April 10, 2015 | Morning Headlines.

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Somali Government Puts Bounties On Top Al Shabaab Leaders

09 April – Source: Somali Current – 225 Words

The Somali government released the names of 11 top Al Shabaab commanders on Thursday and put a million dollar bounty on their heads, with Al Shabaab leader Ahmed Diriye aka Abu Ubeyda topping the list. A total of $1.3 million could be paid out for information leading to the capture of all the men named, all of whom are members Al Shabaab.

The list includes Ahmed Godane’s successor and current Al Shabaab leader Ahmed Diriye aka Abu Ubeyda for whom the largest reward of up to $250,000 is offered; $150,000 as been offered for Mahad Warsame Qaley aka Mahad Karate; and up to 1$00,000 is also offered for each of their associates including Ali Mohamed aka Ali Dheere, Abdullahi Abdi Jamaale aka Daud Suheyb, Mohamed Mohamud Nur aka Sudan, Ali Mohamed Hussein aka Ali Jesto, Hassan Mohamed Ali aka Afgooye, Abdullahi Osman, Mohamed Abdi Musa aka Habiil, Mohamed Kuno aka Gamadheere, and Yasin Osman aka Kilwa.

The list the Somali government released on Thursday is different from the one released by the United States in 2012. In 2012 the US has put $33 million in bounties on top Al Shabaab commanders including slain Al Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane. Thursday’sannouncement is expected to increase already growing pressure on Al Shabaab as the group continues losing key towns in central and southern Somalia.

Key Headlines

Somali Government Puts Bounties On Top Al Shabaab Leaders (Somali Current)
After Closure Somali Remittance Companies Scramble To Address Concerns (Hiiraan Online)
Former Somalia Premier Warns That Somalia’s Regional Governments Are Dominating The National Government (Somali Current)
Ex-Puntland President’s Wife Honoured With State Funeral (Garowe Online)
Somalia’s Finance Minister Holds Discussion With His Colleagues From Several Arab Countries (Wacaal Media)
Puntland Appeals For Support Following Influx Of Yemeni Immigrants (Radio Danan)
Eastleigh Business Community Up In Arms Over Closure Of Hawalas (K24)
Terror-Linked Somali Forex Bureaus Closed – Update (The Star Kenya)
Minnesota High School Senior Accepted To All 8 Ivy League Schools (My Fox/Twin Cities)
After Al-Shabaab’s Garissa Massacre Local Kenyan Schools Fear They’re Next (CNN)
Somalia’s Promised But Problematic National Elections (International Crisis Group)
Kenya Struggles Over Best Response To University Attack (The New York Times)

SOMALI MEDIA

After Closure, Somali Remittance Companies Scramble To Address Concerns

09 April – Source: Hiiraan Online – 281 Words

One day after the Kenyan government ordered the closure of 13 Somali remittance companies it suspected of funding terrorism, the companies affected by the decision held a large meeting aimed at pushing a court appeal against the government’s decision. The Kenyan government imposed the rule two days after a deadly university siege in which at least 147 people, mostly students, were killed. At their meeting on Wednesday, the Somali business community expressed optimism that the government would repeal its decision, which they termed as ‘unfair’. “We shall probably resume our operations after a week – the government wants to ensure the flow the hawala money and their exact destinations for now,” Mohamed Hassan, the General Secretary for Somali Remittances Associated in Kenya told Hiiraan Online.

Somali remittance companies deliver hundreds of millions into the horn of Africa each month, including funds for aid agencies supporting the poverty-stricken people, filling the gaps in the absence of a formal banking system. As part of its anti-terrorism crackdown, the Kenyan government also closed the accounts of 86 individuals, organizations, hotels and companies it accused of being involved in terrorism activities. The killing of 148 students by Al-Shabab in Garissa, approximately 120 miles from the Kenya-Somalia border, has piled pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta to deal with the fighters who have killed more than 400 people in Kenya in the last two years, according to Al Jazeera. Kenya’s Foreign Minister, Amina Mohamed, told Reuters on Tuesday that Kenya is seeking additional foreign intelligence and security help after the Garissa massacre, the deadliest attack in Kenya since Al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in 1998, killing more than 200 people.

Former Somalia Premier Warns That Somalia’s Regional Governments Are Dominating The National Government

09 April – Source: Somali Current – 136 Words
Former Somali premier Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo has warned that Somalia’s regional governments are dominating the central government, saying it may cause disunity in the country. “Federalism doesn’t mean central government is weak; federalism is where the central government rules, and the regional states follow. Federalism [in Somalia] should be like the ones in the US, Ethiopia and Canada,” Farmajo said. The former premier also warned against foreign countries, especially neighboring countries, interfering in the formation of regional governments in Somalia. Neighboring countries have been accused of supporting Somali regional governments with mission to sabotage Somalia’s central government. Farmajo has been vocal against neighboring countries, accusing them of pushing their own political agenda, and lacking sincerity in bringing peace in the war torn nation. Meanwhile, the Somali government faces an uphill task in the effort to implement federalism in the country with many clans preferring to have their own administrations.

Ex-Puntland President’s Wife Honoured With State Funeral

09 April – Source: Garowe Online – 120 Words

The President Puntland Dr. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Vice President Abdihakin Abdullahi Haji Omar, former vice president Gen. Abdisamad Ali Shire, cabinet ministers, parliamentarians led by Speaker Saed Hassan Shire, and traditional leaders attended a funeral held for Amino Abib, the wife of the former Puntland president on Thursday afternoon, Garowe Online reports. The late Abib passed away in the state capital of Garowe on Thursday morning according to relatives. Somalia’s Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke extended his condolences to former Puntland President Dr. Abdirahman Farole over the death of his wife. Condolences were also expressed by President Ali who wished Abib’s families comfort and patience. Moreover, Somali diplomats and politicians have also condoled with Farole.

Somalia’s Finance Minister Holds Discussion With His Colleagues From Several Arab Countries

09 April – Source: Wacaal Media – 208 Words

Finance Minister Mr. Mohamed Adan Ibarhim (Farkeeti) who is in Kuwait to attend the annual Arab League Finance Ministers Conference has held side meetings with his counterparts from several Arab countries. The parties discussed how to strengthen ties between their countries and how the Arab countries could fulfil their financial pledges to Somalia.
Most of the pledges made have yet to reach the federal government sources indicate. Kuwait’s foreign minister assured Somalia that his country will honor its pledges, saying Somalia deserves to be assisted as a fellow member of the Arab League. Mr. Mohamed Adan Ibrahim will attend an event hosted by the Somali Embassy to award a Somali boy a certificate for placing first in a Quran competition held in Kuwait on Thursday. The competition brought together more than 60 countries and the winner was Somali student Abdirizak Abdullahi. His win has excited Somali officials in Kuwait attending the conference and members of the Somali diplomatic mission of Somalia.

Puntland Appeals For Support Following Influx Of Yemeni Immigrants

09 April – Source: Radio Danan- 155 Words

Puntland has appealed for international support for hundreds of refugees fleeing Yemen and arriving in the region. Thousands of civilians have been fleeing Yemen following clashes between Yemen’s Houthi-led Shia insurgents and the Saudi-backed government troops, according to a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) official.“We are sending an urgent humanitarian appeal to assist the desperate
refugees fleeing Yemen and coming here by sea,” said Ahmed Eli, Puntland’s interior minister. He warned that the situation risks turning into a “humanitarian crisis.” The arrival of the Yemenis is in stark contrast to the usual flight to Yemen of hundreds of Somalis escaping violence and poverty at home. Yemen hosts more than 238,000 Somali refugees, according to UNHCR. Concerns have also been raised in Somalia over a potential backlash against Somali refugees in Yemen after the Somali government granted its airspace for the Saudi-led air strikes against the Houthi fighters in Yemen.

REGIONAL MEDIA

Eastleigh Business Community Up In Arms Over Closure Of Hawalas

09 April – Source: K24 – 63 Words – Video 02:08 Minutes

The Eastleigh business community has protested the closure of 13 informal money transfer outlets in a government crackdown on suspected funding conduits for the Somalia-based Al Shabaab terror group. The protest was raised as the Kenya Forex Bureaus association also questioned the government’s move to suspend the licenses of 13 hawalas whose operations had been approved by the Central Bank of Kenya.

Terror-Linked Somali Forex Bureaus Closed – Update

09 April – Source: The Star Kenya – 450 Words

The government has ordered the immediate closure of the bank accounts of 85 entities and individuals suspected of financing terrorism. Those affected include 13 informal money transfer systems (Hawala), individuals and businesses whose assets are also frozen in the government’s latest purge on terrorism. The Central Bank of Kenya has withdrawn their operating licenses with immediate effect. The move has stunned many players in the financial sector and also seen the immediate suspension of many foreign exchange bureaus based mainly in Nairobi and Mombasa. Sources told the Star that Kenya may well have acted on intelligence briefs by the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The Hawalas affected include Amal Express Money Transfer, Amana Money Transfer Limited, Bakaal Express Money Transfer Ltd., Continental Money Transfer Ltd., Dahabshill Money Transfer Ltd., and Flex Money Transfer Ltd. Also suspended are Hodan Global Money Remittance and Exchange Ltd., Iftin Express Money Transfer Ltd., Juba Express Money Transfer Ltd., Kaah Express Money Transfer Ltd., Kendy Money Transfer Ltd., Tawakal Money Transfer Ltd., and UAE Exchange Money Remittance Ltd. These firms also have branches across the country.

Also on the list are bus companies that ply the Nairobi-Garissa-Wajir route, including E-Coach Company Ltd., City To City Services Ltd., Sabrin Bus Services Ltd., and G-Coach. An internationally acclaimed Somali scholar, Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Umal, has also seen his account frozen. Ironically, Sheikh Umal was identified by the National Intelligence Service last year in a leaked report as a moderate Imam targeted by al Shabaab death squads for his anti-radicalisation sermons. Also on the list are vocal Mombasa-based Muslim human rights organisations such as Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri) and Haki Africa. Yesterday, hundreds of customers thronged the Hawala offices in Eastleigh and in the city centre, but were shocked when they found them closed and shuttered. “This is to inform all our esteemed customers that we are closed for business until further notice. This is in accordance with instructions from our regulator, the Central Bank of Kenya,” read one notice by Dahabshill, one of the leading hawalas in the world. Haki Africa Executive Director Hussein Khalid said they were shocked by the government’s move. “This is unbelievable. All our accounts and transactions are open for scrutiny and we are surprised with the move,” said Khalid. He said they were unaware they were being investigated for any wrongdoing.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Minnesota High School Senior Accepted To All 8 Ivy League Schools

08 April – Source: My Fox/Twin Cities – 480 Words

Minnesota high school student has achieved the rare honor of being accepted by all 8 Ivy League schools, plus more highly accredited colleges.“I was very surprised,” Munira Khalif, senior at Mounds Park Academy, said. “The best part for me was being able to call family members on the phone and to hear their excitement. This was truly a blessing from God.” The 8 Ivy League schools are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Yale University. In addition, Khalif was accepted to Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Minnesota. “I am humbled to even have the opportunity to choose amongst these schools because they are all incredible places to learn and grow,” Khalif said.

“My parents are both Somali immigrants — The thing is, when you come here as an immigrant, you’re hoping to have opportunities not only for yourself, but for your kids. And that’s always been at the back of my mind.” Khalif said she has yet to decide which school to attend, and plans to make a few more campus visits before making her final decision by May 1. Perhaps she will bump into Harold Ekeh of New York, who was also accepted to all 8 Ivy League schools earlier this week. Extracurricular excellence In addition to her exceptional academic record and vigorous class workload, Khalif is a state speech champion and founder and leader of MPA’s Social Consciousness Club. “Munira has thrived in MPA’s rigorous educational environment, where we challenge students to be intellectually curious and confident communicators,” Randy Comfort, MPA’s upper school director, said. “She already is making a difference in communities across the globe, and I know she is ready to embrace the challenges that arise in our constantly changing world.”

After Al-Shabaab’s Garissa Massacre, Local Kenyan Schools Fear They’re Next

08 April – Source: CNN – 466 Words

The sign painted onto the school entrance wall reads: “Youth is a mistake, adulthood is a struggle, old age is a regret.” The black humor of the message provides some light relief for a school that lives in constant fear of a terrorist attack because of what is taught inside its walls. The students (aged 8 to 14) at the Ibnu-Siina school in northern Kenya are getting a so-called “Western” education, taking lessons in subjects like mathematics, science and English. But it’s an education that Al-Shabaab — the Somali-based terror group — is trying to prevent the children from obtaining, according to the head of the school. “These men, Al-Shabaab, want to make sure everything goes negative,” headmaster James Ndonye told CNN. “They want to make sure they terrify the teachers so they go to their homes — so the kids in this area don’t get what they deserve.”Terror after university massacre Al-Shabaab militants have launched a series of deadly attacks over the last few years in the region mostly targeting Christians. Many of the math and science teachers in this area are Christian.

In early April, Al-Shabaab brutally massacred 147 people at Garissa University in northern Kenya. It was the group’s deadliest attack to date. The gunmen would have driven down the road past the Ibnu-Siina school — and its single unarmed guard — to get to the university, only a few hundred meters away.Kenyan teachers and students alike are terrified. “The University College of Garissa was the only and first university college in northern Kenya. We were happy when we got it a few years ago,” explained Garissa Regional Governor Nadif Jama. “Today it has been closed. That is Al-Shabaab’s mission,” Jama said. “That is what they want. And that is nothing but destroying the fabric of our being a civilized society.” A regional problem And it’s not just in Kenya. Terrorist groups across the Sahel region are waging war on schools, teachers and students.

In northeast Nigeria, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram has been waging war against the government — and the civilian population — for several years.
Most notoriously, perhaps, was Boko Haram’s kidnapping of around 270 girls from a boarding school in Chibok, Borno state, last April. But the group has also carried out numerous other attacks on schools, slaughtering young boys and girls as they sleep in their dormitories. Last year in Garissa, James Ndonye lost five of his 11 teachers amid rising fears of an Al-Shabaab attack on the school. He replaced them, but it wasn’t easy. Yet despite the ever-present threat of terror, Ndonye has stayed to help the children. “I risk my life because — for this class, there’s a target we have for last year … and I love that class very much,” Ndonye said.

SOCIAL MEDIA

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

“The principle of keeping to a 2016 deadline for the current government and parliament is a good one. Continuing to suspend disbelief for another six months that a national, one man one vote, parliamentary and presidential election is feasible by 2016 is less sensible. The sooner the options are brought to the table, discussed and agreed upon, the better the chances for a more representative, transparent and acceptable process.”

Somalia’s Promised But Problematic National Elections

09 April – Source: International Crisis Group – 848 Words

At the “Vision 2016” National Conference in September 2013, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud committed to deliver a nationwide “one man, one vote” election by August 2016 (also sealed in the New Deal Somali Compact with Somalia’s international donors). It was a big promise made back in the heady days of late 2012, in the wake of the new “post-transitional” Somali Federal Government (SFG), and was unrealistic even then. Since then, and despite relentlessly upbeat messages and some advances in other sectors, the SFG and its institutions, especially Parliament, have made little real progress on key electoral preparations. The electoral commission is only now being selected, though there is no clarity as yet about how voters will be identified and registered, or how or even whether the promised (and legally necessary) constitutional referendum will be held before national elections. Despite these clear obstacles, the strict policy line – that elections will occur in August 2016 – remains intact. There are good reasons for sticking to this, not least to emphasise the continued progression from the decade-plus “transition” that finally ended in August 2012. Western donors also argue that a missed 2016 deadline for elections may jeopardise the hard-won international (re-) commitment to Somalia.

An all-out push for elections in 2016 will inevitably distract from other, more important, processes. Foremost among them is the need to consolidate security gains against Al-Shabaab outside of Mogadishu, primarily by establishing interim federal administrations (IFAs) charged with governing Somalia’s fractious regions. To implement these local governance arrangements, reconciliation processes within the new IFAs as well as the politically tricky technical demarcation of new and contested boundaries between them need attention. Instead, because of the proximity of the elections, these local processes are being used by political elites as platforms for bids for national (potentially more lucrative) power. Moreover, any electoral process seen as unacceptable to either the federal government or the proposed federal member states (the current IFAs) could widen existing fissures, mostly based on the degree of political autonomy and flow of resources, between the two.

“The Somalia mission is far from popular. Many Kenyans are now wondering how their country, an oasis of prosperity and development in East Africa, has become so tangled up in one of the world’s most troubled places. Mr. Odinga said that Kenya’s continued involvement in Somalia was “counterproductive” to national security and that all troops should return home at the earliest opportunity to protect Kenya’s borders. Mr. Esipisu scoffed at that. “What?” he said. “Have you ever made a pact with terrorists? They’ll laugh you out of town.”

Kenya Struggles Over Best Response To University Attack

08 April – Source: The New York Times -1,014 Words

Opposition leaders demanded Wednesday that Kenya pull its troops out of Somalia as soon as possible and accused the president of trying to emasculate the judiciary, one of Kenya’s few public institutions that are not considered hopelessly corrupt, in the wake of a terrorist attack last week that killed 142 students. Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, is hastily trying to tighten security across the country and has called for 10,000 police recruits to report for duty, in clear defiance of a court order last year that found the recruitment process so riddled with corruption that it had to be started afresh. Kenya is clearly struggling with how to respond to the gruesome attack carried out by a handful of militants from the Shabab Islamist group, based in Somalia. Government officials said Wednesday that the police had discovered a man hiding among the dead bodies who might have been an additional attacker. The Kenyan authorities initially said that four gunmen had killed the students at a university on Kenya’s eastern frontier and that all the gunmen were killed by Kenyan commandos at the end of a protracted siege.

But on Wednesday, two officials who said they were not allowed to publicly discuss a continuing investigation said that no students at the university recognized a man who emerged from the corpses. The police arrested the man, a Tanzanian, shortly after the killings, and he remains in custody. Kenya has also moved against dozens of businesses and organizations that it believes are connected to the Shabab. On Wednesday, the government froze scores of bank accounts, including some used by nonprofit organizations that promote human rights. The government also shut down Somali money transfer agents operating out of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Millions of Somalis depend on money transfers, since Somalia’s banking system, like much of the country, lies in ruins after more than 20 years of civil war. Intellectuals and opposition figures are increasingly concerned that Mr. Kenyatta is using the massacre at the university as a pretext to consolidate control. Each day, more organizations are coming forward to criticize his directive to mobilize the 10,000 police recruits who the courts had ruled were improperly hired.