JidbaaleLast weekend, the head of Egyptian intelligence and the Foreign Minister visited Asmara with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and gave a direct message from Al Sisi aimed at “strengthening and developing bilateral relations in all fields.”
Egypt’s diplomatic involvement in the Horn of Africa continues. After the military cooperation deal struck with Somalia to deploy 10 Egyptian troops to Mogadishu, which outraged neighboring Ethiopia, the administration in Cairo is now exploring a similar arrangement with Eritrea, which would also involve bilateral steps to safeguard ships in the Red Sea. The Emirati newspaper “The National” reports this, underscoring that at the same time Egypt is also discussing with Asmara a possible Egyptian mediation in the ten-year conflict between the Eritrean government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), protagonist of the war that ended two years ago that pitted it against the Ethiopian army. The negotiations between Egypt and Eritrea follow an unexpected visit conducted last weekend to Asmara by the chief of Egyptian intelligence, Kamal Abbas, extremely close to the president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and accompanied by the Foreign Minister, Badr Abdelatty. The two representatives met with the Eritrean President, Isaiah Afwerki, and according to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, they conveyed a direct message from Al Sisi aimed at “strengthening and developing bilateral relations in all fields.”.
The senior Egyptian officials, the statement continued, “also listened to President Afwerki’s views on the developments in the Red Sea regarding the importance of finding the right circumstances to restore normal maritime navigation and international trade through the Bab el Mandeb Strait,” which connects the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea. Together, the borders of Egypt and Eritrea encompass roughly 5 kilometers of the Red Sea shoreline, including the Egyptian beaches of the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, as well as 355 islands under Eritrean control. Egypt owns the northern sections of the Red Sea, including the Suez Canal that links it to the Mediterranean, while Eritrea is positioned near the important Bab el Mandeb Strait. Sisi and Afwerki last met in February, when they met in Cairo. Three months ago, they had met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
If ratified, the military cooperation deal with Eritrea would be the latest to be struck between Cairo and nations in the Horn of Africa, East Africa, or the Nile Basin. These include Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and, most recently, Somalia. Analysts have long suspected that such agreements were designed primarily to pressure Ethiopia to show flexibility in its dispute with Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the mega-project nearing completion on the Nile River that Cairo considers an existential threat to its water supply. This was notably the deal with Somalia, signed on 14 August during the visit to Cairo by the Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, increasing the already harsh relations between Somalia and Egypt, on the one hand, and Ethiopia, on the other.
Under the agreement, a total of 10 Egyptian soldiers will be sent to Somalia: half of these (5) will be integrated into the African Union Stabilization and Support Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), which will replace the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) on 1 January 2025, while the other 5 will be deployed bilaterally. The Ethiopian response, announced with a fiery statement released the day after the arrival in Mogadishu of the first Egyptian soldiers who will be deployed in the regional states of Hirshabelle, Southwest, and Galmudug, was not long in coming: it first came with the deployment of armored vehicles and hundreds of men on the border with Somalia, then with the seizure of several key airports in the Somali region of Ghedo, including Luq, Dolow, and Bardere, in an attempt to prevent the possible air transport of Egyptian troops to the area. The airports are the sole entry points to the cities in the Gedo area, as the major roadways are controlled by the Islamist organization Al Shabaab.
Tensions with Ethiopia have had the consequence of further bringing the positions of Somalia and Egypt closer, already notably improved with the election of President Mohamud in May 2022. Long at loggerheads with Addis Ababa over the Gerd dam, Egypt has been a crucial role in Somalia’s security since early 2023, contributing to the training of Somali army recruits, the supply of arms and ammunition, and the treatment of injured Somali troops in Egyptian military hospitals. Also last year, Mogadishu and Cairo initiated negotiations for tighter strategic collaboration, and press speculations have been circulating for some time—so far unconfirmed—according to which Mogadishu is contemplating awarding Egypt a military facility in the center-south of the nation.
In addition to the shared Ethiopian threat, the warming in ties between Cairo and Mogadishu’s longtime ally Turkey has also pushed Egypt and Somalia closer together. This thaw was verified by the recent visit to Ankara by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi (the first since 2014). A visit that clearly and definitely demonstrated the increased closeness between the two nations following the years of frost experienced since 2013 due to conflicting viewpoints on political Islam but also on regional geopolitical matters. In the years following 2013, specifically in 2021, the war between Qatar—the main point of reference for the Muslim Brotherhood—and the Gulf bloc formed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, together with Egypt, has in fact opened new opportunities for relations between Cairo and Ankara.
