Somaliland Defense Minister Mohamed Yusuf Ali said on Wednesday that Israel does not have a military base in the separatist region, but it trains its police and army forces, while calling on Israel to invest in agriculture and other sectors. The Somaliland region, with a strategic location in the Horn of Africa, has enjoyed effective autonomy and a relative degree of peace and stability since 1991, when it declared its secession from Somalia as the country slid into civil war.