Somaliland offers US troops Berbera base as tensions rise in Bab-el-Mandeb

JOHANNESBURG: A strategically important air base and port have been offered to the US as a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz begins and Iranian-backed threats target the main Red Sea chokepoint, the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb.

Top US military officials, including US Africa Command (AFRICOM) Commander General Dagvin Anderson, recently visited facilities offered in Somaliland. Somaliland is a pro-American outpost that broke away from war-torn Somalia in 1991.

Bab-el-Mandeb, which is Arabic for ‘gate of tears’, has become the main route for oil shipped from the Middle East to Asia since the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed. Bloomberg News reported that Saudi Arabia has switched to shipping potentially up to 7 million barrels of oil per day from the Red Sea port of Yanbu through the strait. It is reported that up to 14% of the world’s shipping passes through the 25 kilometer wide strait.

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Join the controversial offer to the US of an air and naval base in Berbera, Somaliland. The official site of the Republic of Somaliland on

The Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, a sea route connecting the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal, on October 22, 2020. (Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel data 2021)

The controversy centers on the issue of US recognition of Somaliland.

General Dagvin Anderson, commander of US Africa Command, meets with Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi in Hargeisa, Somaliland, on November 26, 2025. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Ubon Mendie)

President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last August, “That’s what we’re looking at right now,” when asked about the recognition of Somaliland and the possible resettlement of Gazans there, adding, “That’s what we’re working on right now, Somaliland.”

Last year, Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland.

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In this U.S. Navy image, the amphibious dock landing ship USS Carter Hall and the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan transit the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on August 9, 2023. (Mass Communications Spc. 2nd Class Moises Sandoval / US Navy via AP)

Iran forces the Houthis to take action in the Red Sea. “Insecurity in other straits, including the Strait of Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea, is one of the options of the Resistance Front, and the situation will become much more complicated for the Americans than it is now,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasmin news agency warned on March 21.

Baraa Shaiban, an expert on the Houthis at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), says recognizing Somaliland is problematic because it “will disrupt America’s relationship with Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, many of which are American allies. It would be unwise for the United States to upset its allies in the region just to gain access to Somaliland’s ports.”

This handout, taken from a video, shows the Yemeni Houthi fighters’ takeover of the Galaxy Leader Cargo on the Red Sea coast near Hudaydah, on November 20, 2023, in the Red Sea, Yemen. (Houthi Movement/Getty Images)

While both the use of bases and recognition of Somaliland are publicly no-go areas, analysts say that with Somaliland offering the use of its bases without immediate government recognition, the issue may be privately off the table.

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That’s not the only reported visit. Somaliland’s top diplomatic representative in Washington, Bashir Goth, said at a recent Foreign Policy Research Institute debate: “The war in the Middle East has increased the strategic importance of Somaliland. US military interest has been very high. Every month there has been a delegation from AFRICOM to Hargeisa”, the capital of Somaliland.