Somaliland
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Somaliland is a self-declared breakaway state in the Horn of Africa. John Kiriakou says Israel became the only country in the world to recognize it as independent, in exchange gaining a military base positioned about 30 seconds' flight time from Yemen, allowing it to strike the Houthis.

A personal visit from Djibouti

Kiriakou says he personally visited Somaliland while posted with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Djibouti. The U.S. ambassador to Djibouti invited him along on a drive to Somaliland with the defense attaché and chief of security; Kiriakou says he was surprised to find a genuinely functioning city of about 100,000 people with real infrastructure, a place with nothing to do with Mogadishu, al-Shabaab, or piracy, populated simply by people seeking international recognition.

The ambassador's private view

On the drive back to Djibouti, Kiriakou asked the ambassador what he thought of an independent Somaliland. The ambassador told him that, if it were up to him, he would recognize the territory, not as "Somaliland," but as the legitimate government of Somalia itself, since Somalia had lacked any functioning government for decades. Kiriakou says the ambassador did not expect that recognition would ever actually happen.

See also

- John Kiriakou
- MOSSAD
