Horn of Africa becomes strategic rear in war on Iran

Abbas al-Zein, The Cradle, May 19, 2026 —

The unresolved US-Israeli war on Iran has pushed the Red Sea and Horn of Africa into the heart of a wider struggle over chokepoints, influence, and maritime deterrence.

The US–Israeli war on Iran is not confined to the Strait of Hormuz, nor is it settled by pauses in the fighting. Even when the guns fall silent, the pressure keeps moving with the ships, the oil flows, the chokepoints, and the foreign bases that line the waters between the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. 

A confrontation held back in one arena can still redraw calculations in another, especially at the Bab al-Mandab Strait, where Yemen faces the Horn of Africa and where global trade narrows into a contested maritime passage.

That pressure is now being felt across the Red Sea. What began as a direct US–Israeli campaign against Iran has stretched beyond the Persian Gulf, pulling the Horn of Africa into a security equation shaped by Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab, and the movement of energy, trade, and military power. Any tension in the Persian Gulf is therefore felt quickly across the Horn of Africa.

The possibility that any renewed large-scale confrontation with Iran could move into these waters is no longer remote. Iranian and Yemeni officials have repeatedly signaled that maritime corridors will not remain untouched if the war reignites. This has turned the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab into part of the wider confrontation, not a secondary arena adjacent to it.

Against this background, striking political and security indicators have begun to appear inside the Horn. Somalia has issued positions on Israeli shipping and vessels, while the US has moved toward Eritrea in an attempt to draw it into regional arrangements linked to Red Sea security. Gradually, the countries of the Horn of Africa are becoming part of the broader conflict equation tied to the war on Iran.

Somalia enters the maritime equation

Somalia has recently emerged as one of the states inserting itself into the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab equation through a political discourse shaped by regional tensions. This followed statements about preventing the passage of Israeli ships, a move that came against the backdrop of rising tension over the rapprochement between Israel and “Somaliland,” and Tel Aviv’s recognition of the latter as a state within wider security and political arrangements.

The Somali declaration carried political weight beyond the issue of navigation itself. It reflected an attempt by Mogadishu to show that any violation of its territorial integrity, or any Israeli involvement in the “Somaliland” file, could be met with political pressure extending into the maritime space surrounding the Red Sea. For Somalia, the sea becomes a tool to defend sovereignty on land.

These statements have not yet turned into practical measures capable of imposing a de facto closure or forcing a direct change in international navigation. But they reveal an important shift in the nature of political discourse inside the Horn of Africa. 

This position also opens the door to limited political or security cooperation between Mogadishu, on one side, and Sanaa or Tehran, on the other. Such cooperation would remain constrained by Somalia’s internal capabilities and by its security and political complexities. But the mere possibility of this alignment is significant at a time when the Red Sea has become a theater of deterrence.

The Somali position gains greater importance in light of the war on Iran and the growing fears linked to another closure of the Strait of Hormuz, along with the prospect that the confrontation could spread to other maritime corridors, especially Bab al-Mandab. Somalia appears to be using the ongoing regional tension and the shifts in the surrounding strategic environment to impose itself, within its capabilities, as a party with a voice inside the Red Sea equation.

Mogadishu is also benefiting from heightened international sensitivity toward navigation security. In this context, Somali rhetoric can be read as one of the indirect repercussions of the war on Iran in the Horn of Africa. The war has opened the door for states once treated as marginal in regional deterrence equations to raise the ceiling of their political discourse in the face of Israeli moves and excesses in the region.

Despite Somalia’s limited capabilities, the importance of this position remains tied to its geography. Somalia directly overlooks the Red Sea approaches and the maritime corridors near Bab al-Mandab. This gives any political shift in its position a strategic weight beyond its actual military capacity, especially as Washington and Tel Aviv fear the expansion of maritime threats.

Eritrea returns to US calculations

Parallel to the Somali case, another equally important development has emerged in reports of a US move to lift sanctions on Eritrea. This step goes beyond the framework of bilateral relations between Washington and Asmara. It is directly tied to the accelerating security transformations in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa produced by the war on Iran.

Eritrea holds a highly sensitive geographical position on the African shore of the Red Sea. For this reason, it has once again become a point of interest in US calculations related to shipping security and the possibility of a wider maritime confrontation in the region.

The US appears to be viewing the Horn as an essential part of any future security arrangements related to Bab al-Mandab. This is especially true as fears grow that maritime threats from the Red Sea front could expand, whether through operations tied to Sanaa or through the broader possibility that the war on Iran could move into international shipping lanes.

Opening channels of communication with Eritrea may therefore reflect a US attempt to secure a strategic margin of action on the opposite bank of Bab al-Mandab. Such a margin would allow Washington to strengthen its security and military presence or build new logistical and intelligence arrangements in the region.

This move also reflects a growing US realization that any long-term disruption at Bab al-Mandab will not remain confined to Yemeni territorial waters. Its effects would extend across the entire maritime space surrounding the Horn of Africa, making Red Sea states, especially Eritrea, part of the broader regional conflict equation.

For that reason, the issue of lifting sanctions cannot be separated from efforts to shape security balances in the Red Sea. Maritime corridors have become one of the most important indirect battlegrounds linked to the war on Iran.

This US move gains greater significance when compared with the recent Somali position. The countries of the Horn of Africa, despite their varying capabilities, have begun to include the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab in their political and security discourse. This is visible both in the tension linked to “Somaliland” and Israeli navigation, and in the repositioning of regional and international powers on the African shore of the Red Sea.