Turkey Is Losing Control in Somalia as Mogadishu Teeters Toward Collapse

Israel's first ambassador to Somaliland, Michael Lotem, has presented his credentials in Hargeisa and an Israeli embassy cornerstone has been laid, Israel's Foreign Ministry announced on 1 November 2026. Turkey, Mogadishu's most committed partner, condemned Israel's recognition of Somaliland when it came on 26 December 2025. Ten months later the recognition has an ambassador, and Turkey's response has changed little on the ground.

Turkey: strong in Mogadishu, weak everywhere else

Turkey is Mogadishu's most committed partner. It has run the TURKSOM training base since 2017, signed a ten-year defence and economic framework agreement effective 8 February 2024, begun first-phase construction of a spaceport on 30 December 2025, and sent its Çağrı Bey drilling vessel in April for its first overseas deep-sea exploration well.

Turkish equipment is now part of the battlefield story. After the 26 October ambush, al-Shabaab claimed to have seized Turkish-supplied armoured vehicles, according to the Associated Press, and Garowe Online reported that 36 military vehicles were lost, including six Turkish-made Kirpi armoured vehicles. Neither claim has been independently verified, and the Defence Ministry has not addressed them.

Its reach, however, depends on the federal government it backs. Ankara called Israel's recognition an "explicit intervention in Somalia's internal affairs" on 26 December 2025, and Erdoğan said in Addis Ababa on 17 February that the Horn should not become "a competition field for foreign forces." Words have not changed the facts in Hargeisa.

In Puntland the picture is worse. Puntland and Jubaland declined to join Turkey-brokered talks in Mogadishu in July, questioning Ankara's neutrality, according to Al-Monitor, which also reported accusations by some lawmakers and regional officials that Turkey had backed Mogadishu in internal power struggles. In late August Puntland's security ministry attributed coastal airstrikes to Turkish aircraft and said it would hold Ankara accountable, according to The Somali Digest; the report has not been independently confirmed. Meanwhile the United States signed a security agreement with Puntland in Bosaso on 2 August, bypassing Mogadishu.

How close is collapse?

The comparison with Afghanistan in 2021 is Qatar Standard's assessment, not a prediction from any source cited here. The pattern is similar in outline: foreign troops drawing down, an army losing towns and convoys to a militant group, and a government at odds with its own regions. It is not identical. Mogadishu still holds the capital, receives Turkish and Western support, and no source reviewed reports al-Shabaab advancing on the city itself. But the direction of travel, as the Reuters, ACLED and Critical Threats reporting above shows, is against the federal government, and with it against the Turkish position built on top of it.

What to watch

• Whether al-Shabaab's claim to have seized Turkish armoured vehicles is confirmed by imagery or by Mogadishu.
• Whether the spaceport, targeted for early 2027, and the Çağrı Bey drilling programme give Ankara new weight in Mogadishu.
• Whether Puntland and Jubaland return to Turkey-brokered talks.
• Whether the United States presence in Bosaso grows at Ankara's expense.

Sources: Türkiye MFA statement QA-27 (26 Dec 2025); Reuters (17 Feb 2026, 27 Oct 2026); Associated Press (28 Oct 2026); Garowe Online (26 Oct 2026); Critical Threats Project (29 Oct 2026); Al-Monitor (9 Jul 2026); The Somali Digest (1 Sep 2026); Somali Guardian (3 Aug 2026); SatNews (2 Jan 2026); Turkish Minute (6 Oct 2026); Somalia Cabinet Office (framework agreement text).