Somalia as a Stage: Can Mogadishu Keep Egypt and Ethiopia from Turning It Into Another Front?
When Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told the BBC Somali Service this week that his country “will not be a host to proxy wars” between Egypt and Ethiopia, he was addressing more than a regional spat over Nile water and peacekeepers. He was speaking to a fragile nation that has long been a canvas for others’ ambitions — and to a neighbourhood where resource rivalries are increasingly exported as power politics.
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Mohamud’s reassurance — that Egyptian and Ethiopian forces in Somalia will be deployed far apart and will “not be close to each other” — is designed to steady nerves in Mogadishu and beyond. Yet the dynamics behind the statement are worth probing. The Egyptian deployment, approved to join Africa’s mission in Somalia, comes amid a bitter and unresolved dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile. For Cairo, the dam threatens a lifeline; for Addis Ababa, it is a symbol of sovereign development. And here, in a country still struggling to build security and institutions, the two rivals are now being asked to help restore stability.
Old fears, new alignments
Somalia has hosted an African Union–led presence since 2007 to fight al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida-linked militant group that continues to carry out deadly attacks across the country. That mission, through various mandates and names — from AMISOM to later transition forces — has been a mixed story of containing threats while Somalis continue to argue about sovereignty and the role of foreign troops.
The idea that Mogadishu might become a theatre for wider regional competition is hardly abstract to Somalis. Memories are still raw of foreign interventions from the 1990s chaos to Ethiopia’s 2006 incursion and the years of international boots on the ground thereafter. Many Somali politicians and civil society leaders are wary of outside armies operating on their soil, even when they are invited.
“We have been burned before,” said a Mogadishu civil society activist who asked not to be named for safety reasons. “Foreign troops come with promises. Sometimes they leave better security. Sometimes they leave scars.”
Why Cairo and Addis matter in Mogadishu
Egypt has ramped up engagement with Somalia in recent years — supplying weapons to the Somali National Army and now sending troops to contribute to the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), according to government statements. The deployment is a signal of Cairo’s desire to project influence in the Horn of Africa, partly driven by fears that upstream control of the Nile could imperil its water security.
Ethiopia’s initial resistance to Egyptian troops reflected both strategic caution and domestic political calculations. Addis Ababa has its own history of military involvement in Somalia and says that foreign forces not aligned with its operational plans could complicate the fight against al-Shabaab. That point is not trivial: coordination failures on the battlefield can create safe havens for militants.
But Mohamud’s calculation is straightforward: Somalia needs help stabilising territory and rebuilding institutions. If neighbouring capitals can keep their rivalry off Somali soil and align their contributions with a unified African Union plan, the assistance could help the country take another step away from the cycle of violence that has plagued it for decades.
Risks of regionalising local conflict
There are several risks to watch. First, even well-intentioned deployments can be perceived domestically as foreign meddling, undermining the legitimacy of the Somali government. Second, competing rules of engagement and intelligence priorities among different national contingents can sow friction with operational consequences. Third, the symbolism of Egyptian forces in Somalia will reverberate in Addis Ababa and among Ethiopian elites who see control of the Nile as existential.
More broadly, Somalia illustrates a growing trend in global geopolitics: resource and strategic competitions are increasingly being exported into third countries. From the Sahel to the Eastern Mediterranean, regional powers are using diplomatic, economic and military tools far from their borders to press their interests. The Horn of Africa, strategically located between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, is especially vulnerable to these cross-currents.
- Can the African Union and the United Nations sustain unified command and oversight so that new deployments reinforce, rather than fragment, the anti-extremist effort?
- Will Somalia’s fragile political settlements be strengthened by more regional involvement, or undermined by perceptions of external interference?
What Mogadishu can — and cannot — control
Mohamud’s public rebuke of any notion of proxy warfare is an exercise in risk management. As Somalia’s president, he must balance the immediate need for security assistance against long-term political costs. He is also constrained by grant-dependent budgets, the influence of regional administrations in Somalia, and the delicate task of convincing skeptical partners like Ethiopia that Egyptian troops are not a Trojan horse.
Whether this balancing act will hold depends in part on the professionalism of incoming forces and on continued diplomatic engagement between Cairo and Addis Ababa. It also depends on the Somali government delivering credible oversight and transparency — explaining to its people what foreign troops will do, where they will operate and under whose command.
Looking beyond the Horn
The episode is a reminder that local conflicts rarely stay local. Water scarcity, national prestige, and political survival are powerful drivers of foreign policy; when they intersect, their ripples are felt far away. For international actors — from the African Union to major powers with interests in the region — the challenge is to support Somali-led solutions without allowing external rivalries to set the agenda.
There is an opportunity here, if leaders choose it: to model a regional response that prioritises coordinated, accountable support for state-building, and to show that competition over resources need not morph into open confrontation on the ground. The question is whether regional capitals will resist the temptation to treat Somalia as terrain in a broader geopolitical chess match.
For Somalis who have endured so much, the stakes are existentially simple: they need security that allows schools, markets and courts to function again, not a foreign rivalry that keeps them fighting someone else’s war. As the troops begin to move and diplomats continue to talk, the world will be watching whether Mogadishu can remain a host for peace, not a battleground for influence.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
