Issue No. 255

The New Tripartite Alliance

Just over 6 years ago, in September 2018, the presidents of Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia met in Asmara to establish closer ties and promote "regional peace and security." Months later, at the third summit in 2020, the Eritrean Ministry of Information revealed that Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and his Ethiopian and Somali counterparts had further agreed to a "comprehensive plan to combat and neutralise... common threats." That so-called 'threat' turned out to be the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Tigrayan people, with the destructive alliance leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians dead and Ethiopia's northern region in ruins. Today, Tigray, Ethiopia, and the broader Horn of Africa continue to reel from the political, economic, security, and humanitarian consequences of the war.
 
Last week, the new iteration of the tripartite alliance was formalised in Asmara-- this time not only without Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed but in direct opposition to him. In an eerily reminiscent photo of the 2018 image, Isaias, Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi are all holding hands, while a short communique has also been published. Gone are Abiy and former Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, but the longest-serving dictator in the Horn remains.
 
Though Ethiopia goes unmentioned in the communique, its absence is keenly felt as the geopolitical glue that binds Asmara, Mogadishu, and Cairo together. The statement euphemistically emphasises "respect for the sovereignty… and territorial integrity of the countries in the region," a clear allusion to the Ethiopia-Somaliland Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that Somalia has argued contravenes its sovereignty. Asmara and Cairo, too, have their own gripes with Ethiopia, and all are seeking to wield the new alliance to isolate Addis. In the aftermath of the devastating Tigray war, Asmara and Addis fell out, with the former hell-bent on obliterating the civilian population. Egypt and Ethiopia, meanwhile, have long grappled over the use of the Nile water basin, particularly the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that lies in Benishangul-Gumuz and the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA).
 
The hangover from the first tripartite alliance is still being felt. Tigray remains in a 'frozen conflict,' with the impacts of the horrific war certain to be felt for generations. Ethiopia is far more unstable and militarised than it was before the conflict. And Eritrea has returned to the fore in the Horn, having been politically isolated for much of the 21st century. In Somalia, Farmaajo domesticated the tactics of Isaias, seeking to violently repress opposition to his government and court malign foreign actors, particularly Qatar. Several thousand young Somali recruits in Eritrea were also covertly dispatched to fight in Tigray, a scandal that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud campaigned upon in 2022 for the presidency. Since coming to power, however, Hassan Sheikh has forged a close alliance with Isaias, with his latest trip to Asmara his fourth this year alone.
 
Little good can come of this latest alliance. Though many Somali nationalists, including those in the federal government, have been encouraged by the support of Asmara and Cairo, as well as Ankara, it only drags the Horn closer to the precipice of another destructive conflict. The site and manner of which remains up for debate, but possible proxy forces could include the escalating Fano insurgency in Ethiopia's Amhara region or the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). Specific Fano militias continue to be armed and trained by the Eritrean military, and there have been reports that Egyptian intelligence is also considering arming the disparate forces that are seizing increasing territory in the Amhara region. Moreover, there are real concerns that if Egypt's forces end up co-located near Ethiopian troops in Somalia, it could spark a direct conflict.

The most notable proxy actor would be, of course, Al-Shabaab, though it only has a diminutive presence under its Jaysh al-Habash wing. While sanctions were imposed on Eritrea in 2008 for providing weapons to the jihadist group, it is hard to envisage Cairo supporting Al-Shabaab– even to undermine Ethiopia. Still, what is interesting is that while the Egyptian military government has actively sought to crush the Muslim Brotherhood at home, including jailing the democratically elected former President Mohamed Morsi, it has courted Islamists abroad. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's government is dominated by Damul Jadiid, a small sub-sect of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, while Cairo and Ankara are enjoying their best relationship in years.
 
The Asmara-Cairo-Mogadishu communique also voiced its support for the proposed Egyptian peacekeeping deployment of troops to Somalia. Yet Cairo remains broke, and though the number of up to 10,000 soldiers being deployed has been touted, both bilaterally and as part of the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), there is widespread belief that any number will be far less. Though the latest communique may note the role of the African Union, the alliance should be seen as another hammer blow to the waned multilateralism of the Horn. Yet, extraordinarily, the AU in Addis remains silent in the crisis of much of its own making. The growing discontent among other troop-contributing countries to Somalia, particularly Uganda, over Egypt's inclusion should be another warning sign of the danger of deploying non-regional forces with ulterior geopolitical motives.
 
If this alliance is about deterrence, then it fundamentally misunderstands the foreign policy of the Abiy government. Last Monday, Taye Atske-Selassie, the new president of Ethiopia, doubled down, insisting that Addis would continue to pursue actualising the MoU with Somaliland. Despite increasing pressure on Addis from several angles, the manner in which Mogadishu has pursued its opposition to the MoU has only seemingly made Ethiopia more likely to continue its course and recognise Somaliland. It is also the diminished influence of Addis as a regional hegemon that has opened the door for Asmara and Cairo to undermine it.
 
The last tripartite alliance only lasted four years, but it was enough time to wreak immense damage. How long this one lasts is yet to be seen, but it bears many of the same hallmarks of destabilising domestic and regional self-interest. And, once again, Isaias is at the heart of an attempt to undermine a neighbouring country.
 
By the Ethiopian Cable team