(SeaPRwire) –   JOHANNESBURG: A strategically critical air base and port have been offered to the U.S., amid a newly imposed blockade on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran-backed threats targeting the vital Red Sea choke point of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Leading U.S. military officers, including the commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), Gen. Dagvin Anderson, recently traveled to tour the facilities being offered in Somaliland. Somaliland is a pro-U.S. territory that split from conflict-ravaged Somalia in 1991.

Bab-el-Mandeb, which means “gate of tears” in Arabic, has become the primary pathway for Middle Eastern oil exports heading to Asia after the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed. Bloomberg News reported that Saudi Arabia has shifted as much as 7 million barrels of oil per day to ship through the strait from its Red Sea port of Yanbu. It is estimated that up to 14% of global shipping passes through this 16-mile-wide strait.

It is against this backdrop that the controversial offer of an air and naval base at Berbera in Somaliland to the U.S. has emerged. The official Republic of Somaliland account on X highlighted Berbera’s advantages last month, claiming it boasts “a deep water port along the major artery connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean”, and “one of Africa’s longest runways, originally built as a NASA emergency landing site.”

“Berbera clearly has enormous strategic potential,” for both sea and air operations, Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former U.K. ambassador to Yemen and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Digital.

The U.S. already maintains another Red Sea base in Djibouti, but Fitton-Brown told Digital that Djibouti’s government has grown increasingly uneasy with some U.S. administration policies: “Djibouti has become an increasingly hesitant, unwilling ally to the U.S. when it comes to enforcing sanctions on the Houthis. Somaliland, which is nearly equally well-positioned to address issues along Yemen’s western and southwestern coasts, can assist the U.S., Israel and the UAE in fighting the Houthis.”

The controversy revolves around the question of U.S. recognition of Somaliland as an independent state.

When asked about recognizing Somaliland and the potential resettlement of Gazans there in the Oval Office last August, President Donald Trump told reporters, “We’re looking into that right now,” and added, “We’re working on that right now, Somaliland.”

But just this past week, a State Department spokesperson told Digital, “The United States continues to recognize the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes the territory of Somaliland.”

Last year, Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland.

Iran is urging the Houthis to carry out actions in the Red Sea. “Insecurity in other straits, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Red Sea, is one of the options available to the Resistance Front, and the situation will become far more complicated for Americans than it is today,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked Tasmin news agency warned on March 21.

Baraa Shaiban, a Houthi expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), says recognizing Somaliland is problematic, because it “will damage the U.S.’s relations with Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, many of which are U.S. allies. It would be unwise for the United States to alienate its regional allies just to gain access to Somaliland’s ports.”

A spokesperson for AFRICOM told Digital, “The U.S. is not seeking to establish new military bases, as such actions do not align with the America First security framework laid out by the President and Secretary of War.”

While both the use of Somaliland’s bases and recognition of Somaliland are publicly off the table, analysts say that since Somaliland has offered access to its bases without requiring immediate recognition from the administration, the issue may still be privately under consideration.

And that could explain why a recent video shared with Digital shows AFRICOM’s Gen. Anderson and a large group of senior military officials in Somaliland. Anderson met with Somaliland’s president, and was seen inspecting the port of Berbera in November, just five months ago.

This is not the only reported visit. Somaliland’s top diplomatic representative in Washington, Bashir Goth, said at a recent Foreign Policy Research Institute debate, “The war in the Middle East has boosted Somaliland’s strategic importance. U.S. military interest has been very strong. Every month, a delegation from AFRICOM visits Hargeisa,” the capital of Somaliland.

Digital contacted the Republic of Somaliland for comment, but they declined to comment.