PREVIEW
Hassan Sheikh’s split with the UAE is part of a wider regional push back against the oil-rich Gulf State
Somalia’s suspension of its bilateral agreements with the United Arab Emirates has prompted Dubai withdrawing workers and equipment from its ports in Somaliland, Somalia and Puntland. It will weaken the UAE’s leverage in the Horn of Africa, and complicate its weapons shipments to the Rapid Support Forces militia in Sudan.
At the end of last week, UAE officials had confirmed to Mogadishu that they no longer have a military presence in Kismayo and that their military facility in Berbera has been fully evacuated. Dubai has not yet given a timeline for withdrawing from its facility in Bosaso.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is trying to shore up diplomatic support for Somalia in the wake of Israel’s recognition of the breakaway republic of Somaliland at the end of last year (AC Vol 67 No 1, Somaliland’s bombshell ripples through the Horn). Hassan Sheik and his advisors believe the UAE’s covert security relations with the Benjamin Netanyahu government was key to Israel’s decision.
Mogadishu’s diplomatic pushback has been successful so far: with Saudi Arabia and Turkey , as well as China and the European Union, among the most vocal backers of Somalia’s territorial sovereignty.
‘We had a good relationship with the UAE, but unfortunately, they didn't engage us as an independent and sovereign nation,’ Somalia’s president told journalists last week.
Relations with Abu Dhabi deteriorated sharply when Hassan Sheikh’s team suspected Emirati involvement in 2024 when Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that he would recognise the territorial sovereignty Somaliland region in exchange for access to a port in the Gulf of Aden. Abiy Ahmed later backed down following mediation led by Turkey (Dispatches, 3/3/25, Abiy and Hassan Sheikh turn down the rancour).
Kicking out the UAE will cost Dubai an estimated US$800 million in infrastructure investment but it will also hurt Somalia’s economy. It could also undermine efforts to tackle Islamic State or Da’ish in Puntland, where the UAE has poured in huge sums of money (AC Vol 66 No 24, Funding woes dog anti-Islamic State war as Washington joins in).
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