Poor, Unemployed, Somalis aren't Mercenaries

Qatar and Turkey held the talks the day after the Pentagon issued a report stating that Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid fighters to Libya from Syria to strengthen the GNA’s army. The report may have caused a shift in the Turkish view of the use of Syrians, which has provoked international criticism, and toward the employment of more Somali fighters, which Qatar has trained and deploys from bases there.

Some of the Somali youths recruited by Doha and Ankara had been granted Qatari citizenship earlier and were upset to be labeled as mercenaries by some media outlets. Many of them said that “poverty and unemployment forced them to throw their lives into a raging fire”.

The Turkish military facility, which opened in Somalia in 2017 and reportedly cost $50 million paid by Qatar is part of a Turkish-Qatari joint effort to increase their foothold and influence in the Horn of Africa. Qatar and Turkey have also vied for influence in Somalia, providing support to various regional security forces.

Somalia’s army disintegrated after the country’s 1991 civil war, when clan-based militias overthrew the government of the longtime dictator Siad Barre before turning on each other. Instead of preserving the sovereignty of his country, president Farmaajo made a catastrophic and damaging decision by allowing the Turkish-Qatari interference in Somalia.