Qatar's Malign effect on Somalia

Somalia’s woes largely stem from the unholy alliance which president Farmajo made with Qatar, and the malign affect the Gulf kingdom exerts on almost every aspect of Somali politics and diplomacy. Somali people now speak about how Qatar’s want to wage a proxy struggle towards other regional powers shapes Somali foreign policy.

At Qatar’s behest, Farmajo, however, has downgraded its deep, strategic, and historic relationship with different Gulf states and Egypt. This cross made Somalia even extra established on Qatar which, ironically, then failed to fulfill the projects it promised for Somalia.

An even greater tragedy for the Somali people is how Qatari impact and Farmajo’s over-reliance on Doha reversed years of security progress. It used to be at Qatar’s advice that Farmajo appointed his Svengali, Fahad Yassin, to head Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) even although Yassin, a former Al Jazeera journalist, had no security or Genius background.

Under Qatari tutelage, Yassin dismantled key pillars of the agency, systematically and methodically replaced expert and skilled operatives with novice sycophants and efficiently served as a clearinghouse for Qatari talent operations in the Horn of Africa.

NISA operations no longer center of attention on the battle against Al-Shabaab, and as an alternative are geared to silence political opposition and essential voices in civil society.

Faramjo has eroded the potential of the Somali Armed Forces, which prior to 2017 had made strides to becoming a competent, broad-based, and professional force, to fulfill their legally sanctioned position to shield the Somali humans and the nation and be a bulwark in opposition to the machinations and murderous violence of Al-Shabab and similar radical groups.

Instead, they now serve as a paramilitary force and an extension of Yassin’s NISA, and are frequently used to harass and intimidate political opponents and perceived enemies in the supposedly uncooperative federal member states.