While the Iran war rages, Israel is quietly planning for a potential base at the mouth of the Red Sea from which to strike one of the Islamic Republic’s last proxies still operating at full strength: the Houthis of Yemen.
That’s thanks to Somaliland, the breakaway territory on the Gulf of Aden that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government recognized in December — a move that handed Israel its first diplomatic presence across from Yemen. Now, the Jewish state will follow up with a strategic security partnership that may involve Israel building a base — possibly covert — on its pristine coast, despite widespread regional criticism, according to Khadar Hussein Abdi, Somaliland’s minister of the presidency.
“In terms of security, we will have a strategic relationship and that encompasses a lot of things,” Abdi told Bloomberg at his office in Hargeisa, the capital. “We haven’t discussed with them if it becomes a military base, but definitely there will be an analysis at some point.”