https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/ilhan-omar-wdm-investigation-alert-665

A State Cannot Be Held By A Port Alone: Lessons From Puntland’s First Crisis – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/20102026-a-state-cannot-be-held-by-a-port-alone-lessons-from-puntlands-first-crisis-oped/

WDM Editorial

A Somali voice in a global journal

GAROWE, Puntland, Somalia — The email from the editors of Environmental Policy and Governance arrived in October 2026. Ismail H. Warsame’s manuscript, “Environmental Governance and the Vocational Skills Deficit in Fragile States: A Comparative Policy Review of Somalia, Yemen and Liberia,” had been accepted. The journal is published by Wiley and edited by Andy Gouldson, and it has a long record of printing serious work on how societies look after their environments. Getting in is hard.

We think this acceptance is worth more than a line in a publication list. Most research on fragile states is still produced by people who study them from a distance. Warsame lives and works in Garowe. His article takes an argument formed here, in Puntland, and puts it in front of the people who shape environmental policy research worldwide.

The question he asks is one the field usually skips. A ministry drafts an environmental policy. A government adopts it. Then who goes out and does the work?

Policy without hands

His answer is that fragile states are not mainly short of rules. They tend to have plenty of laws, national strategies and donor frameworks. What they don’t have is enough trained people to enforce the rules, keep watch over forests, pastures and fishing grounds, repair the damage and earn a decent living from the land and sea without wrecking it.

The article started as a study of Somalia alone. That study followed four kinds of damage: plastic pollution, illegal fishing, worn-out rangelands and frankincense trees tapped beyond what they can bear. Warsame traced each one back to the same weak spot, the country’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system.

Put plainly, if there are no fisheries officers, no one patrols the coast. If there are no extension workers, damaged rangeland doesn’t recover. Untrained harvesters overtap frankincense trees, and without technicians, rubbish piles up. The gap in skills becomes a gap in protection, and the damage moves into it.

Three countries, one pattern

Was this a Somali problem, or something bigger? To find out, Warsame added Yemen and Liberia to the study. At first glance the three have little in common. They are in different regions, they have different histories and their crises are at different stages.

Somalia has lived through decades of state collapse, has a long coastline and depends on pastoral economies that are under heavy strain. Yemen is torn apart by a war that has not ended, and its fishing communities and already scarce water are both at risk. Liberia is about two decades past its civil wars and still rebuilding, with its forests and mineral wealth on the line.

That is why the comparison works. If the same shortage of skilled people shows up in all three places, it is hard to call it a local quirk. It looks more like part of what fragility is. It also gives readers well beyond Somali studies a reason to pay attention.

What the article adds

Two groups of researchers rarely read each other’s work. Environmental governance scholars write about institutions, regulations and money. Education and labor scholars write about jobs, employability and growth. Warsame brings the two together. In his account, vocational skills are part of the governance system itself, as necessary to making environmental policy work as any law or budget.

This has practical consequences. Aid programs that pay for strategies and plans but not for the people to carry them out will keep falling short where policy meets the ground. And vocational training could be built around environmental goals, instead of being treated only as a way to create jobs.

For fragile states, there is good news in this. Building skills does not have to wait for a strong central government. Regional administrations, universities and communities can start now, even while national politics remains unsettled.

Earned through review

The article did not reach its final form easily. It began as a single-country study, “Environmental Degradation and the Vocational Skills Deficit in Somalia.”

For Environmental Policy and Governance, Warsame widened it to three countries. In October 2026 the journal sent back a major-revisions decision and asked that the piece be considered as a review article. He rewrote it along those lines, and the revised version was accepted later that month under a new title that reflects its comparative and policy focus.

He had until January 2027 to submit the revision. He met the reviewers’ demands nearly three months early, which speaks to how solid the research was and how well he knew his material.

Why it matters for Somalia and Puntland

For Somali readers, and for the partners who work with Somali institutions, none of this is abstract. Puntland’s frankincense groves, fishing grounds and rangelands are part of the Somali case, and each one needs people trained to look after it.

Warsame knows this from experience, not only from research. He was Puntland’s first chief of Cabinet, from 1998 to 2004. He later worked with the joint U.N. and World Bank Secretariat on Somalia’s Reconstruction and Development Programme, then coordinated aid for the Transitional Federal Government with the European Union. In those years he saw firsthand how plans written in capitals and donor offices ran up against what local institutions could actually do.

So the article comes from someone who has been in the rooms where aid priorities are set. He has now checked what he saw there against evidence from three fragile states.

Conclusion

This acceptance is a real contribution to the field. The article puts vocational skills on the agenda of environmental governance research. It shows that Somalia, Yemen and Liberia share the same problem. And it brings a Horn of Africa scholar who has also worked as a practitioner into a conversation that too often talks about fragile states rather than with them.

The article is now in production at Wiley. Its message should hold long after the current round of policy debates: environmental protection in fragile states will work only when the people responsible for it have been trained to do the job.

A WDM Editorial
Warsame Digital Media — Commentary and Critical Analysis
Oct. 18, 2026
The federal investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar has taken a turn that deserves more careful attention than the headlines it is generating. According to a report by The New York Times published Oct. 16, federal investigators seized the cellphone of Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, earlier this year, reviewed family text messages on it and used that information to help persuade a federal judge to authorize the Oct. 12 search of Omar’s Washington residence. The report rests on three people familiar with the investigation. The Justice Department has not confirmed the seizure, and Omar’s office declined to comment directly on it.
Much of the coverage has treated this as a revelation of guilt — the “explosive text” that “triggered the raid.” It is nothing of the sort, at least not yet. What it is, if accurate, is a window into how the government built its path to one of the most consequential searches ever carried out against a sitting member of Congress. That path deserves scrutiny on its own terms.

What is actually known
The outlines of the case are now reasonably clear from multiple reports. A federal grand jury is examining alleged fraud and false statements in immigration paperwork filed by Omar and relatives, reportedly dating to the 1990s. Investigators have issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to Noor and at least one other family member. Agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), searched Omar’s home on Oct. 12 and reportedly removed her phone, passport, notebooks and computers. The White House border czar, Tom Homan, had confirmed a federal criminal investigation roughly a month earlier.
Omar’s lawyers have said the search was neither justified nor lawful. Omar herself has called the investigation part of a decade-long campaign of “baseless lies,” and she is on the ballot in a midterm election less than three weeks away.
What is not known is far more important. The text messages have not been disclosed. Their content, their authorship, their context and whether they say anything at all about the immigration filings at issue remain unknown to the public. No charge has been filed. No court has found wrongdoing. No denaturalization proceeding has been opened.
A federal judge signing a search warrant means the government persuaded that judge there was probable cause to believe evidence of a crime would be found at the location searched. That is a real threshold, and it should not be dismissed. But it is a low one by design, and it is reached in a one-sided proceeding in which the target has no voice. Warrant applications rely heavily on the government’s own characterization of its evidence — including, here, its characterization of private messages exchanged among family members.
Family text messages are an especially slippery foundation. They are written in shorthand, in-jokes and shared memory. In Somali families, they frequently move between Somali and English, rely on clan and kinship references outsiders misread, and reference events decades old through the lens of oral rather than documentary memory. A line that reads as an admission to an agent unfamiliar with that world may read as something entirely different to the people who wrote it. Whether the warrant application handled this material with care is precisely the kind of question that can only be answered if the application is eventually tested in open court.

The documentation problem at the heart of the case
Reports indicate the government’s theory may hinge on whether Omar, or her late father on her behalf, misstated her age or family relationships in refugee and immigration paperwork. Her father died in 2020, which complicates any effort to establish who said what, and why, more than 30 years ago.
This is where the case intersects with a history that Somali readers know intimately and American audiences often do not. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled the collapse of the state in 1991 into refugee camps in Kenya and beyond, many without birth certificates, identity documents or any civil registry to consult. Dates of birth were routinely estimated, assigned or rounded by camp officials and caseworkers. Family composition was reconstructed under conditions of displacement, death and separation. Inconsistencies in the paperwork of that generation are not unusual; they are close to universal.
That context does not settle whether any individual committed fraud. Deliberate false statements are a crime, and the law does not excuse them because circumstances were chaotic. But it does mean that discrepancies in 1990s refugee files are weak evidence of intent on their own, and that investigators reading family messages for signs of conscious deception carry a heavy burden of interpretation.

The legal bar for revoking citizenship
Much of the public commentary has leapt to the prospect of stripping Omar of her citizenship, which she obtained in 2000. That leap ignores the law. In Maslenjak v. United States (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that the government cannot revoke citizenship over just any false statement in the naturalization process; it must show that the illegal act played a meaningful role in the acquisition of citizenship. Civil denaturalization likewise requires proof that is clear, unequivocal and convincing.
In other words, even if investigators can show that some detail in decades-old paperwork was wrong, they would still have to prove it was material to the grant of citizenship — and, in a criminal case, prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. A text message, however unflattering, is a long way from either standard.

The questions that matter
The most important issues raised by the Times report are not about Omar’s family but about the government’s conduct.
First, on what basis was Noor’s phone seized earlier this year, and what was the scope of the authority used to search it? Evidence gathered from one person’s device and then deployed against another raises legitimate questions about the reach of the original warrant or subpoena.
Second, did the warrant application for Omar’s home fairly represent the messages to the judge, including any innocent or ambiguous readings? Courts have long held that material omissions or misstatements in warrant affidavits can invalidate a search.
Third, why was an immigration-paperwork inquiry into a member of Congress escalated to an early-morning residential search in the final weeks of an election campaign? The Justice Department’s own long-standing practice counsels caution about overt investigative steps that could affect an election. Whether that practice was followed, waived or abandoned is a matter for congressional oversight.
Fourth, what of the speech or debate protections that shield legislative materials? Seizing a sitting member’s phone and computers inevitably sweeps in privileged congressional communications. How investigators are filtering that material should be disclosed to the appropriate oversight committees.

WDM assessment
The reported use of Sahra Noor’s phone is a meaningful development because it tells us, for the first time, something about the evidentiary route to the Oct. 12 warrant. It is not evidence of immigration fraud, and it is not evidence of a criminal conspiracy. It is evidence that the government has been building this case through Omar’s family for months.
For Somali communities in Minnesota and across the diaspora, the case carries a weight beyond one politician. Many of them carry the same imperfect paper trail from the same camps and the same years. How the government treats Omar’s file will be read, rightly or wrongly, as a signal of how it may treat theirs.
That is why the standard must be the same one that applies to anyone: allegations attributed, not asserted; evidence tested, not leaked; and conclusions drawn in court, not on cable news. WDM will continue to follow the sealed proceedings, congressional oversight and any court filings that bring the underlying evidence into the open.

By Andrew Bobby Tuley

O͏c͏t͏o͏b͏e͏r͏ ͏1͏6͏ ,

[Courtesy]

WHY BOTH PARTIES WANT REP. ILHAN OMAR GONE , AND WHY THEY CAN’T BEAT HER FAIRLY

By Andrew Bobby Tuley, Pan African, Philosopher, Theologian, Humanitarian, And Global Health Strategist.

The hatred for Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is the only true bipartisan consensus in Washington. Republicans and Democrats despise her for different reasons, but for the same root cause: she cannot be beaten intellectually or electorally, so she must be eliminated procedurally.

This is not about one statement. It is about what she represents — a Black, Muslim, refugee woman who refused to learn the unspoken rules of the House.

I. WHY THE ESTABLISHMENT HATES HER: SHE BROKE THE CARDINAL RULE

Every freshman in Congress is taught two taboos: Do not question the Pentagon’s budget, and do not question the blank-check military aid to Israel.

Omar broke the second taboo on day one.

Challenging the Foreign Policy Orthodoxy: For 50 years, Congress has treated $3.8 billion a year in military aid to Israel and the automatic U.S. veto at the UN Security Council as untouchable. Omar did what no one had done from inside the chamber — she asked, publicly, why an ally accused by the International Court of Justice of plausible violations of international law should receive unconditional weapons, and why America should veto every resolution holding that ally accountable.

Her supporters argue correctly that her primary offense was not anti-Semitism. It was normalizing a debate that the establishment has spent billions to keep abnormal. Once you allow a sitting member to say “let’s condition aid on human rights compliance” and survive, the entire consensus collapses. The ferocious institutional backlash — censure, removal from the Foreign Affairs Committee — was not about her tone. It was about protecting a foundational consensus from becoming a mainstream debate.

That is why both parties piled on. For Republicans, support for Israel is an evangelical and strategic litmus test. For Democratic leadership, AIPAC and related donor networks are a foundational fundraising pillar. Omar threatened the money and the consensus at the same time. In Washington, that is a capital offense.

II. THE HYPOCRISY THAT EXPOSES THE REAL MOTIVE: THE DOUBLE STANDARD ON LOYALTY

This is where the critical lens reveals the bigotry.

There are 100 members of Congress who openly describe themselves as pro-Israel and who fundraise on that identity. There are members who hold dual citizenships, who attend foreign government rallies, who say “I am an Irish-American first” or “I am a proud Zionist.” No one questions their loyalty. No one demands they be investigated for immigration fraud.

The Double Standard on Identity and Loyalty: When Omar says, “I am an American in Congress but I am a Somali girl, a girl with your lineage, your language, your religion,” she is criminalized for the same diaspora sentiment that every other ethnic politician expresses.

The difference is race, gender, and religion. A white congressman who says “I want to help Ireland prosper” is a statesman. A Black Muslim woman who says “I want Somalia to be stable” is a foreign agent. The accusation that she is anti-American for advocating for international law is only applied to her because her identity makes her an easy target for bad-faith patriotism tests. Her defense of Palestinians is reframed as hatred of America, while defending a foreign government’s bombing campaign is reframed as love of America.

That inversion is the tell. It is not about loyalty. It is about who is allowed to define loyalty.

III. WHY THEY CAN’T BEAT HER AT THE BALLOT BOX — AND WHAT THEY DO INSTEAD

This is the most damning fact for both parties: They have tried to defeat her democratically, and they have failed every time.

Frustration at her Electoral Resilience: In 2020, 2022, and 2024, pro-Israel PACs and party insiders poured over $10 million combined into Minnesota’s 5th District to primary her. Her opponents — Antone Melton-Meaux, Don Samuels — were massively outspent by outside money. She still won by double digits. In her district, which is one of the most progressive, young, and diverse in America, her anti-war, housing-first, student-debt message is not radical. It is popular.

Because she cannot be beaten at the ballot box by her own constituents, her enemies had to change the venue.

The Republican Method: Twist the Law. Unable to beat her in an election they don’t vote in, Republicans weaponized the legal system. They turned a mistranslated Somali homecoming speech into an accusation of divided loyalty, turned a 1991 refugee flight into an accusation of immigration fraud, and turned a father’s alleged military rank into hereditary guilt. The strategy is not to convict her in court — the legal standard for denaturalization under 8 U.S.C. 1451 is almost impossible to meet for a 26-year-old citizenship. The strategy is to keep her under permanent investigation, to force her to spend campaign funds on lawyers instead of organizing, and to feed the “go back to Somalia” narrative for Fox News.

The Democratic Method: Primary by Proxy. Democrats cannot say “go back to Somalia” because it would alienate their base. So they do it with money. Leadership quietly allows or encourages outside groups like DMFI and AIPAC to spend millions to primary her, while publicly saying “we support all incumbents.” It is a laundering operation: outsource the hit to a Super PAC, keep your hands clean, and if she loses, replace her with a compliant centrist who will never question the $3.8 billion.

Both methods have the same goal: If we cannot beat her ideas in debate, and we cannot beat her votes in her district, we will beat her by making her radioactive and exhausted.

IV. THE ESTABLISHMENT’S COVER STORY — AND WHY IT FAILS

Of course, the official story is different.

The opposing institutional perspective maintains that the hostility is not a conspiracy, but accountability.

The Line Between Policy and Rhetoric: They argue that it was not her defense of Palestinians that triggered backlash, but her rhetoric — “It’s all about the Benjamins,” and her questioning of colleagues’ “allegiance to a foreign country” — which mirrored centuries-old anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish money controlling politics and dual loyalty. From this view, censure was necessary to enforce institutional standards against bigotry.

The Strategic Importance of the Alliance: For the majority in Washington, support for Israel is not just politics. It is seen as a vital geopolitical necessity for Middle East stability and a moral commitment to a democratic ally. In that framework, pushing to cut military aid during a war is not an intellectual critique; it is a dangerous policy that undermines national security.

This cover story collapses under its own logic.

If it was only about rhetoric, why was she removed from committees while members who promoted Great Replacement Theory stayed? If it is about strategic alliances, why is questioning aid to Israel treated as treason, while questioning aid to Ukraine or Egypt is treated as fiscal conservatism?

The answer is simple: The rhetoric argument is the pretext. The alliance argument is the excuse. The real reason is power.

Omar proved that a refugee with no money, no political family, and no permission could win a safe seat, refuse corporate PAC money, and still survive. That model — if replicated — would destroy the fundraising model of both parties.

And that is why, since they cannot beat her intellectually in debate, and since they cannot beat her electorally in Minneapolis, Republicans will keep trying to twist the law to deport her, and Democrats will keep trying to fund her primary opponent to replace her.

They don’t hate her because she is weak. They hate her because she is resilient.

·

·

Healing At Home: What A Garowe Hospital Reveals About Somalia’s Governance Gap – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/18102026-healing-at-home-what-a-garowe-hospital-reveals-about-somalias-governance-gap-oped/

https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/ilhan-omar-wdm-investigation-alert-87a?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5b23go

https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/the-cure-was-at-home-all-along?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5b23go

https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/bardaale-wdm-baidoa-security-alert?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5b23go

https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/ilhan-omar-wdm-investigation-alert-b52

Ilhan Omar Investigation Watch — Oct. 14, 2026
Significant new developments have emerged in the federal investigation involving U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
According to an Oct. 13 investigation by The Washington Post:
Family members subpoenaed: Federal investigators have reportedly issued grand jury subpoenas to members of Omar’s family.
Investigation’s focus clarified: Authorities are examining allegations involving decades-old immigration documents, including questions about Omar’s recorded birth date and her father’s naturalization. Omar has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Potential offenses identified: A person familiar with the search warrant reported that it listed conspiracy, immigration fraud and false statements. These are investigative allegations, not criminal charges or findings of guilt.
Separate financial inquiry: U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has publicly acknowledged another investigation concerning Omar’s financial disclosures.
The developments follow the Oct. 12 search of Omar’s Washington residence by Homeland Security Investigations agents.

WDM assessment: The reported family subpoenas and disclosure of the investigation’s scope represent a meaningful escalation. However, no criminal charges against Omar or judicial findings establishing misconduct have been verified.
The investigation’s proximity to the Nov. 3 congressional elections continues to raise serious questions about political neutrality and the appropriate use of federal investigative powers.
WDM will continue distinguishing verified legal developments from unproven accusations and political rhetoric.
(washingtonpost.com)

October 13, 2026
Major new development: Somalia’s federal government imposes terrorism-related financial sanctions on former South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen and nine others.
Somalia’s National Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Committee announced on Tuesday, October 13, that it had placed 10 individuals on its national financial sanctions list over alleged links to Al-Shabaab.
Those designated include Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, former Custodial Corps commander Mahad Abdirahman Adan (Shub), and Hassan Abdi Mohamed (Ugaas Hassan).
The decision requires financial institutions to freeze their assets, prohibits transactions benefiting them, and mandates reporting relevant financial activity to Somalia’s Financial Reporting Center.
Shabelle Media
Verification and security implications
Confirmed: The sanctions announcement is independently reported by Anadolu Agency, Shabelle Media Network and Garowe Online.
Not independently established: The underlying allegations of Al-Shabaab involvement. The published decision does not disclose detailed evidence against each individual. The sanctions must therefore not be interpreted as proof of terrorist collaboration.
Shabelle Media +1
Security assessment: This represents a significant escalation in the federal government’s confrontation with Laftagareen’s political and military network following the recent fighting around Baidoa and Qansaxdheere.
The measures could affect the network’s financial operations, but their actual enforcement and military consequences remain uncertain.
I found no independently confirmed reports dated October 13 of renewed major fighting inside Baidoa, additional territorial changes, airport closures or senior-level arrests.

Sources: Shabelle Media Network — October 13; Garowe Online — October 13; Anadolu Agency reporting — October 13.

When Dissent Becomes Evidence: The Search Of Ilhan Omar’s Home – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/12102026-when-dissent-becomes-evidence-the-search-of-ilhan-omars-home-oped/

Homeland Security Must Not Become an Instrument of Political Intimidation

Warsame Digital Media condemns any attempt by the United States Department of Homeland Security to intimidate, threaten or politically target sitting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

A democratically elected member of the United States Congress is not an enemy of the state merely because she challenges the administration, criticizes its policies or speaks on behalf of communities whose voices are often marginalized.
Political disagreement is not a security threat. Dissent is not disloyalty. And the machinery of homeland security must never become a weapon against political opponents.
Congresswoman Omar’s constitutional rights, her electoral mandate and her entitlement to equal protection under the law deserve the same respect afforded to every other member of Congress, regardless of political affiliation, religion, ethnicity or national origin.

Congresswoman Omar’s constitutional rights, her electoral mandate and her entitlement to equal protection under the law deserve the same respect afforded to every other member of Congress, regardless of political affiliation, religion, ethnicity or national origin.

WDM calls for congressional scrutiny, full public accountability consistent with the integrity of the investigation, and an unequivocal commitment that federal law enforcement will not be used to punish political dissent.

The United States cannot credibly champion democracy abroad while allowing legitimate concerns about political intimidation at home to go unanswered.
The issue is larger than Ilhan Omar. It concerns whether the world’s most powerful country can protect its own institutions from the temptation to confuse political opposition with criminality.

Warsame Digital Media — Oct. 12, 2026

The World Keeps Misfiling Somalia – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/11102026-the-world-keeps-misfiling-somalia-oped/

Ethiopia Must Not Be Allowed To Burn: The Horn Cannot Survive It – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/10102026-ethiopia-must-not-be-allowed-to-burn-the-horn-cannot-survive-it-oped/

https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/from-hanleys-somali-nomads-to-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5b23go

https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/the-president-who-needs-rescuing?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5b23go

https://www.eurasiareview.com/05102026-egypts-brotherhood-with-somalia-has-always-served-cairo-first-oped/

By Ismail H. Warsame

Mukhtar Ainashe is right to demand a coherent Somali foreign policy. In his recent essay on Substack, he argues that diplomacy conducted through disconnected visits, conflicting signals and short-term political arrangements cannot substitute for a national strategy. He is correct. But his description of Somalia and Egypt as brotherly nations bound by “unbreakable” ties deserves the same scrutiny he applies to relations with Ethiopia.

The history is real. Its meaning, however, must be tested against conduct, above all when Somalis faced catastrophe. Friendship is easy to proclaim at a presidential reception. Its practical value shows when people fleeing war arrive at a border.

Interests, not sentiment

Egypt’s engagement with Somalia has long been shaped by two concerns: the security of its Nile waters and its rivalry with Ethiopia. Brotherhood belongs to the diplomatic vocabulary. Strategic calculation explains much of the substance.

That pattern has not faded. In August 2024, as Mogadishu protested Ethiopia’s memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, Cairo signed a defense cooperation protocol with Somalia, shipped weapons to Mogadishu and offered troops for the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM). A 2024 analysis by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) found that Egypt’s conduct in the Horn can be explained by its long-standing Nile dispute with Ethiopia, and that Cairo began intervening in the Ethiopia-Somalia conflict partly to put pressure on Addis Ababa. Somalia had legitimate reasons to seek partners. But Egypt’s timing reflected its own dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam at least as much as any concern for Somali sovereignty. swp-berlin

The distinction matters. Egypt’s interest in containing Ethiopia does not automatically coincide with Somalia’s interest in peace, institutional recovery and stable relations with its neighbors. A country that becomes the front line of someone else’s rivalry pays costs its patron does not. Cooperation can serve both nations, but Somali leaders must establish where their interests converge and where they diverge.

Mediation with a thumb on the scale

Egypt’s record as a peacemaker in Somalia reflects the same calculation. Ethiopia, mandated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to lead the peace process, hosted negotiations at Sodere in December 1996 and January 1997 that brought 26 factions together in the National Salvation Council. The Sodere group planned a national reconciliation conference in Bosaso for Nov. 1, 1997. Instead, Hussein Aidid and his supporters traveled to Cairo to meet Ali Mahdi and other leaders. The talks there began Nov. 12, and on Dec. 22, 1997, with Aidid and Ali Mahdi as co-chairs, the participants signed the Cairo Declaration. That sequence comes from the U.N. secretary-general’s August 1999 report on Somalia (S/1999/882). refworldun

The Cairo process divided Somalis rather than reconciling them. Col. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Gen. Aden Abdullahi Nur “Gabyow” refused to sign, and Ethiopia accused Egypt of hijacking the Sodere process. The national reconciliation conference that Cairo scheduled for Baidoa in February 1998 never took place. When it failed, Aidid, Ali Mahdi and Osman “Atto” returned to Mogadishu and set about building an administration for the Benadir region, with the backing of Egypt’s special envoy for Somalia. Cairo’s diplomacy, in other words, revolved around Mogadishu’s faction leaders. The northeast went the other way: in July 1998, a constitutional conference in Garowe elected Abdullahi Yusuf president of the newly declared Puntland State. S 1999 882 ES +2

The regional verdict on such competing initiatives was harsh. In March 1998, IGAD’s Council of Ministers attributed the lack of progress in Somalia partly to the proliferation of parallel initiatives. Djibouti’s then-president, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, called for an end to Somali leaders’ “political tourism,” in which they visited foreign capitals to sign documents they later ignored. un

The pattern continued after Arta. The Transitional National Government formed in Djibouti in 2000 saw its authority challenged by leaders in the south and by the northern administrations in Puntland and Somaliland. Arab capitals nonetheless rallied behind it, and the humanitarian news agency IRIN reported at the time that Libya, Egypt and Yemen were prepared to send forces to support interim president Abdiqassim Salad Hassan. unmissionsthenewhumanitarian

Ethiopia’s mediation was hardly disinterested either. But Cairo’s motive has been stated plainly by outside observers. David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, wrote in 2003 that Egypt supports Somali unity and a strong Somali state because such a state can counterbalance Ethiopia, noting that 86% of the water reaching Egypt’s Aswan Dam originates in Ethiopia. A mediator that consistently favors one center of power over the regions is not a neutral broker. Cairo’s preferred outcome has been a strong Mogadishu, not a negotiated settlement among Somalia’s constituent parts. globalsecurity

Refuge as the test

The refugee record demands an honest accounting. Egypt did host Somalis during the civil war; the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, counted about 3,500 at the start of 1998. It would be inaccurate to say Egypt admitted none. But a few thousand people across years of state collapse, while neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia absorbed hundreds of thousands, establishes presence, not open access or adequate protection.

Scholarship on Somalis in Cairo bears this out. Egypt is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but by placing reservations on four of its articles, it withdrew significant rights from refugees on its territory: employment, permanent residence and access to state education. Mulki Al-Sharmani, who has studied Somali refugees in Cairo since the late 1990s, describes Egypt as “a host society that is both closed and open to refugees.” aucegyptaucegypt

I recall that at the height of the civil war, some Western governments advised their citizens of Somali origin against traveling to Egypt unless they held Western passports. I have not yet located the original advisories and offer this as personal recollection rather than established fact. If confirmed, it would expose a painful contradiction: Somali identity, supposedly a bond of brotherhood, offered less assurance at an Egyptian border than a Western passport.

Gaza offers a contemporary test of the gap between declared solidarity and the protection of people. Egypt has mediated ceasefire talks and admitted Palestinians escaping the war. Human Rights Watch reports that about 110,000 people left Gaza for Egypt between October 2023 and May 2024, when Israel seized and closed the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing. Any assessment of Rafah must account for Israeli control; Egypt cannot fairly be portrayed as having admitted nobody or as holding sole power to reopen the crossing.

Yet Cairo’s own conduct remains open to criticism. Amnesty International has documented the arrest of Egyptians who peacefully expressed solidarity with Palestinians, as well as the detention and deportation of foreign activists who tried to join the Global March to Gaza in June 2025. A government that invokes Palestinian brotherhood while suppressing peaceful solidarity invites questions about the substance of that commitment.

Egypt’s rejection of permanent Palestinian displacement rests on defensible ground: expulsion could cost Palestinians their homeland, and Palestinians themselves reject such proposals. Cairo also cites its own national security. But opposing permanent displacement does not settle the separate humanitarian question of voluntary temporary refuge, medical evacuation and enforceable guarantees of return.

Somali interests first

The lesson for Somalia is straightforward. Egypt pursues Egyptian interests. Ethiopia pursues Ethiopian interests. Somali diplomacy must begin with Somali interests, measured by sovereignty, public safety, institutional development and accountability to citizens.

Ainashe’s call for strategic direction is persuasive. His assumption of an unquestionable Egyptian partnership weakens it. Visiting both Cairo and Addis Ababa is not, by itself, evidence of incoherence. The decisive questions are what commitments were made, whether they are compatible and what they will cost Somalia.

Historical friendship deserves recognition. Dependable partnership requires evidence. Somalia cannot afford a foreign policy in which declarations of brotherhood replace scrutiny, or in which another country’s rivalry becomes its national agenda.

---

Works cited

Mulki Al-Sharmani, “African Refugees: Ambivalent Status and Diasporic Struggles in Cairo,” in Diane Singerman, ed., Cairo Contested: Governance, Urban Space, and Global Modernity (American University in Cairo Press, 2009).

Mulki Al-Sharmani, “Livelihood and Identity Constructions of Somali Refugees in Cairo,” Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Working Paper No. 2 (American University in Cairo, 2003).

David H. Shinn, “The Horn of Africa: How Does Somaliland Fit?” paper delivered March 2003.

Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, “Escalation Risks in the Horn of Africa: Threats from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Somalia Exacerbate Local Conflicts,” SWP Comment 2024/C 50.

United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Somalia,” S/1999/882, Aug. 16, 1999.

From E-Visas To NIRA: Mogadishu’s Bureaucratic War On Ordinary Travelers – OpEd https://www.eurasiareview.com/03102026-from-e-visas-to-nira-mogadishus-bureaucratic-war-on-ordinary-travelers-oped/

https://ismailwarsame.substack.com/p/from-e-visas-to-nira-mogadishus-bureaucratic