Dear Decision Maker,

On Thursday, Somalia's Supreme Court told the president his term had run out.

The day before, he had already sacked the chief justice.

Legacy media is calling it a constitutional crisis. It is one. But read it that way and you will miss what happens next.

Because Somalia is no longer one country arguing about an election. It is a map of patrons. Every federal state now has a foreign backer. Every foreign backer has a port, a base, an airfield or an oil block to protect.

So this week is a forecast. Who backs whom, what they are building, and what I expect by May.

Let's get into it.

The bottom line

The fight is not about Mogadishu any more. It is about which patron's partner holds which:

• Port
• Road
• Airfield
• Block

When the mandates, the AU mission and the Ugandans all run out in the same twelve months.

Turkey runs its bet through Mogadishu. The UAE runs its bet around it.

Al-Shabaab is the only actor playing every side. While Mogadishu tries to force every flight through its own airport, al-Shabaab is opening the roads.

Every state has a patron

Who backs whom across Somalia's federal member states, November 2026.

Go state by state and the pattern is impossible to miss.

The federal government (Hassan Sheikh)

Backed by

1. Turkey
2. Qatar
3. Egypt
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Eritrea
6. Djibouti
7. China

Turkey brought F-16s in January, warships and marines in February, and special forces into Middle Shabelle. Qatar signed a defence pact on 20 January. Egypt is preparing a brigade for Middle Shabelle.
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Puntland (Deni)

Does not recognise Mogadishu. Kept its UAE ties when Mogadishu cancelled every UAE agreement on 12 January. Then, on 2 August, signed a deal letting the US expand the UAE-built facility at Bosaso. In August its forces also seized the federal-aligned security headquarters in Galkayo.

Jubaland (Madobe)

In conflict with Mogadishu since his disputed re-election in November 2024. Backed by Kenya since 2012, tied to the UAE through Kismayo, with Ethiopian forces active in Gedo.

Somaliland (Irro)

Recognised by Israel on 26 December 2025, the only state so far. The UAE built the facility at Berbera. Taiwan opened a new office with it in June.
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South West

Mogadishu removed Laftagareen in March and installed its own administration. However, his forces now hold Buurhakaba, Diinsoor and other Bay towns. Kenya hosts him. Ethiopia's position is ambiguous.
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Galmudug, Hirshabelle and the new North Eastern State

These still follow Mogadishu. Moreover, they are where Turkey's assets sit: the spaceport site in Hirshabelle, the first oil well off Galmudug.

United States plays both sides

It trains Mogadishu's Danab commandos and expands Puntland's airfield at the same time.

In other words, the proxy war is not coming to Somalia. It is the operating system.

The UAE's side of the board

Airfields with UAE-built facilities at Bosaso and Berbera this week.

This is what Mogadishu's January cancellation looks like from space, this week.

A 4.1 km runway at Berbera.

A 2.7 km runway at Bosaso.

Both working. Both in territory where Mogadishu's writ does not run.

That is the UAE model. It does not need the federal government. It needs the states that defy it, and the coastline they control.

There is also a rumour in Mogadishu this week that Abu Dhabi paid Kampala to bring its troops home. It rests on one unsourced report. It is a rumour, and I am treating it as one.

Turkey's two bets on the coast

Turkey's model is the opposite. It goes through Mogadishu, and it builds on the coast Mogadishu still controls.

Bet one: the spaceport.

The same 6 km square north of Warsheikh, Sentinel-2, March 2025 to November 2026.

We pulled every clear pass of free Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery over Warsheikh since early 2025.

• March 2025: empty bush and dunes.
• February 2026: a track and a small clearing.
• Late March 2026: the outline of a perimeter.
• July 2026: a full rectangle, with buildings in the northern corner.
• 4 November 2026: a perimeter about 2 by 3.6 km, 20 km north-east of Warsheikh town and about 74 km from Mogadishu.

Ten-metre pixels cannot tell you what is inside. But it is new, it is big, and it sits inside the stretch of coast where Turkey's reported 30 by 30 km block lies. On that basis, I judge it likely that this is part of the Turkish complex. No lease or revenue terms have been published. Le Monde puts the first phase in summer 2027.

The range claimed for the Warsheikh site, drawn as a true circle on the globe.

Then there is the missile claim: Le Monde, citing the Middle East Forum, suggested the site could also test ballistic missiles with ranges up to 2,000 km. Ankara has not confirmed it.

So we drew it honestly. It covers the whole Bab al-Mandab, Sanaa, Asmara, Djibouti and Berbera at 894 km. It stops short of Jeddah, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

If the claim is true, the people with most to worry about are not in the Gulf. They are in Berbera and Hargeisa, on the other side of the proxy map.

Bet two: the oil and gas blocks.

Where Turkey's first offshore well can be, from two published distances.

• Offshore: three blocks of about 5,000 km² each, licensed to Turkish Petroleum in 2024. The Oruç Reis shot 3D seismic over 4,464 km² of them.
• The well: Curad-1, spudded in April by the drillship Çağrı Bey, in about 3,500 m of water. Somalia's petroleum authority puts it 372 km north-east of Mogadishu. Turkey's minister says the blocks lie 50 to 100 km from shore. Put those two facts together and the well can only be on the short red arc off Galmudug.
• The progress: the authority said on 29 October that the well is into the Early Cretaceous, with the target expected in December.
• The terms: the leaked agreement lets Turkey recover up to 90 per cent of output as costs before profit is split. Somalia's royalty is capped at 5 per cent. No signing bonus. Disputes go to arbitration in Istanbul.
• Onshore: three more land blocks, about 16,000 km², signed in April 2025. Locations not disclosed.

Now look at who signs what. Mogadishu licensed Turkey.

Somaliland licensed Genel, which plans its first well in 2027, and Mogadishu calls that licence void.

Puntland says only Puntland can licence Puntland's resources.

So every barrel found in Somalia will arrive with two signatures fighting over it, and a patron behind each one.

My ground truth: Mogadishu's gate, al-Shabaab's roads

Our ground truth layer over open-source control and flight-ban records.

Here is the part you will not find online yet.

The federal government has told airlines that flights to the regional airports must now go through Mogadishu.

+It is not a closure of the skies. It is a gate: every passenger, every cargo and every visiting delegation to Kismayo, Baidoa or Garowe passes through Mogadishu first, where Mogadishu can check it, tax it or stop it.

Whether Mogadishu can actually enforce that is another question. Puntland, Jubaland and Somaliland run their own airports, and Somaliland already refuses to let its passengers be routed through Mogadishu.

Our people on the ground tell us al-Shabaab has answered by opening its road checkpoints across the south.

None of this is new as a tactic. Mogadishu has used flights as a weapon against its rivals before:

• Kismayo: direct flights banned in August 2019, a week after Ahmed Madobe's disputed re-election. Everything had to route through Mogadishu then too.
• Doolow, Gedo: flights banned from December 2024 to May 2025.
• Jubaland: flights suspended in December 2024.
• Puntland and Jubaland: aircraft carrying their leaders' advance teams turned back at Mogadishu on 1 February 2026.
• Baidoa: flights halted from 18 to 31 March 2026, as Mogadishu moved against Laftagareen.
• Ticketing: on 18 October Mogadishu relaunched the IATA ticketing and settlement system for Somalia. A week later Somaliland said it would not accept tickets issued through it.

So when the government narrows the air, the insurgent widens the road. Traders, farmers and families take the road. And the road runs through al-Shabaab's state:

• Revenue: estimates run from $100 million to $200 million a year.
• Zakat: 2.5 per cent a year on wealth, and rising.
• Courts: an estimated 160 to 200 cases a month from the Mogadishu area at one court near Afgooye alone, mostly land disputes.
• Territory: about 30 per cent of the country.

Open does not mean free. Al-Shabaab's checkpoints issue receipts.

Put simply, Mogadishu is fighting for legitimacy with a gate at its airport. Al-Shabaab is fighting for it with a road and a court. And the army's worst defeat since 2023, at Leego on 26 October, came on exactly that road: the Baidoa road, with a 2,000-strong column marching not on al-Shabaab but on Laftagareen's forces at Buurhakaba.

Who fills the gaps

Positions reported as Ugandan in Lower Shabelle and Mogadishu, November 2026.

Meanwhile, the biggest troop contributor is leaving. Uganda began its drawdown on 29 October. Its 6,500 to 8,500 soldiers guard Mogadishu's airport and port, and posts at Baraawe, Bulo Marer, Qoryooley and Jannaale. Everyone out by the end of 2027.

Every post they hand back is a question about patrons. Turkish-trained units? Egypt's brigade? A clan militia? Or al-Shabaab?

The clock

Somalia's deadlines, November 2026 to December 2027.

All the deadlines fall in the same twelve months:

• 5 November: the Supreme Court ruled the mandates expired. Electoral framework in 30 days, elections in 90.
• 14 to 18 November: consultative talks. Puntland and Jubaland are boycotting.
• 31 December: the AU mission's mandate expires. UN logistics start winding down in January.
• 15 April and 15 May 2027: the commission's dates for parliament and president.
• Summer 2027: Warsheikh's first phase due, and Uganda's last soldiers leave between August and December.

The forecast

Grey Dynamics judgements on the UK probability yardstick.

My read to May 2027, on the UK and NATO yardstick we teach:

1. More armed clashes between federal forces and a member state before the April vote: highly likely, moderate confidence. Galkayo, Baidoa and Bay have already seen them this year, and every side now has a patron to resupply it.
2. No agreed electoral framework by the court's deadline, around 5 December: highly likely, moderate confidence. Puntland and Jubaland are boycotting, and the government rejects the ruling itself.
3. Al-Shabaab attacks at least one base vacated by Ugandan troops before the end of March: likely, moderate confidence. In July 2025 it retook Sabiid and Anole days after Ugandan and Somali troops pulled out.
4. The Security Council keeps some form of AU mandate alive past 31 December: likely, low confidence. Nobody wants the vacuum. Nobody wants to pay for it either.
5. Warsheikh's first phase finishes on time: a realistic possibility, low confidence. The imagery shows steady work. The politics around it do not.
6. A second state recognises Somaliland: highly unlikely, moderate confidence. Even Washington, after Trump called it "a totally different country", still backs Somali unity.

What would change my mind:

• A Mogadishu deal with Puntland or Jubaland before 5 December. That would lower the first two judgements sharply.
• Airlines flying direct to Kismayo, Garowe or Bosaso without being stopped. That would tell me Mogadishu cannot enforce its gate.
• Al-Shabaab closing roads again. That would tell me the checkpoint opening was tactical, not strategic.
• Turkish or Egyptian troops moving into posts the Ugandans vacate. That would show Mogadishu's patrons filling the gap themselves.
• A result from Curad-1 in December. A discovery raises the stakes for every patron at once.

What I would do this week

1. Map your counterpart to a patron. If you deal with any Somali authority, know which foreign capital stands behind it, and what happens to your deal if that patron changes its mind.
2. Check the signature. Any contract with Mogadishu is now signed by a government its own top court calls a caretaker. Any contract with a member state is one Mogadishu may call void.
3. Plan for the gate and the road. If your people or cargo fly into a regional airport, assume they may have to go through Mogadishu first. Then ask who controls the road you would use instead.

The capitals are telling you a story about legitimacy. The ground is telling you a story about patrons, perimeters and roads.

Read the ground and you get months of notice. Read the statements and you get a surprise.

When did your organisation last check who is really standing behind the people it does business with?

Two ways we can help

• For your organisation: if you have people, money or contracts in the Horn, reply to this email with SOMALIA. I will set up a 30-minute briefing with our team on what this means for you.
• For your team: every satellite image in this letter is free Sentinel-2 data, read with the method we teach. GEOINT Fundamentals opens on Thursday 12 November. It teaches your analysts to do this themselves, from first image to finished judgement. See the course​

Information costs money. Intelligence makes money.

This week, it also tells you who is paying.

Ahmed
CEO Grey Dynamics
​Where headlines end, ground truth begins