Somalia has for the first time sent an entire brigade of its elite Gorgor commandos to Turkey for training, expanding a military program that has already produced thousands of Turkish-trained troops and whose graduates have been used against both Al-Shabaab militants and in Somalia’s increasingly militarized political disputes.
The move points to how central Turkey has become to Somalia’s security architecture, even as questions grow at home about whether that partnership is reinforcing one side of a growing domestic political conflict.
Gorgor, which means Eagle in Somali, was established in 2017 as an elite component of the Somali National Army with Turkish assistance, with a formal mission of counterterrorism, rapid response and combat operations. That same year Ankara opened the TURKSOM military training facility in Mogadishu, where Turkey has since trained more than 6,000 Gorgor soldiers, according to Turkish state broadcaster TRT.
Turkey has also supplied military equipment and expanded cooperation into armored vehicles, helicopters and other capabilities. A 2024 defense agreement further deepened the partnership, adding cooperation on maritime security along with continued Turkish investments in infrastructure, energy and natural resources.
Gorgor units have fought Al-Shabaab in central and southern Somalia, taking part in raids and front line operations against the militant group, which has carried out attacks on civilians, government facilities and security forces nationwide.
But the commandos have repeatedly been drawn into domestic political confrontations as well. During Somalia’s 2021 dispute over the presidential mandate of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo, protesters accused Turkish-trained special forces of attacking civilians and killing demonstrators.
US State Department human rights reports for 2021 and 2022 documented allegations of arbitrary or unlawful killings by Somali government forces but did not specifically attribute those incidents to Gorgor.
Source:Nordic Monitor
