November 3, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Islamist Al-Shabaab Ambushes Somali Military Trainees, Claims To Kill 30
02 November – Source: Reuters – 213 Words
Somali Islamists Al-Shabaab said they had ambushed a group of military trainees on Monday southwest of the capital Mogadishu and killed 30 of them, though the claim could not be independently confirmed.A Somali military officer confirmed the ambush but said fighting was still going on and that no death toll was immediately available.The ambush came a day after at least 13 people were killed after Al-Shabaab militants stormed a hotel in Mogadishu where government officials and lawmakers stay.
The militant group, which aims to topple the Western-backed Somali government, often cites different numbers of casualties after such attacks.The government is battling to rebuild the Horn of Africa nation after more than two decades of conflict. Al Shabaab ruled large parts of Somalia until 2011, when it was driven out of Mogadishu by African and Somali troops.”We understand Al-Shabaab ambushed the Somali military commando trainees and captured two military pickup trucks,” Ahmed Ibrahim, the military officer, told Reuters.”It is too early to know what the casualties are because fighting is still going on in the jungle,” he said.
Key Headlines
- Islamist Al-Shabaab Ambushes Somali Military Trainees Claims To Kill 30 (Reuters)
- Fierce Fighting Leaves 6 Dead Near Bulo-Burde Town In Hiiraan Region (Shabelle News)
- Puntland Soldier Kills Three Colleagues In Galgala Shooting (Garowe Online)
- Minister Eulogizes Fallen General As Hero Who Served His Country With Zeal Under Difficult Circumstances (Wacaal Media)
- World Bank-Backed Committee Urges Somalia To Cancel Fishing Deal (Bloomberg News)
- Seven Families Leave Ifo Camp Head To Somalia (The Star Kenya)
- Why Somaliland Is Not A Recognised State (The Economist)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Fierce Fighting Leaves 6 Dead Near Bulo-Burde Town In Hiiraan Region
02 November – Source: Shabelle News – 116 Words
Reports from Bulo-Burde town indicate that heavy fighting between members of the Somali Army and Al Shabaab militants has left at least 6 people dead. According to Bulo-Burde District Commissioner, Abdulaziz Durow, the confrontation occurred at Buurwayne village, located in the outskirts of Bulo-Burde town, after government troops attacked bases of the militants in the area. “Six members of Al-Shabaab group were killed and several others wounded in the attack,” said Mr Durow during a phone interview with Radio Shabelle. The Bulo-Burde administration official said the government troops in the region alongside the AMISOM forces will launch an offensive to eradicate Al-Shabaab militants in their remaining strongholds in Hiiraan region.
Puntland Soldier Kills Three Colleagues In Galgala Shooting
02 November – Source: Garowe Online – 101 Words
A Puntland government soldier shot at colleagues in Galgala area on Monday leaving three of them dead, Garowe Online reports. Security officials say investigations are underway after the soldier opened fire and instantly killing three soldiers for unknown reasons. The attacker was gunned down at the same scene for fear of further casualties. Investigations into the killings are ongoing in Bossaso Port City, where the four bodies were transferred to. The Puntland government has not publicly commented on the shooting. The northeastern state has been battling with Al-Shabaab militants in Galgala area and other hideouts along Golis Mountain Range.
Minister Eulogizes Fallen General As Hero Who Served His Country With Zeal Under Difficult Circumstances
03 November – Source: Wacaal Media – 162 Words
Fallen General and former army Commander, Abdikarim Yussuf Adan(Dhagabadan), has been hailed as a selfless patriot who served his country gallantly under difficult circumstances. Speaking at the funeral of the fallen General held in Heraale location, Norther Galgaduud, Somalia’s Defence Minister, Abdikadir Sheikh Ali Diini, said the former military boss was instrumental in early operations against Al-Shabaab, which saw them lose ground to government forces and AMISOM. “I would like to send my condolences to the family, friends and relatives of Gen. Dhagabadan, who sacrificed a lot of his time and effort in ensuring defeat of the blood thirsty terrorists,” said Gen. Diini. Pointing out that they served together in the army, the Minister added that he knew the fallen hero as a brave and brilliant officer. Prayers for the fallen General were held in Mogadishu before his body was flown to his birth place – Heraale in Galgaduud region where he was laid to rest on Mondayafternoon.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
World Bank-Backed Committee Urges Somalia To Cancel Fishing Deal
03 November – Source: Bloomberg News – 644 Words
A World Bank-backed committee criticized a deal in which a company partly owned by Saladin Security Ltd. was granted the rights to manage all aspects of Somalia’s fishing industry and said it should either be scrapped or renegotiated with reduced scope.Giving Mauritius-registered Somalia-Fishguard Ltd. responsibility to sell fisheries licenses and conserve the Horn of Africa’s fisheries resources is “a potential conflict of interest,” the Financial Governance Committee said in a report to donors.
The report was given to Bloomberg by an official who has knowledge of the discussions and was confirmed by a member of the committee. Both asked not to be identified because the document isn’t public yet.Somalia’s coastline is rich in fish species including yellowfin tuna, Spanish mackerel and lobsters that offer the country an opportunity to rebuild its war-shattered economy. Development of the industry is being hindered by illegal foreign fishing worth an estimated $306 million a year, according to a report published by the Colorado-based One Earth Future Foundation last month. Piracy that caused havoc to international shipping off Somalia over the past decade may return unless the illicit trade is curtailed, it said.
Somalia-Fishguard, run by former British army soldiers David Walker and Simon Falkner, hasn’t issued any fishing permits since it signed the deal with the government in July 2013. In that period, the government has granted an unspecified number of tuna-fishing licenses, mostly to Chinese companies, without involving Fishguard, according to the committee: “Although the Fishguard contract is effectively sidelined, uncertainty over Fishguard’s role and divided views on the contract within the government are interfering with the orderly development of Somalia’s fisheries sector,” the committee said. “The confidential assessment recommended either cancellation, or renegotiation of a contract with a much more limited scope.”
Seven Families Leave Ifo Camp, Head To Somalia
03 November – Source: The Star – 249 Words
Seven families from the Ifo Refugee Camp left for Mogadishu, Somalia, yesterday morning.Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery saw off the 41 Somalis at the Dadaab Airstrip. He was with Garissa Township MP Aden Duale, Northeastern regional coordinator Mohamud Saleh and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees officials. Refugee Yussuf Osman, who comes from Banader in Mogadishu, has been in the camps for 25 years.He said he is delighted to go back home after two-and-half decades.Osman, 35, arrived in the camp when he was 10 and studied there to become a teacher.He said it is time for them to join their folks and rebuild war-torn Somalia.“We are happy that there is relative peace in Somalia. And as the saying goes, east or west, home is best. I want to join the rest of Somali citizens in re-building our motherland,” Osman said.
He said lack of jobs for refugees and the dwindling support by UN agencies running the refugee camps prompted him to go back home. “We sued to receive food rations every month and life was bearable. But as we speak this ratio has reduced to once a month, which can barely sustain a family,” Osman said.He thanked UNHCR and the Kenya government for the support they have given refugees at their hour of need.“In as much as we have been treated well, living in a country as a refugee without other opportunities to empower yourself economically is a bit tricky,” Osman said.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“For as long as Somaliland’s “parent” nation remains the Horn of Africa’s primary security concern, the case for statehood will fall on deaf ears.”
Why Somaliland Is Not A Recognised State
01 November – Source: The Economist – 630 Words
Somaliland, a slim slice of Somali-inhabited territory on the southern shore of the Gulf of Aden, ticks almost all the boxes of statehood. It has its own currency, a reasonably effective bureaucracy and a trained army and police force. The government, located in the capital city of Hargeisa, maintains a respectable degree of control over its territory: the country is, by and large, peaceful, in stark contrast to Somalia to the south—where bombings and a rampage through a popular hotel in the capital killed at least 14 people at the weekend.
Somaliland enters into legal contracts (signing, for example, oil-exploration licences with foreign corporations), and it engages in diplomatic operations with the United Nations, the Arab League, the European Union and nations such as Britain, America, and Denmark. But it has yet to receive official recognition from a single foreign government in the years since it declared independence in 1991. To the outside world, it is an autonomous region of Somalia, subject to the Somali Federal Government (SFG) in Mogadishu. Why is it not a state?
Throughout the post-independence era, geopolitics in Africa has tended to respect “colonial borders”, ie the borders laid down by European colonial powers in the 19th century. Across the continent, there have been only two significant alterations to the colonial map since the 1960s: the division of Eritrea from Ethiopia, in 1993; and South Sudan from Sudan, in 2011. On the question of Somaliland, the African Union (AU), to whom the international community tends to defer on boundary issues, has stuck to its traditional line: to recognise Somiliand would be to open a Pandora’s box of separatist claims in the region.
Only with the consent of greater Somalia should Somaliland be granted independence, so the argument goes. But this, Somilalanders point out, is inconsistent: Somaliland, unlike Somalia, sticks to old colonial borders. It even has previous experience of statehood (prior to independence, the territory was administered as a separate British colony, and briefly enjoyed a five-day spell as a sovereign state). Formerly British Somaliland’s union with Italian Somaliland to its south, which brought about modern Somalia in 1960, was voluntary, they argue. Its independence should require merely divorce, not reinvention.
Although the AU itself admitted as much in 2005, Somaliland’s claim remains in limbo. The reason for this lies in and around Mogadishu. Somalia’s civil war has raged for two and a half decades, and despite the introduction of a new constitution in 2012, the SFG’s claim to territorial authority is precarious. Many fear that the apparent creation of a new state in the region, whose presence would almost certainly embolden Somalia’s other secessionist provinces (Puntland, Jubbaland and Hiiraanland), would lead to the balkanisation of Somalia along clan lines, while simultaneously reigniting old regional tensions (between Somalis and Ethiopians, for example).
TOP TWEETS
@africamedia_CPJ:Award-winning photographer Feisal Omar survived bomb attack on Sunday in #Somalia and, incredibly, back on the job..
@Daudoo:Clashes erupts in Qoqani village in Lower Jubba region, after #AlShabaab attack #KDF base last night, casualties unknown – Resident #Somalia
@AU_PSD:About 80% of residents of #Dadaab refugee camps are Women & Children, and 95% are from #Somalia.
@omabha:Seven families leave Ifo camp, head to Somalia – The Star http://dlvr.it/CdXQjL #Somalia
@hiiraan:#World Bank-Backed Committee Urges #Somalia to Cancel #Fishing Deal
http://www.hiiraan.com/news4/
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Somali women attend attend a public ceremony celebrating the 15th anniversary of the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security held in Mogadishu, Somalia, on October 28, 2015. UN Photo/ Omar Abdisalan