Qatar's Red Handed Fingers in Somalia

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

Under Qatari tutelage, Yassin dismantled key pillars of the agency, systematically and methodically replaced professional and experienced operatives with amateur sycophants and effectively served as a clearinghouse for Qatari intelligence operations in the Horn of Africa. NISA operations no longer focus on the battle against Al-Shabbb, and instead are geared to silence political opposition and critical voices in civil society.

Faramjo has eroded the ability 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 role to defend the Somali people and the state and be a bulwark against 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 often used to harass and intimidate political rivals and perceived enemies in the supposedly uncooperative federal member states. 

Indeed, several terrorist incidents and the recent increased campaign of assassinations that resulted in the killing of two regional governors- Mudug and Nugal in the Puntland region of Somalia appear to have Qatari fingerprints on them. According to the New York Times, an audio leak of a 2019 phone call from the Qatari ambassador in Somalia appears to confirm his direct involvement in a suicide attack that took place in the port city of Bossaso. At best, NISA is incompetent in preventing such actions; at worst, Yassin may have made some individuals complicit.