Egypt's Arms Delivery to Somalia Likely Adding to Friction with Ethiopia

An Egyptian warship has delivered a second major cache of weaponry to Somalia including anti-aircraft guns and artillery, port and military officials said on Monday, in a move likely to stoke further friction between the two countries and Ethiopia.

Ties between Egypt and Somalia have grown this year over their shared mistrust of Ethiopia, prompting Cairo to send several plane loads of arms to Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, after the countries signed a joint security pact in August.

Ethiopia angered Mogadishu by agreeing a preliminary deal in January with the breakaway region of Somaliland to lease land for a port in exchange for possible recognition of its independence from Somalia.

Egypt, at odds with Ethiopia for years over Addis Ababa's construction of a vast hydro dam on the headwaters of the Nile River, has condemned the Somaliland deal.

The Egyptian warship began unloading the weapons on Sunday, one diplomat said. Security forces blocked off the quayside and surrounding roads on Sunday and Monday as convoys carried the weapons to a defence ministry building and nearby military bases, two port workers and two military officials told Reuters.

Nasra Bashir Ali, an official at Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre's office, posted a photo on her X account of Defence Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur watching as the ship was being unloaded.

Somaliland was concerned the weapons could land in the wrong hands, including the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group, its foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

"A shipment of Egyptian military aid has arrived in the Somali capital Mogadishu to support and build the capabilities of the Somali army," Egypt's foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The shipment "reaffirms Egypt's ongoing central role in supporting Somali efforts to develop the national capabilities necessary to fulfil the aspirations of the Somali people for security, stability, and development," the statement added.

Egyptian media reported on Sunday that Egypt's embassy in Mogadishu had warned its citizens not to travel to Somaliland, due to the security situation in the region.

Ethiopia has at least 3,000 soldiers stationed in Somalia as part of an African Union peacekeeping mission (ATMIS) fighting Islamist insurgents, while an estimated 5,000-7,000 troops are deployed in other regions under a bilateral agreement.

Somalia has called the Somaliland deal an assault on its sovereignty and says it wants all Ethiopia's troops to leave at the end of the year unless Addis Ababa scraps the agreement.

Egypt has, meanwhile, offered to contribute troops to a new peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the African Union said in July, though Cairo has not commented on the matter publicly.

Ethiopia's government did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment, but has in the past said it cannot stand idle while "other actors" are taking measures to destabilise the region.

(Reuters - Reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Additional reporting by Aidan Lewis and Adam Makary in Cairo; Writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Ammu Kannampilly, Ed Osmond and Timothy Heritage)