Issue No. 911

A Two-Handed Feint in Laas Aanood

The stage is set for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's long-awaited visit to Laas Aanood on Thursday, with the town in the Sool region bristling with the red berets of his presidential guard. Ostensibly visiting to attend the inauguration of his ally and proxy as North-Eastern State (NES) president, Abdikhadir Ahmed Aw-Ali 'Firdhiye', Hassan Sheikh's repeatedly delayed visit comes in the wake of Israel's unilateral recognition of Somaliland. 

The messaging of the president's choreographed visit is clearer than ever, signalling that it is the Somali government that controls territory within the boundaries of the 1960 Somaliland Protectorate, and it is Hassan Sheikh, not Somaliland President Abdirahman Irro nor Puntland leader Said Abdullahi Deni, who can visit the Dhulbahante-majority city. But the visit is a two-handed feint, throwing dust into the domestic air and reasserting his nationalist credentials while facilitating Riyadh and Ankara manoeuvres for their own slice of the Somali peninsula. And the stormy geopolitical backdrop to the visit-- which just a few months ago would have been considered an undoubted 'win' for nationalists-- has cast a pall over the event. 

As so often is the case, the optics belie a much more complex reality. The SSC-Khaatumo administration, redubbed and unconstitutionally cast as the NES last year, remains constrained within a single fractured clan enclave of the Dhulbahante. Their fellow Harti sub-clan of the Warsangeli that populate Sanang is even more splintered, though their political and business interests have generally gravitated towards Puntland. In turn, a visit by the president and a grand ceremony proclaiming that Firdhiye is a Federal Member State (FMS) president, akin to Deni, do not hold water, nor do they establish NES for a post-Hassan Sheikh political settlement. NES may have some of the organs of an FMS, such as a handpicked parliament, but it remains squeezed between two adversarial governments in Somaliland and Puntland, who regard the administration—and Al-Shabaab's penetration of it—as a deeply hostile, destabilising presence.

At a press conference on Sunday, Puntland Information Minister Mohamud Aydid Dirir accused Hassan Sheikh of inciting conflict, accusing Villa Somalia of deploying forces to Sool to wage war against Somaliland and collaborating with Ankara to establish military bases in Puntland's territory. Even prior to Israeli recognition, weapons from Mogadishu and backed by Ankara and Beijing flooded into Laas Aanood in 2025, arming the host of militias affiliated with NES. Though, thankfully, violence has not erupted, the politics of Sool and Sanaag remain a tinderbox, with more fuel thrown on by Hassan Sheikh's anticipated visit. 

Yet more concerning to Puntland, though, is the emerging reports that Ankara and Mogadishu are planning to develop a military facility in Laas Qoray, a peripheral fishing town in the contested Sanaag region. The latest strand of Villa Somalia's entanglement with Ankara, the prospects of a Turkish military base in Laas Qoray should be regarded as a retort to the facility pledged to Israel in Berbera as part of the Somaliland recognition deal. But if the Turks intend to occupy Laas Qoray, they will have to contend with Puntland and Somaliland, as evidenced by a Puntland military contingent recently deployed to a small settlement about 30 kilometres from Bosaaso and 70 kilometres from Laas Qoray. Nor is it likely that the Warsangeli are eager to invite broader Israeli-Turkish tensions to their shores, given Tel Aviv's eagerness to strike any facility or country that it considers a threat to its national security.

The advanced Puntland military position in Sanaag has triggered an alarmed response from Al-Shabaab and Somalilanders alike, albeit for radically different reasons. The jihadists —ensconced in the rugged Cal Madow Mountains —seem to fear the start of long-awaited Operation Onkod (Thunder), the Puntland military operation intended to dislodge them from their mountain fortress in eastern Sanaag. Some elements of the Somaliland public, on the other hand, have understandably interpreted Puntland's intervention as a military response to recognition, rather than as part of coordinated Hargeisa-Garowe measures. Meanwhile, smugglers and the growing Houthi presence routinely use the beachheads and coastal inlets in and around Laas Qoray to ply weapons and people, and just a few kilometres back from the coastline lies the Cal Madow range. All in all, the auspices of such a base are complex.

But Ankara is not the only power muscling in on the churning politics in the New Year, with Saudi Arabia striding into view as well. Apparently buoyed by the events in Yemen and the routing of the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), the Defence Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi has called on Riyadh to "intervene militarily, with full authority, against the Somaliland administration." An extraordinary statement, Fiqi's statement recalls the late 1980s, when Siyaad Barre's warplanes indiscriminately razed many towns to the ground, including Hargeisa. Invoking war and conflict with Somaliland-- no matter Israel's machinations-- surely cannot be a way forward.

At this juncture, it feels improbable that Saudi Arabia would intervene against Somaliland or Israeli positions, with their particular gripe still with the UAE, albeit an ally of both. But the historic hegemon, Riyadh, is seemingly waking to the broader threat of 'strategic encirclement' posed by the Emirates and is now manoeuvring into position regarding Somalia. Hassan Sheikh is also expected to travel to Riyadh in the coming days, with discussions reportedly already underway on two potential Saudi inlets in the Gulf of Aden. Neither is uncontentious, with the first—Abdalkuri Island—having remained under de facto Emirati control since the collapse of the Somali state, and the second being a sliver of coast known as Sabca Raas that is constitutionally under Puntland's authority. The deal is not yet hashed out, but it appears that Riyadh is no longer content with the Emirates running the show along the Gulf of Aden. The Saudis are also expected to lobby Villa Somalia to formally sever ties with the UAE, and further condemnation of the Emirati allies of Puntland and Jubaland is anticipated from Mogadishu. 

While the president can travel to Laas Aanood, Hassan Sheikh cannot reverse-engineer the decoupling of Puntland from Mogadishu or Somaliland's striving to become recognised beyond Israel. A Rubicon for Hargeisa has been crossed, now definitively ending the prospect of reunification, even if no other country has followed suit. And Puntland's withdrawal from the federation has not been driven by Somaliland's successes but rather by the persistent centralising efforts of Mogadishu. Indeed, each attempt to claw back powers or responsibilities to the Somali capital from the two littoral administrations has pushed them further away-- and towards one another. So much so that Puntland, where, historically, unionist credentials were a prerequisite for any public office, has sought to kick the can down the road on responding to Israeli recognition, establishing a committee to look into the matter. 

But neither should the visit to Laas Aanood obscure the pressing issue of the May presidential election, with the format nor the timeline still agreed. It is readily apparent that the federal president intends to wield Somaliland recognition as a cudgel both against his own domestic opposition and to likely obfuscate and delay the polls. Though the geopolitics of the Somali peninsula are now inflamed, the domestic circumstances have changed little in the past weeks, nor have the broader concerns about the threat of an Al-Shabaab seizure of Mogadishu.

Still, the war in the Middle East and geopolitical tussling of the Gulf have landed on Somalia's shores. A month ago, the visit of the president to Laas Aanood would perhaps have been considered foolhardy and an attempt to frustrate both Somaliland and Puntland. Today, the invitation of the Turks into Laas Qoray throws down a gauntlet to Israel, inviting the prospect of a proxy conflict in the Horn, while Fiqi's explicit request of Riyadh to bomb Somaliland offers Somalia up as the latest battleground in the intra-Gulf struggle of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

The Somali Wire Team