February 3, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report.

Main Story

Somaliland Government sends huge arms consignment back to Sudan

03 Feb – Source: Garowe Online – 118 Words

Following a lengthy phone conversation between Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir and Somaliland leader, the separatist region has sent back huge arms consignment, Garowe Online reports. Multiple independent sources in Berbera Port City confirmed the move to Garowe Online.

Cranes reloaded MV Shakir with the seized weapons shipment including battle tanks, artillery pieces and modern combat vehicles late on Monday night, two days after public display. Sudan’s Al Bashir is said to have disclosed that the heavy weaponry was bought from a market in United Arab Emirates to Somaliland President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamud (Siilaanyo). The controversial consignment prompted severe criticism from the breakaway region’s arch rival to the east, Puntland.

Key Headlines

Gunmen kill famous Somali cleric in Baidoa town (Radio Goobjoog)
Somaliland Government sends huge arms consignment back to Sudan (Garowe Online)
Minnesota police offer cash reward for information on the killers of Somali man (Sahan Journal)
Kenya planes conduct airstrike in Yoontooy (Radio Goobjoog)
A secret British Foreign Office “A base for subversion into Africa” (Geeska Afrika)
One killed as pirates clash in central town (Horseed Media)
Acquitted Mombasa terror suspect re-arrested police boss denies knowledge of arrest (The Star)
Floating arsenal help battle pirates on high seas (Wall Street Journal)
Between a war and looting Somalis linger in Mayfair (Daily Maverick)
Dozens missing as migrant boat capsizes off Yemen (Al-Jazeera English)
Kenya teachers strike fearing Al-Shabaab attacks (BBC News)

SOMALI MEDIA

Gunmen kill famous Somali Cleric in Baidoa town

03 Feb – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 89 Words

Reports from South-West State indicate that unidentified gunmen killed a well-known cleric man in Baidoa, the administrative capital of South-west State. Shiekh Hassan Soor-madiide was killed while returning from Isha prayer at the mosque. The administration of south-west has yet comment on the incident and no one was arrested for the the murder yet. The killing of mullahs are increasing rapidly in Baidoa. On 17th January this year, unknown assailants killed Sheik Sharif Sayid Ali, a famous in front of a mosque in Baidoa.

Somaliland Government sends huge arms consignment back to Sudan

03 Feb – Source: Garowe Online – 118 Words

Minnesota police offer cash reward for information on the killers of Somali man

03 Feb – Source: Sahan Journal – 148 Words

Police in Minnesota’s Roseville town are seeking the public’s help in finding the killers of a Somali man who was severely beaten in a Roseville park in late December. Ismail Jama, 28, was found on Dec. 24 lying in a drainage-pond ditch at Autumn Grove Park in Roseville. He later died as a result of injuries sustained during the assault.

The Roseville Police Department said Monday it is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspects responsible for Jama’s death.Police investigators said they believe Jama drove to the park between 5 and 10:50 p.m. on Dec. 22. Police say he was violently assaulted near the park’s tennis courts after he exited his 2013 Hyundai Sonata. On Dec. 24, a resident of the Autumn Grove Park neighborhood who was at the park saw Jama semiconscious and lying in a ditch.

Kenya planes conduct airstrike in Yoontooy

03 Feb – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 80 Words

Kenyan warplanes carried out airstrike on Yoontooy, 20 km from administrative capital of IJA, Kismayo on Monday afternoon. Reports confirm that the strike was targeting the Al-shabaab base in the area. No casualties were confirmed yet. Kenya sent its military to Somalia in October 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants whom the Kenyan government blames for numerous cross-border attacks. Kenyan troops later became part of the African Union troops in Somalia which are bolstering Somalia’s weak government against al-Shabaab’s insurgency

A secret British Foreign Office “a base for subversion into Africa”

02 Feb – Source: Geeska Afrika – 177 Words

A secret Foreign Office archive from 50 years ago shows that senior British officials feared Somalia could be a base for subversion into east and central Africa, with violence spreading across its border into Kenya. The papers that have been released show senior British colonial officials and intelligence officers were deeply anxious about instability when Somalia won independence from Italy and Britain in 1960. “Neither administratively nor economically will the country be viable as an independent sovereign state without outside help,” British colonial officers warned.

The committee was concerned about the radical Somali Youth League and problems on the Kenya/Somali border caused by “warlike tribes, grazing land disputes … and the influx of refugees”. A leading Somali figure from the south expressed concerns that Kenya’s northern frontier district would “fall in due course like a ripe plum”, and a report by Whitehall’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) points up the threat to neighbours. Intriguingly, a passage following a reference to “the formation in Somalia of a base for subversion into east and central Africa” has been censored.

One killed as pirates clash in Central town

02 Feb – Source: Horseed Media – 136 Words

At least one person has been killed and several others injured as several Somali pirates clashed in Galkayao in south-central Somalia, witnesses said. The gunfight broke out in the Southern part of Galkayo town controlled by the Galmudug local administration on Sunday night. One local resident told reporters that the gunmen clashed over a checkpoint which is controlled by another local militia. Both the dead and injured who were involved in the clashes are believed to be pirates. Officials from Galmudug administration intervened the situation later on but have not given further details regarding the battle. Incidents of piracy off Somalia’s coast have dropped recently – with armed guards on ships and international navy patrols cited as some of the reasons by maritime experts.

REGIONAL MEDIA

Stop bias against Somalis – Kerrow

02 Feb – Source: The Star – 324 Words

Mandera Senator Billow Kerrow has said the Somali community is unfairly prejudiced as either terrorists or their sympathisers by security agencies and other communities.Speaking on Saturday during a forum to sensitise the Somali community living in Mombasa, Kerrow said the Security Laws (Amendment) Act 2014 makes it even easier for security agencies to convict Somalis on terrorism charges.

“Some people in this country believe terrorists are Somalis. These include security agencies, other government officials and even normal citizens,” he said. Kerrow said this prejudice has made more than 500 teachers from other counties refuse to report to Mandera county this term. “This is because they believe the people who killed our brothers in Mandera last year are local Somalis in my county,” he said. The legislator said there is a school of thought in the country that all Somalis are either al Shabaab members or sympathisers.

He said the Security Laws (Amendment) Act will affect the Somali community as it gives sweeping powers to security agents, some of whom believe any Somali is a terrorism suspect.Somali Community Development Initiative Mombasa county chair Mohamed Abdi said it is important for the community to understand the contents of the Act. “They say ignorance of the law is not a defence. So we need to understand what the law has so that we know what will harm us,” Abdi said.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Floating arsenal help battle pirates on high seas

03 Feb – Source: Wall Street Journal – 1925 Words

Before dawn one morning in November, four men on the deck of the MNG Resolution lifted cases of guns and body armor out of shipping containers and heaved them into a waiting speedboat. The team zipped across the water to a tanker, where the crew pulled aside razor wire and hoisted the weapons aboard. The four men clambered up a rope ladder, and the speedboat raced back. The 141-foot Resolution, built 30 years ago to service offshore oil platforms, has a new job: She is a floating armory and bunkhouse for contract security forces. At least a half dozen such boats ply the Gulf of Oman. The oceangoing armories are the byproduct of global trade, high-seas piracy and national arms restrictions. Shippers traversing the dangerous waters off Somalia want armed guards to protect their cargo and crews, but most countries won’t let private security forces bring guns into their ports. So ships like the Resolution have appeared to cache weapons offshore for security companies and ferry their guns and guards to vessels needing protection.

The shipping industry once regarded armed guards on vessels as too dangerous. But a spate of Somali pirate attacks several years ago changed that thinking. Every month now, thousands of weapons pass through the Indian Ocean and hundreds of security teams rotate on and off ships in the Gulf of Oman. A similar trade goes on in the Red Sea and off Sri Lanka. The international shipping industry spent around $1 billion on armed guards and equipment in the Indian Ocean in 2013, according to Oceans Beyond Piracy, a nonprofit group based in Colorado. Attacks in the high-risk area have fallen precipitously in the last two years. The last hijacking and ransom of a merchant vessel by Somali pirates was in 2012. So for now, the armory business is confined to the waters off Somalia—and useful only as long as the shipping industry remains fearful of attacks, crews held hostage or killed, and ransom demands. Mr. Gray says even the industry’s optimists wonder: “If there are no attacks for six months to a year, where is the industry going to be?”

Between a war and looting, Somalis linger in Mayfair

03 Feb – Source: Daily Maverick – 1, 032 Words

Somali traders have been hit hard by the recent xenophobic looting. Fleeing Soweto and other areas, many have landed in Mayfair, Johannesburg. GREG NICOLSON visits Princess Street, meeting those who fled war for a better life and who have now fled their places of refuge. They have no idea of what life holds next. Four beds, 10 stories without a next chapter. Two people sleep on each bed, with two on the floor. Nuur Abdi Shakuul sits in the Mayfair lodge, corner 8th and Princess Streets. Through the window, the sun hits jackets hung on hooks. Blankets have been folded at the head of each bed. A pair of jeans sit with the remaining mould of legs. The 10 Somalis cramped into the single bedroom have no more possessions.

Shakuul, wearing a lime green shirt, jeans and leather sandals, says his Atteridgeville store, BH Supermarket, was looted last week. They started with the big supermarket behind his store. Set it alight. He got a warning call and tried to lock up. But the mob was too many. They tore down the BH gate and Shakuul was kicked in chest, causing internal bleeding, he was told later at the hospital. “We asked them why are they doing this. The answer was, ‘We don’t want foreigners in our country.’”

“I’m broke now. A few days ago I was a boss,” says Shakuul, 37, from Somalia. The police arrived about an hour later – the looting was still continuing – and told Shakuul they can save him but not his shop. He has six children and now can’t provide for them. “This is not new, every year it’s there,” says Lubaan Hassan Ahmed, 27, who worked for Shakuul. Ahmed once had his own store near Lenasia. It was looted in 2012. Since then, after he lost everything, he has been an employee. Before setting up in Atteridgeville, Shakuul also had other stores. He was looted twice in Hammanskraal in 2013.

Dozens missing as migrant boat capsizes off Yemen

03 Feb – Source: Al-Jazeera English – 183 Words

At least 35 people are missing after a boat carrying migrants capsized in bad weather off the coast of Yemen. Officials said they had rescued 13 African migrants near the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Monday after a boat was overturned by strong currents and high waves. Eight Ethiopians and five Somalis, including a woman, have been saved, while the body of a Somali had been retrieved, General Saleh al-Sabbari told the official Saba news agency.

The boat was carrying 49 people, Sabbari added. Fleeing poverty and unrest at home, many African migrants, especially Ethiopians and Somalis, often slip into southern Yemen by boat before heading north towards the Saudi frontier. In December, Yemen said 70 migrants had died when their vessel capsized in bad weather near the same strait as Monday’s sinking.On May 31 last year, 60 migrants from Ethiopia and Somalia along with two Yemeni crew members drowned, according to the UN refugee agency.In the past five years, more than 500,000 people, mostly Eritreans, Ethiopians and Somalis, have reached Yemen following treacherous journeys on vessels that are often overloaded.

Kenya teachers strike fearing al-Shabab attacks

02 Feb – Source: BBC – 206 Words

About 700 teachers in Kenya are refusing to return to work in the north-east of the country fearing attacks by Somali Islamist militants. Last year, al-Shabab insurgents attacked a bus near the Somali border, killing more than 20 teachers travelling home for Christmas.The striking teachers have asked to be stationed to other safer areas.The education ministry said it would consider disciplinary action if they did not report for duty on Monday.

Hundreds of teachers have been holding demonstrations outside the education ministry in the capital, Nairobi, demanding a transfer to other schools.The counties affected by the strike are Garissa, Mandera and Wajir, where al-Shabab militants killed more than 100 people last year.The BBC’s Bashkas Jugsodaay in Garissa says the few teachers that are working have been forced to combine classes.Education officials say other areas of the country are fully staffed so the teachers cannot be redeployed. Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, stepped up its campaign of attacks in Kenya after the country sent troops across the border to help battle the insurgents in 2011. In one of the worst attacks on Kenyan soil, 67 people were killed in 2013 when four gunmen took over the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

“Al-Shabaab is now said to be on the decline curve if one is to go by the many interviews taken by the New York Times of former fighters. The reason for the decline is said to be the increasing defections along with sustained military pressure from forces under the African Union Mission.”

Al-Shabaab Emerging as dangerous jihadist organization in Africa

02 Feb – Source: Eurasia Review – 980 Words

Al-Shabaab, which is also known as “The Youth” or “Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen”, is emerging as a dangerous Jihadist organisation in Africa, posing a strategic challenge to the United States besides Somalia and its neighbours. It follows the ideology of global Jihadism and maintains links with Al-Qaeda. With other Jihadist groups, it is also focusing on establishing a governing apparatus to apply the Islamic law and meet out the “God’s justice”. In the country wrought with military dictatorship, civil war, regional fragmentation, famines and the rise of Islamist groups, Al-Shabaab has risen enormously in less than two years — from uncertainty to international notoriety. So far, Al-Shabaab has carried out nearly 550 terrorist attacks, killing more than 1,600 and wounding more than 2,100. The US has designated this group as Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Al-Shabaab’s operational reach covers the entire Horn of Africa while its strong-holds are in southern and central Somalia. Its cities like Mogadishu, Kismayo, Baidoa and Beledweyne have suffered the brunt of Al-Shabaab’s attacks. It has also been active in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Djibouti. According to a United Nations report, Al-Shabaab’s military strength is approximately 5,000 fighters…The US and the AMISOM have been trying to neutralise the activities of this deadly group and other militant organisations. The US military achieved a significant gain when it managed to kill Ahmed Abdi Godane, Al-Shabaab’s undisputed leader, through an air-strike on September 1 near the group’s stronghold in Barawe. Godane was one of the US state department’s most wanted men, and it had placed a bounty of $7m on his head. After his killing, Somalia’s President issued a statement on Friday urging militants to embrace peace.

Top tweets

@somtribune 50 years ago British officials feared Somalia could be a base for Subversion into East and Central Africa –…http://wp.me/p5sVvn-NE

@Goobjoognews #Somalia Littering Offenders in Hamarweyne will be arrested http://goobjoog.com/english/?p=9728

@DeeqAfrika #Somalia Signs its Participation for#ExpoMilano2015 http://www.expo2015.org/en/somalia-signs-its-participation-for-expo-milano-2015 & hopefully #DubaiExpo2020next.

@HarunMaruf ·#Somalia: The return of #basketball nights set to boost #Mogadishu nightlife.http://www.voasomali.com/archive/martida-makrafoonka/latest/3135/3135.html … #SBF #NBA

@ElmanPeaceHRC “I believe it is essential 4 women to organize & resist- to do it in a spirit of joy.” Fartuun on @Vday in #Somalia http://goo.gl/svwmrt

@BeilehMofa Met with Ambs of Serbia Ivan Zivkovic the importance to continue &strengthening the warm relations between #Somalia

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Image of the day

Image of the day Mogadishu nightlife gets huge boost from the return of basketball nights.

Photo: VOA Somali