Issue No. 901

The Gulf's Long Shadow in Somalia

Today, Sudan's war represents the crux of a destructive schism in the Middle East that is playing out in the Horn of Africa, a geopolitical wrestle between principally the Emirates on one side and Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the other. But it is far from the first-- nor likely to be the last-- division within the Gulf that refracts across the Red Sea. Duelling interests in securing natural resources, be they gold or arable land, and in influencing the administrations on the shores of the Red Sea will undoubtedly define the politics of the Horn for years to come. Somalia, too, has often been on the sidelines of such fractures, drawn into the Arab nationalist bloc in the 1970s under Siyaad Barre or with Qatar during the last rupture in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 2017. Looking ahead, how to better manage the currently destabilising influence from the Gulf and steer it onto a positive trajectory is now the region's most pressing question.

More than most nations in the Horn, the geographic position of modern-day Somalia has necessitated trade, cultural and religious linkages with communities in the Middle East for centuries. Evidence of trade networks first linked the Land of Punt with Egypt in the 2nd millennium BCE, with Punt — believed to stretch from Eritrea's coastline to Somaliland — identified as a source of gold, incense, and myrrh. To this day, trade along the Gulf of Aden has served as a unifying thread, embedding Somalia in a broader mercantile economy, with livestock, resins, ivory, slaves, and gold flowing from a constellation of merchants and tradespeople. And along these same transnational routes-- still often in wooden dhows-- now come weapons, contraband, and migrants, with the Iranian-backed Houthi movement similarly latching onto these established networks.

By the 7th century, Islam had arrived in the Somali peninsula, believed to have been spread by a mix of Arabian merchants, Yemeni and Hadrami migrants, and religious emissaries. Several of the great medieval Sultanates of Somalia were linked to Hadrami and Hijazi networks, in turn helping to spread Islam into the Ethiopian highlands. And beyond the economic and religious ties, a great number of Somali clans claim their genealogy to Arabian forebears, even if somewhat dubious, with many considering themselves as 'Arab' rather than 'African'-- a view that also pervades the racism directed towards the Bantu people in Somalia. 

The intersection of Somalia's and Middle Eastern politics has proven consequential in the post-colonial era as well-- for better or for worse. One of the first fractures within the Arab world that played out in Somalia emerged over the direction of political Islamism. Under the 'Scientific Socialist' Siyaad Barre regime in Mogadishu, the dictator aligned himself with the Arab nationalists of Egypt's military, as well as replicating the secular repression of Islamist movements by the Ba'athist elite in Syria and Iraq. These allied powers represented a bloc against the Gulf monarchies, with Somalia perceived as a junior member-- even as Mogadishu solicited Saudi financial support from 1977 onwards. 

But at the same time, thousands of Somali students and scholars were educated in the Islamist milieu in universities and mosques across Saudi Arabia and beyond, with Somali migrants similarly drawn by the economic oil boom. And in turn, the nascent political Islamic movements in Somalia understood Barre's repression of their faith-- most notably the 'Family Laws' and the subsequent executions of 10 influential sheikhs-- within the broader context of Arab nationalism, sowing the seeds for radicalisation and exile. Many of the Muslim Brotherhood factions jostling for power in the Somali capital today can trace their lineage to the Gulf in the latter half of the 20th century. These movements were further amplified amid the collapse of the state in the early 1990s by a flood of Kuwaiti and Saudi funds for Islamic development and education organisations—and, more latterly, from Qatar.

While this religious and cultural ferment in the Middle East certainly shaped Somalia's Islamist politics, the country's geostrategic positioning over the past decade has also been influenced by fractures within the Gulf. Today, it is the Saudis and Emiratis locked in a destructive tussle, but in 2017, the festering divisions within the GCC spilt over into active hostilities, formalising a Saudi-Emirati coalition against the Turkish-Qatari alliance, with the former striving to blockade Doha due to its linkages with Iran and various Islamist movements, among other issues. 

In the wake of this public feud, though nominally independent, the new Mohamed Abdullahi Faramaajo administration in Mogadishu was widely understood to have aligned itself with Doha and Ankara. Fahad Yasin, Farmaajo's right-hand man and spy chief, was a former Al-Jazeera journalist and served as a conduit to Qatar and to Al-I'tisaam, Somalia's powerful Salafist movement. Doha bankrolled the Farmaajo campaign, while Yasin later proved instrumental in restarting talks between Al-I'tisaam and its ideological twin, Al-Shabaab, under Qatari auspices. Between 2017 and 2022, clandestine patronage and security support were steered by Doha and its then junior partner, Ankara, for the Farmaajo government.

In turn, the Emirates — and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia — were incensed by Farmaajo's perceived kowtowing to Qatar and severed financial support for Mogadishu, with Abu Dhabi enraged as well by the federal government's seizure of nearly USD 10 million in cash from an Emirati plane. From here on in, the Emirates has doubled down on its support for the sub-national administrations on the Somali peninsula, providing military and financial aid to Puntland and Somaliland, and to a lesser extent, Jubaland. The schism within the Gulf overlaid the already fractured settlement in Somalia, with all taking ready advantage of the patronage and military support on offer from Abu Dhabi and Doha.

And though a brief detente emerged with Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's return to Villa Somalia in May 2022, the geopolitical status quo of Farmaajo's era reasserted itself within 18 months, with Mogadishu turning back towards Doha and Ankara. The ports of Bosaaso and, particularly, Berbera, meanwhile, have remained prominent in the Emirates' maritime commercial strategy. With a tiny indigenous population and an economy still dependent on hydrocarbons, the Emirates considers Somalia one of the gateways into the African continent—and the promise of water and food security, as well as a young, bountiful workforce inland. But like other administrations in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Libya, Bosaaso in Puntland has come under scrutiny for facilitating weapons and mercenaries for the Emirates ally in Sudan-- the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Though Mogadishu is once again aligned with Qatar and Turkiye, it is the latter that is now ascendant in the Somali capital. The economic-security cooperation pact signed by Villa Somalia last year ties it firmly into the neo-Ottoman sphere of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The promise of hydrocarbon extraction, vast quantities of military aid, and a host of soft power entreats have bound Villa Somalia to Ankara, though Turkiye's interests are certain to continue well beyond the confines of this current federal administration. But it would be an oversimplification to frame this as solely a one-way relationship, one dictated by hyper-wealthy patrons in the Gulf. Somali leaders are experts in chameleon politics as well.

What happens in the Gulf most certainly does not stay in the Gulf. Though the Sudan war is playing out with horrific consequences on the stability of the region, so is Israel's war on Gaza. And at the same time, Iranian tendrils into Somalia are being expressed through the Houthis as well, to establish a much-overlooked incipient threat on the Gulf of Aden. It is impossible to decouple Somalia from the Gulf and the Middle East, regions with which it has deep cultural and religious ties. But in the context of an emaciated multilateral order and the decline of the 'traditional' international community, the influence of these ascendant hydrocarbon-rich states is certain to grow only further still. Today, it is the UAE and Saudi Arabia jostling for influence, but tomorrow it could be another constellation, projecting a different set of priorities and relationships across the Horn. And so, Somalia's future —and that of the wider region—will depend on whether its leaders can turn Gulf rivalries from a source of instability into leverage for a more sovereign political order. Tragically, most have failed to date.

The Somali Wire Team