December 11, 2013 | Daily Monitoring Report.
UN: Major offensives planned against Somali militants
11 Dec- Source: AP/ABC News-125 Words
A United Nations official says plans are being made to restart major offensives in parts of Somalia held by the militant group al Shabaab. Special Representative Nicholas Kay also told the Security Council via a videoconference Tuesday that it’s important that the long-chaotic East African country hold democratic elections in 2016 as part of building strong state institutions.
Somalia is shakily emerging from more than two decades of conflict, and parts of the country are still in the hands of the al Shabaab. Kay reminded the Security Council that he had warned the council in September that if Somalia remained a home to terrorists, the effects would be felt “from Bamako to Bangui.”
Key Headlines
- Somalia joins World in marking Human Rights Day (Radio Mogadishu/SNTV)
- Somalia ‘desperate’ to build strong state institutions after decades of conflict envoy tells UN Security Council (UN News)
- UN: Major offensives planned against Somali militants (AP/ABC News)
- Al Shabaab leaders flee Barawe town (Radio Kulmiye)
- Assassinations in port city of Kismayo (Dhanaan Online)
- Somaliland’s speaker of parliament receives Danish foreign ministry delegation (Somaliland press)
- Westgate attackers may have escaped New York police report says (Daily Nation)
- Back-home formula for Somali returnees (The Star)
SOMALI MEDIA
Al Shabaab leaders flee Barawe town
11 Dec- Source: Radio Kulmiye/al Shahid- 99 words
Radio Kulmiye in Mogadishu reported that the leaders of al Shabaab militant left the coastal town of Baraawe in the province of Lower Shabelle in southern Somalia. Quoting an officer in the Somali intelligence who did not reveal his name, the radio station said that the al Shabaab leaders fled the town after a military aircraft was seen on the horizon of the city. Al Shabaab has not yet made any remarks regarding the report. Baraawe town is one of strategic cities that are still under the control of al Shabaab, an insurgent group that has links with al Qaeda. Many top leaders of the group, including Sheikh Abu Zubeyr are believed to be residing in the seaside town.
Assassinations in port city of Kismayo
11 Dec- Source: Dhanaan Online/alxikma Online- 77 words
According to the reports that are coming from the port city of Kismayo in the Lower Juba province, said the city has witnessed several assassinations in its neighborhoods. The reports added that three people were murdered in different parts of the city on Tuesday night. It is not known yet the indentities of the assailants whoever there has been similar killings in the recent past. The interim authority has deployed special forces to maintain the security of the strategic port city.
Somalia joins World in marking Human Rights Day
11 Dec- Source: Somal icurrent/Radio Mogadishu/SNTV/Uinversaltv- – 382 words
Somalia on Tuesday joined the rest of the World to mark the Human Rights Day, holding events highlighting the country’s recovery from decades of war. With support from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the country now enjoys relative peace and has embarked on reconstruction and reconstitution of its institutions, key to ensuring justice and observance of human rights.
The Somali Federal Government has marked the day with an event held at the Mogadishu Central Prison, among others, where the importance of the rights to education, health and protection of individual rights was expressed. Speaking at the event, Muuse Sheikh Omar, MP and Deputy Chairman for the Parliamentary subcommittee on Human Rights said the day was marked to further the discussion on the rights of the Somali people and how they can be upheld.
“The 10th of December is the international Human rights day. This day has significant importance to the Somali community. The Minister of Justice, the Parliament Subcommittee for Human Rights, and the guests including senior members of the Armed Forces, representatives from civil society and members of the public are all present at this event to discuss this issue of human rights further,” MP Muuse Sheikh Omar stated.
Members of the civil society called for commitment towards ensuring that the rights of the Somali people are upheld, with a specific appeal t o ensure observance of the rights of inmates and using prison facilities for rehabilitation and not persecution. “We urge the Somali community especially the business people to help the prisoners with life skills which they can utilize when released as well as helping with over all welfare programs and also with food and health factors”, said Asli Ismail, founder of Women’s Education and Voicing Entrepreneurship (WEAVE).
Somaliland’s speaker of parliament receives Danish foreign ministry delegation
11 Dec- Source: Somaliland informer/Somaliland press-195 words
The speaker of Somaliland national assembly Hon. Abdirahman Mohamed Abdilahi has received at his office in the parliament a delegation from the ministry of foreign affairs of Denmark on Tuesday afternoon. The Danish delegation is headed by Henrik Jespersen, Senior Technical Adviser of the Danish foreign ministry and is accompanied by Ms .Lotte Mindeda, an advisor of the Danish embassy in Nairobi, and Head of Office, Programme coordinator/DANIDA programme Office, Hargeisa, and Mr. Soren Skou Rasmussen.
The reason why the delegation paid visit to the country is to assess the projects that DANIDA is implementing in Somaliland. The delegation also toured the regions of Somaliland as well. The speaker who gave cordial welcome to the Danish visiting delegation to Somaliland briefed them on the development, elections, voter registration, and the security. The speaker told the delegation that the people of Somaliland are very grateful to the help they extended to the areas of democracy, elections to be held in 2015. The head of the delegation told the parliamentary speaker the key role they are currently playing when it comes to the democracy, voter registration and the elections that will take place in the country.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Westgate attackers may have escaped, New York police report says
11 Dec- Source: Daily Nation/Standard/Star-551 Words
A report issued on Tuesday by the New York City Police Department gives a much different account of the Westgate Mall attack than what has been presented by Kenyan authorities. Only four men appear to have carried out the massacre — not 15, as Kenyan officials speculated — and all of them may have gotten away, suggests the report, which was released to private security personnel in New York.
“It is unknown if the terrorists were killed or escaped the mall,” the report says. “A major contributing factor to this uncertainty was the failure to maintain a secure perimeter around the mall.” Contrary to Kenyan officials’ statements during and following the attack, the New York police report says the terrorists did not hold hostages inside the mall, nor did they create a smokescreen by setting fire to mattresses. Security video recovered after the onslaught indicates that the shooters were not “interested in taking any hostages,” according to the NYPD account. “They only appeared interested in killing a broad spectrum of people.”
Back-home formula for Somali returnees
10 Dec- Source: The Star- 360 words
The United Nations will conduct a survey in Dadaab refugee complex to determine Somali refugees’ willingness in returning to their country. Already the UN refugee agency has established a return-home help-desks to provide refugees with information and assistance on repatriation to Somalia. The process will involve asking all Somali refugees whether they wish to return home, and if so, where to.
UNHCR’s Senior Protection Officer, Leonard Zulu, said about 400 refugees have so far expressed their intentions to return. “Registration is ongoing for those willing to return and adequate information will be given to the refugees before they embark on their journey home,” he said. “Starting Monday (yesterday), we will use public address system in the camps to send messages of voluntary return home,” he said.
Three areas in Somalia such as Luuq, Baidoa and Kismayo, which appear relatively peaceful will be targeted for refugee return. The areas were formerly controlled by al Shabaab but are now are under the control of the Somali National Army and AMISOM troops.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
UN: Major offensives planned against Somali militants
11 Dec- Source: AP/ABC News-125 Words
A United Nations official says plans are being made to restart major offensives in parts of Somalia held by the militant group al Shabaab. Special Representative Nicholas Kay also told the Security Council via a videoconference Tuesday that it’s important that the long-chaotic East African country hold democratic elections in 2016 as part of building strong state institutions.
Somalia is shakily emerging from more than two decades of conflict, and parts of the country are still in the hands of the al Shabaab. Kay reminded the Security Council that he had warned the council in September that if Somalia remained a home to terrorists, the effects would be felt “from Bamako to Bangui.”
Somalia ‘desperate’ to build strong state institutions after decades of conflict, envoy tells UN Security Council
10 Dec- Source: UN News-520 Words
After 22 years of conflict, the people of Somalia were not only ready, but desperate to rise to the challenge of building strong State institutions, the senior United Nations official in that country said in a briefing to the Security Council today.
Speaking via video teleconference from Mogadishu, Nicholas Kay, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), said that, on the military and security fronts, the hard work of implementing resolution 2124 (2013) was under way.
Commending the Council’s decision to reinforce the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), he also welcomed the “open and consultative way” in which the regional organization was generating additional forces, revising AMISOM’s strategy and drawing up a new Concept of Operations for military and police forces.
Nairobi mall attackers may have escaped: NYC police
10 Dec – Source: AFP/- 519 words
The four attackers responsible for killing at least 67 people at a Kenyan shopping mall may have escaped due to lax security, according to a New York police report released Tuesday. The victims aged eight to 78, from 13 different countries, were killed at the Westgate mall in Nairobi during a terrifying assault claimed by Somalia’s al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab terror group.
The media speculated the gunmen may have escaped in the chaos of the September fighting, although security sources in Kenya said they died in a final stand off with commandos. The New York police report said the last confirmed sighting of the attackers on the mall’s CCTV system was on September 22 at 00:54 hours, 12 hours after the start of the attack.
It took Kenya almost four days to declare the mall safe. The day before doing so, Kenyan forces started a fire and collapsed a large part of the mall, the report said.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“By keeping their artistic traditions alive, Ali, Seyf, and other Somalis are creating new lives in the Twin Cities while benefiting and enriching the lives of others, and our whole community.”
Preserve and Protect: How Minneapolis’ Somali Immigrants Are Keeping Their Artistic Traditions Alive
11 Dec- Source: The Line Media-1261 Words
The Somali community in Minneapolis experienced a lot of firsts in 2013. Abdi Warsame was elected to the City Council and took office in December. Barkhad Abdi earned Oscar buzz, in his inaugural acting and film role as a pirate in “Captain Phillips,” for going head to head with Tom Hanks. And Osman Ali founded the first Somali art museum in North America in the Plaza Verde building at 1516 E. Lake Street.
The Somali Artifact and Cultural Museum is a 700-piece collection amassed by Ali, who owns Sanaag Coffee and Restaurant and is a Somali community leader. The collection encompasses a wide range of objects that document Somalia’s traditional nomadic way of life: camel bells and woven milk “jars,” drums and clothing, jewelry and spears, vessels and prayer mats.
Mogadishu was formerly home to the world’s only Somali cultural museum. But over the past two decades, the museum’s contents have been scattered across the world. While the nation has been engaged in civil war, with many formerly nomadic citizens moving into the cities or living in diaspora, immigrants like Ali have worried that many traditional art forms have been destroyed or vanished.
“As a new report shows aid groups paid for access in Somalia, we ask if picking sides in a conflict helps their cause.”
Aid agencies: Cooperating or compromising?
10 Dec- Source: Al Jazeera English-672 Words
Aid agencies work in some of the most dangerous environments in the world, often facing hostility and harassment, extortion and attack. Now a new report has detailed how aid groups in Somalia had to pay armed fighters for access to areas under their control.
The joint study by the Humanitarian Policy Group, the Overseas Development Institute and the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, looked at the demands made on aid groups by al Shabaab during the 2011 famine in Somalia, which killed more than 250,000 people.
The report found that al Shabaab, considered a “terrorist” group by the US, sought to control aid agencies through a system of regulation, taxation and surveillance. Aid groups were forced to pay as much as $10,000 to ‘register’ their work. They would then have to disclose project details, their budgets and even staff members’ names.
“The shocking revelations of the New York City Police Department’s report on ‘lessons learned’ from the September terrorist attack in Kenya.”
Inside the NYPD’s Report on the Kenya Shopping Mall Massacre
10 Dec- Source: The Daily Beast-1727 Words
You say the word “Nairobi” and the place sounds just about as far away as it is. But if you look at pictures and plans of its Westgate Shopping Mall, where terrorists slaughtered 67 people last September and wounded 200, you feel like you’ve been there before in many cities in America, and many times. There’s the multiple levels built around an open atrium, the glistening escalators, the cafés, the boutiques selling jewelry, shoes and clothes. There’s the department store, the gadget shops.
A mall is a mall is a mall, and as we head to the ones in the United States en masse this Christmas season, the lessons learned from the slaughter in Nairobi are haunting the police and private security companies all over America. It was just so damned easy for the killers in Kenya to do their job. There were only four of them and it appears very likely they escaped alive.
Top tweets
@UNLazzarini .@unicefsomalia organized photo training & cameras for 400 #Somali kids. Get a unique insight into their world: http://bit.ly/1gjfxoH
@UNSomalia .@Somalia111 says #UNSC that lack of military helicopters for @amisomsomalia remains major concern, #UNstands ready to fund 12 helicopters.
@amisomsomalia The opportunity to make a difference; The story of Abdul Diabagate, head of the #AMISOM Humanitarian Affairs unit pic.twitter.com/7cdcdUx9FY
@RasnaWarah Al-Shabaab and international aid agencies in Somalia | Rift Valley Institute: http://riftvalley.net/news/al-
@HIRDAFoundation Google Translate currently supports translation between 71 languages. Today somali language is also included. you… http://fb.me/1NP86cQEv
Image of the day
Singers wearing hats advocating “No Torture” line up before performing at a Human Rights Day event outside of Mogadishu Central Prison in Somalia on December 10. Human Rights Day was marked in Somalia by an event held outside of Mogadishu Central Prison. Photo: AMISOM