July 6, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Uneasy Calm Returns In Mahadaay And Jalalaqsi After Simultaneous Al-Shabaab Attacks
06 July – Source: Wacaal Media – 111 Words
Up to four militants were killed after Al-Shabaab attacked government and AMISOM bases in Mahadaay town of Lower Shabelle region. Officials told local media that they successfully repelled the attackers and the town was now fully under their control. The attack followed a similar one by the militants in Jalalaqsi town in Hiiraan region. However Djibouti forces who form part AMISOM in collaboration with government forces were equal to the task as they also successfully repulsed the militia in a gun battle that lasted for hours. Al-Shabaab has intensified attacks against the government and AMISOM especially in this holy month of Ramadan. The attacks prompted the latter to withdraw from several towns.
Key Headlines
- Uneasy Calm Returns In Mahadaay And Jalalaqsi After Simultaneous Al-Shabaab Attacks (Wacaal Media)
- Puntland President “General Muhyadin Should Surrender And Disarm” (Goobjoog News)
- Somalis Fleeing Yemen Arrive In Bossaso (Radio Ergo)
- The Somali Federal Government Forces Left Janale District Fear Of Terror (Sahal News)
- Interior Ministry Says Italian Company Would Train Somali Youth (Goobjoog News)
- Confirmed: Secret U.S. Bases In Somalia U.S. Boots On The Ground (The New American)
- Parents’ Agony As Two Students Join Al -Shabaab (Standard Digital)
- The President Of Britain’s Largest Muslim Student Group Has Died In A Drowning Incident (Buzzfeed)
- The Humanity Never Stops (RBC Radio)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Puntland President “General Muhyadin Should Surrender And Disarm”
06 July – Source: Goobjoog News – 162 Words
Puntland President, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gas has reportedly told a peace delegation set up to end standoff between authorities and renegade general that he would not accept any negotiation with General Muhyadin Ahmed Moose, and the only option for him is to surrender and disarm. The delegation met the president on returning from Qarhis location of Nugal region where the general with his loyalists are holed up in defensive positions, while Puntland army has surrounded him. On the other hand the general maintains that his mutiny has nothing to do with him fired by the president but is about unpaid salaries for 15 months. He accuses the president of jeopardizing the mediation efforts and refusing to settle the matter peacefully. Puntland has vowed to crack down any armed dissent with whatever cost, this worries the people as there are already other challenges facing the administration. Though the mediation efforts seem to be fruitless, elders are yet to exhaust all options for peaceful settlement.
Somalis Fleeing Yemen Arrive In Bossaso
06 July – Source: Radio Ergo – 276 Words
A ship carrying 3,500 Somalis fleeing the conflict in Yemen arrived in Bossaso on 2 July. Puntland officials said it was the largest single influx of returning refugees since the war started in Yemen. Puntland’s Deputy Minister of Interior, Abdullahi Hashi Qoobdeero, responsible for coordinating the reception and resettlement of the returning refugees, said a Somali businessman had chartered the cargo ship Nawal to bring the refugees home. Most were women and children.The new arrivals were taken to a camp set up for them. Some were injured or sick and most looked frail and tired, according to health officers. Dr Abdirahman Ali Abdirahman, a member of a health team providing medical assistance for the new arrivals, said four people with serious limb injuries were among the new arrivals. One of them, a young boy, had severe leg fractures, he said. Another six people were treated for diarrhoeal infection.
Ayan Abdi, a mother of five children, told Radio Ergo that one of her sons was killed on June 23 in a mortar attack in Basateen neighbourhood in Aden where she was living. She had made the decision after that to board the ship from Mukalla port. Halima Yonis, an injured mother, said she had not received any treatment for shrapnel injuries from a mortar that hit near her home about 20 days ago. Qoobdeero said most of the earlier refugee returnees from Yemen had been relocated to their original towns. Fifty people were still awaiting transport to their hometowns. He said they had tasked a committee to help these people to return home.
The Somali Federal Government Forces Left Janale District Fear Of Terror
06 July – Source: Sahal News – 140 Words
Reports from Janale district in Lower Shabelle region have confirmed that this morning and last night the Somali troops have gone out of the district. The last troops left Janale district this morning, and their base was empty . The Chairman of Janale, Abdikadir Sayid Ali said “that the purpose of exposure came when we heard that the ongoing attacks from Al-Shabaab,” and he also said that the military don’t have the training that they need in the war. The chairman added that they have hopes they will go back to Janale when the government sends the required things needed in the fight against Al-Shabaab.
Interior Ministry Says Italian Company Would Train Somali Youth
06 July – Source: Goobjoog News – 163 Words
Abdirishid Mohamed Hiddig, the State Minister for Interior and Federalism speaking at the signing ceremony of memorandum of understanding between Italian company called CEPO and Jubbaland Interim Administration has said that the company would also train thousands of youth in different parts of Somalia. The areas include Mogadishu and Baidao, where skills training will be used to create jobs for the youth so as to deter them from doing evil things like joining rebel groups who lure the youth with economic promises.“Jubbaland has the opportunity to be the first state to benefit from this program, but this would extend to different parts of the country” the minister has said. He urged the aid agencies associated with the New Deal aid pact to accommodate youth programs similar to this and implement things according to stated mission of the pact.The company would train some 3 thousand youth in Jubbaland in 6 months time, and was given a vacant land to build training centre in Kismayo.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Confirmed: Secret U.S. Bases In Somalia, U.S. Boots On The Ground
05 July – Source: The New American – 1,315 Words
The United States has a reported military presence in at least 150 countries. Indeed, it could be said that the sun never sets on the American empire. Some outposts of that empire are supposed to be kept secret, however, as they are operating in countries placed off limits by treaty or by U.S. law. Somalia is such a place, but that hasn’t stopped the U.S. Defense Department from setting up bases and deploying troops in that country. In an exclusive report, Foreign Policy exposed an expanding military presence in the war-torn east African nation — a presence that is paying dividends to those that have to sign off on the operations.”But the shadowy U.S. presence in this strategic port city [Kismayo] in war-torn southern Somalia has clear consequences for anyone with a share of power here. That includes Somali regional officials who are quick to praise American counterterrorism efforts, African Union forces who rely on U.S. intelligence as they battle back Al-Shabaab, and even the al Qaeda-linked militants themselves, who are increasingly hemmed in by a lethal combination of AU-led counterinsurgency, airstrikes, and raids by U.S. special operators,” the July 2 article claims.
For years, the Pentagon has claimed that drone attacks carried out in the region were launched from known bases in Djibouti, Kenya, or Ethiopia. The Foreign Policy piece proves that’s not always the case: Based out of a fortress of fading green Hesco barriers at the ramshackle airport in Kismayo, a team of special operators from the Joint Special Operations Command, the elite U.S. military organization famous for killing Osama bin Laden, flies drones and carries out other counterterrorism activities, multiple Somali government and African Union sources have confirmed. “They have a base over there,” Abdighani Abdi Jama, state minister for the presidency in the interim regional administration in Kismayo, said of U.S. forces, gesturing to a heavily fortified compound not far from the airport’s small terminal. He confirmed that as many as 40 U.S. military personnel are currently stationed in Kismayo, roughly 300 miles south of the capital of Mogadishu, where he said they operate drones from the airport’s single runway and carry out covert “intelligence” and “counterterrorism” operations.
Parents’ Agony As Two Students Join Al-Shabaab
05 July – Source – Standard Digital – 1,406 Words
Two university students, one of them the son of a senior government official, are believed to have abandoned their studies and joined the Al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia. Mahmoud Ahmed, a second year Bachelor of Science student at the University of Nairobi (UoN), and his cousin Mohamed Abdul swamed, a student at Moi University, have been missing since April 21. Mahmoud is a son of Dr Yassin Ahmed, a director of the National Museums of Kenya. Dr Ahmed is also a former member of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC). He becomes the first high-profile government official to lose a child to the terror group that is feared to be on a recruiting spree in institutions of higher learning.The two students left in abruptly after sitting their examinations and selling their laptops. They are believed to have been picked up by Al-Shabaab recruiters in the city the same day. Police investigations suggest the duo left on short notice, presumably on directions of a third party, as they left with their wet clothes from the campus laundry lines. The families of the two have so far reported to the authorities on the missing students who according to the police have been traced to Somalia. Dr Yassin declined to comment further on the issue, saying it is now under active police investigations. “Let us not discuss it please. It is a matter in the hands of police,” he said. The development came as the Director of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NTTC), Isaac Ochieng, revealed that students in institutions of higher learning are being recruited into violent Islamic fundamentalism at an alarming rate.
“We have intelligence that there are students within this university who are on the payroll of Al-Shabaab. It is very sad,” he said on Monday at UoN during a presentation on countering violent extremism. Mr Ochieng said NTTC has names of students who have been radicalised and are enjoying salaries from Al-Shabaab and other militia groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda. “There is increased recruitment, training and indoctrination of the youth into terrorism cells. These terror groups are now targeting brilliant youths to recruit,” he said. Police sources said that there are 11 known Kenyan university students who have joined the terror group. “We suspect that there are many more we do not know about,” said a source at the Flying Squad who sought anonymity. He said the 11 students whom they have tracked to Somalia come from Mount Kenya University, UoN, Moi University and Kenyatta University. The disappearance of Mahmoud and Abdulswamed came a few weeks after the April 2 attack by Al-Shabaab militants at Garissa University College (GUC) in which 148 people were killed. The country was left in further shock when it was revealed that the leader of the gang that raided the university was a young promising lawyer from Mandera. Abdirahim Mohamed Abdulahi, the son of a chief in Mandera, forsook a promising career in favour of the blinkered world of international terrorism.The attack at GUC came just three days after police arrested in El Wak three university female students from Kenya and Tanzania. The three were on their way to join the terror group. These examples highlight the intensity with which Al-Shabaab is recruiting from the brightest and the most-privileged in society.
The President Of Britain’s Largest Muslim Student Group Has Died In A Drowning Incident
05 July – Source: Buzzfeed – 249 Words
The president of the UK’s largest Muslim student group passed away on Saturday as a result of a drowning incident in Switzerland.Bashir Osman, 25, was the president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), the national umbrella organisation for the UK’s university and college Islamic societies.The organisation, formed in 1963, purports to represent more than 115,000 Muslim students across the UK. Osman, originally from the Netherlands and was a former student at the University of Warwick, before becoming president of FOSIS in 2014. Though little is known about his death, Osman had reportedly drowned in a river in the Landquart District of Graubünden, Switzerland, after a boat he was traveling in capsized. In a statement released by the FOSIS National Executive Comittee, a spokesperson said:On Saturday 4th July, whilst away in Switzerland visiting colleagues from the Federation of Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO), Bashir passed away in a drowning incident having fallen under rough waters for over 10 minutes. By the time the rescue services found him, he was pronounced dead at the scene. His passing in the blessed month of Ramadan and whilst drowning, one of the categories of martyrdom in Islam, are sources of comfort for all those who held Bashir dear to them. Bashir’s leadership, compassion, and commitment to serving his community and those less fortunate than him were inspiring traits that make his death such a grave and heartfelt loss to us all.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“In brief, Somalia could be rebuilt and reconciled if Somalis take their individual responsibility,help their weakest people and stand for social affairs instead of pursuing a policy based on material gain which might bring another dispute across the country.”
The Humanity Never Stops
04 July – Source: RBC Radio – 481 Words
These days most people seek power,wealth or fame in this world and they rarely remember other humans who are less fortunate than theirs. For instance,in Somalia some people are only involved in politics based on material aspects where thousands of Somalis still live in pain and sufferers from their disability.What made me to write about the disabled people in Somalia is when I watched and heard their voices of pleading an urgent assistance for Somalis living abroad. Nevertheless,the matter is not only wealthiness and poverty it is a matter of feeling humanity which our Islamic religion had obligated us and whatever you support them can help them.They are in a terrible condition because they live in a country whose ministry of health is not functioning well;they lack some necessary facilitıes such as wheelchairs,and they walk on their buttocks and a pair of shoes on their hands. Shoes immediately wear out and they do not have spare shoes or even clothes.Including people with dısability children and women and they are the weakest people in Somalia!
On the other hand,There are poor people who do not depend on anyone.They go home with empty hands,one day they are a breadwinner and one day they miss the whole meals.They want to fast and practice one of their Islamic pillar, Ramadan as other Muslims do, but they cannot receive a meal for Iftar. They keep on calling for an urgent aid. In addition, all Somalis are not equal according to this issue, some have already took their individual responsibility and supported people with disability, poverty and in a serious health condition. In my opinion, if we continue to provide assistance our weakest people in Somalia, it might become the most prosperous and peaceful country throughout the world. Justice and peace cannot stand its feet without taking care of every minority clan, poor, disabled, orphan, widow and divorced Somali. However, countries train people with disability and put them in a good position after providing education and training while we Somalis cannot provide our needy ones home even the basic needs for life. People with disability in Somalia face so many problems such as wrong concept from Somali community.
TOP TWEETS
@HSNQ_NISA: Contrary to reports, the VBIED explosion in#Mogadishu Hamarweyne district earlier today did NOT target nor killed #NISA officer.
@4DialogSK: One of the reasons why I still believe #Somaliahas a chance. https://www.youtube.
@daudedosman : There’re two kinds of patriots in #Somalia;1st of July patriots & govt reform patriots.To pay our soldiers is the highest form of patriotism
@Hamza_Africa : BREAKING: #Somali troops withdraw from Wanlaweyn after reports of imminent #AlShabaab attack. Al Shabaab now in control of town. #Somalia
@amisomsomalia :AMISOM, in partnership with the Community Development Centre, on Sunday evening distributed foodstuffs to communities in Mogadishu. #Somalia
@SalahOsman0 :Good Morning From #Mogadishu In some parts of Mogadishu it is raining while the other is sunny.#Somalia
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Somali National Army and AMISOM military leadership held a joint meeting on 3rd July 2015 at AMISOM Force Headquarters. The meeting was held to review targets set against the challenges and successes achieved, but also to set future benchmarks. The forum is used to exchange information and ideas that helps in the effective management of security.
Photo: AMISOM