On 26 December 2025 Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel announced the official recognition of Somaliland by his government.
This came as a surprise to many - Somalis and non-Somalis around the globe (although some insiders, including in Mogadishu, had known about preparations of the matter for some months). Israel is the first state to recognize Somaliland. The interests of Israel seem clear: In the wake of the war in Gaza, backed by the Trump administration, Israel sets out to gain a hegemonic position as a military power in the Middle East and strategically around the Arab Peninsula. With Hamas and Hezbollah decimated, Iran remains the major enemy, along with the Houthis in Yemen. Israel having a foothold in Somaliland, opposite Yemen and along the shipping route through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, is the main interest of Netanyahu's regime.
Somaliland has struggled for 35 years, since 1991, to gain international recognition. Many people in the region support the case of Palestine, which was even officially announced by former Somaliland President Muse Bihi (2017-24). Yet at the moment, Somalilanders (meaning those who support the independence of Somaliland) seem ready to enter an opportunistic alliance with the government of Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war-crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The recognition of Somaliland by Israel is happening against the backdrop of 30 years of political complications in the Horn with the directions of Somalia and Somaliland still uncertain. This adds layers of complexities to the Israel-Somaliland relationship, which I disentangle as follows.
The Somali state collapsed during civil war in the early 1990s. Over the past decades, attempts to rebuild it top-down, by installing government in Mogadishu (often with the help of external actors), had limited success. Since 2012, successive Somali governments have struggled to increase their influence by pushing back Al Shabaab. The militant Islamic group has been gaining power by fighting Ethiopian intervention forces since 2006. Despite massive counter-terrorism of Somali forces and their external allies, Al Shabaab still controls parts of south-central Somalia. In 2012, a new constitution providing for a federal system was introduced. Yet, divisions of power between the central government in Mogadishu and the federal states in Somalia remain unclear. International (and some domestic) demands for free and fair democratic elections in a society deeply divided by clan animosities and mistrust is another cause of protracted conflict in south-central Somalia.
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Over the past decade, Somalia has become a geopolitical battleground, with Turkey, various Gulf States, the USA, Kenya, Ethiopia, the EU and others seeking to pursue parochial interests in alliance with local actors - additionally fragmenting Somali politics. This has produced mass corruption and nepotism and fostered zero-sum-politics. While some elites become very rich, little progress has been made regarding public service delivery to ordinary people. Failed governance has provided a lifeline for Al Shabaab, that has benefited from disunity in Somalia. Moreover, sovereignty of the state is undermined by the factitious Somali elites seeking outside support against domestic competitors and opponents. Despite this appalling leadership failure throughout Somalia, many Somalis are engaged in rebuilding their lives in areas not controlled by Al Shabaab.
Thus, Mogadishu, Kismayo, Baydhoa and some smaller towns in south-central Somalia are exhibiting economic development at an increasing speed due to private investments including diasporic engagement, in tandem with, in some places, international assistance managed locally. Politically speaking, Somalia exhibits a complex heterarchy with state and non-state actors including clan fiefdoms and Al Shabaab holding power and facilitating different forms of political order. Again, this is happening in alliance with outside forces, especially diaspora Somalis and external patrons.
Somaliland in the northwest unilaterally seceded from the rest of Somalia in 1991 and declared its independence as the Republic of Somaliland. It claimed the territory once administered by the British as Somaliland Protectorate. The secession was a reaction to the civil war that had escalated in northern Somalia in the 1980s, in which Somali forces, commanded by the military dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre (1969-91), cracked down on rebels and their relatives and, in 1988, bombarded the cities of Hargeysa and Bur'o, partly occupied by rebels, killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands. This traumatized parts of the local population in the north. The secession of Somaliland was a reaction to the newly escalating civil war in southern Somalia. When southern Somali rebels toppled the dictatorship in Mogadishu in January 1991, they failed to forge a new stable government. In-fighting caused havoc in the Somali capital and throughout south-central Somalia. Against this backdrop, many in the north thought it wise to distance themselves from the new civil war. The "birth-defect" of Somaliland, however, was that the secession was whole-heartedly only preferred by one part of the population of the northwest. The members of the Isaaq-clan family, who also supported the rebels in the 1980s, were in favour of it. They constitute roughly two-thirds of the local population and reside in central Somaliland. Members of other clan-groups inhabiting the far west (the Gadabursi and Ise) and the east (the Dhulbahante and Warsangeli) of Somaliland, plus some smaller groups residing all over the north, had supported the Barre regime against the rebels and in 1991 were reluctant about secession. They agreed to it, however, for the sake of peace in the north. Many continued to hope for the renaissance of a (united) Somalia.
Over the following decades, Somaliland emerged as a de facto state (featuring important aspects of statehood but lacking recognition) only in central Somaliland inhabited by the Isaaq and, partly, in the west of the region inhabited by Gadabursi clan members, who eventually accepted Isaaq overrule in exchange for some participation in government and economic development. A multi-party system was introduced in 2001 and subsequently elections were held (but not all over the claimed state territory; particularly the east remained largely inaccessible for officials from Hargeysa). Somaliland also attracted increasing external investments, notably Dubai-Port-World's US$450 million investments (starting in 2016 and running over several years) in the port of Berbera. This intensified trade with land-locked Ethiopia along the so-called "Berbera corridor". Trade increased prosperity but also competition for power in Somaliland. However, these very substantial political and economic developments mainly took place in Isaaq-inhabited central Somaliland.
In the eastern regions, inhabited by members of the Dhulbahante, Warsangeli and Fiqishini clans, which constitute some 30 per cent of the territory once included in the British Protectorate of Somaliland, the government in Hargeysa never exercised much control. People there, as a rule, adhered to the idea of a united Somalia. They tended to side with Puntland which was established in north-eastern Somalia in 1998 and pursued the plan to re-establish Somalia as a federal state. In late 2007, Somaliland forces, aided by some Dhulbahante factions, moved into Lasanod, pushing out Puntland forces that had controlled this strategically important town in Dhulbahante territory in Sool region. Locals partly resisted what they considered to be an "occupation" by Somaliland forces. Over some years, clashes between local clan militias and troops sent by Hargeysa ensued. Between 2015 and 2022 Somaliland managed to exercise more stable rule over Lasanod and its surroundings, facilitating moderate investments in local infrastructure. However, insecurity continued to haunt Lasanod. Over the years, some 100 members of the elite in the town were assassinated and the Somaliland administration in charge did not comprehensively investigate the murders. Eventually, in December 2022, after the killing of a popular Dhulbahante politician, locals staged big demonstrations against insecurity in Lasanod. Somaliland troops opened fire killing and injuring dozens of civilians. In early 2023 an armed uprising started that eventually led to the overthrow of Somaliland rule and to the establishment of an autonomous Dhulbahante administration in Lasanod in mid-2023. Since then the whole of the east has been out of Hargeysa's control. Initially, a so called SSC-Khaatumo autonomous administration was established in Dhulbahante-lands. Warsangeli had their own autonomous area called Maakhir. In mid-2025 a new federal State was established called North-East State of Somalia. It includes all of the Dhulbahante territories and enjoys some support among the Warsangeli, who otherwise chose to integrate into Puntland. Since mid-2023, Somaliland effectively ends where Isaaq-inhabited land ends in the east (in Oog some 150 kilometres east of Bur'o). An MoU entered into by the Somaliland President Muse Bihi with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on 1 January 2024, that included vague prospects for recognition of Somaliland in exchange for an Ethiopian naval base west of Berbera, was quietly shelved after the government in Mogadishu set out to forge an anti-Ethiopian alliance with Egypt and Eritrea. Turkey eventually mediated between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu at the end of 2024. This episode underlines the fragility of politics in the region.
This outline shows that Somali realities on the ground are more complex than the cliché of a "failed Somalia", on the one hand, and a "democratic and peaceful Somaliland", on the other, would suggest. The Somaliland recently recognized by Israel is, in contrast to what some analysts argue, not the same as the territory that was granted independence by the British on 26 June 1960, and existed for five days as an independent state, before joining the Italian-administered Somali territories to form the Somali Republic on 1 July 1960.
Against this backdrop, the question is: what does Israel's recognition of Somaliland mean?
Scenario 1: The government of Somaliland only controls around 70 per cent of the territory it claims. The recognition of Somaliland in the boundaries of the former British Protectorate would include those people resisting the independence of Somaliland. This means that they do not accept being ruled by Hargeysa; and they have their own militias. Recognition coupled with attempts by Hargeysa to implement its rule over all the territory including in the former British Protectorate of Somaliland would therefore likely lead to civil strife in northern Somalia.
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Scenario 2: The government in Hargeysa refrains from seeking to subjugate non-Isaaq opponents especially in the east. Instead, Somaliland draws its boundaries anew and only claims sovereignty over the territories inhabited by Isaaq and, possibly, the far west (Gadabursi and Ise lands). The east would remain with Somalia. In this way, conflict in the region could possibly be avoided. Yet, it is unlikely that rather a complex operation of drawing new state boundaries between clan-territories would be accepted by people in the region and the African Union - albeit already happened in South Sudan (with mixed results).
Scenario 3: The independence of Somaliland is against the will of the majority of Somalis inhabiting Somalia but also parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. For many Somalis, separating Somaliland from Somalia is a return to colonial partition. Historically, most Somalis, including the Isaaq, throughout the 1950s and during the first two postcolonial decades, saw it as an important political goal to unite all Somalis in the Horn in "Greater Somalia". In the long run, it is possible that a newly emerging Somalia will seek to integrate Somaliland again, if necessary by force (which would mean an "Ethiopia-Eritrea scenario").
Scenario 4: Somalia will remain very weak for the coming decade and will eventually be partitioned further - with Kenya and Ethiopia carving out parts of the south of Somalia and the rest falling apart into mini-states.
Scenario 5: Israel's initiative does not lead to other states following and eventually stalls. Somaliland remains not-sovereign given that the government in Hargeysa is weak. Israel's main aim is to control the Houthis in Yemen and use Somaliland as a military base. Locals, including many Isaaq, will realize sooner or later that the Israeli initiative does not recompense them. On the contrary, it runs the risk of drawing their homeland into the conflict in Yemen and to exposing it to Houthi attacks. Eventually, Somalilanders will turn their backs on Israel and, if leaders in Hargeysa and Mogadishu eventually take meaningful negotiations seriously (which so far has not been the case), these can start between the north and the south over a future political settlement that is beneficial for all Somalis.
Markus Virgil Hoehne is a lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Goettingen. He has been researching Somali issues since 2000 and has extensively published on Somaliland, Puntland, conflict dynamics, state formation, and political Islam in Somalia.
