Keypoints:
- Israel’s recognition ignores Horn of Africa political realities
- Somaliland’s internal fractures weaken its statehood claim
- The move risks regional instability and militant recruitment
WHEN Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned Hargeisa on December 26 to inform Somaliland’s president that Israel would become the first country to recognise his territory’s independence, the decision may have appeared as bold diplomacy from Jerusalem. From the Horn of Africa, however, it looked like a dangerous misreading of a region where external interventions have a long record of producing outcomes nobody intended.
Having worked in this region’s policy space for two decades, I have repeatedly seen well-intentioned policymakers arrive with solutions to problems they do not fully understand. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland fits this pattern with uncomfortable precision. It serves Israel’s strategic imperatives: a Red Sea foothold, intelligence cooperation, and potential naval access near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, while externalising the consequences onto countries that were never consulted.
The immediate reaction signalled trouble ahead. Somalia recalled its ambassador and threatened legal action, while twenty-one Muslim-majority countries signed a joint condemnation. Notably, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, all Abraham Accords signatories, remained conspicuously silent. Even Donald Trump, asked whether the United States would follow Israel’s lead, responded with a blunt ‘No’, adding: ‘Does anyone know what Somaliland is, really?’
More damaging still, a senior Israeli official warned anonymously that recognising Somaliland while the rest of the world considers it integral to Somalia undermines Israel’s long-standing argument against Palestinian statehood. It exposes a logical inconsistency that will not be lost on international audiences or future diplomatic negotiations.
This dismissiveness is not new. During a Cabinet meeting, while criticising Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Trump described Somalia as barely a country where people ‘just run around killing each other’ with ‘no structure’. Crude as the language was, it reflected a broader disregard for the regional consequences of external decisions.
As of April 2025, Kenya hosts 849,625 refugees, 54 percent of them Somali, roughly 460,000 people concentrated in Dadaab. Ethiopia shelters approximately 380,000 Somalis, while Uganda hosts another 69,533. These populations have existed for decades, creating parallel economies and ensuring that every Somali crisis quickly becomes a regional one.
The internal contradictions nobody acknowledges
Supporters of recognition, including Britain’s former defence secretary Gavin Williamson, who claims it would ‘literally transform 5.7 million lives overnight’, consistently overlook that Somaliland itself is not the unified success story often portrayed.
The Dhulbahante clan has long sought alternatives to Isaaq-dominated governance, including alignment with Puntland, where Darod-Harti ties run deeper. Somaliland only took control of Las Anod in October 2007 by expelling Puntland forces, an episode many locals still describe as occupation.
Since then, according to the Raad Peace Research Institute, more than 120 prominent community leaders, politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen have been assassinated. Dhulbahante communities attribute these killings to systematic efforts by Hargeisa to silence dissent. When opposition politician Abdifatah Abdullahi Abdi was shot dead leaving a mosque on December 26, 2022, protests erupted across Las Anod.
Somaliland police opened fire on demonstrators, killing more than twenty people. When Dhulbahante elders declared the formation of SSC-Khatumo in February 2023 and announced plans to reunify with Somalia, Somaliland forces shelled the city for six months. Amnesty International documented indiscriminate bombardment damaging schools, mosques, and hospitals, displacing between 153,000 and 203,000 people.
By August 2023, SSC-Khatumo forces had expelled Somaliland troops from Las Anod after capturing the Gooja’ade military base.
Today, Dhulbahante-majority areas operate autonomously under SSC-Khatumo, renamed North Eastern State in July 2025, aligned with Mogadishu rather than Hargeisa. A military stalemate persists along a frontline roughly 100 kilometres from Las Anod.
Israel has recognised a state that does not control its eastern territories, faces internal secession, and risks further unrest in Awdal, where the Isse and Gadabursi clans also feel marginalised. In July 2025, deadly clashes between SSC-Khatumo and Puntland over eastern Sanaag reinforced that even Somalia’s federal states remain divided over borders.
Ethiopia’s shadow and a regional powder keg
In January 2024, Ethiopia signed a memorandum with Somaliland to lease 19 kilometres of coastline for 50 years in exchange for implied future recognition. Mogadishu reacted furiously. Egypt and Turkey, both rivals of Ethiopia over Nile water and Red Sea influence, rallied behind Somalia until Turkish mediation produced the Ankara Declaration in December 2024.
Crucially, the declaration did not clarify the memorandum’s status. Ethiopia has not confirmed its cancellation, while Somaliland insists it remains valid. Israel’s recognition therefore lands at a moment when Ethiopia had stepped back from escalation without resolving core tensions.
From Addis Ababa’s perspective, landlocked Ethiopia needs sea access. From Mogadishu’s, the deal looks like territorial dismemberment by a neighbour ten times its size. From Cairo’s view, anything strengthening Ethiopia threatens Egyptian interests over the Nile. From Ankara’s perspective, Turkish investments in Somalia, including a major military base, are being undermined.
Every action triggers counter-moves.
A gift for Al-Shabaab?
Following the Ethiopia-Somaliland memorandum, Al-Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage vowed that ‘blood will be spilled over it’, urging Somalis to ‘fight against those conquering your country, similar to how the Jews conquered in Palestine’.
Israel’s recognition hands militants powerful propaganda. Al-Shabaab has long framed itself as the sole defender of Somali sovereignty against external interference, and this decision reinforces that narrative.
Analysts warn that if the conflict expands from a Somaliland-Dhulbahante dispute into wider Darod-Isaaq confrontation, instability could spill into Ethiopia’s Somali-inhabited Ogaden region. Clan conflicts in the Horn have never respected borders.
Intelligence dimensions and darker subtexts
Israeli media, including Channel 12, reported that Mossad Director David Barnea personally advanced the recognition, with Somaliland’s president making multiple secret visits to Israel, including meetings with Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz in October.
This was the culmination of years of intelligence cultivation. Since October 2023, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping have prompted Israeli strikes on Yemeni ports. Somaliland offers proximity, intelligence sharing, and potential staging grounds. Technology transfers, including surveillance and drone detection systems, are already in place, with Somaliland declaring control of its airspace in November using Israeli equipment.
Israeli outlets also reported early discussions about relocating Palestinians from Gaza to Somaliland. While denied by both governments, Somaliland was explicitly mentioned when Trump floated relocation proposals in February. Somalia’s foreign ministers from Egypt, Turkey, and Djibouti warned against recognition becoming a pathway for forced transfers.
Whether real or speculative, the suspicion alone is damaging in a region where Al-Shabaab recruits by framing all foreign involvement as colonial intrusion.
Pattern recognition and who bears the costs
Trump’s refusal to follow Israel underscores Washington’s reluctance. The silence of the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco reflects strategic calculation. None wish to fracture African Union consensus or provoke Egypt and Turkey over Somalia.
Israel may exchange ambassadors and open embassies. In Hargeisa, recognition feels like vindication. But the costs will fall elsewhere.
Kenya will absorb more refugees. Ethiopia will face tougher choices. Uganda will manage security spillovers. Mogadishu will drift further toward Egypt and Turkey, potentially hosting Egyptian troops, alarming Addis Ababa. Al-Shabaab will recruit by pointing to yet another example of foreign powers reshaping Somali territory.
The African Union’s caution reflects experience. The 1964 OAU decision to respect colonial borders aimed to prevent Africa fracturing into ethnic enclaves. Eritrea, Biafra, and Sudan showed the consequences when those borders become negotiable.
Every African state with internal divisions watches Somaliland carefully.
I have seen this pattern before. South Sudan’s independence in 2011 was celebrated as triumph. Within three years, civil war killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. External powers championed state creation but did not remain for state-building.
What those of us who remain must manage
Israel can claim strategic logic, and Somaliland’s leaders can celebrate recognition. But the mothers in Dadaab who raised children in camps that became permanent, Ethiopian officials managing ethnic Somali populations, and Kenyan border communities know this story.
External actors redraw maps from distant capitals, announce decisions with fanfare, then disappear when consequences arrive.
Those of us working in the region will manage what follows. Netanyahu will move on. Trump will dismiss the episode. Kenya will still manage Dadaab. Ethiopia will still navigate Mogadishu. Uganda will still absorb refugees. Al-Shabaab will still recruit young men convinced that violence is the only language outsiders understand.
This is not the first time African borders have been reshaped without regard for local realities. Unless patterns change, it will not be the last.
Agnes Gitau is Managing Partner at GBS Africa and Executive Director of the Eastern Africa Association (UK & EU). She advises on trade, policy, and geopolitical risk in Africa and serves on the board of Frontier Africa Reports.
