The Qatari greedy ambitions towards Somalia

By: Aya Abdulaziz

Qatar sought to have regional and international expansionist policy, through playing prominent role in a number of some vital issues in the Horn of Africa.

Doha filled the absence of the Arab countries in Africa particularly in the southern and Eastern countries, through cooperating with those states in all fields.

The Qatari diplomacy penetrates in the strategic depth of Africa, specifically, in Somalia; invoking mediation to solve disputes emerged between the African Horn countries. This mediation was a cover to back numerous terrorist groups as a part of the Qatari expansionist plans.

The Qatari mechanism

Doha has used malicious mechanisms to enforce Islamists and extremists groups in these countries, seeking unjust backing for the Qatari policy in the regional and international forums.

1- Political: Doha pretends as mediator in the Somalia-Djibouti crisis, and then entered from the door of backing Mogadishu, to have an initial point to enforce terrorists and extremists affiliated to Qatar.

Tamim regime also has tried through the humanitarian, cultural, social and economic activities to have Somalia as ally, like using its airspace during the Gulf crisis.

2- Diplomatic: The bilateral relations between the two countries grew under the rule of Tamim bin Hamad. This is clearly appeared in the exchange visits and meetings between them, most notably the visit of former Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah to Mogadishu, in May 2015, as well as, the meeting of Tamim with the Somali President Abdullahi Farmajo in Istanbul on the sidelines of the OIC meeting in December 2017.

The two presidents focused on the Gulf crisis, and replacing the Qatari support instead of the UAE combating to jihadist movements, which was a source of concern for Doha.

3- Economic: the Qatari enterprises and investments have contributed to create a foothold in Somalia, and in a large number of African countries through support agricultural and mining projects.

Doha has become major donors in Somalia donors’ conferences. The last quarter of 2017, has witnesses increasing the Qatari technical delegations, to study the possibility of implementing road projects.

The first phase of these projects aimed restoring “Mogadishu-Afgoye” road and “Mogadishu-Belad-Jowhar”[1] road in order to consolidate its long-term influence in Somalia.

4- Media: Doha has used Aljazeera channel to penetrate Africa and launched a Swahili-spoken channel targeting nearly 100 million people in South and East Africa to promote Doha as a peaceful state aimed helping African peoples; this is to hide its true expansionist policy.

5- Humanitarian: Doha – in its external movements towards Mogadishu- based on charities such as the “Qatar Charity” and “Qatar Red Crescent”.

“Qatar used these charities foundations to support terrorist groups, such as the Mujahideen Youth Movement [2]” according to leaked documents on “WikiLeaks”.

The other side Humanitarian

Doha has adopted hostile policies to the sovereignty of Somali state, through supporting movements and armed groups aims to harm the country.

There is clearly and explicitly Qatari involvement in backing terrorist, which pushed some Arab countries to boycott Doha.  Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain boycotted Qatar because of its hostile policies that harmed Arab national security.

In this context, Washington uncovered the Doha support for a number of terrorist groups, such as Mujahideen Youth Movement. A number of international reports stated that “the Qatari businessman, Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi, paid 250 thousand dollars for the Mujahideen Youth Movement.

“Al-Nuaimi has close ties with Hassan Awiys, the leader of the group, who detained by the Somali authorities” the “support of democracy” organization said in a report titled “Qatar and the financing of terrorism”.

Washington asked Turkey to press Doha to stop its financial supplies to the Mujahideen Youth Movement, in 2009. In February 2008, the US State Department classified the Mujahideen Youth Movement as a terrorist movement after numerous crimes against civilians and political leaders.

The Movement has also carried out numerous suicide bombings in Mogadishu. In June 2017, it carried out an attack on a military base in “Avror”; left a number of soldiers killed, and 18 others wounded, while the movement claimed the death of 61 soldiers.

Qatar Motives

Qatar has greedy ambitions towards Somalia due to numerous reasons:

1. The geostrategic importance. Mogadishu has a privileged position that has become the focus of international and regional forces such as Qatar. It is located in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
2. Economic importance. Somalia has access to a number of international trade routes. The number of commercial vessels passing through the Red Sea annually is estimated at approximately 20,000, as well as Somalia has many mineral and oil resources.

3 – Security importance: Somalia has an important position that pushed Qatar focuses to benefit from it, to protect its trade routes from the successive pirate attacks. Doha also has a great desire to transfer the conflict between Qatar and the opposition countries outside the Arab region; to threaten their interests.

Finally, Qatar’s foreign policy towards Somalia has been going on since the nineties until now. The Qatari security concerns have pushed it to continue to exist there by all available means; to be one of its tools in the face of threats from some countries in the future.

Indeed, Doha was able to ensure the loyalty of the Somali government during the Gulf crisis, therefore, the Arab countries should to face these expansionist ambitions. Qatar has an alliance with some regional powers, which constitute a clear threat to Arab national security, like Iran and Turkey. The Turkish action in Somalia and Sudan through the establishment of some military bases, in addition to granting the Sudanese government Ankara the right to rebuild and rehabilitate some of the islands “Sukak” constitute a threat to the Arabs countries.

According to the above mentioned data, a clear Arab strategy correspond to the interests is a must, to respond to these growing threats, which are almost subduing the security and stability of the region.