June 25, 2012 | Daily Monitoring Report.
Somali defense minister promises to expand war on al Shabaab
25 Jun- Source: Shabelle/ Mareeg Online/SONNA- 122 words
The Minister of Defense for Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia Hussein Arab Isse, promised Monday to expand the war against al Shabaab militants in south-central Somalia.The Minister told reporters on Monday that the coalition forces [Somali and AMISOM] operating in south and central Somalia made progress in fighting al Qaeda affiliated al Shabaab fighters.
Minister Isse explained that the TFG’s objective is to wipe out al Shabaab militants from all their south and central Somalia strongholds in order to restore peace and order throughout the country.
The coalition of forces fighting al Shabaab includes Ethiopian, Kenyan, and AMISOM troops who have recently been effective in forcing al Shabaab to retreat from several strategic towns in Somalia.
Key Headlines
- Somali defense minister promises to expand war on al Shabaab (Shabelle)
- US troops reportedly arrive in Somali capital (AllPuntland Online/Radio Kulmiye/Raxanreeb)
- One dead in terror attack at a Mombasa nightclub (Daily Nation)
- Afgoye now safe and secure says area Police boss (Radio Bar-kulan)
- Somaliland President appeals for urgent aid as drought ravages nation (Somalilandpress)
- Norwegian in Kenyan anti-terror unit custody (Standard)
- President Kikwete balks at Somali request for ground troops (ippmedia/Guardian)
- Suspect held over Mombasa grenade attack (AFP)
- Somalia’s immigration dept calls for Somaliland Puntland to adopt E-Passport (Hadhwanaag Times/ Jowhar Online)
SOMALI MEDIA
Somali defense minister promises to expand war on al Shabaab
25 Jun- Source: Shabelle/ Mareeg Online/SONNA- 122 words
The Minister of Defense for Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia Hussein Arab Isse, promised Monday to expand the war against al Shabaab militants in south-central Somalia. The Minister told reporters on Monday that the coalition forces [Somali and AMISOM] operating in south and central Somalia made progress in fighting al Qaeda affiliated al Shabaab fighters.
Minister Isse explained that the TFG’s objective is to wipe out al Shabaab militants from all their south and central Somalia strongholds in order to restore peace and order throughout the country.
The coalition of forces fighting al Shabaab includes Ethiopian, Kenyan, and AMISOM troops who have recently been effective in forcing al Shabaab to retreat from several strategic towns in Somalia.
US troops reportedly arrive in Somali capital
24 Jun – Source: AllPuntland Online/Radio Kulmiye/Raxanreeb- 108 words
American troops have arrived in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The more than 390 troops will be setting up a base in Mogadishu. Their aim is said to train Somali government forces in the capital.Reports add that the troops will also interrogate suspected al Shabaab members who have either been captured or have surrendered themselves.
The arrival of these 300 troops follows US government’s recent announcement that it was looking for seven of al Shabaab’s leaders by offering a lot of money [for information leading to their capture]. The US used to carry out drone attacks on Somalia but now wants to be directly involved in the war on al Shabaab.
Calm returns to towns in Somalia after violence
25 Jun- Source: Shabelle- 116 words
Steady Calm has returned to the locations between Bardale and Yurkud districts in southern Somalia where on Sunday was rocked by a day-long violence the pitted Somali forces backed by Ethiopian troops against al Shabaab militants.
As the situation improves, hundreds of local residents began returning back to their homes on Monday morning after the battle completely subsided and the Somali and Ethiopian troops took control of the areas from al Shabaab.
About 6 combatants from both warring sides were killed and more others were injured in the fighting on the outskirts of between Bardale and Yurkud districts, former al Shabaab strongholds in Bay and Gedo regions of southern Somalia.
Afgoye now safe and secure, says area Police boss
24 Jun- Source: Radio Bar-kulan- 174 words
Somali police force have declared Afgoye safe and secure just few weeks after Somali forces backed by the African Union forces wrested control of the town from al Shabaab militants. Area police boss Captain Ibrahim Dini Issack was quoted by the state broadcaster as saying that a nighttime curfew which has been in place since they took control of the town has yield fruits. He reportedly said that there is reliable peace in the area following their security measures including the curfew.
Issack says close working relationship between the police and the general public has contributed the prevailing security situation in the area. He claimed that the nighttime curfew was first proposed by local elders who requested them to impose a nighttime curfew in order to bolster security and promised to lift the curfew soon.
The area has been a rebel stronghold since 2008 after the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces who crossed the border into Somalia in 2007 and was regained control by the Somali government last May after militants fled the town undefended.
Somalia’s immigration dept calls for Somaliland, Puntland to adopt E-Passport
25 Jun- Source: Hadhwanaag Times/ Jowhar Online- 122 words
Somalia’s immigration and naturalization on Saturday called for the Somaliland and the semi-autonomous state of Puntland to adopt the Somalia’s new Electronic Passport and stop former green passport. Director of immigration and naturalization department General Abdullahi Gafow Mohamud made the comments during a press conference at Aden Adde International Airport.
He said the transitional federal government of Somalia has already banned the use of former green passport. Mr. Gafow stated that Somaliland and Puntland allow the people using the green passport to land at their airports pointing out that can facilitate the infiltration of terrorists in the horn of African nation.
Lastly, the Director of immigration and naturalization department General Abdullahi Gafow Mohamud said that Electronic Passport is internationally recognized and cannot be copied.
Somaliland President appeals for urgent aid as drought ravages nation
24 Jun- Source: Somalilandpress- 312 words
Somaliland President Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo on Sunday issued an emergency appeal for international aid saying his unrecognized country is suffering its worst drought, devastating four main regions.
“The situation is very critical with reports of lack of water, food shortages and infectious disease outbreak,” he said in a press release in Hargeisa.
The president said an estimated 20,000 people are affected by a severe drought in the regions of Awdal, Salal, Sahil and eastern Sanaag. He added the suffering is extreme along the coastline where rains did not fall for more than three years.
Heavy rains paralyse transport in middle Juba
24 Jun- Source: Radio Bar-kulan- 145 words
Reports from southwestern Somali region of Gedo say over ten heavy commercial trucks carrying goods to Bardera district are now stranded in an area between Bu’ale and Sakow towns after they got stuck in mud following heavy rains that have pounded the area in the past few weeks.
A truck driver who is among those affected by the rains told Bar-kulan that they could not deliver the goods they transported from Kismayo port to their destined area due to the rains that cut off the road liking between Lower Juba and Gedo regions.
He said some trucks are carrying foot items which might get wasted on the road if they continue to be bogged down in the mud for the next few days.
The recent rains in parts of the country have paralysed transport system after many roads were rendered impassable due to the rains.
REGIONAL MEDIA
One dead in terror attack at a Mombasa nightclub
25 Jun- Source: Daily Nation- 411 words
At least one person was killed and several others injured in a grenade attack in a bar and restaurant in Mishomoroni estate in Mombasa on Sunday night.
The attack occurred at around 10p.m. at Jericho Beer Garden in the sprawling Mombasa estate.The dead man and the injured were at the outer section of the bar dancing to the beats of ohangla music when the explosion occurred in three successive rounds.
The inner section of the pub was full of patrons who had gathered to watch the European championships football match between England and Italy.
Police said one person died, but St John Ambulance personnel who helped with rescue efforts put the number of fatalities at three. The attack happened a day after US Embassy issued warning of an imminent terror attack on Mombasa.
Norwegian in Kenyan anti-terror unit custody
25 Jun- Source: Standard- 331 words
Police in Kenya are holding a Norwegian national of Somali origin found in Mandera Town at the Kenya-Somalia border, following an anti-terrorism crackdown.The Norwegian embassy in Nairobi has confirmed Mr Isaack Yahya, 30 is their citizen and that he had come to Kenya almost a month ago for unclear reasons.
Police sources say Yahya is being interrogated by Anti-Terrorism Police in Nairobi after he was flown aboard a Kenya police chopper from Mandera on Sunday.He had been to Somalia but it is not clear how he found his way to Mandera Town. He was arrested hours after a blast went off and injured two police officers who were patrolling the town on Saturday morning.
Hostage crew’s two-year ordeal may end ‘next month’
25 Jun- Source: the National- 355 words
Relatives of the sailors aboard the Dubai-owned MV Iceberg 1 – one of the ships held longest by Somali pirates – yesterday expressed renewed hope after learning that the release of the crew could be next month.The Indian Embassy said the sailors of the ship, which was captured on March 29, 2010, could be released by mid-July after family members visited Dubai in May to step up pressure on the ship’s owners. “We have been told it will happen in July,” said the father of a captured sailor, asking not to be identified. “I have not spoken to my son in more than a year. I constantly worry about his health and condition. We just want them to be free and that’s all we are working towards.”
President Kikwete balks at Somali request for ground troops
24 Jun- Source: ippmedia/Guardian- 804 words
Tanzania is facing a tough choice, as Somalia seeks substantial support to build military capability of defending the country. Recently, Somalia lodged a formal request to Tanzania, asking the government to help forming the army so as to stabilise the government.
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the president of the transitional government of Somalia, flew to Arusha where he held nearly four hours of closed door talks with President Jakaya Kikwete at the Ngurudoto Mountain Lodge. “We want to borrow a leaf from Tanzania’s long standing peace and stability,” President Sharif Ahmed hinted to the media through an interpreter shortly after the talks.
He said that his country was in the process of structuring national armed forces and therefore needs Tanzania to help in this endeavour as well as to set up state organs and a viable public sector.
Unknown fate of Kenyan hostages clouds KDF gains
23 Jun- Source: Daily Nation- 612 words
As the Kenya Defence Forces push closer to Somalia’s port town of Kismayu to dislodge al Shabaab militants, the families of Kenyans abducted by the insurgency group are worried about what the assault on the port town portends for their kin.
According to the military, there are 10 Kenyans in the hands of al Shabaab, among them two military officers and two administrators whose fate now heavily depends on the outcome of the battle for Kismayu. The rest of the captives are civilians.
Military sources who did not wish to be named discussing such a sensitive issue without approval from their superiors said intelligence reports indicate that most of the Kenyan hostages are not actually in Kismayu but a town near it.
Somalia, Sudan conflict earns East African countries ‘failed state’ label
23 Jun- Source: East African- 594 words
When leaders in the East African region sat down to discuss ways of ending Somalia’s instability last year, they decided a military attack on the militants. For many of them — like Kenya, which sent into troops to Somalia in October last year — it made sense as the instability in its northeastern neighbour continued to be an economic, political and security headache for the country.
But now, the incursion has come to haunt East African countries’ standing in the international arena. East African countries are leading the continent among the world’s most vulnerable countries, topping the “failed states index” issued by a US-based think tank and published by theForeign Policy Magazine.
Violence linked to Kenya’s “entanglement” in Somalia as well as the row between Sudan and South Sudan are among the reasons cited for the poor rating for countries like Kenya and Ethiopia.
Who will fill al Shabaab void after exit of Kenyan soldiers?
24 Jun- Source: Daily Nation- 195 words
The Kenyan military appears well on its course to clearing al Shabaab from the strongholds near the border that the militants have held since 2006.
But the question which hangs over the whole enterprise is: Who will fill the void left by al Shabaab?, Are the administrations being installed in the areas liberated from the militants strong enough to resist the militants once Kenyans pull out?, And what is Kenya’s long-term objective when its surprise incursion into Somalia comes to an end?, A tour of the areas from which the Shabaab have been pushed out and interviews with local players offers a broad outline of the central idea behind the military offensive.
The mission — long denied by Kenya — is to create a semi-autonomous zone similar to Puntland in much of southern Somalia, from which the al Shabaab cannot operate with a free hand near Kenya’s border.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Suspect held over Mombasa grenade attack
25 Jun- Source: AFP/Yahoo News- 233 words
One of the people injured in a grenade attack on a bar in the coastal city of Mombasa is being held as a suspect, police said Monday.
The blast killed one person and injured dozens of people watching a football match.
Thirty people are still in hospital Monday morning, three of them in a serious condition, provincial police chief Aggrey Adoli told journalists.
“One of those wounded people is assisting us because he is providing contradictory statements. He is being held as a suspect,” Adoli went on.
US soldiers on secret Somali operations
25 Jun- Source: Pakistan Observer/ AP- 194 words
Hundreds of the US military troops have been deployed in Somalia for secret operations in the capital Mogadishu, Press TV reports. At least 390 American troops have been training local soldiers secretly in Somali training bases over the past two months, Somali military sources said on Sunday.
Somali military officer Abdiwahab Mohamed Ali told Press TV that at least 390 American forces, including 38 officers have secretly reached the Mogadishu international airport.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“Private sector development programmes provide an opportunity to mitigate this threat. The London Conference on Somalia in February agreed that “Somalia’s long-term reconstruction and economic development depended on a vibrant private sector”. Of course, it is not within the mandate of humanitarian agencies to engage in private sector development. But development agencies can help enable Somali businesses to move away from short-term, speculative investments that exacerbate cyclical crises towards longer-term investments that contribute to recovery, peace and development.”
Somalia’s private sector can help rather than hinder development
23 June- Source: Guardian Blog-817 Words
Despite – or perhaps because of – more than 20 years of war, Somalia has a remarkably strong private sector, particularly in the money transfer, telecommunications and livestock spheres. Yet, as the 2010 Inter-Agency Standing Committee evaluation of the humanitarian response in Somalia points out, aid agencies have failed to engage systematically the Somali private sector and disapora in their work.
This is no small omission, given that remittances alone are estimated at $1bn-2bn (£6.3-12.6m) a year in Somalia – and this figure does not even take into account the vital role the diaspora plays in providing basic services such as healthcare, education and water, as well as infrastructure and enterprise.
“For Khaatumo ‘s collective leadership banking on the consent of people without taking steps to solve persistent political problems is an option that will speed up Khaatumo’s irrelevance.”
Somalia: Why Khaatumo needs to promote reconciliation
24 June- Source: Raxanreeb-348 Words
Six months have passed since Khaatumo administration was declared in Taleh district. Militias loyal to the administration have clashed with Somaliland forces twice at Kalabaydh and Tukaraq. Both clashes point to a lack of mandate awareness as far as political leadership of Khaatumo is concerned.
President Ahmed Elmi ( Ahmed Karaash) who is expected to hand over the rotating presidential duties to a new president in line with the Khaatumo charter, has achieved less politically compared to traditional leadership of Khaatumo , the Garaads , now based in Mogadishu.
“To achieve this end “game plan”, the needed money is already in Somalia. For circumstantial evidences one only needs to read the recent World Bank Report on Somalia. In addition, more money has already made in its way to Somalia or would come in from the Middle East, from the International Criminal Court indicted leaderships of Sudan, from certain Diaspora Somalis, from unscrupulous internal Somali business, and lastly from entrenched Somali “mafia” groups both inside and outside the country.”
Somalia: Inertia of Perpetual Socio-Political Teeter-Totter balances
22 June- Source: Wardheernews-1334 Words
August 20th, 2012 is the scheduled deadline for Somalia’s long endemic myopic and often corrupted political processes to transition from a failed state to a new form of “governance” substantially different than the past. No one could know, with any certainty, what the new “governance” will be like for Somalia, but it’s been hyped that it would be the end of the endless political and legal “transitional” states for the country onto a new formation of more, even provisionally, permanent political dispensation of powers with respected sovereignty.
To meet this deadline, a Road Map (RM) was adopted late last year in Mogadishu. Subsequently, some further facilitating principles, terms of references, and agreements among “Somali stakeholders” were established. These are referred to as Garowe Principles (I & II) and Galkacyo agreement; Garowe and Galkacyo being two cities in Somalia that the presumed “stakeholders” of all things in Somalia or South-Central Somalia had gathered.
“This is the first of a three-part series in furtherance of the gobannimo alternatives I published in February this year. My object here is to find ways to cut through the political doubletalk via critical analysis of the debate leading to the selection of the new leaders in August 2012 in a way that lends itself to a recognition of the problem “for what it actually is” and to suggest ways the Somali people can get off their politics on the right foot, under the circumstances. Gobannimo represents a new and original scholarship which, in my view, can give us an opportunity for new beginnings to reason out a solution to Somalia’s intractable conflict. I have already offered to debate any and all on this new idea, and that challenge still stands.”
Transforming our politics in the interest of peace in Somalia, Part 1
22 June- Source: Hiiraan Online-2515 Words
This is the first of a three-part series in furtherance of the gobannimo alternatives I published in February this year. My object here is to find ways to cut through the political doubletalk via critical analysis of the debate leading to the selection of the new leaders in August 2012 in a way that lends itself to a recognition of the problem “for what it actually is” and to suggest ways the Somali people can get off their politics on the right foot, under the circumstances. Gobannimo represents a new and original scholarship which, in my view, can give us an opportunity for new beginnings to reason out a solution to Somalia’s intractable conflict. I have already offered to debate any and all on this new idea, and that challenge still stands.
Somali leaders (aka the signatories of the process for ending the transition) have finally agreed with the help of the international community, at a meeting hosted by the African Union in Addis Ababa last month, to a time line for election of new leaders by 20 August 2012. The Istanbul II conference, which followed a few days later, iterated that same position.
Aljazeera’s Listening Post media landscape in Somalia
24 June- Source: Aljazeera English-430
Somalia ranks as Africa’s most dangerous place to be a journalist – this year alone six reporters have been murdered. The threats to the media in Somalia come from all sides – there are powerful politicians in power battles with each other, there is the notorious armed group al Shabaab and even wealthy businessmen can mean danger. Trying to report on the country’s various issues has proven difficult for journalists. Those that do, do so at their peril. But that fragile media environment has not stemmed the growth of the media sector or discouraged young journalists from entering the field. In this week’s feature, Listening Post’s Flo Phillips explores the media landscape in Somalia; a country where being a journalist can cost you your life.
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Image of the day
Some of those who sustained injuries from an explosion at a bar in the Mishomoroni district of Mombasa, Kenya. Photo: AP