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EXCLUSIVE

In exclusive Al Jazeera interview, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud says attempts to pull Somalia into Middle East crises won’t succeed.

Somalia will not accept Israeli presence in the country “under any circumstances” and will resist any attempts to be pulled into the Middle East’s crises, its President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud tells Al Jazeera.

Speaking in an exclusive interview, Mohamud said that Israel was planning to establish a naval base in Berbera and use the city’s airport, adding that its real aim was to get closer to the Gulf states and Iran.

Berbera is a port city on the Gulf of Aden coast in Somaliland – the self-declared republic in northwestern Somalia that Israel recognised last year, but which is claimed by Mogadishu.

Berbera faces Yemen across the water near the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait. The Iran-aligned Houthis have previously enforced a blockade on Israel-linked ships in the area.

“We will overcome the challenges posed to our country by Israeli moves,” Mohamud said in his wide-ranging interview.

He added that the Israeli plans fall under the “Greater Israel” project – referring to a term for various proposals, often rooted in biblical interpretations, for Israeli control over territory beyond its current borders. Some versions extend from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Israel has not adopted it as official policy, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an August 2025 interview that he felt connected to the vision, prompting condemnation from Arab governments.

The Somali president described Israel as a “destabilising force” that does not abide by international law.

He also criticised Tel Aviv’s recognition of Somaliland in December.

No country other than Israel recognises Somaliland, while the region’s own residents are completely opposed to an Israeli presence, Mohamud said.

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has governed itself independently for more than three decades. But it had not secured recognition from any United Nations member state until Israel’s move.

Fight against armed groups

The Somali president told Al Jazeera the United States remains his country’s strongest partner in the fight against “terrorism”, and added that al-Shabab has no presence in the major cities, leaving no possibility of the group taking control in Somalia.

Al-Shabab is a Somali armed group that emerged from the Islamic Courts Union in the mid-2000s and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2012. It has fought Somalia’s federal government for years, holds territory in parts of southern and central Somalia, and has carried out deadly attacks, including in Mogadishu and in neighbouring Kenya.

Regarding the East Africa region, Mohamud said Somalia’s relations with neighbouring Ethiopia are good, and Mogadishu does not object to Addis Ababa gaining access to the sea through Somali territory.

Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrea became independent in 1993 and relies largely on Djibouti’s ports for trade. In January 2024, Addis Ababa signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland on sea access, which Somalia condemned as a violation of its sovereignty. Somalia and Ethiopia later agreed to ease tensions.

Houthis ‘destabilising’ region

Mohamud also accused Yemen’s Houthis of “destabilising” the region and disrupting navigation in the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

His comments come as the group attempts to build on its lightning offensive that captured the country’s Red Sea coast last month.

Thus far, Yemeni government forces have been able to hold their positions on the front lines and even claimed to have inflicted heavy losses against the Houthis.

The Houthis have also intensified their attacks on Saudi Arabia, but the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has promised not to compromise on its security, saying the Yemeni rebels chose “chaos and destruction, threatening the Yemeni people and the region”.

The full interview with President Mohamud will be broadcast on Al Jazeera Arabic on Sunday.

Published on
28/09/2026 – 12:25 GMT+2

Brussels and Beijing are fighting over quotas that would limit Chinese imports to the EU market, as the Europeans seek to rebalance their trade relationship with China, Euronews has learned.

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Both started intense negotiations last June over EU and Chinese access to each other’s markets, with an October deadline set by the European Commission to reach “tanglible” results. However, China is pushing hard against the EU’s attempts to protect its market.

According to one person familiar with the matter, the Commission, which is negotiating on behalf of the 27 EU countries on trade issues, wants China to accept quotas on specific products.

However, it is unclear how China would accept and respect such quotas.

Trade defence mechanisms delayed

According to media reports, so-called “voluntary export restrictions” have been pushed by the Commission for electric vehicles. But Beijing’s trade minister rejected them in a statement earlier this month.

If China accepted such a system of restrictions, it would mean that it voluntarily limits its exports to the EU on the basis of a deal negotiated with the Commission, sparing the EU from adopting defensive trade measures that might be seen as an aggressive move by China.

Technical negotiations are in their final stretch as the October deadline is approaching.

Director General of DG Trade at the Commission, Ditte Juul Jørgensen, travelled to China last week for two days of heated discussions, and EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is due to be in Beijing on 8 and 9 October for political talks, ahead of a key meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.

To give negotiations a chance, the Commission has delayed the adoption of trade defence mechanisms aiming to protect the EU chemical industry, according to another person familiar with the matter. The chemical industry is one of the sectors most threatened by Chinese competition in the EU.

However, the threat also targets other sectors, making the rebalancing of the trade relationship “existential” for the Europeans, EU Industry and Trade Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné told Euronews last week.

According to the Commission, the EU already lost 250,000 industrial jobs last year, particularly concentrated in energy-intensive sectors and automotive supply chains.

Former NFL star Antonio Brown has accepted a plea deal that will reduce the charge of attempted second-degree murder he’s facing in Florida to aggravated assault, his attorney told The Times on Wednesday.

The move will result in a significantly lighter sentence for the Super Bowl LV champion, according to attorney Mark Eiglarsh, who said Brown would receive three years of probation with the possibility of early termination after half that time is served.

A conviction for the first-degree felony of attempted second-degree murder with a firearm would have brought a prison sentence of 20 to 30 years.

Eiglarsh added that Brown will be given a withholding of adjudication, meaning he will not be considered a convicted felon. He also said that the main requirement of Brown’s probation is simply “staying away from the alleged victim, which he has no problem doing.”

“No community service hours,” Eiglarsh said. “No anger management. No evaluation psychologically. No drug treatment, no evaluations for anything like that. No letter of apology, no fines, nothing.”

A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office would not confirm that a plea deal had been reached, stating in an email that “whatever is to transpire regarding an open & pending case will be fully clarified at the next hearing,” which is scheduled for Sept. 30.

A warrant was issued for Brown’s arrest in June 2025 stemming from an altercation outside a celebrity kickboxing event in Miami the previous month. According to the warrant, “cell phone video obtained from social media” showed Brown advancing toward the other man with a gun in hand and captured “two shots which occur as Mr. Brown is within several feet” of the alleged victim.

Brown wasn’t arrested until November, when he was apprehended by U.S. Marshals in Dubai. He entered a not guilty plea to the first-degree felony charge of attempted second-degree murder with a firearm.

In December, Brown filed a motion for the case to be dismissed under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which means an individual has no duty to retreat before using deadly force in certain circumstances of self-defense.

Earlier this month, the alleged victim, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, released a statement through his attorney saying that he “does not wish to participate” in Brown’s prosecution.

In a statement sent to news organizations on Wednesday morning, Eiglarsh said that despite changing his plea, Brown still maintains that he acted lawfully during the incident.

“Antonio believes in his innocence. He believes strongly in his Stand Your Ground defense, and he believes he would ultimately prevail at trial,” Eiglarsh said. “But when prosecutors put an offer on the table that transforms a potential decades-long prison sentence into a significantly reduced charge and probation, there was simply no way he could reasonably turn it down.”

He added: “Antonio has eight children who depend upon him, and every additional day this case remains unresolved creates extraordinary obstacles for him in securing endorsement opportunities and other business opportunities necessary to support his family. He has spent more than 10½ months living under the cloud of a case with no realistic end in sight. At some point, closure has tremendous value.”