SNA Soldiers leave for Turkish military training academy

A group of high ranking members of the Somali military has left Mogadishu for Ankara, in the efforts to train and equip the relatively young military as it struggles to stabilize and face the threat posed by both ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates present in the country.
Other high ranking Somali military officers have also in the past received advanced courses from Turkey, to boost efforts to tackle threats posed by terror groups.

Somalia and Turkey have once again reiterated their commitment to work towards enhancing cooperation on military and national security to boost citizen protection and defense.
Bilateral military relations between Somalia and Turkey has been growing from strength to strength in the last few years following close working ties that has seen hundreds of Somali officers graduate from Turkish military colleges.

The two nations had earlier agreed to foster relations and partner in information sharing in order to increase counterterrorism measures to curb threats.

These senior military officials were sent off by Somali’s minister for defense and other senior government officials at Adan Adde International Airport in Mogadishu.

The Turkish government is already supporting Somalia especially in the training and equipping the relatively young military as it struggles to stabilize and face the threat posed by both ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates present in the country.

Turkey has a base in Mogadishu which was opened on October 2017 reportedly at a cost $50m and is aimed to train 10,000 Somali troops. Turk-Som has the capacity to train at least 1,500 soldiers at a time.
Turkey has been the biggest supporter of Somalia for years and has its biggest embassy in Africa in Mogadishu.

It remains unknown whether the training programs by Turkish armed forces and intelligence units will be a success in the long term, but the series of Turkish initiatives and concrete steps for the sake of the people of Somalia seems to have won over those involved.