MOGADISHU – Investigative outlet Drop Site News has reported that Israel has established an intelligence presence at Berbera International Airport in Somaliland and is holding ongoing discussions with authorities in the breakaway region about the possible creation of an Israeli military base. The report, published on June 13, 2026, comes as Israel deepens its relationship with the self-declared republic it recognised in December 2025.
According to Drop Site, multiple current and former officials, including three Somali officials, a former Somali security official, an EU security official, and a Somaliland official, confirmed that Israel already has an intelligence footprint at Berbera Airport. A unit of Somaliland’s presidential guard has returned from training in Israel, and intelligence officers have also received training there. A separate contingent of Somaliland maritime personnel has been sent to Kenya.
A Somaliland official close to President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi (Irro) told Drop Site that in talks between the two sides prior to the establishment of diplomatic ties, Israel raised its security challenges in the region as a factor. “It was a key issue for them,” another Somaliland official said. The talks began last April at a meeting in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, with Somaliland prepared to engage Israel’s concerns only if it could first receive recognition.
The base under discussion would give Israel a military foothold on a crucial waterway near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a maritime chokepoint comparable in importance to the Strait of Hormuz. Yemen’s Houthi movement has already closed the Red Sea to Israeli ships and has threatened to close the strait entirely amid regional tensions.
Some analysts point to Berbera International Airport as a possible host for an expanded Israeli presence as part of an emerging alliance that would include Somaliland alongside Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates has maintained military infrastructure arrangements at Berbera since 2017, initially to support its operations in the Yemeni civil war. The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies has argued that Berbera’s ongoing military infrastructure upgrade paves the way for Israeli army access to the site.
A CNN investigation published earlier this month revealed that Somaliland provided Israel with a covert military position during the recent war with Iran, allowing Israeli aircraft a potential stopping point on long‑range missions – a detail that adds weight to the Drop Site reporting.
In an interview with a Somali media outlet on June 12, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud reiterated that Israel had approached his government several times about establishing relations but that Somalia had rejected those overtures. Referring to Somaliland’s ties with Israel, Mohamud warned that “a big problem will come from this,” adding that “some signs are already visible.”
Mohamud has previously described Israel’s recognition as “one of the darkest days in Somalia’s history” and said Mogadishu had considered using force but ultimately chose dialogue and persuasion. “Somaliland did not secure recognition and will not secure recognition; what it received was not recognition at all, but a trap laid by Israel,” he said.
A senior Somali official told Drop Site: “We’re closely following Israel’s intervention, which doesn’t serve Somaliland or regional security. It only advances their interests at everyone’s expense.”
Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh, whose country neighbours Somaliland to the west, described the UAE as “Israel’s vanguard” and said its intentions were “anything but peaceful.” When asked about the possibility of an Israeli base in Berbera, he responded, “That is our greatest concern.”
Guelleh has previously warned that any Israeli military presence in Berbera would directly threaten stability throughout the Horn of Africa. The Houthi leadership has also threatened to treat any Israeli installation in Somaliland as a legitimate military target, raising the spectre of regional conflict spilling directly onto Somali soil.
Somaliland officials have been circumspect about the possibility of an Israeli military base, issuing contradictory statements. The foreign ministry initially said it would not host an Israeli base, but a foreign ministry official later told Israel’s Channel 12 that the idea was being discussed and “very much on the cards.” Presidency minister Khadar Abdi later told Bloomberg there would definitely be “an analysis at some point.”
A foreign policy adviser to President Irro, Jama Abdullahi Igal Gabuush, told Israel’s Channel 14 that security cooperation was already underway, describing it as “very significant” but “not something, you know, amplified.”
Within Somaliland, the deepening ties with Israel have provoked unease. Former president Muse Bihi Abdi has called on the current administration to publish the full details of its agreement with Tel Aviv, warning that any secret pact that violates Islam would be unconstitutional. Two clerics were arrested earlier this year for criticising the relationship with Israel, along with several others.
Sheikh Mustafa Haji, one of Somalia’s and Somaliland’s most prominent Islamic preachers, drew a direct line between Somaliland’s own history, when the territory suffered tremendous violence at the hands of the central government during the civil war in the 1980s, and what it now risks enabling. “Escaping the injustice you are facing,” he said, “should never lead you to support the greatest oppressor, who is killing Muslim people to this day.”
Somaliland’s recent decision to locate its embassy in Jerusalem, a move that helps entrench Israel’s political control over the disputed city, has drawn immediate and unusually unified regional condemnation. The foreign ministers of over a dozen countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Somalia, issued a joint statement condemning what they called an “illegal and unacceptable” move.
The federal government in Mogadishu has taken a hard line against Emirati involvement, cancelling all bilateral agreements with the UAE, including those covering the ports of Berbera, Bosaso and Kismayo, and ordering the expulsion of UAE personnel from military facilities. Somalia’s cabinet accused Abu Dhabi of “undermining national sovereignty.”
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have had increasingly strained relations with Israel amid the wider regional fallout from Israel’s attack on Iran. The dispute over Somaliland has now become a new regional fault line, with the UAE supporting both normalization with Israel and Somaliland.
Former Somali intelligence chief Fahad Yasin has argued that Israel’s recognition of Somaliland carries no legal weight, noting that it was not passed by the Israeli executive or the Knesset and has no basis in Israel’s own laws. “If Netanyahu leaves office or any new developments occur in the region, a new decree could be issued to reverse it, or it could simply be ignored,” Yasin wrote.
For Mogadishu, the intelligence base and the ongoing base discussions represent the realisation of its worst fears: that Israel is using Somaliland’s quest for recognition to insert itself into the Horn of Africa, bringing with it the conflicts of the Middle East and exposing Somali territory to retaliation by the Houthis and Iran.
At an independence day address on May 18, Irro suggested that relations with Israel may run deeper than previously understood, telling Somalia’s president in a pointed remark that “Somaliland is not alone today” should Somalia marshall support across the region against it. “As for you, we are capable of dealing with you on our own,” he added.
Jama Gabuush, the foreign policy adviser, acknowledged that engagement with Israel could risk regional isolation, but said Somaliland was prepared to accept that cost in pursuit of recognition. “Somaliland has to take the stage that it has to take, and you make enemies because of what you want and who you want to be,” he said. “And I think Somaliland is ready for that.”
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