threatening global shipping lanes is not an asset in that calculation. It is a liability. Somalia’s escalation has handed Washington’s Somaliland advocates the clearest argument yet for accelerating recognition: that the alternative is a Somalia whose response to diplomatic setbacks is to sound like the forces the United States Navy is actively engaged against in the Red Sea.
Israel and Somaliland have formalised the most significant bilateral relationship in Somaliland’s history. The appointment of a career diplomat of Lotem’s calibre signals that Jerusalem is treating this as a working strategic partnership, not a ceremonial gesture. The architecture of that partnership, a resident embassy, a trade framework, a security cooperation agreement with real operational content, remains to be built. How aggressively Somaliland presses for those deliverables will determine whether this milestone produces material sovereign gains or joins a long shelf of historic moments that failed to compound.
Somalia’s response has clarified the limits of its leverage. When formal instruments failed, condemnations, OIC resolutions, AU statements, Mogadishu escalated rhetorically into a domain it neither controls nor can influence. In doing so, it reframed the dispute: not as a question of sovereignty, but as a question of regional security risk. That reframing may prove more consequential than the diplomatic exchange that triggered it.
The war with Iran did not begin in the Gulf. It exposed the system. Hormuz is not the story. It is the opening. Pressure does not stop there. It moves south, into the Red Sea, through Bab al Mandeb, and onto the African shore deemed peripheral. That shore is where containment either holds or fails. That shore is where Somaliland sits.
For years, Somaliland has been described as an anomaly. It is not. It is a structural interruption. It interrupts two models of regional power that rarely align, yet operate together. Iran’s model depends on ambiguity. It works through pressure without ownership, proxies without attribution, and coastlines that cannot consistently see, enforce, or respond. It does not require formal control. It requires permissive space.
Turkey’s model depends on centralisation. It builds leverage by becoming indispensable to a recognised state, routing access, legitimacy, and security through a single political node. In practice, it functions as an enabling layer that allows systems built elsewhere to persist, scale, and operate without direct ownership.
Separating Tehran from Ankara is analytically convenient and operationally false. The system does not distinguish them. The system is dual anchored. One generates pressure. The other ensures it does not dissipate.
Somaliland provides neither ambiguity nor centralisation. It is too coherent to be used indirectly and too independent to be absorbed centrally. It administers territory, monitors its coastline, and sustains continuity unaided. That constrains an Iranian method built on blurred space. It narrows the room in which proxies operate. It shortens the distance between signal and response. It turns background into friction.
This system is not declarative. It runs on pipelines: financing, components, transit, and enabling infrastructure. These pipelines are not hidden. They are enabled.
It does something else. It breaks the assumption that the African side of the Gulf of Aden can be managed through one capital. Turkey’s investment in Mogadishu is not incidental. It is a system. Military infrastructure, training pipelines, maritime access, commercial access, political backing. All routed through a single centre. Somaliland does not confront that system. It voids its monopoly. It creates a second centre of gravity on the same coastline that does not require Ankara, does not depend on Mogadishu, and does not accept the premise that access must be mediated. The result is loss of exclusivity.
The objective is not control of the sea, but control of risk within it. Not closure of routes, but their degradation. Iran generates pressure. Turkey sustains it. The separation is fiction.
This is where the convergence appears. Not ideological. Structural. Iran needs ambiguity. Turkey needs centralisation and access. Somaliland denies both.
And it does so without recognition.
There is no ambiguity left in the system. Only in how it is described, and by whom.
That is not neutral. It is manufactured. The refusal to recognise Somaliland is framed as prudence. It is not prudence. It is a mechanism. It keeps the only stable authority on that shore constrained, with restricted access and integration. It preserves the ambiguity Iran exploits. It sustains the architecture that allows those methods to persist beyond their point of origin. It forces engagement through degraded channels.
Non recognition is not passive. It is an active redistribution of advantage.
This choice is not abstract. It is made daily by governments and institutions that claim to uphold order. Western capitals. European frameworks. Arab decision centres. African bodies. All claim continuity, stability, and rules. Yet on the one stretch of coastline where those qualities already exist without external engineering, they withhold recognition.
When actors that claim to defend order disappear precisely where functional authority exists, they are not preserving order. They are not outside the mechanism. They are inside it.
A system that rewards form over function is not misaligned. It is complicit.
The cost is measurable. Every disruption in the Red Sea that forces rerouting, every insurance premium recalculated for a risk that cannot be clearly mapped, every delay that cascades through supply chains embeds a structural surcharge. It is the price of operating beside a coastline treated as if it has no address. The system pays a premium for ambiguity and calls it caution.
Somaliland absorbs pressure without recognition. It stabilises without integration. It preserves continuity without the mechanisms required for scale. This is not restraint imposed on Somaliland. It is capability withheld from the system.
The claim that recognition would introduce instability has no standing. Instability is already present. It is being displaced, managed, and exploited in real time. The question is not whether recognition would change the system, but why so many prefer it distorted in favour of Tehran’s methods and Ankara’s role within it.
This is not a legal argument. It is an operational choice.
After the war, the system will not reset. It will be rebuilt around redundancy, verification, and trusted nodes. Maritime corridors will be judged not only by geography, but by the reliability of the shores that sustain them. Partnerships will be measured by stress performance.
Somaliland is already performing that function without the architecture required to scale.
Recognition would not create a new actor. It would remove an artificial constraint from an existing one. It would allow direct integration into security frameworks, binding coordination, expanded monitoring, and reduced dependence on intermediaries that introduce delay and distortion.
The alternative is not preservation. It is erosion.
Iran will continue to generate pressure. Turkey will continue to sustain it. Networks built on both will expand in opacity, where authority is blurred and access remains indirect. The system is already expanding. What holds in the Red Sea will not remain there.
The Houthis fire from Yemen. The system that enables them has multiple addresses.
Somaliland is not the risk. It is the exposure test.
Every doctrine built on resilient corridors that excludes Somaliland is not incomplete. It is self-indicting.
Every doctrine that speaks of resilient corridors, secure trade, and reliable partners is now measured against one question: what do you do with the one place that already behaves like one.
If the answer remains silence, it is not because the system failed to see. It is because it chose ambiguity over function, form over reality, and ritual over order.
And in a system defined by flow, that choice does not stay where it was made. It determines the next pressure point.
The next pressure point will not be a surprise. Only its location will be.
About the Author
Shay Gal is an Israeli strategic analyst on international security and foreign policy. He advises senior government and defence leadership worldwide on strategy, public diplomacy, and crisis decision-making.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, or viewpoints of Somaliland Chronicle, and its staff.
The Somaliland House of Elders (Guurti) decline stems from its transition from a grassroots peace building body to a stagnant legislative relic.
Originally hailed for their traditional legitimacy, peace building efforts and uniting the nation during the 1990s, the Guurti have lost their moral standing due to a lack of turnover; many seats are now inherited, detaching the house from the modern electorate.
Today, the Guurti functions primarily as a political safety valve. Because they hold the power to grant term extensions, an interest they have, since such extensions also prolong their own unending terms. They remain invisible during routine governance and mainly emerge to provide legal cover when elections are delayed.
By prioritising the status quo over democratic renewal, they have traded their role as wise mediators for that of institutional facilitators, making them relevant only when the political clock needs to be paused.
The decline of the Guurti, has become increasingly evident in the Somaliland political landscape, signaled most notably by their loss of influence over national mediation and peace building.
For decades, the people of Somaliland viewed the Guurti as the primary custodians of peace and the essential mediators within a clan-based society. However, the current government’s decision to appoint a separate Committee of Peace effectively stripping the Guurti of its core traditional mandate marks a significant shift in power. Perhaps more telling than the appointment itself is the Guurti’s silence; by failing to protest or challenge this new committee, they have tacitly admitted their own inability to fulfill the role that once defined their relevance.
Further compounding this loss of status is the perceived absence of the Guurti during times of national crisis. While the country faces significant conflicts in its eastern and western regions, fueled by external interference, the Guurti appears to be on a perpetual hiatus. This lack of urgency during a critical period suggests a detachment from the very stability they were established to protect.
This stagnation is not limited to the Guurti, as the legislative, executive, and judicial branches all show signs of decay that threaten the foundation of the state.
To preserve the progress made since regaining sovereignty nearly thirty-five years ago, comprehensive reform across all governing bodies is no longer optional but a necessity. The current institutional decline is actively eroding the country’s hard-won stability and blocking future growth.
While the Guurti have served with dignity and bore immense responsibility during the nation’s most critical turning points earning the enduring gratitude of the Somaliland people, the institution now stands at a crossroads. Without a fundamental restructuring of these entities, the resulting systemic stagnation threatens to erode the nation’s integrity and reverse the hard-won democratic progress achieved over the last thirty years.
The legacy of their past service, though deeply respected, cannot shield the country from the urgent need for reform to ensure that future governance remains dynamic and accountable to the evolving needs of its citizens.
About the Author
Dariq Madar is a UK-based professional specialising in East African political and economic trends, with a strong passion for the region’s growth. He is dedicated to analysing its complex dynamics and evolving global relationships in order to remain at the forefront of its development.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, or viewpoints of Somaliland Chronicle, and its staff.
On December 26, 2025, the State of Israel made a decision that many in the West and East Asia had whispered about for decades but lacked the political courage to execute. By becoming the first UN member state to formally recognize the Republic of Somaliland, Israel did more than just break a 34-year diplomatic stalemate; it provided a masterclass in “Principled Realism.” As a Japanese analyst focused on regional integrity, I argue that this is not merely a Middle Eastern maneuver. It is a vital blueprint for how democratic maritime nations—including Japan—must approach the security of the Red Sea and the wider Indo-Pacific.
For too long, the international community has clung to a hollow definition of “regional integrity” that prioritizes ink on a 1960s map over the reality of functional governance. True integrity is found in a state’s ability to secure its borders, provide for its citizens, and act as a reliable partner in global trade. While Mogadishu continues to struggle with internal cohesion, Hargeisa has built a lighthouse of democracy from the ashes of civil war. By embracing Somaliland’s sovereignty, we are not “Balkanizing” the region; we are acknowledging that regional stability is best served by rewarding success rather than propping up failure.
From Tokyo’s perspective, the stability of the Bab el-Mandeb strait is a critical pillar of global risk management. Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force base in neighboring Djibouti is a testament to our long-term commitment to these waters; however, our current “One Somalia” policy has increasingly become a strategic blind spot. As Houthi militants and other non-state actors continue to threaten the flow of global commerce, Japan cannot afford to ignore the 850 kilometers of stable, well-governed coastline overseen by the Somaliland government. Embracing Hargeisa as a sovereign partner allows for a more robust, multi-layered security architecture—one that mitigates operational risks and protects Japanese trade routes stretching from the Red Sea to the Pacific.
The benefits of this diplomatic shift are already visible in the “Recognition Dividend” currently unfolding. Following Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s historic visit to Hargeisa in January 2026 and the February accreditation of Dr. Mohamed Hagi as Somaliland’s first Ambassador to Israel, we have seen the immediate launch of high-tech water-management and agricultural-training programs. For Japan—a global leader in quality infrastructure and human security—Somaliland offers an ideal partner for the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) vision. By shifting from cautious engagement to a full diplomatic embrace, Japan could integrate the Berbera Corridor into its global supply chain strategy, ensuring that East African growth is anchored by a democratic, law-abiding state.
The argument that recognition must wait for an African Union consensus is increasingly obsolete and poses its own set of regional risks. Israel has demonstrated that a single, principled actor can shift the global needle toward a more realistic and secure future. With the U.S. Congress is currently debating the Somaliland Economic Access and Opportunity Act (H.R. 7993) to unlock financial connectivity, the momentum is undeniable. Japan and other like-minded democracies must move past the historical fear of “precedent” and embrace the reality of Somaliland’s achievement. We must recognize that the integrity of the international order depends on our willingness to stand with those who have earned their place at the table through three decades of peace, democracy, and resilience.
About the Author
Hiroko Kasai holds a Master’s degree in Politics and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA). She is a geopolitical watcher specializing in Indo-Pacific maritime security and Israeli diplomatic affairs.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, or viewpoints of Somaliland Chronicle, and its staff.
In an era when social media often amplifies hatred and outrage, something remarkable happened recently on X (formerly Twitter).
It began with a simple post I wrote on March 12. I mentioned that my sons, along with thousands of other young Israelis, are serving in the Israel Defense Forces as the Jewish state confronts Iran and its proxies. Like any father, I worry for their safety.
So I ended the post with a request directed to the people of Somaliland, a state that declared independence from Somalia in the early 1990s.
Over the years, I’ve met many Somalilanders online and been struck by their open admiration for Israel—its resilience, democracy, and ability to thrive despite hardship. Because of that, I asked them to do something unusual: pray for the IDF.
Even so, I never expected what happened next.
Replies poured in—warm, heartfelt, and sincere.
“I pray to Allah to stand with the people of Israel and protect them against Iran and all enemies who wish them harm.” — Rakad Sultan, businessman connected to Somaliland’s Ministry of Labor”
“We pray a lot for the sons of Israel who are fighting the enemy. May they be victorious!” — Amin Ismail
“Our prayers are with you. May G-d protect and watch over you. Long live Israel.”
The messages just kept coming. Again and again, religious Sunni Muslims from Somaliland expressed their willingness to pray for Jewish soldiers.
Pause and consider that.
In much of the Muslim world, public support for Israel is rare. Political rhetoric and decades of propaganda have fostered hostility toward the Jewish state. Yet here were Muslims openly praying for IDF soldiers—publicly, on a global platform.
Even more striking, it happened during Ramadan, a time of devotion and compassion. As Muslims worldwide turned to G-d, Somalilanders included Jewish soldiers in their prayers.
That is extraordinary—and deeply telling.
Located in the Horn of Africa along the Gulf of Aden, Somaliland declared independence in 1991. In three decades, it has built democratic institutions, held elections, and maintained stability in a turbulent region. Despite this, it remains unrecognized internationally. Israel, however, became the first to recognize it in December 2025.
Both societies share similarities: they arose from difficulty, were built under pressure, and survive in tough neighborhoods. But beyond geopolitics lies something more important—mutual respect between people.
The responses to my post weren’t official statements. They were simple prayers from ordinary Somalilanders.
And that’s why they matter.
Even among Arab countries that have peace with Israel, few citizens would so openly pray for its soldiers. For decades, hostility between Israel and the Muslim world was seen as inevitable.
But Somaliland offers another model – a Muslim-majority society that is pragmatic, outward-looking and open to cooperation.
Here were individuals who answered a Jewish father’s plea by asking Allah to protect his sons. That is more than a gesture. It’s a glimpse of what relations between Israel and the Muslim world could one day become.
Sometimes diplomacy doesn’t begin with treaties or official visits. Sometimes it begins somewhere far simpler: with a Jewish father asking for prayers, and Muslims answering that call.
About the Author
The writer, an ordained rabbi, served as Deputy Communications Director under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is a veteran Jerusalem Post columnist.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, or viewpoints of Somaliland Chronicle, and its staff.
How a shadow fleet found safe harbour in Berbera Port — and how someone made sure you wouldn’t know about it
KEY POINTS
A U.S. Treasury-designated vessel linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force docked at Berbera Port in February 2026, with government tugs assisting its berthing.
SOMGAS, the LPG arm of the Hormuud conglomerate, and Horn Petroleum, a subsidiary of Dahabshiil Group, each received half of the vessel’s cargo — the first delivery of its kind documented at a Somaliland port.
The same vessel was struck by an Israeli drone at a Houthi-controlled Yemeni port in September 2025; its crew of 27 was taken hostage at gunpoint and required Pakistani diplomatic intervention to secure release.
Seven additional vessels with sanctions or shadow fleet indicators called Berbera within the same 30-day window, four sharing sequential callsigns from the same Comoros registration batch.
A former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia is registered with the Department of Justice as a foreign agent for Hormuud Telecom, tasked with securing the conglomerate access to the U.S. banking system.
Three Berbera port officials were detained days after the vessel’s departure. No charges have been made public. The conglomerate principals who accepted the cargo have not been questioned.
On the evening of September 17, 2025, an Israeli drone found its target at Ras Isa port on Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The vessel it struck was carrying LPG (liquefied petroleum gas — primarily propane and butane) for the Houthi militiamen who control the port. A tank exploded. Fire spread across the deck. The crew of twenty-seven — twenty-four Pakistanis, two Sri Lankans, one Nepali — fought it for days.
Then the Houthis came aboard.
They forced the crew back onto a burning ship. It took three weeks, the intervention of Pakistan’s embassies in Oman and Saudi Arabia, and the direct engagement of Pakistani security services to get them off. Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi confirmed the hostage situation and its resolution on his official account on September 27, 2025.
Five months later, that same vessel — renamed, re-flagged, its paperwork showing Iraqi origin — sailed into Berbera. Government tugs guided it to berth. The Port Authority assigned it a slip. It offloaded its cargo. Half went to the LPG arm of Somaliland’s largest telecom and energy conglomerate. Half went to the fuel subsidiary of the country’s largest remittance company. Nine days after it arrived, the government quietly expelled it. No statement was issued. The cargo was already in the tanks.
This is an investigation into how that happened — and how it was made to look like nothing happened at all.
The Ship the Port Authority Helped Dock
The vessel was CLIFTON (IMO 9102198).
CLIFTON is formally designated by the U.S. Treasury as blocked property under counterterrorism sanctions. Its link to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) — the branch of the Iranian military that funds and arms Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — is documented in twoseparate OFAC federal register notices and visible on the front page of every major maritime tracking platform in the world. VesselFinder displays a prominent “Sanctions & Bans: US (OFAC)” banner at the top of its vessel profile. A port authority with an internet connection can find it in under sixty seconds.
Providing material services to a designated vessel — tug assistance, berth assignment, port entry permits — constitutes potential material support under Executive Order 13224, Somaliland’s primary exposure under U.S. secondary sanctions law.
The Berbera Port Authority’s Director, Ali Diriye, is a presidential appointee. He did not respond to multiple calls and written questions from this publication.
The question of which institution bears primary responsibility for screening a vessel at Berbera is, for OFAC’s purposes, a secondary one. Port Authority tugs do not berth a vessel the terminal did not book. The terminal contracted the delivery, nominated the berth, and accepted the cargo. The Port Authority’s employees physically put their hands on the ship. Both acts carry legal weight under sanctions law. Jurisdictional lines drawn between two Somaliland government bodies do not dissolve the underlying obligation either assumed the moment CLIFTON entered the port.
A Ship of Many Names, One Function
Built in 1995 as EEKLO, the vessel has cycled through six identities — FUJI GAS, QUEEN LUCA, EAGLE PRIDE, CLIPPER, and finally CLIFTON — each rename paired with a flag change engineered to reset its history in port records. Maritime databases log sanctions flags against a vessel’s current identity; a renamed vessel briefly appears clean. This is not an accident of the registration system. It is the point of it.
In December 2022, OFAC designated it as property of Elvegard Shipping Ltd., a Marshall Islands front company established by associates of Turkish sanctions-evader Sitki Ayan to purchase vessels on behalf of the IRGC-QF. His associate Kasim Oztas personally arranged the transfer of millions of dollars for the acquisition. In April 2025, Treasury updated the designation with language that should have ended any ambiguity: the vessel “continues to operate, despite its designated status, and transported Iranian oil and a recent shipment of butane and propane destined for Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.”
That was the Ras Isa run. The one that ended with twenty-seven sailors trapped on a burning ship.
After the crew was released, the vessel disappeared. It resurfaced at Basrah Oil Terminal Anchorage, Iraq, where it sat for twenty-two days. Iran and Iraq share the same petrochemical basin; falsifying bills of lading with Iraqi origin is a documented, repeatedly prosecuted OFAC enforcement target. A vessel loads cargo in hours, not weeks. Twenty-two days in Basrah produces paperwork.
According to a government official with direct knowledge of Berbera’s oil terminal operations, CLIFTON’s cargo was divided between two consignees: SOMGAS, the LPG trading arm of the Hormuud conglomerate, and Horn Petroleum, the fuel distribution subsidiary of the Dahabshiil Group. Both of Somaliland’s dominant conglomerates took delivery from the same OFAC-designated vessel on the same day.
CLIFTON departed Berbera on March 5. No public statement was issued. No action was taken against SOMGAS, Horn Petroleum, or the Port Authority.
The Registered Fleet
CLIFTON is the most documented vessel calling Berbera. It is not the only one.
Within a single 30-day window ending March 4, 2026, this investigation confirmed seven further vessels at or en route to Berbera carrying sanctions or shadow fleet indicators. Four share sequential callsigns in the same Comoros registration block — D6A3171 through D6A3174. Sequential callsigns in the same batch don’t happen by accident. They happen when someone submits the applications at the same time.
GULF KING (IMO 9100504, callsign D6A3171) is a Comoros-flagged dry bulk vessel that departed Asaluyeh, Iran on February 18 and arrived Berbera February 27 — a direct, unbroken run. Asaluyeh is the onshore hub of Iran’s South Pars gas field complex, the world’s largest natural gas reservoir. Whatever its cargo, the origin is not in dispute.
BERBERA STAR 7 (IMO 9166156, callsign D6A3174) — a Chemical/Oil Products Tanker of 15,748 DWT — surfaced at Berbera in January 2026 following a 93-day AIS blackout in the Arabian Sea. Upon departing on February 3, it broadcast “Berbera” as its onward destination: the port it was leaving. Declaring your port of departure as your destination is a textbook technique to defeat automated tracking. A vessel named BERBERA STAR 7 implies vessels 1 through 6. Numbered fleets earn those names from routes regular enough to warrant the designation.
PRINCE KHALED (IMO 9496874, callsign D6A3172) was tracked in August 2025 heading for “YE HOD ALLSYRIANCREW” — maritime database notation for Hodeidah, Yemen, the Houthi-controlled port — at 8.6 knots. It then went dark. Ninety-four days later it reappeared in the Arabian Sea heading toward Berbera at 2.3 knots. A vessel in transit does not move at 2.3 knots. A vessel conducting a ship-to-ship transfer does.
D6A3173 — the callsign between PRINCE KHALED and BERBERA STAR 7 — remains unidentified. It belongs to the same registration batch.
The Feeder Network
Beyond the Comoros bloc, this investigation identified four further vessels exhibiting the identity manipulation and AIS obstruction patterns that OFAC, MARAD, and Lloyd’s List designate as primary indicators of Iranian shadow fleet operations — and the UAE hub through which Iranian petroleum is laundered before final delivery to the Horn of Africa.
SAMA 2 (IMO 9035826, Comoros, callsign D6A3068) is an oil products tanker of 10,926 DWT whose recent port history documents the UAE laundering layer with unusual clarity:
Port
Arrival
Departure
Al Hamriyah Free Zone, UAE
Dec 27, 2025
Feb 1, 2026
Sharjah, UAE
Feb 15
Feb 18
Sohar, Oman
Feb 23
Feb 24
Berbera
En route per AIS
—
Al Hamriyah Free Zone is the registered address of three OFAC-designated Iranian oil trading companies: Sea Route Ship Management FZE (IRAN-EO13846), Manarat Alkhaleej Marine Services FZE (IRAN-EO13846), and Phoenix Ship Management FZE (IRAN-EO13902, designated December 2025). Hamriyah is a documented commingling and re-documentation hub for Iranian petroleum entering UAE-origin paper chains. Thirty-five days at that address, a brief Omani stop, then Berbera: that is a loading, laundering, and delivery cycle.
RIDER (IMO 9017628) operates under at least two MMSI numbers across two flag states — Palau and St Kitts & Nevis — a recognised shadow fleet indicator. Its last documented port before Berbera was Kandla, India, a principal staging point on the shadow fleet’s Iran-to-East-Africa circuit.
PORTLAND S (IMO 9217462) maintained a multi-month AIS blackout before surfacing at Salalah, Oman — a documented ship-to-ship transfer staging point — and arriving Berbera on February 25.
USKO (IMO 8721442, Cameroon) carries three MMSI numbers against a single IMO: USKO (613003586), BK USKO (613941600), and DSK1 (613919202). Multiple identities against one IMO is textbook deceptive shipping practice. Its callsign series TJMC matches two OFAC-designated Iranian tankers — ZEVS (TJMC822) and LEXI — both sanctioned under EO13846 for transporting Iranian crude.
The Company Behind the Cargo Has Been Here Before
The Hormuud conglomerate is not new to this kind of scrutiny.
Al-Barakaat, Hormuud’s predecessor and the vehicle through which founding principal Ahmed Nur Ali Jim’ale built his financial empire, was designated by OFAC on November 7, 2001 — among the first actions issued after the September 11 attacks. More than twenty affiliated companies were blocked simultaneously. Jim’ale was personally designated.
The U.S. government later delisted both, concluding the evidence did not sustain the original designation. That outcome has become a rhetorical shield, deployed reflexively whenever scrutiny resurfaces. Delisting is not exoneration, and the shield obscures the more consequential question: what was built in Al-Barakaat’s place.
The UN Security Council’s own documentation answers it directly: “Hormuud Telecommunications was created by former leaders of Al-Barakaat in an attempt to reestablish themselves as a dominant telecom provider in Somalia.” The founding personnel were the same. The ambition was the same. Hormuud has since grown into a conglomerate controlling 81% of Somaliland’s SIM market through Telesom, LPG distribution through SOMGAS, construction through Buruuj, banking through Salama Bank, and mobile money through ZAAD. In a territory with no functioning central bank and a government that runs on conglomerate-issued credit, this is not market dominance. It is the economy.
SOMGAS received half the cargo from an IRGC-Qods Force designated vessel. SOMGAS TRADE, the group’s UAE trading entity, operates from Dubai — within U.S. secondary sanctions enforcement jurisdiction. The question for Hormuud’s banking correspondents, its international partners, and the lobbyist in Washington now on its payroll is whether any of them knew.
The Lobbyist in the Room
On September 25, 2024, Larry André Jr.registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. His client: Hormuud Telecom. Registration number: 7468. Stated mission: correct “unfair, inaccurate, and outdated perceptions” about the company, and secure it access to the U.S. banking system.
André is a 38-year career diplomat — U.S. Ambassador to Somalia from February 2022 to May 2023, Ambassador to Djibouti from 2018 to 2021, Ambassador to Mauritania from 2014 to 2017. In those postings he held Top Secret clearances and received regular classified briefings on regional financial networks, terrorism financing channels, and Horn of Africa security threats.
He retired in May 2023. Sixteen months later he was on Hormuud’s payroll, registered with the Department of Justice, lobbying to open American correspondent banking channels for a company whose LPG subsidiary was, as of February 2026, taking delivery from an IRGC-designated vessel at Berbera Port.
André did not respond to questions from this publication.
The gap between what he knew as Ambassador and what he is now paid to argue is not a footnote. It is a question about disclosure — what U.S. law requires of someone in his position when their client’s activities intersect with the classified threat landscape they spent a career reviewing.
Two Conglomerates, One Unnamed Vessel
The pattern this investigation documents is a fleet, not a single vessel. But one delivery offers an unusually direct window into how that fleet is managed when a ship cannot be named in public.
In August 2025, Horn Petroleum held a ceremony at Berbera Port celebrating what it described as the largest fuel delivery in the territory’s history: approximately 50,000 cubic metres of fuel products. Dahabshiil CEO Abdirashid Duale attended in person and was quoted across multiple outlets. Coverage ran in Capital FM, Horn Tribune, WARYATV, and The Star. Photographs circulated on social media. Video footage was published and widely viewed.
The vessel’s name appears in none of it.
This publication reviewed the video and photographic material in detail. The footage shows terminal infrastructure, officials at the podium, fuel tanks under filling operations. What it does not show — despite the logistical specificity of every other detail — is the vessel at berth. When camera angles reach the water, they find the anchorage. They do not find a ship. Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the delivery have confirmed to this publication that this was not an oversight. The vessel’s identity was deliberately withheld from all communications surrounding the event.
A vessel’s name is not commercially sensitive. It is broadcast publicly on AIS and printed on every port document from the moment it arrives. Its methodical removal from an event attended by a CEO, covered by four outlets, and documented on video does not have a benign interpretation.
When the video shows the terminal but not the berth, when four outlets cover the ceremony and none prints the ship’s name, when the CEO stands at the podium and the vessel remains nameless — that is not a communications failure. That is a communications decision.
Dahabshiil’s remittance business processes hundreds of millions of dollars annually through correspondent banking relationships in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union — relationships that carry mandatory sanctions due diligence obligations in every jurisdiction where those banks are chartered. A finding that its petroleum subsidiary systematically accepted shadow fleet cargo while concealing vessel identities from its banking partners, the public, and the press is not merely a legal problem. It is an existential one for the remittance architecture that moves the Somali diaspora’s money home.
What the Record Shows
Ali Diriye has directed the Berbera Port Authority since his presidential appointment. On February 24, 2026, tugs under his operational command guided CLIFTON into berth, ran its lines, and enabled a cargo offload that lasted nine days. CLIFTON’s OFAC designation is displayed on the front page of VesselFinder — the same platform used by every shipping agent, port operator, and customs official in Somaliland. Diriye did not respond to calls or written questions.
SOMGAS — Hormuud’s LPG trading arm, operating internationally through SOMGAS TRADE in Dubai — received half of CLIFTON’s cargo. Hormuud’s predecessor was designated by OFAC five weeks after September 11. The UN Security Council records that Hormuud was built by that predecessor’s leadership. The company’s Washington lobbyist is a former U.S. Ambassador who spent three decades receiving classified terrorism financing briefings on the Horn of Africa. SOMGAS TRADE’s Dubai address places it squarely within U.S. secondary sanctions jurisdiction. Neither SOMGAS nor Hormuud responded to questions.
Horn Petroleum received the other half. Its parent company Dahabshiil processes hundreds of millions of dollars annually through U.S., UK, and EU correspondent banks — institutions with mandatory sanctions due diligence obligations under the laws of every jurisdiction where they are chartered. In August 2025, Horn Petroleum’s CEO attended a public ceremony for the largest fuel delivery in Berbera’s history. Four outlets covered it. The vessel’s name appeared in none of them. Multiple sources confirmed to this publication the omission was deliberate. Dahabshiil did not respond to questions.
According to multiple sources familiar with the events of the CLIFTON , the Somaliland government expelled CLIFTON on March 5, nine days after arrival, after its cargo had been fully offloaded — then said nothing. It has announced no investigation of the consignees, disclosed no legal basis for detaining three port officials in the days that followed, and issued no public acknowledgement that anything at Berbera Port requires explanation. The Presidency did not respond to questions. The Attorney General’s office did not respond to questions.
The record is what it is. The parties named in this investigation know what they did and did not do. Their silence is part of the record too.
The Pattern, and What It Required
It would be a mistake to read CLIFTON as an anomaly that slipped through a functioning compliance system. The evidence suggests it was a designated vessel entering a port already normalised to this traffic.
GULF KING had been running direct from Asaluyeh before CLIFTON arrived. BERBERA STAR 7 had completed multiple Berbera calls. RIDER and PORTLAND S cycled through the same anchorage on the same schedule. None triggered any documented Port Authority screening response. None prompted questions. None generated a public record of anything other than routine berth operations.
Three port officials are now in custody — detained without public charges, without a statement, and with the conglomerate principals who contracted and accepted the delivery untouched. If the arrests are connected to CLIFTON, they are the first acknowledgement by any Somaliland institution that what happened on February 24 may constitute a criminal matter. If they are unrelated, that coincidence will require its own explanation. Either way, detaining mid-level officials while the decisions that enabled this transaction remain unexamined in the offices above them is a response calibrated to contain, not to account.
CLIFTON did not succeed because the system failed. It succeeded because the system was not designed to catch it. The designation was the only thing distinguishing CLIFTON from any other vessel in that fleet — and even that was not caught until after the cargo was ashore and the ship was gone. That outcome did not require malice. It required the institutional confidence of a port that had run this traffic for years without once being asked the first question.
The Cargo Is In The Tanks
One designated vessel at a port is a compliance failure. Eight vessels with sanctions or shadow fleet indicators — registered in coordinated callsign blocks, cycling through OFAC-designated UAE re-documentation hubs, departing confirmed Iranian terminals, running the Houthi supply circuit to the Horn of Africa, converging on the same port within thirty days — is a supply chain. Supply chains require buyers, logistics, finance, and a port that does not ask questions.
What separates Berbera from a port that stumbled is the evidence of active concealment. The vessel name removed from four outlets. The ceremony footage that never shows the berth. The bills of lading that say Basrah. The vessel that broadcast “Berbera” as its destination from Berbera. These are not errors. They are decisions — made by people who understood precisely what the designation meant and chose, at each decision point, to proceed.
The IRGC-Qods Force funds Hamas tunnels, Hezbollah rockets, and the Houthi drones that have killed sailors in the Red Sea. That is where this money goes — not in the abstract, but in the specific. The vessel that discharged its cargo into Somaliland’s fuel supply in February 2026 was, four months earlier, delivering LPG to those same Houthis at Ras Isa, where a drone struck it and its crew was taken hostage at gunpoint. The transaction at Berbera feeds the financial network that finances the next delivery.
Somaliland has spent thirty years building a case for itself — governed where Somalia is not, accountable where others aren’t, deserving of the recognition it has never received. That case rests on its institutions. On the proposition that when obligations exist, someone honours them. On the idea that the rules are not merely decorative.
The tugs that berthed CLIFTON are still sitting in Berbera Port. No policy was changed. No screening requirement was enacted. No institution has publicly acknowledged that anything it did was wrong. The next vessel on this circuit will need berthing too. There is nothing in place to make that outcome different from the last one.
SOMGAS, Hormuud Telecom, the Berbera Port Authority, Berbera Oil Terminals, Ministry of Commerce, Horn Petroleum, and Dahabshiil Group were contacted for comment. None responded.
On 26 December 2025, Israel did what every capital at the Red Sea’s southern gate had modelled privately and dismissed publicly: it recognised Somaliland.
The backlash was instant and choreographed.
Within hours, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Djibouti, Turkey, Sudan and Somalia signed a rejection citing sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Days later, the European Union extended its naval protection mission until February 2027. Not symbolism. Budgeted. Deployed. An admission: maritime passage remains exposed and contested. When insurers price risk and navies remain deployed, statements do not move cargo. Shorelines do.
Strip the language.
The alignment changes. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Djibouti are structurally invested in a self-governing Somaliland that already operates as one. They may avoid the word recognition, but their planners, port authorities and crisis rooms treat it as separate: a coastline to stabilise, a port to sustain, an airfield to preserve, an administration to trust. Israel did not create this reality. It forced it into daylight.
Turkey’s reaction reveals the stakes. President Erdogan condemned the move as illegal and destabilising, warning against foreign rivalry in the region. The warning would carry more weight had Ankara not spent a decade embedding itself within Somalia’s defence, training and coastal structures. Fighter jets deployed to its base in Mogadishu did not signal neutrality. They signalled control. Somaliland disrupts that structure. A functioning Hargeisa administration, an expanding Berbera port and diversified partnerships reduce Ankara’s leverage as gatekeeper and arbiter.
Turkey fortifies Mogadishu’s security ecosystem, positions itself as mediator and frames Somali unity as non-negotiable. The mediation track that reaffirmed Somalia’s territorial integrity excluded Somaliland by design. Mediation shrinks the table until only the preferred client remains. That is not resolution. It is leverage.
Somaliland’s advantage is operational. The Berbera expansion is capital in place. Containers move. Livestock ships. Supply chains function. Even amid tensions between Mogadishu and Abu Dhabi, operations held. In a maritime passage where disruption is measured in hours and priced globally, continuity becomes credibility.
Riyadh knows this. For Saudi Arabia, the southern entrance of the Red Sea is the approach to Jeddah, Yanbu and the Kingdom’s western industrial arc. The Houthi campaign has turned the sea route into pressure on global trade. Maritime protection is no longer episodic. It is structural. In that context, a capable administration on the African shore opposite Yemen is strategic depth.
Saudi engagement with Somaliland goes beyond rhetoric. Livestock trade is seasonal, sensitive and politically charged. When Riyadh adjusts import policy, Berbera responds. Quarantine protocols, veterinary certification and shipping schedules form ties that cannot be staged. Saudi commercial interest in mineral exploration reinforces the calculus. Companies do not assume exploration risk in jurisdictions they consider temporary. Internal conviction precedes public caution.
Why sign rejections. Because precedent matters. Riyadh will not appear aligned with a move delivered by Israel, nor hand Ankara or Tehran an easy narrative of fragmentation. It is also balancing competition with the UAE across Yemen and the Horn. Keep Somaliland engaged, economically useful and strategically quiet. Useful in practice. Restrained in public.
Egypt’s calculus is blunt. The canal is lifeline. Disruption south of Suez reverberates through state finances and planning. A governed coastline opposite Yemen reduces arms flows, hostile intelligence activity and smuggling networks that eventually affect canal-bound shipping. Cairo cannot treat Somaliland as a cartographic footnote. It measures risk in control, predictability and capacity. By those metrics, Somaliland is one of the most stable stretches of that shore.
Turkey Egypt rapprochement does not erase this tension. Naval drills, visits and defence co-production are tactical instruments. Hardware sales and coordination address immediate needs, including monitoring Sudan’s war. They do not close the divide over the Muslim Brotherhood. For Cairo, the Brotherhood is existential. Ankara’s record of hosting and amplifying Brotherhood-linked actors is not erased by protocol. The alignment is transactional. It secures time. It does not secure trust.
Sudan distorts every calculation. The war is fragmented and porous. Suppliers circulate drones and ammunition through shifting routes. Borders blur. Ports become prizes. Instability along Sudan’s coastline ripples into maritime passage. For states securing shipping, Sudan multiplies risk. In that landscape, Somaliland’s order is an anchor. Where institutions govern coast and territory, entry points narrow.
For Djibouti, this is leverage. Ethiopia’s dependence sustained its port dominance. Berbera introduces alternatives. Leverage erodes. The reflex to defend status quo is understandable. The strategic interest differs: ensure a rising neighbour coordinates on border control, customs enforcement and maritime oversight. An isolated Somaliland invites penetration. An integrated Somaliland buffers it.
The Houthi supply chain runs through Turkish territory. Sanctions have named Istanbul-based financial conduits linked to Iran’s Quds Force and Houthi networks. Arms shipments routed via Turkish intermediaries have surfaced in repeated enforcement actions. No prosecutions followed. No structural dismantling occurred. The pattern persists.
This is not bureaucratic oversight. It is sustained permissiveness toward networks financing and arming forces attacking commercial shipping. In a chokepoint that carries a significant share of Asia-Europe trade, permissiveness is policy.
Houthi leadership has warned that foreign military presence associated with Somaliland would be targeted. The warning confirms significance. Actors threaten what constrains them. A monitored coastline restricts launch and smuggling freedom. Somaliland’s relevance lies in its ability to close gaps.
For Hargeisa, recognition is exposure. Expectations rise. Scrutiny hardens. Diversify partnerships without surrendering autonomy. Preserve regulatory clarity. Frame security cooperation as protection of trade and coastline, not alignment in distant rivalries. Somaliland’s strength is reliability. It cannot be traded for spectacle.
For Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Djibouti, the window narrows. Recite formulas while depending on Somaliland’s stability, or formalise engagement that matches operational reality. Recognition is procedural. Engagement is strategic. Delay will not freeze the field. Turkey consolidates across Somalia’s defence and energy sectors. External networks probe financial and logistical seams. Maritime passage moves regardless.
The reality is already active. At the southern entrance of the Red Sea, states act as if Somaliland exists, whether they say so or not. Stability on that coastline serves their core interests. Silence may be convenient. It will not endure.
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About the Author
Shay Gal is an Israeli strategic analyst on international security and foreign policy. He advises senior government and defence leadership worldwide on strategy, public diplomacy, and crisis decision-making.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, or viewpoints of Somaliland Chronicle, and its staff.
Lin Chia-lung, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan (Republic of China)
February 4, 2026
Sitting in the shadow of authoritarian China, Taiwan has earned a reputation for its commitment to freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. For 30 years since its first direct presidential contest in 1996, Taiwan has conducted free, fair, and transparent elections and has been consistently ranked near the top of indexes measuring democracy. It maintains a vibrant and active civil society. Its dedication to individual rights and personal freedoms has become a core part of its identity and has given Taiwan a shared foundation with liberal societies worldwide.
But Taiwan’s value as an ally is also strategic. Since President Lai Ching-te was inaugurated in May 2024, and I took office as foreign minister, we have sought to consolidate a diplomatic vision that shows how Taiwan can promote its allies’ security and prosperity. Lying along one of the world’s most important and sensitive waterways, Taiwan is like a moat that safeguards the Indo-Pacific. Taiwan has also mastered the production of semiconductors and other advanced electronics and innovated in artificial intelligence and renewable energy, making it a secure focal point for the development of reliable global supply chains. And Taiwan’s experiences resisting Chinese military threats, economic coercion, and attempts to infiltrate and divide Taiwanese society offer priceless lessons for other democracies that are under pressure.
Countries that interact with Taiwan need not only share and uphold common values; they can also benefit from its vital contributions in the security, economic, technological, and social spheres. It has adopted a policy that moves beyond values-based diplomacy—the consolidation of alliances through democratic ideals—to prioritize value-added diplomacy, or the way that Taiwan can actively drive prosperity for its allies through enhanced economic and trade relations. Taiwan’s strategic importance, together with its role in bolstering allies’ development, makes it an indispensable partner.
TREASURE ISLAND
Diplomacy is of great importance to Taiwan’s survival, security, and development. The greatest challenge to Taiwan’s diplomatic efforts is China’s ongoing attempt to lure the island’s allies away with economic enticements and political infiltration. China has accelerated the pace of its overtures toward historic Taiwanese allies in Africa, Latin America, and the Indo-Pacific. In recent years, Beijing has also sought to suppress Taiwan’s participation in various international forums, diminishing its visibility.
China’s coercive actions threaten not only Taiwan; they also threaten the global democratic camp. China’s inducement of Taiwan’s allies enables Beijing to expand its strategic and economic influence, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and Central America. And authoritarian expansionism, if allowed to go unchecked, will endanger peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and adjacent international waters and destabilize the rules-based international order. Throughout the region, China has conducted frequent military exercises, often without prior notice, and has even engaged in provocative laser and radar lock-ons—the precursor to firing a weapon—against Australian and Japanese military aircraft. Because approximately 50 percent of the world’s container ships pass through the Taiwan Strait, this reckless behavior also puts regional and global trade at risk.
China’s aggression has challenged Taiwan. But it has also highlighted the island’s strategic value and the importance of upholding stability in the Taiwan Strait. Since Lai took office, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all dispatched military vessels to transit the Taiwan Strait, taking concrete actions to uphold freedom of navigation. Firmly believing that peace comes through strength and that cooperation facilitates security, Taiwan will continue to bolster its self-defense capabilities and work to ensure that the Indo-Pacific status quo is not altered by authoritarian forces.
Fifty percent of the world’s container ships pass through the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan’s challenges have presented the island with an opportunity to develop unique capabilities. For many years, Taiwan has built resilience against the kinds of threats that are becoming ever more prevalent worldwide. As one of Asia’s few mature and substantively free democracies, Taiwan has accumulated significant experience in dealing with authoritarian expansion, “gray-zone” threats, and economic coercion. These Chinese efforts aim to sow discord within Taiwanese civil society and distract citizens by fomenting internal divisions. The Lai administration is urgently innovating ways to boost resilience to this kind of pressure: in 2025, for instance, Taiwan ramped up its legal, surveillance, and operational defenses against the sabotage of undersea cables, including by launching 24-hour sea patrols, and blacklisting 96 Chinese-linked vessels, which subjects them to heightened monitoring. Taiwan has amended its Telecommunications Management Act and six other existing laws to put higher penalties on aggressors that damage submarine cables and to enable the confiscation of vessels involved in illegal activities.
Such firsthand experience constitutes a key strategic asset. Last year, for example, the Global Cooperation and Training Framework, co-founded by Taiwan and the United States, entered its tenth year of operation. Through this platform, which now includes Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom as full partners, Taiwan shares practical experience in countering disinformation, enhancing cybersecurity and resilience, and advancing emerging technologies. To take just one instance, last September, the GCTF hosted a workshop in Taipei in which dozens of disinformation experts and international media professionals gathered to study response strategies and brainstorm how to strengthen both journalists’ and readers’ ability to identify AI-generated fakes.
Taiwan is not just a democracy; it can also help shore up global democracy. Its experience in countering authoritarian expansion is a public good for the international community. Having long resisted China’s military threats, economic coercion, and attempts to infiltrate and divide its society, Taiwan has accumulated crucial frontline expertise in how to improve democratic resilience in the face of authoritarian pressure, both overt and covert.
A BETTER OPTION
As China’s threats increase, countries around the world are realizing the dangers of economic dependence on Beijing. Taiwan plays a crucial role at the center of supply chains that exclude China. Taiwan manufactures 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90 percent of the world’s advanced chips. It also leads in artificial intelligence: in 2025, the island was responsible for producing 90 percent of the world’s AI servers, making it an indispensable player in the AI revolution. Countries seeking to diversify their supply chains away from China can count on Taiwan to offer a better alternative.
In sharp contrast to China’s use of predatory aid, which combines debt traps with “elite capture,” Taiwan emphasizes cooperation, transparency, and sustainability. Taiwan is directly helping its allies upgrade their economies and industrial capacity. The island’s Diplomatic Allies Prosperity Project—a long-term, reciprocal public-private partnership program—aims to assist allies’ economic development directly by sharing expertise, services, and technology in areas in which Taiwan has a global advantage.
The project has already produced major successes, including the launch of the Porrima P111—a zero-emission vessel that uses solar, hydrogen, and wind power as well as AI—for use in Palau to drive growth in sustainable tourism. Drawing on Taiwan’s experience building its Hsinchu Science Park, a development that now houses hundreds of high-tech companies that generate about six percent of Taiwan’s GDP, Taipei is helping establish the Taiwan-Paraguay Smart Technology Park in Minga Guazú, Paraguay. This major technology and industrial hub project is attracting Taiwanese electric bus companies and other smart manufacturing firms and boosting Paraguay’s economy. Taiwan and the African country of Eswatini are deepening their cooperation in such fields as energy, smart medicine—in which intelligent systems are integrated into health care—and women’s empowerment. And Taiwan is continuing to explore concrete cooperative projects with the United States in third countries, pursuing reforms of its International Cooperation and Development Fund to increase the fund’s budget and focus it more on investments that align with U.S. foreign aid priorities.
Taiwan could also play an invaluable role in international organizations and multilateral platforms such as the World Health Organization and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Yet Taiwan is excluded from these groups despite having expertise and experience it could share. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the island managed to keep infection rates extremely low, showing the effectiveness of Taiwan’s medical and public health systems. Taiwan contained the virus by rapidly implementing border controls, comprehensively tracking epidemic data, effectively distributing medical resources, and mobilizing businesses and civil society groups to provide supplies; it actively shared the keys to its success with global partners. It also donated over 51 million surgical masks, ventilators, and other medical supplies to more than 80 countries and regions worldwide.
If it were able to participate in the WHO, Taiwan would not only be a beneficiary; it would also contribute its broad expertise in disease surveillance, epidemic prevention, and digital health technologies, thereby strengthening global health security. Taiwan also meets the CPTPP’s high standards for market liberalization, transparent governance, labor laws, environmental regulations and practices, and intellectual property protection. Its accession to the organization would expand regional trade and bolster the security of global supply chains.
TANGIBLE ASSETS
Cooperation with the United States remains central to Taiwan’s diplomatic vision. The United States already plays a crucial role in ensuring Taiwan’s safety by continuing to fulfill its security commitments. The United States’ decision to sell $11 billion in arms to Taiwan in December is an important sign of deepening relations, and the expansion of U.S.-Taiwanese ties in areas such as security, technology, and energy is creating mutual added value.
Joint endeavors with the United States are a prime example of Taiwan’s efforts to bring value to other countries. Taipei and Washington are expanding their technology partnerships. Last May, I led a delegation to Texas for the Texas-Taiwan AI and Innovation Summit, where I witnessed the signing of an agreement between the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association, the Texas Association of Business, and Opportunity Austin (a development initiative by the Austin Chamber of Commerce) to increase bilateral investment. Taiwan also plans to work with the Houston city government to build the “Taiwan Tower,” a multipurpose development designed to support the Taiwanese private sector’s investments in Texas and reciprocal U.S. investments in Taiwan.
Taiwan has also sought to deepen bilateral energy cooperation with the United States. In March, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy visited Taiwan to witness the signing of a letter of intent on liquefied natural gas procurement and investment between Taiwan’s state energy firm, CPC Corporation, and the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation. This partnership both supports the U.S. economy and helps Taiwan diversify its energy sources by making the United States one of Taiwan’s top energy suppliers.
Cooperation with the United States remains central to Taiwan’s diplomatic vision.
To further enhance trade and economic cooperation, Taiwan has proposed the creation of a U.S.-Taiwanese investment team—a collaborative initiative to support and coordinate Taiwanese enterprises investing in the United States—and the formation of a U.S.-Taiwanese joint fleet to deepen bilateral economic ties and enhance supply chain integration. Taiwan intends to join forces with the United States in AI development, contributing the most advanced AI chip manufacturing and server assembly technology. And in the recent trade deal struck between Taiwan and the United States, Taiwan committed to investing $250 billion in the U.S. semiconductor and tech industries along with $250 billion in credit guarantees to support Taiwanese companies’ U.S.-bound investments. These will provide essential support to the U.S. semiconductor industry and make U.S. supply chains more resilient.
Taiwan has world-class manufacturing capabilities and supply-chain integration expertise, while the United States possesses an irreplaceable innovation ecosystem and critical core technologies. Taiwan and the United States can integrate their tech-focused capital and talent more effectively. Such a collaboration will not only help Taiwanese companies expand into the U.S. market and form effective industrial clusters but also demonstrate the competitive advantages of vertically integrated AI supply chains. Toward this end, Taiwan has sought to deepen its cooperation with the United States through the Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, an annual encounter between top officials. During the sixth such meeting last month, Taipei and Washington affirmed their commitment to the Pax Silica Declaration—a joint pact to ensure that allied nations keep AI supply chains stable and secure—and created a road map for joint economic security, underscoring the two capitals’ symbiotic partnership.
Taiwan also hopes the U.S. Senate will approve legislation passed last year in the House that prevents double taxation to further facilitate cross-border investment. The steady development of U.S.-Taiwanese relations demonstrates that the idea of value-added diplomacy is more than just a slogan. It is a concrete practice that yields substantive benefits for partner countries—and for the international community.
Value-added diplomacy has become Taiwan’s new foreign affairs cornerstone. When the world asks, “Why is Taiwan so important?” we have a clear answer: by working with Taiwan, allies and like-minded democratic countries will not only find common ground. They will also stand to gain things they cannot access elsewhere: added security, more prosperity, and vital knowledge about democratic resilience. Whether Taiwan’s allies and partners are more focused on values or interests, Taiwan can help.
For more than three decades, a small, resilient territory on the Horn of Africa has quietly defied the chaos that engulfs its neighborhood. While the world fixates on Mogadishu and the chronic instability of southern Somalia, the people of Somaliland have built something altogether different: a functioning democracy, a measure of peace, and a culture of political compromise rare in their region.
As a Jew, an Israeli and an American, I support Somaliland’s quest for international recognition. And I do so not out of sentimentality, but out of principle, history and strategic clarity.
The Jewish people understand, perhaps better than most, what it means to struggle for legitimacy. For nearly two millennia, we wandered stateless across continents, our national aspirations dismissed, our ancient connection to our homeland denied. When the modern State of Israel was declared in 1948, it faced invasion, isolation and skepticism. Many in the international community predicted it would not survive.
And yet it did.
Somaliland’s story echoes that determination. In 1991, after the collapse of the dictatorship in Somalia, Somaliland reclaimed the sovereignty it had briefly enjoyed in 1960 before voluntarily uniting with the rest of Somalia. Since then, it has operated with its own government, currency, military and borders. It has held multiple competitive elections and witnessed peaceful transfers of power—no small feat in a turbulent region.
Like Israel in its early years, Somaliland has been forced to prove its viability without the benefit of widespread recognition. Its people have built institutions from the ground up, relying not on foreign troops but on local consensus and clan-based reconciliation. For a Jew steeped in our own history of perseverance, that resilience resonates deeply.
From Jerusalem’s vantage point, the Horn of Africa is not a distant abstraction. It sits astride critical maritime arteries linking the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. The port city of Berbera faces the Gulf of Aden, near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, through which a significant portion of global trade passes.
Instability in this corridor has real consequences for Israel’s security and economy. Iranian entrenchment, Houthi attacks on shipping, and jihadist networks all pose tangible threats.
In that context, Somaliland’s relative stability is not merely admirable; it is strategically significant. It has cooperated with Western and regional partners on security matters and has consistently positioned itself as a moderate, pragmatic actor. Recognition would not only reward good behavior; it would strengthen a reliable partner in a volatile neighborhood.
Israel, a nation that has too often been judged by double standards, should be wary of applying them to others. If we expect the world to recognize and respect our sovereignty, we should be prepared to extend that same courtesy to those who meet the criteria of statehood: defined territory, permanent population, functioning government and the capacity to engage in foreign relations. By any fair measure, Somaliland qualifies.
As an American, I am guided by a simple proposition: governments derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed. That principle animated the American Revolution and continues to shape U.S. foreign policy, at least in theory.
Somaliland’s case rests squarely on that foundation. Its independence is not the result of foreign occupation or sectarian fragmentation imposed from outside. It reflects a popular decision, repeatedly reaffirmed by its citizens and political leadership. Polls and public demonstrations alike attest to the overwhelming desire of its people to chart their own course.
Critics argue that recognizing Somaliland would undermine Somalia’s territorial integrity. But territorial integrity cannot be an absolute when the territorial entity in question has failed to exercise meaningful authority over a region for more than three decades. The international system should not trap millions of people in perpetual limbo out of deference to legal formalism divorced from reality.
Recognition is not a panacea. It would not magically resolve every economic challenge Somaliland faces. But it would unlock access to international financial institutions, enable direct bilateral agreements and provide the diplomatic clarity necessary for long-term development.
There is also a moral dimension that Jews, in particular, should not ignore. Throughout history, we have appealed to the conscience of the nations, asking them to judge us fairly and to acknowledge our right to self-determination. We have bristled when our national aspirations were dismissed as inconvenient or destabilizing.
If we demand consistency from others, we must practice it ourselves.
Supporting Somaliland does not require hostility toward Somalia. It does not mean ignoring complex regional dynamics. It simply means acknowledging that a people who have built a functioning polity, maintained peace, and demonstrated democratic intent deserve serious consideration.
For Israel, engagement with Somaliland could open new diplomatic and economic horizons in Africa. For the United States, it offers an opportunity to reinforce a rare success story in a troubled region. And for Jews who carry the memory of our own long journey to statehood, it is a reminder that legitimacy is often born of persistence.
Somaliland has done the hard work of governance. The question now is whether the world—and those of us who cherish freedom and national self-expression—will have the courage to recognize it.
About the Author
The writer, an ordained rabbi, served as Deputy Communications Director under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is a veteran Jerusalem Post columnist.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, or viewpoints of Somaliland Chronicle, and its staff.
