10 Aug 2011 – Daily Monitoring Report
Key Headlines:
- President Sharif meets his Tanzanian counterpart
- Mahiga calls for more AU troops in Somalia
- French warship will escort food supplies for Somali ports
- TFG deploys security officers in Bakara market Mogadishu
- Tanzania donates food for famine-hit Somalia
SOMALI MEDIA
President Sharif meets his Tanzanian counterpart
10 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan, Radio Mogadishu – 111 words
Somalia’s President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has on Tuesday night met his Tanzanian counterpart Jakaya Kikwete in Dar es salaam, Tanzania, where he was warmly received by Tanzanian officials. The two leaders had lengthy discussions, including the strengthening of bilateral relations between the two nations, recent government military achievements in Mogadishu and the current drought and famine related crisis in Somalia. President Sharif, who is on a regional tour to bolster support for his government, has also met on Monday Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, after rebels withdrew from the capital late last week. The host president assured his visiting Somalia counterpart that his government fully recognizes the TFG as the only legitimate government in Somalia.
Mahiga calls for more AU troops in Somalia
10 Aug – Source: BBC Somali Service, Radio Bar-Kulan – 123 words
United Nations Special envoy to Somalia Augustine Mahiga has appealed for thousands of extra AU troops to secure the capital, Mogadishu, after al Shabaab pulled out of the war-torn city. Augustine Mahiga told the BBC that more troops were needed to make sure the city does not fall again into the hands of the ousted militia. The U.N special envoy to Somalia said both the AU force and government forces need to be resupplied quickly in terms of manpower and equipment to re-establish authority in those areas surrendered by al Shabaab militia. Mr. Mahiga however noted the possibility of the outlawed group to wage guerrilla warfare in Mogadishu, including carrying out more suicide bombings, saying that the group could create a totally different military situation in the area.
Top Somali leaders disagree over consultative meeting location: Report
10 Aug – Source: Shabelle – 180 words
Wrangle between Somali president and parliament speaker over where Somalia’s UN-backed consultative meeting should be held has erupted, reports said on Wednesday. Reliable sources said Somali leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed wants the meeting to be held in the Somali capital Mogadishu while the parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adam would like the meeting to occur in Garowe, the capital of Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland. The sources noted that some members of the parliament and the president of Puntland Abdurrahman Sheikh Mohamoud Farole agree with the parliament speaker about the location of consultative meeting.The aim of the UN-backed meeting is to gather the Somali administrations, civil society and elders in order to focus on how the transitional period should be brought to an end after more seven years.
http://www.shabelle.net/
TFG deploys security officers in Bakara market, Mogadishu
09 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 151 words
The government has on Tuesday deployed police officers into Bakara main Market in Mogadishu, taking over from military officers who have been present in the areas since seizing the market from al Shabaab militia. Speaking to the media, Interior and National Security Minister Abdisamad Ma’alim Mohamud said the market is the nerve centre of Somali business, affirming that Somali police will boost security in the area. The police force tasked with boosting security in the market is set to established bases in various stations inside the market. Lieutenant Cornel Mohamed Ma’alim Noor officially handed over the security task from Gen. Yussuf Mohamed Siad (Indha Adde) who was leading military officers that ousted al Shabaab militia from the area to ministry of interior and national security. The market has been a no-go-zone for a couple of months due to clashes in the capital but earlier last week, government troops and African Union Peacekeepers ousted the al Shabaab militia in the area.
Measles and diarrhea kill seven people in Bardera town, Gedo region
09 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 156 words
Over seven people including children and women have died of measles and diarrhea-related complications in IDP camps in Bardera town, Gedo region. IDP camps in Bardera are said to be holding an estimate of 150 drought and famine displaced families from the badly affected regions of Bay and Bakol, who came to look for humanitarian aid after they were affected by the ravaging drought in the country. Most of these families face difficulties inside the camps as they struggle to get water, food and shelter to save their lives. Outbreaks of diarrhea and measles in their camps have also added to their already ailing situation. A local resident told Bar-kulan that they are facing challenges inside the camps and called for humanitarian agencies to come to their aid before the situation goes out of hand. Al Shabaab’s ban of humanitarian aid agencies in the area has complicated the plight of over a thousand people in the district.
Al Shabaab, government forces exchange mortar shells in Afamadow
10 Aug – Source: Mareeg Online – 83 words
TFG forces and al Shabaab are reported to have exchanged mortar shells in some villages close to Afmadow district of lower Jubba region killing one, injuring 2 others. The Somali national army in Dhobley district reached Hawina village near Takto village very close to Afmadow district of lower Jubba region where the rebel group of al Shabaab was and then exchanged heavy shells killing one and wounding 2 others, reports said. There is no further information found from the two warring sides in Lower Jubba region yet.
http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.
Jordanian activists aim to aid Somalis
10 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 84 words
A number of Jordanian activists launched a campaign to assist Somalis affected by the famine that struck the Horn of African nation. Coordinator of the campaign Sultan Ajlouni said that the popular, youth and voluntary campaign aims to fight hunger in African Arab nation, adding Jordanians involvement in the campaign is a humanitarian, religious and national duty. Ajlouni added that campaigning activists will later on publish details related to the delivering of the donations and relief aid through safe and proper channels to needy people.
Kenya police arrest Somalis in Mandera, Northern Kenya
10 Aug – Source: Radio Shabelle, Kulmiye – 86 words
The Kenyan police forces have arrested at least 6 Somali traders in Mandera border district, witnesses said on Wednesday. Kenya police have charged the apprehended Somali businessmen with destabilizing the district of Mandera. The incident came after the police forces conducted a massive search operation in Somalia-Kenya border areas in a bid to ensure the security. Young people, who fled from the ongoing violence in Mogadishu, were among those captured during the crackdown. The Kenyan police have not officially commented the move so far.
REGIONAL MEDIA
French warship will escort food supplies for Somali ports
10 Aug – Source: Coast week – 165 words
On 9th of August the French frigate F711 FS ‘Surcouf’ joined the EU NAVFOR Task Force. She is commanded by Captain Marc-Antoine de Saint Germain, and after intense training her crew is fully prepared to undertake their duties as a Task Force 465 unit.
Her contribution constitutes a significant effort to enhance the effectiveness of TF 465 in all its tasks and will increase EU NAVFOR’s skills to protect vulnerable shipping, in particular World Food Program (WFP) and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) vessels, as well as to deter and prevent acts of piracy, and to contribute to the monitoring of fishing activities off the coast of Somalia.
EUNAVFOR Somalia – Operation Atalanta’s main tasks are to escort merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid of the World Food Programme (WFP) and vessels of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
EUNAVFOR also protects vulnerable vessels in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, deters and disrupts piracy. EUNAVFOR finally monitors fishing activity off the coast of Somalia.
http://www.coastweek.com/3431_
Deported Briton had Al Shabaab links, House told
10 Aug – Source: The Standard – 244 words
The Kenya Government deported a Briton in March acting on intelligence reports that she had links to terrorist group, Al-Shabaab, Parliament heard.
Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang’ said Ms Clara Gutteridge, a self-professed human rights investigator, was, according to the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS), engaged in subversive activities, which were a threat to national security.
Kajwang’ told Parliament that the NSIS advised her deportation for “involvement with known terrorist operatives, including the Al-Shabaab.” Al-Shabaab is a militant group that is linked to Al-Qaeda and operates from war-torn Somalia. He said Gutteridge was found with Al-Shabaab literature and was deported on March 22. The minister said UK authorities were “fully briefed” on the issue and two British officials witnessed the deportation. He further said the NSIS wrote to him on February 23 and he issued the deportation order on March 22.
She was subsequently arrested at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with outlawed publications, he added. Gutteridge was travelling on two different passports. Kajwang’ added Gutteridge was in the country illegally because she neither possessed a work permit from his ministry nor clearance from the Office of the President as a researcher. Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara had asked the minister to explain the circumstances under which Gutteridge was deported from Kenya.
Imanyara questioned why due process that required she be taken to court was never followed. But the minister said not all cases are taken to court and that deportation is an administrative action by Government.
http://www.standardmedia.co.
Arab League calls for supporting Somalia
08 Aug – Source: Kuwait News Agency – 218 words
The Arab League called Tuesday during an urgent meeting for its permanent delegates to provide aid and support for the Somali people who are suffering from drought and hunger in the Horn of Africa region.
The meeting’s final communique called for speeding relief aid efforts on part of the Arab States’ public and private sectors, adding that a plan should be devised to tackle the issue at hand. The meeting witnessed the participation of several Arab states representatives as well as the attendance of Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi, lauded during the meeting the relief aid efforts by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Algeria, Eypt, and Sudan for providing support to the Somali people during the worst drought in the Horn of Africa region that some effected around 12 million people.
Secretary General Al-Arabi, on his part, thanked the Arab states for sending such necessary aid, including the generous USD 60 million from Saudi Arabia and USD 10 million from Kuwait, saying that such would provide much needed liquidity to the relief efforts. In regards to Djibouti, Al-Arabi said that the authorities there affirmed the spread of drought and hunger in the region, saying that the situation might worsen in the Horn of Africa region with the drought expected to stretch till January, 2012.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/
People stream into areas freed from al Shabaab
09 Aug – Source: Daily Nation – 394 words
Hassan Mohamed Qalli and his colleagues gathered at Hamarweyne market in one of Mogadishu’s oldest districts on Sunday afternoon. Their mission was to visit Abdulaziz district in the north-eastern portion of the city. About 10 men started walking from Marwas mosque and headed eastwards. In less than five minutes, they were at the building of the former Commercial and Savings Bank, which is situated at the strategic junction better known as Bar Cafe’ Nazionale.
As the group continued to gaze at the former Bank that was turned into military garrison by Amisom peacekeepers from Uganda, they talked about their expectations when they reach the homes they abandoned two years ago. Osman Nur, a group member said he feared his house at what is known as Campo Amhara was destroyed by the shells exchanged between the militants of Al-Shabaab and the Amisom forces that kept tanks and other armory around Mogadishu’s old port.
“I have been reciting the Holy Koran all this time for Allah to save my house and my corner shop,” said Ali Weheliye, another group member. Only few days ago, this kind of trip to Abdulaziz district by a group made of fishermen, business people, educators and others with varying occupations was unthinkable.
World’s largest refugee camp bears the brunt of Somalia crises
09 Aug – Source: Business Daily – 461 words
Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing into eastern Kenya to escape hunger, drought and Islamist militia in Somalia. Their new home is the world’s biggest refugee camp in Dadaab, which some of them will never leave. But the example of one man shows that it can still be a place of hope.
On the day the first planeload of supplies of a peanut-based paste lands in the Somali capital Mogadishu, a rickety white minibus known as a matatu sets out from the Somali village of Dhoobley, about 500km (312 miles) to the southwest.
The vehicle, which is loaded with about 30 refugees, isn’t the first share taxi to leave the village, and it won’t be the last. Some say that there are hardly any matatus left in Somalia. Others say that soon there won’t be any Somalis left either, in this country plagued by wars and natural disasters.
The bus is loaded up in the shade of an acacia tree on the abandoned market square of Dhoobley, a village 20km from the Kenyan border in southern Somalia, a region controlled by radical Islamist militia. The passengers jostling for space in the bus include emaciated women dressed in colourful costumes, like Maria, 40, and Hawa, 32. It took them several days to walk to Dhoobley from their villages farther to the north, where they had abandoned their homes and left behind dead herds of cattle and goats. They walked in the searing heat, without water and food, and with hardly enough strength to continue. As they sit in the bus, flies crawl around their mouths and their children hang apathetically from their limp breasts.
Somali FA gets referee dev’t office chief
09 Aug – Source: African Press Agency APA, Afrique Avenir – 186 words
The Somali Football Federation ‘SFF’ has appointed former international referee and current national instructor Abdi Abdulle Ahmed Baasaale as its Referees development office chief, according to a press release issued on Tuesday in Mogadishu.
This is the first time that Somali FA forms a special department in charge of developing the skills of referees and training new ones across the war-devastated Horn of Africa country. Somali Football Federation secretary general Abdi Qani Said Arab said that the formation of the referees’ development office is part of his federation’s efforts to increase the quality and quantity of soccer referees in Somalia. “…we are prioritizing this sector, because we want to have a big number of referees with adequate knowledge” Said Arab noted.
This year, the SFF focuses on football education enhancement across the country. In September, it organises refereeing, administration and coaching courses in the semi-autonomous Somali States of Puntland and Galmudug. In November, a FIFA refereeing course for Somalia will be hosted in the brother nation of Djibouti where the Somali FA organizes its international courses since FIFA instructors cannot come to Somalia for security reasons.
http://www.afriqueavenir.org/
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Tanzania donates food for famine-hit Somalia
10 Aug – Source: AFP – 105 words
Tanzania pledged 300 tonnes of maize for Somalia’s drought-hit people during a visit by Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a statement said Wednesday.
A severe drought in the Horn of Africa has hit Somalia hardest, with parts of the country declared as facing famine and nearly half of its estimated 10 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
“We are deeply touched by the current situation in Somalia where millions of people face severe famine,” the statement quoted President Jakaya Kikwete as saying.
The two leaders also resolved to boost cooperation, notably against piracy by Somali gunmen who have seized several merchant ships off east African coast.
Withdrawal of al-Shabaab Offers Hope to Somalia’s Transitional Government
09 Aug – Source: VOA – 409 words
Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is offering amnesty to remaining insurgents in Mogadishu following the withdrawal of the Islamist group al-Shabaab. But it is vowing to continue fighting until Somalia is free of all rebel forces. The group’s departure from Mogadishu has provided a boost of confidence for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and the African Union peacekeeping forces, AMISOM, both of which have been fighting the insurgent group for a long time. .
“We are prepared to continue fighting until we get al-Shabaab completely out of Somalia,” said Abdullah Alia Nod, a commander with the TFG forces. A statement that David Shinn, former ambassador to Ethiopia, now professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, says might be overly optimistic. “Taking and holding Mogadishu is one thing but taking and holding south-central Somalia is quite another thing. So I don’t see that as a real possibility,” he said. Shinn says the Somali government needs to do more.
“The TFG has to show that it has a vision and it has something it can offer to the Somali people; and that’s where it’s failed so far on the political front//Because of internal division within the TFG, constant turnover of government; they change ministers just about every six months. They have a parliament of 550 members, which frankly is totally unnecessary for a country the size of Somalia,” Shinn said. Shinn says al-Shabaab also has its own weaknesses and divisions that could be exploited.
SABC to raise funds for Somalia
10 Aug – Source: SABC – 193 words
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has embarked on an initiative to collect money for the starving population of Somalia. The money will go to the Gift of the Givers, a disaster relief organization.
The team touched down in Johannesburg yesterday following their humanitarian expedition to the famine-stricken country. They are reloading supplies and expect to return to Somalia soon. Thousands of people in the drought-stricken country have fled to the capital Mogadishu over the past two months in search of food, water and shelter. SABC Acting Group Executive for News, Mike Siluma says all the SABC’s television and radio stations will be involved in the pledge tomorrow.
“We feel that it is not enough just to inform South Africans about what is happening in Somalia – that we also have to propose a platform and a conduit for South Africans to do something and help the people in Somalia – they are fellow Africans but they are also fellow human beings – and I think the time has come for South Africans and Africans to not be a helpless spectator when a catastrophe like this happens on our own continent,” says Siluma.
Children of Somalia’s famine flood hospital
09 Aug – Source: CBS News – 511 words
U.S. officials are warning that hundreds of thousands of children face death from starvation and thirst. The people at the world’s largest refugee camp have survived a journey that has taken weeks or even months. They brought their families through the desert, carried the children, left those who died, and willed themselves through the pain of hunger. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley reports a quarter-inch of wire was all that stood between them and survival.
Abdey Adan said she’d been waiting four days to get into the overwhelmed Dadaab Camp. Adan left Somalia on foot with five children 22 days ago. She said two of her children, ages four and two died “because there was no water there was no food.”
The fence catches broken pieces of families. Mahmood is 15 and alone. His mother, still in Somalia, sent him to the camps because she couldn’t feed him. The U.N. tells us more than three and a half million are in danger of starvation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/
BLOGS/EDITORIAL/CULTURE
The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia
09 Aug – Source: Nairobi Star – 1881 Words
Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport.
The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training programme for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabaab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.
As part of its expanding counterterrorism programme in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabaab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu.
Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, “It makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership” with the Somali government.
The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents “are here full time,” a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as 30 of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents.
“In this environment, it’s very tricky. They want to help us, but the situation is not allowing them to do [it] however they want. They are not in control of the politics, they are not in control of the security,” he adds. “They are not controlling the environment like Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Somalia, the situation is fluid; the situation is changing, personalities changing.” According to well-connected Somali sources, the CIA is reluctant to deal directly with Somali political leaders, who are regarded by US officials as corrupt and untrustworthy. Instead, the United States has Somali intelligence agents on its payroll. Somali sources with knowledge of the program described the agents as lining up to receive $200 (Sh18,000) monthly cash payments from Americans. “They support us in a big way financially,” says the senior Somali intelligence official. “They are the largest [funder] by far.”
According to former detainees, the underground prison, which is staffed by Somali guards, consists of a long corridor lined with filthy small cells infested with bedbugs and mosquitoes. One said that when he arrived in February, he saw two white men wearing military boots, combat trousers, gray tucked-in shirts and black sunglasses. The former prisoners described the cells as windowless and the air thick, moist and disgusting. Prisoners, they said, are not allowed outside. Many have developed rashes and scratch themselves incessantly. Some have been detained for a year or more. According to one former prisoner, inmates who had been there for long periods would pace around constantly, while others leaned against walls rocking.
http://www.nairobistar.com/