Tag Archives: oil protection unit Somaliland

Dirt Poor but Mighty: Somaliland

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By extending diplomatic recognition to the breakaway statelet of Somaliland, on December 26, 2025, Israel has cut a deal aimed at sharing intelligence and securing the strategic waterways of the Red Sea—making the country a player in the Horn of Africa, where Arab countries are jostling for influence…Somaliland, a semidesert territory inside internationally recognized Somali borders, lies just south of the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait that connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean…Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia during a civil war in 1991, is a self-declared nation of 6.2 million people—which, if it were a nation state, would be one of the poorest in the world. Its territory is smaller than Missouri.

Somaliland has an underused port and a long runway at Berbera… Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, operating in Yemen, called the recognition a “hostile and illegitimate act” targeting Somalia, Yemen and the Red Sea and warned that any Israeli presence in Somaliland would be considered a military target. Somaliland has in recent years been monitoring a Houthi buildup of arms trade and training to a Somali al Qaeda affiliate called al-Shabaab.

Excerpt from Benoit Faucon, Israel Flexes New Diplomatic Muscle in Recognition of Somaliland, WSJ, Jan. 4, 2025

Protecting Foreign Oil Companies – Somaliland

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U.N. experts warn that plans by Somalia’s breakaway enclave Somaliland to deploy special forces to protect foreign oil companies could worsen conflicts in the long unstable Horn of Africa.  A confidential May 27, 2014 letter to the U.N. Security Council sanctions committee on Somalia and Eritrea, obtained by Reuters on May 30, 2014, recommends the panel consider whether the planned armed unit could be viable or not.

“The deployment of an Oil Protection Unit could play into internal and regional conflicts that appear to be brewing within Somaliland and between Somaliland and other regional authorities, if its deployment is not handled carefully or accompanied by mitigating measures,” the coordinator of the expert monitoring group, Jarat Chopra, wrote.  The experts, who monitor sanctions violations, said in July that Western commercial oil exploration in disputed areas and discrepancies over which authorities can issue licenses to companies could cause more fighting in Somalia.  Chopra’s letter repeated that “legal and constitutional discrepancies in respect of oil licensing throughout Somalia have opened the door for potential conflicts between the Federal Government of Somalia and regional authorities, and between regional authorities themselves.”

The overthrow of a dictator in 1991 plunged Somalia into two decades of violence, first at the hands of clan warlords and then Islamist militants, while two semi-autonomous regions – Puntland and Somaliland – have cropped up in northern Somalia.  About a dozen companies, including many multinational oil and gas majors, had licenses to explore Somalia before 1991, but since then Somaliland, Puntland and other authorities have granted their own licenses for the same blocks….

Excerpt, MICHELLE NICHOLS AND LOUIS CHARBONNEA, Exclusive: U.N. experts wary of Somaliland plan for armed oil protection unit, Reuters, May 30, 2014