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https://www.ft.com/content/c10c6342-dffa-4ede-84b3-faf4d38880a7?syn-25a6b1a6=1When Israel became the only country to formally recognise the self-declared state of Somaliland, it prompted a run on the Israeli flag with little precedent in a Muslim society. President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi had written to UN member states pleading Somaliland’s historic case for independence. After months of secret talks, Israel was the only one to respond with the answer he sought. The outcome has given Israel a foothold on the Bab el-Mandeb strait, through which up to 14 per cent of global maritime trade flows, just as great power and Middle Eastern rivalry intensifies along Africa’s Red Sea coast and the Iran war threatens to spill over into the region. Somaliland, one of the most stable corners of the Horn of Africa, has been pitched into a geopolitical maelstrom. “At first we didn’t know which country it was,” said Abdi Yusuf, who owns a printing company in Hargeisa, explaining that the government had told the public in December to anticipate news on diplomatic recognition — without saying from where it would come. “We had to quickly look up the flag on the internet,” he said. “Within half an hour the presses were running. In no time we sold 10,000 Israeli flags.” The speed at which events have gathered pace since the December announcement has left the Hargeisa government little room to capitalise on public euphoria at what was the first substantial victory in Somaliland’s 34-year-long struggle for international recognition. The port of Berbera. The UAE has invested $450mn into the port © Petterik Wiggers/FT Over that time, and by contrast with much of the rest of Somalia — which remains divided between semi-autonomous regions, al-Shabaab militants affiliated to al-Qaeda and a weak federal government in Mogadishu — Somaliland has quietly established democracy and relative stability. With $450mn in United Arab Emirates investment in the port at Berbera and transport links to landlocked Ethiopia, it has the platform to become a regional entrepôt. The hope in Hargeisa was that other countries would quickly follow Israel’s example, providing momentum for wider global support. “It has been tricky to be recognised by Israel because of the Palestinians and international revulsion at what happened in Gaza,” said Saad Ali Shire, a former finance and foreign minister, adding that Somaliland had made “new enemies as well as friends” by aligning itself with the country. But he added that Hargeisa had been in search of an influential international backer for decades. Now it had one. Saad Ali Shire is hoping more countries can be persuaded to recognise Somaliland © Petterik Wiggers/FT “We hope that Israel and its friends will help persuade some countries to be second and third. That will take a lot of pressure off,” he said. It has proved an inopportune year, however, to leverage the new partnership for further diplomatic and economic gains. “Other countries don’t want to be boxed in with Israel, especially now,” said a western official in the region, who was not authorised to speak publicly. At a time that hostilities in the region have been crystallising around distinct blocs, Matt Bryden, an expert on Somalia and the Horn of Africa, said Somaliland had in effect picked one camp over another, in part because it had little choice. The status quo had manifestly not worked for the self-declared state, he said, so it chose the bloc most likely to disrupt it: the UAE is already a patron, Israel is on board, parts of the Trump administration are sympathetic to Hargeisa, and neighbouring Ethiopia is in search of access to the sea. “There was a logic to what was supposed to happen next that has been knocked sideways by the war,” said Bryden. Hargeisa finds itself now with a formidable array of adversaries at an explosive moment not only in the Horn of Africa, where simmering conflicts are drawing in a wide array of external actors, but also as a result of the continuing US-Israeli war against Iran. At the forefront are Somalia and Djibouti, states that do not want Somaliland to become a formal reality, and have marshalled opposition from the Arab League, the African Union and as far afield as Pakistan. Then there are the states that do not want Israel to establish a foothold on the Red Sea, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, which has fishing and oil exploration rights in Somalia and has doubled down on its support for Mogadishu. And there are those countries such as Saudi Arabia and Sudan that oppose the UAE’s military presence at a base established at the Somaliland port of Berbera. As a signatory to the Abraham Accords, Abu Dhabi played a role brokering Hargeisa’s alignment with Israel. Beijing is also in the mix, as it seeks to stamp out the last remnants of African support for Taiwan in Somaliland. Young women at the beach in the city of Berbera © Petterik Wiggers/FT Among non-state actors ranged against Hargeisa are al-Shabaab militants and — across the Bab el-Mandeb strait in Yemen — the Iran-backed Houthis, who have threatened to attack should Israel establish a military presence. “Mogadishu has done very little to heal the marriage with Somaliland,” said Hassan Khannenje, director of the Nairobi-based Horn International Institute for Strategic Studies. “But you have the realpolitik. It is very stubborn how the world is arranged.” Despite the regional opprobrium and threats, many Somalilanders remain fiercely defensive of their new alliance with Israel. Even after the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, officials in Hargeisa have brushed off suggestions that they have made themselves more vulnerable, for example by placing themselves in the crosshairs of the Houthis. “Obviously we are very much concerned with what’s happening in the Middle East,” said Abdirahman Dahir Adan, Somaliland’s foreign minister. But he said Somaliland had been boxed into a corner for decades, and there was an urgency to finding a way to gain greater access to the world. Abdirahman Dahir Adan says the real threat to Somaliland will come from young people losing hope that one day things will change © Petterik Wiggers/FT “We’ve been doing this democracy, keeping the peace, keeping the terrorists out,” he said, defending Hargeisa’s secret courtship of Israel. The real threat to Somaliland, he added, would come from young people losing hope that one day things will change. “Things will disintegrate,” he said. The war against Iran, meanwhile, could by some accounts even work in Hargeisa’s interests. Should the Houthis threaten global trade flows — having entered the conflict in late March by firing missiles at Israel — it would refocus international attention on Somaliland’s strategic relevance at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb, providing further incentives for Israel and even the US to consider a military presence. “Even if that makes Hargeisa look isolated, it would hardly be worse than now,” said Bryden.