President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s office in Mogadishu sits within a leafy compound dominated by a gleaming new Turkish-built stone-and-glass building, complete with a wood-trimmed upper story, four entrance columns and black SUVs parked outside.

The extravagant complex housing Villa Somalia, as the presidential base is known, is just one example of Turkey’s extensive footprint across the strategically positioned Horn of Africa nation.

Mohamud’s visitors arrive at an airport terminal built and operated by Turkish companies, before driving down a Turkish-built road. Across town, a Turkish firm runs the seaport, and the country’s largest hospital is named for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey trains Somali soldiers at Camp TURKSOM, a sprawling military academy, and Mogadishu hosts Ankara’s largest embassy complex in the world. Offshore, Turkish crews are drilling for oil. Outside the capital, Turkey is building a spaceport. Turkish drones and F-16s operate overhead.

Under Erdogan, Turkey has grown its military and geopolitical footprint to an extent not seen since the Ottoman Empire, with troops and bases everywhere from Libya to northern Iraq, Syria, Qatar and Azerbaijan.

Somalia, though, is particularly important. Turkey is one of a number of powers looking to expand their influence there, with the country only growing in importance since the US and Israel’s war on Iran upended global shipping. Somalia sits on the Gulf of Aden near the critical Bab el-Mandeb strait, and vessels need to pass by the country’s northern coast en route to the Indian Ocean from the Suez Canal.

The transit point has become particularly critical since Iran effectively shuttered the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the conflict in late February, while Bab el-Mandeb has been threatened by strikes by the Tehran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

Turkey is allied in its Somalia push with Saudi Arabia. The duo, who recently signed a mutual-defense pact alongside Pakistan, both back the war-torn African country’s central government and its bid to ensure the state doesn’t break up.

The United Arab Emirates and Israel, which established diplomatic relations under the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, have, in contrast, built ties with some of Somalia’s breakaway and semi-autonomous regions. Last year, Israel became the first country to recognize one of them, Somaliland, as an independent state. The UAE hasn’t done the same but has a significant presence there.

Speaking at Villa Somalia last month, Mohamud praised Turkey and accused the UAE of working against the country. Ankara “accepted the level of risk that many Western countries cannot accept,” he told Bloomberg News. “They stood with us to improve the situation.”Abu Dhabi, in contrast, takes “every step that disintegrates Somalia,” Mohamud said. “The UAE is not a stabilizing factor in Africa or anywhere else.”The UAE foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Turkey moved into Somalia when many Western diplomats and international institutions still operated remotely from neighboring Kenya. In 2011, as famine ravaged Somalia and al Qaeda-affiliate al-Shabaab was being pushed out of the capital, Erdogan arrived with his family, cabinet ministers, aid officials and businesspeople. Ankara reopened its embassy, poured in aid and began building roads, hospitals and schools.

The contrast with Western powers is stark. The US still wields formidable military power, carrying out at least 83 strikes against al-Shabaab in Somalia this year as of mid-September. But American officials on the ground are cloistered in a heavily fortified Green Zone around the airport, largely unable to leave even for official meetings across town. Turkey’s vast embassy complex sits outside the enclave.

Turkey’s economic ambitions extend beyond sea lanes to the region’s untapped fisheries and oil and gas reserves.

In April, state-owned Turkish Petroleum began drilling the Curad-1 well about 370 kilometers (230 miles) off Mogadishu, Turkey’s first deep-sea drilling operation abroad. It is testing Somalia’s largely unexplored waters for oil and gas. Turkey is also the leading contender to build a new seaport north of the capital, the president said, though talks are continuing.

“Our people are divided over their role,” said Ahmed Khadar Jama, chief executive officer of the Somali Bankers Association, referring to Turkey. “If they do not interfere in the political debates and campaigns they can maintain a good reputation.”The UAE’s influence is deepest in Somaliland and Puntland, where it’s signed security pacts. Dubai’s DP World Ltd. has committed more than $750 million to developing ports that aim to capture trade with land-locked Ethiopia and give Abu Dhabi a foothold along the shipping routes linking Africa, Asia and Europe.

The UAE has also provided military vehicles and funded intelligence and security training for forces loyal to Jubaland’s president, Ahmed Madobe.

Somaliland has run its own government since 1991, while Puntland and Jubaland also exercise exercise wide autonomy.

In January, Somalia canceled its security, defense and commercial agreements with the UAE, accusing Abu Dhabi of violating its sovereignty. The decision came after Saudi Arabia pressed Somalia to curb ties with its Persian Gulf rival, Bloomberg reported. Somaliland, Puntland and Jubaland rejected Mogadishu’s decision and said their dealings with the UAE would continue.

“Ankara increasingly finds itself in indirect competition with regional rivals as it seeks to preserve the influence and strategic foothold it has built,” said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a security expert at Ankara-based TEPAV. Efforts by the UAE and Israel “to expand their own influence are raising the military and political costs of protecting Turkey’s gains.”In an address to parliament, Mohamud condemned Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as a “naked invasion,” warning that his country would not allow its territory to become a base for the Jewish state’s regional wars.

One reason for Israel’s interest in Somaliland is that it sits across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. From there, Iran-backed Houthi militants have fired missiles and drones at Israel — as well as Saudi Arabia and ships in the southern Red Sea — in recent years.

Shortly after, Somalia signed military cooperation agreements with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. During a visit by Erdogan to Riyadh in February, Turkey and Saudi Arabia jointly condemned Israel’s move and rejected attempts to create “parallel entities” that undermine Somalia’s unity.

Protecting what Turkey has built in Somalia has drawn Ankara ever deeper into the country’s internal conflicts. In 2017, Ankara opened TURKSOM and has trained more than a third of Somalia’s security forces, according to Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.

Baykar, the drone maker run by Erdogan’s son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar, has supplied Somalia with TB2 armed drones, while Turkey deployed F-16 fighters and attack helicopters this year. Turkish aircraft have struck militant positions around the capital, while EU researchers recorded the first confirmed Turkish ground combat against al-Shabaab.

“Turkey has gone all in,” said Larry André, a former US ambassador to Somalia. “I don’t see signs of them backing away at this point.”Turkey’s military presence has not broken al-Shabaab’s grip fully. The group still controls around 30% of the country, and Somalia relies on African Union troops whose mandate runs through 2026 but whose long-term financing is unresolved.

Yet Mohamud, the president, is confident that Turkey has helped ensure the militants can’t retake the capital.

“Shabaab will never get back to Mogadishu or anywhere close to it,” Mohamud said, citing Turkey’s assistance. “Turkey gives us whatever we request of them.”