January 18, 2016 | Morning Headlines
KDF Soldiers Injured In Somalia Ambush Arrive In Nairobi, As Kenya Pursues Al Shabaab
17 January – Source: The Star – 487 Words
Several Kenyan soldiers injured in an al Shabaab attack on an African Union base in El Adde, Somalia were flown to the country on Sunday. Four of the Kenya Defence Forces soldiers were received at Wilson Airport in Nairobi following the attack whose number of casualties is yet to be released.
In a statement at the airport on Sunday, Defence CS Raychelle Omamo said other soldiers were earlier flown in via Moi Air Base. Details will be sent directly to families, Omamo said, adding: “Allow the families privacy as they mourn. Full details of those injured and killed will be made public after families affected are notified. The soldiers who were airlifted were critically injured. Be patient, information will be availed to you. We are determined to bring our soldiers home.”
The KDF will set up counselling centres in Eldoret, Gilgil and at the Armed Forces Memorial Hospital in Nairobi. The soldiers were airlifted for specialised treatment, Interior CS Joseph Nkaissery said in Mombasa, adding the number of casualties will be released soon. Nkaissery said al Shabaab suffered the higher number of victims during the siege on Fridaythat lasted more than 12 hours.
“They lost more than we did. Let’s not pre–empt the outcome of the attack. A statement will be released soon,” he said. Al Shabaab claimed on Sunday that it had captured some Kenyan soldiers during the attack butdid not say how many. It also raised its number of slain soldiers from 63 to 100. The CS said more KDF troops, alongside others serving under Amisom, will be deployed to the camp, about 550 km west of Mogadishu.
He said Amisom troops were combing the area for militants behind the ambush, which has been described as the worst against the KDF since their incursion into Somalia in 2011. Nkaissery said Kenyan troops are winning the war against Al Shabaab in Somalia. He said they have set up elaborate strategies against the terror group, which he said has lost its strongholds.
Key Headlines
- KDF Soldiers Injured In Somalia Ambush Arrive In Nairobi As Kenya Pursues Al Shabaab (The Star)
- International Community Pressurizes Somalia Political Leaders Into Deal (Garowe Online)
- Ahead Of Elections Somaliland Starts Voter-Registration (Hiiraan Online)
- 60 Migrants Among Them Somalis Arrested (Somali Current)
- Somali Islamist Rebels Say They Captured Kenyan Troops On Friday (Reuters)
- Saudi Arabia Condemns Terrorist Acts In Burkina Faso And Somalia (WAM Emirates News Agency)
- Somalia Received Saudi Aid The Day It Cut Ties With Iran: Document (Reuters)
- Prison Term For Duo (The Fiji Times)
- Somalia’s New Media Laws Could Decimate The Country’s Local Reporting (Newsy Online)
NATIONAL MEDIA
International Community Pressurizes Somalia Political Leaders Into Deal
17 January – Source: Garowe Online – 187 Words
The International community is mounting pressure on Somali political leaders who are engaged in dispute after the Kismayo talks failed to yield a major breakthrough for viable electoral transition later this year. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who had planned to leave for Mogadishu on Saturday rescinded the decision, with foreign diplomats and Intergovernmental Authority on Development envoys urging him to fix the the political deadlock.
On Saturday, talks came to a halt after Puntland and Jubaland refused to agree to controversial traditional 4.5 power sharing formula–a blueprint strongly backed by the national government and the regional governments of Galmudug and Southwest State. The stalemate completely paralysed discussions at the southern port city of Kismayo. Somalia’s development partners, who are financially supporting the transition process, want a deal reached on the electoral model ahead of the polls later in the year.
Political pundits say the Somali President did not bargain with other political leaders for his strong desire for 4.5 quota in the course of the Kismayo forum. Somalia Federal Government is seen to be responsible for recent Mogadishu meetings that voiced opposition to transition into district-based model.
Ahead Of Elections, Somaliland Starts Voter-Registration
17 January – Source: Hiiraan Online – 230 Words
The breakaway northern Somalia region of Somaliland has officially began to register voters ahead of presidential elections in the region. Somaliland has announced it will hold presidential elections this year amid political uncertainty over the current president’s controversial term extension, which sparked protests and counter-accusations by the government and opposition parties.
Togdher region became the first place to register voters as materials have been distributed to voting 163 centres in the region. Opposition parties have also deployed representatives at the voter registration centres. The electoral commission announced that only persons above the age of 16 will be registered to vote.
The region now heads into the final months of an election season, which would see the ruling party contesting against coalition of opposition parties. Opposition parties have endorsed the process, urging the electoral commission to assist the government in facilitating the electoral process. President Ahmed Silanyo had earlier declared Togdheer region as the launching point for the voter registration process. This is despite challenges facing the region, which was recently faced with drought and water shortage.
60 Migrants Among Them Somalis Arrested
17 January – Source: Somali Current – 125 Words
Romania border police have arrested at least 60 migrants while attempting to enter the European country without valid papers. Romanian border authorities say they stopped the migrants, who were suspected of trying to enter illegally across Romania’s southwest border from Serbia.Roxana Costache. The Romanian police spokesman said on Saturday that the migrants were men aged between the age range of 20 to 40 and came from Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Morocco.
“Border police detected the men early Saturday, using heat-sensor equipment,” he said. The Romanian authorities took the men to a border police station in the town of Jimbolia for questioning, he added. Last year at the height of the refugee influx to Europe, many migrants used Romania to cross over to West Europe.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Islamist Rebels Say They Captured Kenyan Troops On Friday
17 January – Source: Reuters – 407 Words
Somalia’s Al Shabaab Islamist group said on Sunday it had captured some Kenyan soldiers during an attack last week on a military base in the west of Somalia near the Kenyan border. The group, which did not say how many soldiers were held after Friday’s assault, also said in a statement that more than 100 Kenyan soldiers were killed, revising up the number from the more than the 63 dead it had previously claimed.
There was no immediate comment from the Kenyan military or AMISOM, the African Union force in which the Kenyans serve. Both have offered limited information about the attack. A Kenyan official said on Sunday the army would issue a statement without saying when. Al Shabaab often cites vastly higher figures than those given by officials. There was no independent death toll.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Friday that “some of our patriots in uniform” were killed. Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said on Saturday the wounded were being evacuated to Nairobi for treatment and bodies of those killed would be brought home. Neither gave figures: “Mujahideen fighters … stormed the Kenyan base in the early hours of Friday morning, killing more than 100 Kenyan invaders, seizing their weapons and military vehicles and even capturing Kenyan soldiers alive,” Al Shabaab said.
AMISOM and Kenyan forces had said Al Shabaab attacked a Somali National Army base and AMISOM forces counter-attacked. AMISOM and the Somali army launched a joint offensive last year that has driven Al Shabaab from its major strongholds. Al Shabaab said the attack was in retaliation for the Kenyan “invasion of Muslim lands” and what it said was the army’s “persecution of innocent Muslims” inside Kenya, a reference to the government’s pursuit of suspected militants in the country.
Saudi Arabia Condemns Terrorist Acts In Burkina Faso And Somalia
17 January – Source: WAM Emirates News Agency- 88 Words
An official source at the Saudi Foreign Ministry has expressed the kingdom’s condemnation of terrorist attacks that targeted the African Union mission in Somalia, and a hotel in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, resulting in a number of deaths and injuries. The Saudi Press Agency, SPA, quoted the source as saying that the kingdom extended its sincere condolences to the families of the victims of the bombings and confirms the firm position of the kingdom against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and whatever its source.
Somalia Received Saudi Aid The Day It Cut Ties With Iran: Document
17 January – Source: Reuters – 455 Words
Somalia received a pledge of aid for $50 million from Saudi Arabia this month on the same day it announced it was cutting ties with Saudi rival Iran, a document seen by Reuters showed. The government, which did not confirm or deny the pledge, has said there was no link between long-running Saudi financial support and its diplomatic decision to break ties with Iran. The Saudi Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
But diplomats said it was the latest sign of patronage used by the kingdom to shore up regional support against Iran, a rivalry that deepened this month when Sunni majority Saudi Arabia executed a Shi’ite cleric and Iranian protesters responded by torching the Saudi embassy in Tehran: “The Saudis currently manage to rally countries behind them both on financial grounds and the argument of non-interference,” a diplomat said, referring to what Sunni-majority countries see as Iran’s habit of cultivating ties to their Shi’ite minorities.
A document from the Saudi embassy in Nairobi to the Somali embassy in the Kenyan capital showed the kingdom pledging $20 million in budget support and another $30 million for investment in Somalia, a nation trying to rebuild after two decades of war. The two grants would come from the Saudi Development Fund, according to the document that was dated Jan. 7, the same day Somalia cut ties with Tehran.
Somalia cut relations with Iran saying Tehran had meddled in Somali affairs and threatened national security. Mogadishu gave Iranian diplomats, among the few stationed in the Somali capital where bomb attacks are frequent, 72 hours to leave. Somalia’s Finance Minister Mohamed Aden Ibrahim declined to comment on the pledges, but said any financial assistance from Saudi Arabia was not related to Mogadishu’s stance against Iran.
Prison Term For Duo
17 January – Source: The Fiji Times – 252 Words
Two Swedish citizens who US prosecutors said fought alongside the Islamist militant group al Shabaab in Somalia in battles to take control of the country’s capital of Mogadishu have been sentenced to 11 years in prison. Ali Yasin Ahmed, 31, and Mohamed Yusuf, 33, were sentenced by US District Judge John Gleeson in Brooklyn, New York, in light of their guilty pleas in May to conspiring to provide material support to Al Shabaab. Prosecutors had sought 15 years in prison for the Somali-born men, who they called “operational members of a terrorist organisation.” But while Judge Gleeson said that was correct, he also partly accepted their lawyers’ characterisations of the men as freedom fighters who only joined al Shabaab in order to return to war-torn Somalia to fight against Ethiopia. “This is not a black-and-white situation,” Judge Gleeson said.
Prosecutors said Ahmed and Yusuf abandoned their homes in Sweden in 2008 to travel to Somalia to undergo military and doctrinal training with Al Shabaab. The militant group, which seeks to overthrow Somalia’s Western-backed government and impose a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, has links to al-Qaida and has carried out attacks in Kenya and Ethiopia. After receiving training, Ahmed and Yusuf travelled to Mogadishu, where they fought in battles alongside other US and European fighters who had joined al Shabaab to take control of the city in 2009. The men, who before pleading guilty faced 30 years to life in prison, will be deported after they are released from prison.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Somalia now requires its journalists to have a degree, which could hinder the reporting in an already underreported part of the world.”
Somalia’s New Media Laws Could Decimate The Country’s Local Reporting
16 January – Source: Newsy Online – 237 Words
Global media coverage of Africa has long been criticized. But recent changes to media laws in Somalia could make it even harder for local media to cover stories. Somalia is now requiring all journalists to have a degree. But the country has only one undergrad program that started a few months ago, so it could make it difficult for many to stay in the field.
Proponents say that as Somalia heals from its civil war and problems with propaganda, this law could help journalists be better prepared to report on issues like violence. Somalia has been recognized by the Committee to Protect Journalists as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, where dozens in the media have been killed in the past decade.
Somalia isn’t the only African country to propose something like this. Just a few days ago, Uganda banned journalists from covering Parliament unless they had a degree. Journalism in the U.S. and other Western countries doesn’t require a diploma, and for some older journalists, experience has propelled them through their career.
But even before these rules, media companies throughout the African continent didn’t have the same resources to compete with Western journalists’ coverage. A CBS 60 Minutes profile was criticized for not including African voices, a problem criticized in other global media. Somalia’s law has another provision: It says that stories coming out of government-owned publications can’t be censored.