There was a time when influence in Africa was measured in soldiers, military bases, political alliances and billions of dollars in development assistance. Today, influence can arrive quietly in the cargo hold of a military transport aircraft, take off from an airstrip hundreds of kilometres from the capital and appear in the sky as a small, almost silent machine capable of changing the balance of power on the ground.
That is the new language of warfare in Africa: the drone.
And few countries have mastered the diplomatic power of the drone as effectively as Türkiye.
From Ethiopia to Mali, from Sudan to Somalia, Turkish-made unmanned combat aerial vehicles have increasingly become instruments of war, counterterrorism, political survival and, ultimately, foreign influence. The Bayraktar TB2 has become particularly famous, while the larger and more sophisticated Bayraktar Akıncı has pushed Türkiye’s technological reach even further. Baykar itself says African countries including Ethiopia, Mali, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Niger and others have chosen Turkish unmanned systems.
The important question, therefore, is no longer simply what a Turkish drone can destroy.
The bigger question is: what political power comes with the drone?
Somalia offers perhaps the most fascinating case.
Türkiye’s relationship with Mogadishu has grown far beyond a conventional military partnership. Ankara established its major overseas military training presence in Mogadishu, trained Somali forces and gradually became one of the most important external security partners of the Somali government. In February 2024, Somalia and Türkiye signed a ten-year defence and economic cooperation framework that includes Turkish support for Somalia’s naval capabilities and broader security cooperation.
The relationship has also become deeply personal at the presidential level.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly backed Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and has maintained a close relationship with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. In April 2026, Erdoğan met Hassan Sheikh in Istanbul and publicly reaffirmed Türkiye’s support for Somalia’s sovereignty while also stressing Ankara’s continuing role in resolving the Ethiopia-Somalia dispute.
That matters because Somalia is not simply fighting an insurgency.
It is also fighting over the shape of the Somali state itself.
Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2s have been operating in Somalia for years, while the more powerful Akıncı platform has subsequently entered the Somali security picture. The TB2 is designed for surveillance and precision strikes, while the Akıncı represents a much heavier and more sophisticated generation of combat drone. Reports have identified both systems in connection with Somalia’s growing military relationship with Türkiye.
And this is where the story becomes uncomfortable.
The original argument for Turkish drones in Somalia was straightforward: fight al-Shabaab, protect the government and help rebuild the Somali state’s military capacity.
But once a government possesses an increasingly sophisticated aerial capability, the question becomes whether that capability remains exclusively a counterterrorism instrument or whether it can become part of Somalia’s internal political struggles.
That question has become increasingly difficult to ignore.
In March 2024, Amnesty International investigated Turkish-drone strikes near Jaffey farm in Lower Shabelle that killed 23 civilians, including 14 children. Amnesty identified fragments of Turkish-made MAM-L munitions and evidence linking the strikes to Bayraktar TB2 operations. The organisation said the circumstances warranted investigation for possible war crimes.
The incident demonstrated something important: drones may be precise, but precision technology does not automatically produce precise warfare.
A machine can identify a target.
The political question is who identifies the target, who supplies the intelligence, who authorises the strike and who ultimately bears responsibility when civilians die.
That question becomes even more significant when drones enter political conflicts.
From Ethiopia to Mali and Sudan: The Turkish Model
Look at Ethiopia.
In 2021, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed travelled to Ankara and signed a military cooperation agreement with Erdoğan as his government was fighting the Tigray forces. Reports at the time indicated that Ethiopia sought Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones, and evidence emerged of Turkish military technology entering the Ethiopian war effort.
The significance of the Ethiopian case was not merely technological.
The drone became part of a wider military strategy that helped the federal government regain momentum during a war in which Tigrayan forces had made major advances.
But the same war also demonstrated the danger.
Airstrikes in Tigray killed civilians, including strikes on civilian locations. Allegations surrounding Turkish-made weapons and drone operations generated international concern. The precise responsibility for individual strikes has sometimes been difficult to establish, but the broader lesson was unmistakable: once armed drones enter a civil war, the distinction between counterinsurgency and devastating aerial warfare can become dangerously thin.
Then came Mali.
Mali acquired Turkish Bayraktar TB2s from 2022, and the drones quickly became central to the military government’s effort to project power across the enormous Sahelian battlefield. Human Rights Watch documented deadly Malian drone strikes on a wedding and a cemetery in Konokassi in February 2024, while noting that Mali had acquired Turkish-made TB2s.
By late 2024, Mali had also received the heavier Akıncı system. Turkish drones helped the Malian military regain Kidal from Tuareg rebels in 2023, demonstrating how a relatively inexpensive unmanned aircraft could accomplish what ground forces had struggled to achieve.
Sudan provides an even more dramatic warning.
The country’s war has become a laboratory for foreign-backed drone warfare. Turkish Bayraktar systems have been linked to the Sudanese Armed Forces, alongside Iranian, Russian and other foreign technologies. Investigations have reported significant Turkish defence involvement in supplying drones and missiles to Sudan’s military.
By 2026, the United Nations was warning that foreign military support—including drones—was helping sustain Sudan’s devastating conflict. More than 1,000 people were reportedly killed in drone attacks during the first half of 2026 alone.
The pattern is therefore becoming visible.
Türkiye does not simply sell an aircraft.
It builds relationships around defence, training, maintenance, technology, intelligence and political cooperation.
The drone becomes the visible symbol of a much larger relationship.
And that brings us back to Somalia.
The reported September 2026 drone strike in Doolow against former Somali Correctional Service commander General Mahad Abdirahman “Shub” is potentially significant precisely because of the political environment surrounding it. Somali and local sources reported that Shub survived the strike, while other reports said missiles hit his residence and nearby areas.
More controversially, former South West State President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen alleged that Turkish nationals and a Somali national were involved and linked the strike to Turkish military involvement. Those allegations have not been independently established, and they should not be treated as proof that Türkiye ordered or conducted the attack.
But the allegation matters politically.
Why?
Because Doolow cannot be separated from Baidoa.
Somalia’s South West State has been consumed by a growing confrontation between the federal government and forces loyal to Laftagareen following the dramatic political transition in which Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur “Aden Madobe” emerged as the federal government’s preferred authority. Laftagareen’s departure followed the federal government’s military intervention in Baidoa in March 2026, and the political dispute subsequently developed into armed confrontation.
By August and September, fighting had erupted between federal forces supporting Aden Madobe and forces aligned with Laftagareen. Recent clashes around Baidoa produced dozens of wounded and renewed fears that the political struggle could become a prolonged armed conflict.
This is where the drone becomes more than a weapon.
It becomes a political message.
If the Doolow strike was indeed connected to the wider South West political confrontation, then the incident would raise a profound question: has Somalia entered an era in which foreign-enabled aerial power can be used not only against jihadists but also against political and military opponents?
At present, there is insufficient independent evidence to answer that question definitively.
But the suspicion itself tells us something.
Türkiye has become deeply embedded in Somalia’s security architecture. Erdoğan has openly positioned himself as a supporter of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government and of Somalia’s territorial integrity. Ankara’s military partnership with Mogadishu is therefore not occurring in a political vacuum.
And Somalia’s political crisis is becoming increasingly militarised.
That is the real meaning of drone diplomacy.
The danger is not necessarily that Türkiye is deliberately exporting political violence. Ankara can legitimately argue that its partnership is designed to defeat terrorism, strengthen the Somali state and defend Somalia’s sovereignty.
The deeper problem is what happens when a state receiving advanced military technology is itself divided over who has legitimate authority.
A drone has no political ideology.
It does not know whether the person below it is an al-Shabaab commander, a militia fighter, a political opponent or a civilian caught in the wrong place.
The responsibility remains with the people who choose the target.
Türkiye’s experience across Africa therefore offers Somalia both an opportunity and a warning.
In Ethiopia, drones helped a government under enormous military pressure regain the initiative.
In Mali, they transformed the government’s ability to strike across a vast insurgency battlefield.
In Sudan, drone warfare has become part of a catastrophic internationalised conflict.
And in Somalia, Turkish technology has become an increasingly important pillar of the state’s counterterrorism and military capacity.
The question now is whether Somalia can ensure that this new power remains accountable.
Because the future of African warfare may not be decided by who has the biggest army.
It may be decided by who controls the sky, who controls the intelligence feeding the machines, and most importantly who decides where those machines are allowed to strike.
That is why the story of Turkish drones in Somalia should not be reduced to Bayraktar TB2s or Akıncı aircraft.
It is a story about influence.
It is a story about sovereignty.
It is a story about the changing nature of African warfare.
And above all, it is a story about how a machine originally marketed as a weapon against terrorism can become something far more consequential when it enters the complicated politics of a fragile state.
The drone may be Turkish.
But the political consequences are increasingly Somali and potentially regional.