I condemn in the strongest terms the representative of Somalia to the African Union reported statement to Al Jazeera, highlighted in SAAB TV's 6 June 2026 X post, that Somalia's army is preparing to wage war on Somaliland, including Berbera and Hargeisa.
Somalia cannot secure Mogadishu from al Shabaab. It cannot defeat al Shabaab. It cannot hold together a stable political order within the territory it actually claims to govern.
Yet its officials are naming Berbera and Hargeisa as military targets.
Think about that for a second.
The Distraction
This is not serious defence planning. It is reckless orders from the Hassan Sheikh directly. It is designed to deflect from the fact that Somalia's political class is fighting over presidential powers while the country remains unable to defeat the insurgency that has hollowed out its own authority.
On 3 June 2026, Al Jazeera reported heavy gunfire in central Mogadishu after former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire accused government forces of attacking him before planned protests against the president's rule. The report described a political crisis over the extension of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's term and opposition claims that the move centralises power.
That is the real crisis.
Somalia cannot even settle the question of power in Mogadishu without armed tension. Somalia cannot build a stable national compact. Somalia cannot defeat al Shabaab, which the BTI 2026 Somalia report says still maintains shadow governance structures in places formally under federal control, including Mogadishu.
Yet Somalia fantasises about conquering Somaliland.
The Fantasy
For thirty five years, Somaliland has governed itself while Somalia's leaders have wasted time, money and diplomatic energy pretending they still rule a country they lost decades ago.
That pretence is not harmless. It is the central poison in the region's politics. It allows Somalia to treat Somaliland's existence as a national crisis rather than a settled political fact. It allows foreign governments to flatter Mogadishu with language that bears no relation to power on the ground.
Somalia does not govern Somaliland.
Somalia does not police Somaliland.
Somalia does not collect taxes in Somaliland.
Somalia does not defend Somaliland's coast.
Somalia does not run Somaliland's elections.
This is not a disputed local council. It is a state in all but diplomatic recognition. Somaliland is more sovereign than not just Somalia but several recognised states in the world. That legal and political reality has been addressed again and again, including in The Union That Never Existed and State Recognition Is Not a Group Order. The problem is not Somaliland's lack of statehood. The problem is the world's refusal to name what already exists.
The Subsidy
The international community thinks it is preserving stability by refusing to recognise Somaliland. It is doing the opposite.
Every year Somaliland remains partially recognised is another year Mogadishu is encouraged to believe that reality can be negotiated away. Every statement about Somalia's territorial integrity becomes a subsidy for political fantasy. Every diplomatic formula that places Somaliland under Mogadishu on paper rewards Somalia for avoiding the work of fixing Somalia.
That is why the refusal to recognise Somaliland is not neutral. It is not patience. It is not caution. It is an active distortion of incentives.
It tells Somalia that it can fail at governance and still be rewarded with claims over a functioning neighbour.
It tells Somaliland that state building, elections, peace and stability are less important than the preferences of a capital that does not control it.
It tells the region that fantasy matters more than fact.
This is the same delusion I criticised in The New Faqash, where Somalia's political culture treats Somaliland not as a country to be respected, but as a wound to be reopened. It is also why procedural engagement without recognition, the problem discussed in Do Not Overread America's Somaliland Signal, can never be enough.
Somalia's Work
Recognition would not only help Somaliland. It would help Somalia.
It would force Somalia's political class to focus on the problems actually destroying Somalia. Al Shabaab. Insecurity. Corruption. Weak institutions. Economic failure. Clan competition over state power. The inability to build a government that commands legitimacy beyond protected zones and diplomatic ceremonies.
Those are Somalia's problems. Somaliland is not the reason Mogadishu cannot secure itself. Somaliland is not the reason al Shabaab still survives. Somaliland is not the reason Somalia's political leaders cannot agree on the rules of power.
The Somaliland obsession gives Somalia's elite an escape route. When domestic failure becomes too obvious, they point north. When al Shabaab exposes the weakness of the state, they talk about sovereignty. When political disputes in Mogadishu threaten to break into violence, they manufacture outrage over Somaliland's recognition.
That escape route should be closed.
End The Illusion
Thirty five years should be enough. It is already longer than the 29 years of the defaco union with Somalia.
Somaliland restored its sovereignty in 1991. It built its own institutions. It maintained its own peace. It made its own political mistakes and corrected them through its own national processes. It has done the work of statehood while Somalia has tried to preserve the vocabulary of ownership without the reality of rule.
The world must stop subsidising the illusion.
Recognise Somaliland and force Somalia's political class to face Somalia. End the fantasy. Let Somaliland be recognised for what it is, and let Somalia finally focus on Somalia.