Addis Abeba — Somalia is approaching one of the most dangerous political moments in its post-1991 history. The confrontation between the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) and several Federal Member States (FMS) has moved beyond constitutional disagreement and electoral competition into an increasingly militarised struggle over who controls the Somali state. The latest violence in Baidoa offers the clearest warning yet. On 17 August, federal troops fought forces aligned with former South West State President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen. Federal forces subsequently re-established control of the city. Reporting by Reuters described the fighting as the worst in Baidoa in months, while coverage from the Associated Press detailed significant civilian casualties and displacement.
This crisis is unfolding against a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian backdrop. Millions of Somalis face acute food insecurity, while international assistance has collapsed and hundreds of health and nutrition facilities face closure. Yet alongside Somalia's political and humanitarian emergency stands one of the country's most powerful external partnerships: Türkiye. The danger is not that Türkiye is helping Somalia build a stronger state. It is that Ankara may be helping build a stronger Mogadishu at a moment when Somalia desperately needs a stronger political settlement.
Since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's landmark visit to Mogadishu during the 2011 famine, Ankara has transformed itself from a humanitarian partner into a strategic actor with interests spanning defence, infrastructure, trade, maritime security, fisheries, and hydrocarbons. That relationship has delivered real benefits. Türkiye has trained Somali security forces, invested in infrastructure, provided humanitarian assistance, and helped develop national security institutions. But the relationship has also entered a new and more complicated phase.
Türkiye now has military personnel in Somalia under an extended mandate authorised by the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Ankara's official rationale includes supporting Somalia against terrorism and other security threats. At the same time, Türkiye has deepening interests in Somalia's maritime economy and hydrocarbons. The result is a strategic convergence: Mogadishu needs Turkish military and diplomatic support, while Türkiye needs a stable and cooperative Somali government to protect its expanding strategic interests.
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That convergence is understandable. It is also potentially dangerous. The question, therefore, is no longer whether Türkiye is helping Somalia build state capacity--it clearly is. The more consequential question is whether Ankara is strengthening Somalia as a federal state or strengthening the federal executive at the expense of the political balance that keeps the federation together.
From humanitarian diplomacy to strategic power
Türkiye's early engagement with Somalia was principally humanitarian. Erdoğan's 2011 visit created enormous goodwill among Somalis and established a political relationship distinct from the heavily security-orientated approach of many Western governments. Over the following decade, Turkish involvement expanded into hospitals, roads, education, aviation, trade, and public infrastructure.
Then security became central. The establishment of Camp TURKSOM in Mogadishu in 2017 transformed Türkiye into one of Somalia's most important military partners. Turkish instructors trained thousands of Somali soldiers, including members of the elite Gorgor formations. By 2026, Türkiye's military role had become considerably broader, with the Turkish parliament approving a multi-year extension allowing Turkish forces to remain deployed across Somali land and maritime domains.
A national army can defeat an insurgency only if the population believes that the army belongs to the nation--not to the government of the day."
The strategic logic is straightforward: Somalia cannot defeat Al-Shabaab without a capable national security institution, and a country that remains dependent indefinitely on foreign troops cannot achieve genuine security sovereignty. Türkiye therefore has a legitimate argument for helping Somalia construct a national army.
However, a fundamental complication remains. The Somali army is being built inside a political system that has not yet agreed on what the Somali state itself should look like. That makes military assistance inherently political. Every battalion raises questions about recruitment and representation; every command structure raises questions about political loyalty; every deployment raises questions about federal authority; and every foreign-supplied weapon creates questions about who ultimately controls the coercive power of the state. A national army can defeat an insurgency only if the population believes that the army belongs to the nation--not to the government of the day.
Security partner or political stakeholder?
The danger has become visible in South West State. The confrontation between Mogadishu and South West State escalated into armed conflict in Baidoa this year. Critics of the federal government have accused Mogadishu of deploying Turkish-trained forces in the confrontation and of benefiting from Turkish military capabilities. A prominent Somali senator, Abdi Ismail Samatar, went further, accusing Türkiye of helping engineer political realignment and seeking to establish a client relationship with Mogadishu. These accusations indicate something equally important: Türkiye's military relationship with Mogadishu has become politically contested inside Somalia.
The perception of neutrality is itself a strategic asset. Once a Federal Member State begins to regard Turkish-trained national forces as instruments of centralisation rather than national defence, Ankara's security assistance acquires a political meaning it may not have intended.
That is the security dilemma: Mogadishu sees regional armed forces as a threat to national sovereignty, while the regions see an increasingly capable federal military as a threat to their constitutional autonomy. Mogadishu strengthens the centre; the regions respond by strengthening themselves. The federal government interprets that response as evidence of fragmentation, while the regions interpret the federal response as proof of centralisation--creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
The central risk is not the existence of Gorgor or other elite Somali units--Somalia needs them. The risk is mission distortion. A force trained and equipped to fight Al-Shabaab acquires an entirely different political meaning when deployed in a confrontation with a Federal Member State.
This is why Türkiye needs to insist on clear boundaries around the use of the forces it helps train and equip. The principle should be simple: Turkish military assistance must strengthen Somali national security and become an instrument in Somalia's political competition.
That requires more than assurances from Mogadishu. It requires a transparent doctrine, parliamentary oversight, end-use monitoring, and credible mechanisms to investigate alleged misuse. Without those safeguards, every domestic deployment of Turkish-trained forces will generate suspicion in a political system where trust is already mediated through clan, region, and political affiliation.
Lifting Somalia's general UN arms embargo under Resolution 2714 was intended to enable the Somali government to acquire the weapons needed to fight Al-Shabaab and rebuild its security institutions. That objective was legitimate, but lifting an embargo is not the same as eliminating the problem of weapons diversion.
Somalia remains a battlefield in which government positions can be overrun, weapons can be captured, and military equipment can move between state and non-state actors. The real question is not simply how many weapons Somalia receives, but how many remain under accountable government control.
The most recent incident involving Turkish military supplies demonstrates the scale of the logistical challenge. Pirates hijacked the commercial vessel M/V LUTUF off Puntland's coast while it was reportedly carrying Turkish weapons and communications equipment bound for a Turkish military training facility in Mogadishu. The incident does not establish that Turkish weapons are being diverted into Somalia's political conflicts, but it demonstrates the complexity of the military supply chain connecting Türkiye and Somalia and underlines why greater transparency is necessary.
Fisheries, hydrocarbons and federal power struggle
The military relationship is only one part of Türkiye's growing strategic footprint; the other is resources. In late 2025, Somalia's Ministry of Fisheries and Blue Economy and Türkiye's OYAK established SOMTURK, which acts as the designated service provider for processing foreign fishing-license applications within Somalia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In early 2026, the first international fishing licence under the arrangement was issued to a Turkish-flagged vessel.
Somalia's maritime resources are not simply economic assets--they are political assets. Fishing rights, offshore hydrocarbons, and maritime revenues intersect directly with questions of federal authority, coastal jurisdiction, and revenue-sharing.
Türkiye has now also moved into offshore hydrocarbons, with the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) initiating offshore exploration. For Türkiye, Somali energy could provide a long-term commercial and geopolitical opportunity. For Somalia, hydrocarbons could eventually transform public finances.
However, resource wealth can also become a source of conflict when political institutions have not reached consensus over ownership, management, and revenue distribution. Under the 2018 Baidoa Agreement, natural resource management is a shared competency requiring consultation with Federal Member States. If Mogadishu negotiates major resource arrangements while regional states believe they have been excluded, the economic dispute can become another front in the political struggle.
Türkiye's growing role also creates a diplomatic contradiction. Ankara wants to be both Mogadishu's strategic partner and a mediator in Somalia's wider regional disputes, including the crisis triggered by Ethiopia's Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland. The problem is that a mediator must possess the confidence of all parties.
Somali political actors increasingly question whether Türkiye can play that role while maintaining such a close relationship with Villa Somalia. Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar has been among the most outspoken critics, arguing that Ankara's economic footprint and security posture compromise its neutrality in mediating domestic political rivalries.
The concerns extend beyond individual opposition figures. Regions like Puntland and Jubaland have increasingly resisted aspects of Mogadishu's political agenda, particularly regarding constitutional reform, elections, and federal authority. In regional political circles, Turkish intelligence and military support are often perceived as bolstering Mogadishu's central government at the expense of regional autonomy. If regional governments conclude that Türkiye is effectively aligned with Villa Somalia, Ankara risks losing the trust necessary to operate as a credible mediator.
From vertical war to horizontal conflict
For more than a decade, Somalia's central security struggle has been vertical: the state versus Al-Shabaab. The emerging danger is horizontal: Mogadishu versus regions, political factions, and competing security networks. That transformation would be disastrous.
Al-Shabaab thrives when political institutions fracture. Every federal confrontation diverts resources away from counterterrorism; every armed dispute creates opportunities for infiltration; every displaced population becomes more vulnerable; and every political crisis erodes public confidence in the national state. A renewed internal conflict would therefore not simply be a political crisis--it would be a national humanitarian catastrophe.
A serious analysis must resist the temptation to attribute Somalia's political crisis entirely to Ankara. Türkiye did not create Somalia's clan divisions, the federal system, the disputes over elections, or the rivalry between Mogadishu and regional capitals. Nor is every Turkish agreement with the Somali government evidence of exploitation.
The safest Somalia for Türkiye is not a Somalia ruled by the strongest government in Mogadishu."
Türkiye has genuine strategic and economic interests, just as every major external power does. The question is whether the way those interests are pursued strengthens or weakens Somalia's political settlement. Foreign assistance is never politically neutral when it changes the balance of coercive power inside a contested political system, and Türkiye now possesses enough influence to alter that balance.
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The safest Somalia for Türkiye is not a Somalia ruled by the strongest government in Mogadishu. It is a Somalia in which no government needs foreign military power to impose its political will on the federation.
Ankara's path forward
Türkiye still has an opportunity to correct course by separating its strategic interests from the fortunes of any individual Somali administration:
First, establish rigorous end-use verification for all major Turkish military transfers through transparent tracking and independent auditing.
Second, protect the political neutrality of Turkish-trained forces by embedding explicit safeguards against the deployment of national security institutions in partisan political disputes.
Third, broaden the Turkish-Somali partnership to engage directly with Federal Member States, civil society, and legitimate political opposition rather than relying on a single-gatekeeper model.
Fourth, ensure constitutional transparency by subjecting fisheries and hydrocarbon agreements like SOMTURK and TPAO exploration deals to proper parliamentary oversight and regional consultation.
Fifth, multilateralise diplomatic mediation by working alongside the African Union, IGAD, and international partners rather than attempting to monopolise political gatekeeping.
Conclusion: Choosing state over executive
Türkiye has every right to pursue its strategic interests in Somalia. It wants maritime security, counterterrorism efficacy, energy partnerships, commercial opportunities, and a strategic footprint in the Horn of Africa. The danger begins when protecting those interests becomes dependent upon the political dominance of one administration in Mogadishu.
A government can become stronger while the state becomes weaker; a national army can become larger while national legitimacy deteriorates; and resource agreements can generate future revenue while simultaneously generating new conflicts over who controls that wealth.
Ankara faces a historic choice: it can continue treating Villa Somalia as the sole gateway to Somalia's future, or it can use its influence to help build a broader settlement in which Mogadishu is strong but accountable, Federal Member States are autonomous but constitutionally integrated, national security institutions are powerful but politically neutral, and natural resources are governed transparently.
The first path may protect Turkish interests in the short term, but the second would protect them for generations. Türkiye's ultimate strategic interest in Somalia is not a particular president or political faction, but a Somali state stable enough that Ankara's interests do not depend on who controls Villa Somalia. That is the difference between supporting a government and building a state. AS
Editor's Note: Adam Daud Ahmed is a Horn of Africa political and security analyst specializing in democracy and counterterrorism. He can be reached at aadan7333@hotmail.com
