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Somaliland

Red Sea Tensions Increase

As Israel continues its massacres in Gaza, tensions are intensifying over the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the wider North African and Western Asian region. After three US soldiers were killed by a drone strike in Jordan, the US responded with strikes inside Iraq and Syria, killing 40. White House national security spokesman John Kirby then told Fox News that the strikes were "just the first round,” making it clear that hegemony is Washington’s only horizon. Meanwhile a related conflict is heating up on the southern side of the Gulf of Aden, triggered by a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between Ethiopia and Somaliland, the breakaway state that has been trying to secede from Somalia since 1991 but has not been recognized by any of the UN’s 193 member states or by the African Union.

US/EU/NATO Meet With Somaliland Secessionists

On April 17, a group of 15 international partners—Belgium, Canada, Denmark, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the US—issued a statement about their conversation with Somaliland secessionists waging war against Somali nationalists in the Somali city of Laascaanood and the surrounding region, Sool, Sanaag and Cayn . The diplomats plodded through the usual platitudes, calling for a cessation of hostilities and urging both sides to sit down and talk but, most fundamentally, reinforcing the West’s de facto recognition of secessionist Somaliland, encouraging the further fracturing of Somalia and disrespecting the nation’s sovereignty.