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An $8 Billion Air Base, a Terror Portfolio, and Qatar’s High-Stakes Pressure Campaign to Keep the US Out of Berbera
What appeared to be a diplomatic breakthrough for Somaliland has unmasked what senior officials describe as a sophisticated diplomatic campaign by Qatar aimed at one primary objective: preventing the establishment of a US military base in Berbera.
Instead of issuing an outright warning, the unprecedented visit was dominated by a subtle but unmistakable focus from Qatari officials on Somaliland’s future intentions regarding a potential United States military base in Berbera. Through a persistent and highly specific line of questioning, Qatari officials sought to extract the precise nature of Somaliland’s security consultations with the United States. This penetrating focus on the Berbera base stunned the delegation, according to a senior Somaliland official who was present, revealing the true strategic intent behind Qatar’s sudden diplomatic outreach: to preempt a security partnership that could fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region. The message, though never stated as an explicit warning, was unmistakable: any move by Somaliland to host American forces would be viewed by Doha as a direct challenge to its own strategic position.
The Al Udeid Strategic Imperative
Qatar’s sudden interest in Somaliland cannot be separated from its existential interest in protecting Al Udeid Air Base—its single most valuable geopolitical asset. Since 2003, Doha has poured more than $8 billion into the sprawling desert facility, which hosts over 10,000 U.S. personnel and serves as the forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Al Udeid is not just a military hub; it is Qatar’s insurance policy—one that has shielded it from regional isolation, granted it disproportionate diplomatic weight, and bound U.S. policy interests tightly to its survival.
But that calculus begins to fall apart when Berbera enters the frame.
Unlike landlocked Al Udeid, Berbera offers direct access to the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait—one of the most vital maritime corridors in the world. It is the only potential U.S. partner location between Diego Garcia and the Suez Canal with that level of strategic access. From a power-projection standpoint, Berbera can do what Al Udeid never could: impose influence over both flanks of the Red Sea. It would also place U.S. surveillance assets within striking range of China’s military base in Djibouti, creating a direct counterweight to Beijing’s creeping dominance.
That prospect is especially relevant now. With China having all but squeezed the U.S. military presence out of Djibouti—AFRICOM operations increasingly marginalized and confined—the United States is in urgent need of an alternative forward operating position. The strategic implications are not lost on Qatar. A permanent U.S. military presence in Berbera would not only devalue Al Udeid, it would also dilute Qatar’s influence over U.S. regional posture. No longer the indispensable host, Qatar would find its monopoly on American dependence broken. For Doha, this isn’t just about geography. It is about leverage, prestige, and survival.
That is why the Berbera question was not just a curiosity during President Cirro’s visit—it was the point.
Diplomatic Sleight of Hand and Public Backlash
Qatar’s handling of the visit reveals a calculated diplomatic strategy that was widely seen in Somaliland as designed to discredit and embarrass the President of the Republic of Somaliland and his delegation. While the high-level meeting between President Cirro and Qatar’s Prime Minister offered a significant platform for Somaliland, the official statement released by Doha immediately afterward seemed engineered to erase that very status.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry press release conspicuously described the meeting as covering “the latest developments in Somalia,” and concluded with an unambiguous reaffirmation of “respect for the sovereignty and unity of the Federal Republic of Somalia.”
This linguistic sleight of hand—using the prestige of a prime ministerial meeting as a backdrop for a political rebuke—was interpreted in Hargeisa as a deliberate affront. Across social media and in commentary by political analysts, the prevailing view was clear: Qatar had staged a high-level photo-op for the sole purpose of reaffirming its hostility toward Somaliland’s political identity in the most public way possible.
“It was diplomatic pageantry with a political knife,” remarked one prominent politician and a member of the President’s party who did not want to be quoted for speaking on the president’s visit. “You don’t grant a president that level of access just to write him out of the story in your press release, this was intentional.” The fallout has only reinforced growing skepticism among Somalilanders about the value of engaging regional powers who remain tethered to the political fiction of Somali unity.
The Double Threat: How Berbera Undermines Qatar’s Entire Regional Strategy
Qatar’s alleged willingness to mediate with Al-Shabaab while propping up the internationally recognized government in Mogadishu is central to its “whole pie” strategy: controlling all major factions to make itself indispensable. According to two regional intelligence analysts and one senior Horn of Africa diplomat, this entire edifice of influence is directly threatened by the emergence of a stable, democratic, and pro-Western Somaliland as a strategic U.S. ally.
A formal U.S.–Somaliland security partnership presents what one source called a “double threat” for Doha. First, it represents a complete rejection of Doha’s Somalia-centric architecture, as a robust U.S. military presence in Berbera would operate entirely outside its influence network. Second, and just as critically, a U.S. base in Berbera would devalue Al Udeid—Qatar’s crown jewel—reducing the Gulf state’s leverage over Washington on a global scale.
The Terror Portfolio: A Lever for Coercive Control
This alleged use of militant proxies fits into a broader, more audacious regional pattern. According to multiple sources in the region’s security community—including one diplomat formerly stationed in Doha—Qatar is actively mediating between Al-Shabaab and elements of the Somali federal government. These sources allege that Doha’s strategy involves using its influence to modulate the group’s operations: easing the tempo of attacks to reward compliance and ramping up violence to punish political defiance. Qatar has previously denied any ties to Al-Shabaab or involvement in Somalia’s internal security dynamics.
Gulf Rivalry and a Trail of Blood
The intense focus on a potential US base in Berbera carries ominous weight when seen through the lens of the Gulf proxy war. A chilling precedent is the assassination of a DP World contractor in Puntland. On February 4, 2019, Paul Anthony Formosa, manager for P&O Ports—a DP World subsidiary—was gunned down at the Bosaso port. While Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility, a high-profile leak later suggested a more sinister backstory. In July 2019, The New York Times published a report on a leaked phone call in which a Qatari businessman bragged that violence in Bosaso had been carried out by “our friends” to “make Dubai people run away from there.” While the Qatari government quickly disavowed the individual, the incident underscored the blurred lines between commercial rivalry and sanctioned destabilization.
Escalation Calculus: The Real Cost of Strategic Obstruction
The evidence is mounting that Doha views a U.S. base in Berbera not as a diplomatic inconvenience, but as a direct threat to the heart of its regional strategy. The carefully choreographed outreach to Hargeisa—followed by a calculated public embarrassment—were not missteps. They were the opening moves in what appears to be a broader campaign of obstruction.
Given Qatar’s documented playbook—from alleged backchannel dealings with Al-Shabaab to its reported role in fomenting violence against commercial competitors—the question is no longer if Doha will escalate, but how.
If Qatar was allegedly willing to flirt with sanctioned terror networks and tolerate bloodshed to preserve its influence in Somalia, what measures might it now be willing to employ to shield an $8 billion military asset and salvage its waning relevance in the Horn of Africa? The stakes are exponentially higher, and so too is the potential for coercive interference cloaked in diplomacy.
The Somaliland government did not provide an official, on-the-record comment for this story. The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also sent a detailed list of questions regarding the strategic threat a Berbera base poses to Al Udeid, the contradiction between hosting President of the Republic of Somaliland while officially reaffirming Somalia’s unity, and its alleged role as a mediator for the Al-Shabaab terror group. No response was received by press time
