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Since Israel recognised Somaliland last month, the self-declared republic on the Gulf of Aden has become central to a struggle over military access, ports and regional influence across the Red Sea corridor.Somaliland sits astride one of the world’s most strategic maritime choke points, flanked by multiple conflicts in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.It declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but had never been recognised internationally until Israel’s move.Israel’s recognition was fiercely opposed by the Somali government as an attack on its territorial unity — a position backed by most African and Arab leaders. But Somaliland’s assets — most crucially the port and airfield at Berbera, which have been developed by the United Arab Emirates since 2016 to be capable of hosting large naval and air assets — outweighed any potential concern about the diplomatic fall-out.A Somaliland official, speaking anonymously to AFP, said new buildings and an airbase facility were recently completed at Berbera by the UAE, which has a 25-year concession to build a military base. “What is at stake right now is military access,” said Roland Marchal, an expert on the region with France’s National Centre for Scientific Research. “This is a shift from the recent past” when the focus was on commercial shipping, he added. – Israel and the UAE – For the Israelis, Somaliland offers a prime spot from which to attack Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have targeted Israel to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Berbera offers another hub for the quiet military cooperation between the UAE and Israel that has expanded since the Emiratis formally recognised Israel under the US-sponsored Abraham Accords in 2020. The UAE did not criticise Israel for recognising Somaliland. The Somali government said on Monday it was cancelling all agreements with the UAE for “undermining national sovereignty”.Analysts say the Emiratis are nonetheless unlikely to formally recognise Somaliland as that would worsen its already terrible relations with regional rival Saudi Arabia. The Saudis “would view (recognition) as another affront and another example of the UAE undermining Saudi Arabia’s authority and the ‘Arab consensus'”, said Anna Jacobs, a Gulf analyst.- Turkey and China – Turkey has sided with Somalia, its key strategic partner in the region — host of its largest international military base, a planned space-port and imminent oil-drilling projects. The fragmentation of Somalia “could jeopardise Turkey’s progress and interests in the country”, said Scott Romaniuk, a researcher at Budapest’s Corvinus University.Not to mention Turkey’s long-standing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza and fear of encouraging its own separatists, the Kurds.  Turkey has nonetheless maintained a foothold in Somaliland, said Federico Donelli of the University of Trieste, and is closely allied with the UAE in other areas — highlighting the complexity of regional dynamics.Meanwhile, Somaliland is the only African territory, besides the tiny state of Eswatini, to recognise Taiwan — enough to attract the ire of China, which also has significant investments in Somalia. – United States -Washington defended what it said was its Israeli ally’s right to recognise Somaliland, although President Donald Trump said he was unlikely to follow suit, despite pressure from some within his Republican party.”The United States is not at all in a position to recognise Somaliland,” Marchal said. “The United States needs local allies. They can’t alienate Egypt, the Turks and Saudi Arabia (all supporters of Somalia) at the same time.”The United States can count on plenty of other military assets in the region, including ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf, and the Baledogle airfield in Somalia.- Somaliland -Lost in the geopolitical scramble is any assessment of Somaliland’s own case for independence. It has run its own affairs since 1991 and been far more stable and democratic than the rest of Somalia, but those are secondary considerations for its partners.”It’s sad because the merits of Somaliland aren’t discussed,” Marchal said. “What Somaliland has achieved, what it has failed at, is completely ignored.”

Over two weeks of protests mark the most serious challenge in years to Iran’s theocratic leadership in their scale and nature but it is too early to predict the immediate demise of the Islamic republic, analysts say.The demonstrations moved from protesting economic grievances to demanding a wholesale change from the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah. The authorities have unleashed a crackdown that, according to rights groups, has left hundreds dead while the rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now 86, remains intact.”These protests arguably represent the most serious challenge to the Islamic republic in years, both in scale and in their increasingly explicit political demands,” Nicole Grajewski, professor at the Sciences Po Centre for International Studies in Paris told AFP.She said it was unclear if the protests would unseat the leadership, pointing to “the sheer depth and resilience of Iran’s repressive apparatus”.The Iranian authorities have called their own counter rallies, with thousands attending on Monday.Thomas Juneau, professor at the University of Ottawa, said: “At this point, I still don’t assess that the fall of the regime is imminent. That said, I am less confident in this assessment than in the past.”These are the key factors seen by analysts as determining whether the Islamic republic’s leadership will hold on to power.- Sustained protests – A key factor is “simply the size of protests; they are growing, but have not reached the critical mass that would represent a point of no return,” said Juneau. The protest movement began with strikes at the Tehran bazaar on December 28 but erupted into a full-scale challenge with mass rallies in the capital and other cities from Thursday.The last major protests were the 2022-2023 demonstrations sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code for women. In 2009, mass rallies took place after disputed elections.But a multi-day internet shutdown imposed by Iranian authorities has hampered the ability to determine the magnitude of the current demonstrations, with fewer videos emerging.Arash Azizi, a lecturer at Yale University, said “the protesters still suffer from not having durable organised networks that can withstand oppression”.He said one option would be to “organise strikes in a strategic sector” but this required leadership that was still lacking.- Cohesion in the elite – While the situation on the streets is of paramount importance, analysts say there is little chance of a change without cracks and defections in the security forces and leadership.So far there has been no sign of this, with all the pillars of the Islamic republic from parliament to the president to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) lining up behind Khamenei’s defiant line expressed in a speech on Friday.”At present, there are no clear signs of military defections or high-level elite splits within the regime. Historically, those are critical indicators of whether a protest movement can translate into regime collapse,” said Sciences Po’s Grajewski.Jason Brodsky, policy director at US-based group United Against Nuclear Iran, said the protests were “historic”.But he added: “It’s going to take a few different ingredients for the regime to fall,” including “defections in the security services and cracks in the Islamic republic’s political elite”.- Israeli or US military intervention -US President Donald Trump, who has threatened military retaliation over the crackdown, announced 25 percent tariffs on Monday against Iran’s trading partners.The White House said Trump was prioritising a diplomatic response, and has not ruled out strikes, after having briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against Iran in June.That war resulted in the killing of several top Iranian security officials, forced Khamenei to go into hiding and revealed Israel’s deep intelligence penetration of the Islamic republic.US strikes would upend the situation, analysts say. The Iranian foreign ministry said on Monday it has channels of communication open with Washington despite the lack of diplomatic relations.”A direct US military intervention would fundamentally alter the trajectory of the crisis,” said Grajewski.Juneau added: “The regime is more vulnerable than it has been, domestically and geopolitically, since the worst years of the Iran-Iraq war” that lasted from 1980-1988.- Organised opposition – The US-based son of the ousted shah, Reza Pahlavi, has taken a major role in calling for protests and pro-monarchy slogans have been common chants.But with no real political opposition remaining inside Iran, the diaspora remains critically divided between political factions known for fighting each other as much as the Islamic republic.”There needs to be a leadership coalition that truly represents a broad swathe of Iranians and not just one political faction,” said Azizi.- Khamenei’s health – Khamenei has now been in power since 1989 when he became supreme leader, a post for life, following the death of revolutionary founder Ruhollah Khomeini.He survived the war with Israel and appeared in public on Friday to denounce the protests in typically defiant style.But uncertainty has long reigned over who could succeed him, with options including his shadowy but powerful son Mojtaba or power gravitating to a committee rather than an individual.Such a scenario between the status quo and a complete change could see “a more or less formal takeover by the Revolutionary Guards”, said Juneau.

US President Donald Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on any country doing business with Iran, ramping up pressure as a rights group estimated a crackdown on protests has killed at least 648 people.Trump, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention, said in a social media post on Monday that the new levies would “immediately” hit the Islamic republic’s trading partners who also do business with the United States.”This Order is final and conclusive,” he wrote, without specifying who they will affect. Iran’s main trading partners are China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, according to economic database Trading Economics.Trump has been mulling his options on Iran, which has been roiled by more than two weeks of demonstrations that have defied a near-total internet blackout and lethal force.Sparked by economic grievances, the nationwide protests have grown into one of the biggest challenges yet to the theocratic system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution ousted the shah.Iranian authorities have blamed foreign interference for stoking the unrest and staged their own nationwide counter-rallies.Rights groups warned that the severed communications were aimed at masking a rising death toll. The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it had confirmed 648 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely much higher — “according to some estimates more than 6,000”.The internet shutdown has made it “extremely difficult to independently verify these reports”, IHR said, adding that an estimated 10,000 people had been arrested. “The international community has a duty to protect civilian protesters against mass killing by the Islamic republic,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. The White House said Monday that Trump remained “unafraid” to deploy military force against Iran, but was pursuing diplomacy as a first resort.  – ‘Four-front war’ -Iran on Monday sought to regain control of the streets with mass nationwide rallies that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protest movement was defeated.In power since 1989 and now 86, Khamenei said the pro-government turnout was a “warning” to the United States. “These massive rallies, full of determination, have thwarted the plan of foreign enemies that were supposed to be carried out by domestic mercenaries,” he said, according to state TV, referring to pro-government demonstrations. In the capital Tehran, state TV showed people brandishing the national flag and prayers read for victims of what the government has termed “riots”. At Enghelab (Revolution) Square, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told the crowd that Iran was fighting a “four-front war” listing economic war, psychological war, “military war” with the United States and Israel, and “today a war against terrorists” — a reference to the protests. Flanked by the slogans “Death to Israel, Death to America” in Persian, he vowed the Iranian military would teach Trump “an unforgettable lesson” if attacked. But Trump said Sunday that Iran’s leadership had called him seeking “to negotiate”.Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told a conference of foreign ambassadors in Tehran that Iran was “not seeking war but is fully prepared for war”, while calling for “fair” negotiations.Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said a channel of communication was open between Araghchi and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff despite the lack of diplomatic relations. Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah who has been vocal in calling for protests, told CBS news the government was “trying to trick the world into thinking that (it) is ready to negotiate once again”. He said Trump was “a man that means what he says and says what he means” and who “knows what’s at stake”.”The red line that was drawn has been definitely surpassed by this regime.” – ‘Respect for their rights’ -State outlets were at pains to present a picture of calm returning in Tehran, broadcasting images of smooth-flowing traffic. Tehran Governor Mohammad-Sadegh Motamedian insisted in televised comments that “the number of protests is decreasing”. Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies. The government has declared three days of national mourning for those killed.The European Union has voiced support for the protesters and on Monday said it was “looking into” imposing additional sanctions on Iran over the repression of demonstrations. The European Parliament also announced it had banned all Iranian diplomats and representatives from the assembly’s premises. French President Emmanuel Macron issued a statement condemning “the state violence that indiscriminately targets Iranian women and men who courageously demand respect for their rights”. Tehran ally Russia, for its part, slammed what it called attempts by “foreign powers” to interfere in Iran, state media reported, in Moscow’s first reaction to the protests.