28 Jun 2011 – Daily Monitoring Report
Key Headlines:
- Somali parliament approves new prime minister
- Al Shabaab starts taxing Kismayo residents
- Al-Shabaab holding elders hostage
- US turns the screws on al- Shabaab
- Somalis flood across Kenya border
- UN: 9 million need aid in drought-hit East Africa
Titres Principaux:
- We apologise that the French translation of the headlines is not available until further notice
SOMALI MEDIA
Somali parliament approves new prime minister
28 Jun- Source: radio Bar-kulan- 79 words
Somali legislators approved the appointment of the new Prime Minister Abdiwali Mohamed Ali on Tuesday, voting overwhelmingly for the president’s nominee.
Parliamentary Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden says 437out of the 443 lawmakers voted for Abdiwali Mohamed Ali on Tuesday.
The new prime minister is expected to form a cabinet which will also be brought before the parliament for approval. The president and the speaker who both addressed the legislators congratulated the new PM and praised the MPs for their approval.
Al Shabaab starts taxing Kismayo residents
28 Jun – Source: Radio Shabelle, radio al Furqan , radio Kulmiye – 106 words
The Al Shabaab administration in the southern port city of Kismayo are illegally collecting taxes from residents.
The militants are reportedly conducting a major operations in several neighbourhoods of Kismayo to enforce the taxation. Kismayo recently witnessed an air strike targeting Al-Shabab positions believed to be also housing foreign fighters as confirmed by a spokesman for the group.
Many Kismayo residents express concern over the new Al-Shabab policy to forcefully tax them.
Al-Shabaab holding elders hostage
28 Jun – Source: Shabelle, Radio Kulmiye – 136 words
Somali government officials on Tuesday said that there are some elders being held hostage by Al shabaab.
Mohamud Sayid Adan, a Somali MP in Gedo region told Shabelle that Al-Shabaab is forcing many elders to fight alongside them.
Mr. Adan noted that most of the elders fighting for Al-Shabab were kidnapped from their homes and forced to fight the government. He says that the elders cannot freely express their opinions for fear of reprisals.
The latest claim by the Somali lawmaker comes a day after Al shabaab proclaimed that they had completed a training course for elders from Bardhere town in Gedo region in southern Somalia.
http://shabelle.net/article.php?id=8094
Britain welcomes the appointment of new Somali premier
27 Jun – Source: Hiiraan Online – 168 words
The British government has welcomed the appointment of a new Somali prime minister, Dr. Abdiwali Mohamed Ali on 23rd of this month.
The British envoy to Somalia, Mr. Matt Baugh told the press that his country is eager to see the new prime minister come up with mechanisms to end the transitional period of the government and to move the country into the next level of working government institutions.
“The Somali leaders should abide and respect the country’s constitution, stop the squabbling and ensure the formation of the new constitution, before the end of the one year extension term,” Said Mr. Baugh.
“I am really happy to hear the appointment of the new prime minister and we will stand by his side in fulfilling his duties.” Mr. Baugh was quoted as saying.
He called on the Somali leaders to implement all the provisions of the Kampala Accord, which he said is the only way to ensure assistance of the British government towards the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG).
http://www.hiiraan.com/news2/2011/Jun/britain_welcomes_the_appointment_of_new_somali_pr emier.aspx
Al-shabaab meets with the traditional elders of Bay and Bakol
28 Jun- Source: Radio Bar-kulan- 141 words
Al-shabab militias of the Bay and Bakol region of Somalia have summoned some traditional elders of the region in Hotel Manchester in Baidoa, the regional capital, and reportedly asked the elders to work and cooperate with the al Shabaab and participate in their fight against the government.
One of elders who spoke with Bar-kulan said that the elders did not accept the proposals of the militias. The elder added that the militias threatened them with penalties and torture if they did not comply with their orders.
Ali Mohamud Rage and Abu Muslim, two senior leaders of Al Shabaab who participated in the meeting said it is mandatory for the elders to participate in the fight against the government.
The militias are receiving pressure from the government forces, Ahlu Sunna and AMISOM that moved them out of their former areas.
REGIONAL MEDIA
US offers Shs120b to AMISOM
28 Jun – Source: Daily Monitor – 467 words
The US is offering spy drones among a huge military consignment to AMISOM to help bolster its capability to decimate the al- Shabaab, foreign media reported yesterday.
The package includes four shoulder-launched Raven drones, other surveillance systems, body armour, night-vision gadgets, generators as well as communications and heavy construction equipment, according to the New York Times. The aid package will cost Washington nearly $45 million (Shs111b).
Secret documents Associated Press news agency obtained from the Pentagon show Uganda will separately receive unspecified military communication and engineering gadgets worth $4.4 million (Shs10.9b). “I am not aware. The consideration may still be at policy level. We have not yet received anything,” Uganda’s Defence and Military Spokesman, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, said yesterday when contacted.
News of the military aid comes six weeks after Gen. Carter Ham, the new commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), visited Uganda and held talks with President Museveni at his home on May 10 about Somalia’s hazardous situation.
Mr John Dunne, the deputy public affairs officer at the US Mission in Kampala, said last evening that they have increased their military spending on AMISOM in line with US commitments made during the July 2010 AU summit in Kampala as “the situation in Mogadishu remains difficult”.
“It is important that these attacks are defeated and that AMISOM and the Transitional Federal Government together restore stability in Mogadishu so that political development and humanitarian operations can continue,” he wrote in an email reply.
Uganda and Burundi, the only countries contributing some 9,000 soldiers on behalf of the African Union to fight al-Shabaab, a designated terrorist group, claim to now control 70 per cent of Mogadishu following gains in past weeks.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1190428/-/byq93oz/-/index.html
US turns the screws on al- Shabaab
28Jun- Source: the Standard, AP- 313 words
The Pentagon is sending nearly $45 million in military equipment, including four small drones, to Uganda and Burundi to help battle the escalating terrorist threat in Somalia.
The latest aid, laid out in documents obtained by The Associated Press, comes as attacks intensify in Somalia against the al-Qaida-linked terror group al-Shabab, including an airstrike late Thursday that hit a militant convoy, killing a number of foreign fighters, according to officials there.
No nation immediately took responsibility for the latest airstrike, though U.S. aircraft have attacked militants in Somalia before.
U.S. officials, including incoming Pentagon chief Leon Panetta, have warned that the threat from al-Shabab is growing, and the group is developing stronger ties with the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Panetta told lawmakers earlier this month that as the core al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan undergoes leadership changes, with the killing of Osama bin Laden, the U.S. needs to make sure that the group does not relocate to Somalia.
The Pentagon plan is aimed at helping to build the counterterrorism capabilities of Uganda and Burundi, two African Union nations that have sent about 9,000 peacekeeping forces to Somalia. The military aid includes four small, shoulder-launched Raven drones, body armour, night-vision gear, communications and heavy construction equipment, generators and surveillance systems. Training is also provided with the equipment.
In addition, the Pentagon will send $4.4 million in communications and engineering equipment to Uganda.
Somalia has not had a fully functioning government in two decades. The government had controlled just a small slice of the capital Mogadishu, but officials have said that the peacekeeping offensive is enabling them to wrest swaths of territory in the city and in southern Somalia from the insurgents.
The aid is part of a $145.4 million package that Pentagon officials approved and sent to Capitol Hill last week as part of a notification process before the equipment can be delivered.
Somalis flood across Kenya border
27 Jun – Source: The Nairobi Star – 104 words
War and drought in Somalia are leading to an unprecedented number of people fleeing across the border into Kenya. Aid agency ‘Save the Children’ is reporting that every day, about 1,300 people – at least 800 of them children – are arriving at the Dadaab refugee camp. It also says the monthly number of new arrivals has more than doubled in a year. Aid workers at the camp say the children are exhausted, malnourished and severely dehydrated. The conflict in Somalia forces many to head for the Kenyan border but a severe drought and the unaffordable cost of food have made the situation worse.
http://www.nairobistar.com/classicnews/29630-somalis-flood-across-kenya-border
My encounter with American-Somali jihadist in Nairobi
27 Jun – Source: the Nairobi Star – 3726 words
Many Somali refugees would die to have the supposedly good life abroad. However, some young men from the Diaspora are now returning to fight for Al Shabaab in Somalia, rated as one of the most dangerous countries on earth. Our investigative writer FATUMA NOOR recently met with some of these Mujahideens from the US, Canada and Sweden and this is her gripping report.
It all started when a mother called to inquire about the whereabouts of her 18-year-old son Nuno Ahmed whom she believed was in Nairobi and had plans of going to Mogadishu. “He left with his three friends and l have just found out that they are going back home,” she told me when she called from her home in Minnesota, US. “I would rather he is arrested and stays in a Kenyan prison than let him go back to Mogadishu and die there,” she says as if pleading for my help.
She said Nuno got in touch with his family and assured them that he was fine and they should not worry. “He would say things like, we should not worry and he would be back if God had intended it to happen,” said a worried Sophia Ahmed who is Nuno’s mother.
When l eventually track down Nuno, I find him at a hotel in Eastleigh, where he and other young men from the US have been hiding out since their arrival. After much persuasion, Nuno agrees to meet with me at a restaurant in the city centre, Nairobi.
Like most of the young Somalis who have grown up in the West, Nuno speaks very little Somali. We end up conversing in English, his heavily inflected with an American twang. “Your mother tells me that you have plans of going to Mogadishu, Why?” I ask Nuno once we are done with the small talk.“Young people like me are needed there to protect our country. I can do something important over there compared to what I was doing back in the US,” he says.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
UN: 9 million need aid in drought-hit East Africa
28 Jun- Source: AP- 109 words
The United Nations says 9 million people need humanitarian assistance in the drought-hit countries of the Horn of Africa.
A spokeswoman for the U.N.’s aid coordination office says the drought is one of the worst to visit East Africa since the early 1950s.
Elisabeth Byrs told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that some 3.2 million people each in Kenya and Ethiopia, 2.6 million in Somalia and 117,000 in Djibouti need aid.
Byrs says child malnutrition rates have reached emergency levels of 15 percent in some areas. Lack of food has contributed to a surge in people leaving war-torn Somalia for neighboring Kenya in search of help in recent weeks.
More Somali ‘pirates’ land in Gujarat, detained
28 Jun – Source: Indian Express – 162 words
A week after 14 Somali pirates were detained off Una coast in Junagadh district, another group of 21 foreign nationals, including 18 suspected Somali pirates and three Yemenis, were detained off Dwarka coast in Jamnagar district on Sunday.
“They were spotted in a big rubber boat by locals. Police detained them and they turned out to be Somalis and Yemenis,” said Jamnagar SP Subhash Trivedi.
“Preliminary investigation has revealed that the Somalis are pirates. The Yemenis were abducted by the Somalis.” No arms or fishing equipment have been found from the boat. They have been taken to Dwarka police station, the officer said.
The entire story pieced together so far, from abduction of Yemenis by Somalis to hijacking of Yemeni boat to their chance landing at Gujarat shore, is quite similar to that of the group of Somali and Yemeni nationals reaching Una coast last week. “One of them understands and speaks English, which has made the interrogation a bit easier,” said Trivedi.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/more-somali-pirates-land-in-gujarat-detained/809719/
Somalia: Fishermen driven from the sea by illegal trawlers
27 Jun – Source: IRIN – 1129 words
More than two years after Somali officials announced plans to regulate fishing in the country’s troubled waters, illegal trawlers continue to operate while local fisherman suffer attacks and depleted catches.
The fishermen are not only losing a way of life but their lives, according to Somali fishermen. “We are not only being denied our fish but our lives are also in danger,” said Mohamed Abdirahman, a member of Bosasso fishing cooperative, in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia.
“Early this year we lost five members after their boat was run over by a big ship and I can tell you it was no accident,” said Abdirahman.
Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa, at 3,330km, with major landing sites in Kismayo, Mogadishu, Merka and Brava in the south, and Eil, Bargal, Bolimog, Las Korey and Berbera, and Bosasso in the north. It also has large fish species, including tuna, mackerel; as well as smaller ones such as sardines.
Mohamed Moalim Hassan, Somalia’s minister of fisheries, told IRIN the interim government was trying to establish the country’s internationally recognized maritime boundaries and enact laws to regulate fishing in its waters.
“We are in the process of establishing the maritime zone of the republic of Somalia in accordance with the Law of the Seas,” he said.
Hassan said any foreign vessel currently fishing in Somalia’s territorial waters did not have a legal license from the government. “They are doing so illegally.”