May 26, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somalia Marks Africa Day In Pomp
26 May – Source: AMISOM – 554 Words
Somalia joined the rest of Africa in marking the day the Organisation of African Unity, the predecessor to the African Union, was formed 53 years ago.The President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud officiated over celebrations held in Mogadishu and attended by senior officials from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the United Nations and members of the diplomatic corps, among others.
President Sheikh Mohamud expressed gratitude for the support the African continent and especially Troop Contributing Countries have extended to Somalia in its struggle to rid the country of terrorism and violent extremism.
“I am very much grateful for the contribution of our men and women in uniform here in Somalia. There are many others in Somalia (who) have contributed, facilitated and supported them in fulfilling their duties. But they are the ones who shed their blood; they are the ones who leave orphans behind; they are the ones who get disabled because of the difficult war in Somalia,” stated the President Sheikh Mohamud.
The President said support from African nations had tilted the scales towards a more peaceful and stable Somalia, a contrast to what the country was like in 2007 before the deployment of African Union troops.The Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia Ambassador Francisco Madeira reaffirmed AMISOM’s commitment to achieving the African Union’s central objectives of peace, stability, development and solidarity among African nations and its people.
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Key Headlines
- Somalia Marks Africa Day In Pomp (AMISOM)
- Rickshaw Driver Murdered Near Police Checkpoint In Mogadishu (Goobjoog News)
- MP Calls For The Arrest Of NISA Soldiers Accused Of Torturing Govt Official (Shabelle News)
- Uganda To Give Verdict On 2010 Shabaab Bombing Suspects (The East African)
- African Force Says 80% of Somali Regions Seized From Militants (Bloomberg News)
- Police Arrest Two Suspected ISIS Terrorists Foil Attacks In Nairobi Mombasa (Daily Nation )
- Teaching Anti-Extremism In Kenya (The New Yorker)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Rickshaw Driver Murdered Near Police Checkpoint In Mogadishu
26 May – Source: Goobjoog News – 161 Words
A Rickshaw driver was shot dead along the busy street of Makka Mukarama near a security checkpoint by armed men riding Toyota pickup truck. According to an eyewitness, assailants passed the security checkpoint unnoticed by the police.
The assailants are believed to have been escorting a government official. However, Goobjoog could not independently establish the truth of this account. Passersby were astonished by the act that unfolded right before the police and pictures of the murder scene have gone viral on internet.Ahmed Molim Fiqi- former National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) reacted: “It is painful and an act of despair that a citizen, who struggles to cope with his daily life, gets shot in the middle of a street and the the killers walk away free. What time is this! Are we in the era of warlords!?” posed the former in his Facebook account . Many other users of the social media accused the government for what had transpired. Lately private security personnel and government forces are involved in occasional murders while driving in along the busy streets in Mogadishu.
MP Calls For The Arrest Of NISA Soldiers Accused Of Torturing Govt Official
26 May – Source: Shabelle News – 124 Words
A member of Somalia’s Federal Parliament, Dahir Amin Jesow, has spoken reacted to a leaked video showing National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) soldiers torturing a government official at a prison in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.The lawmaker has called on the Federal government to bring to justice the alleged NISA soldiers, who tortured the prisoner: The leaked video showing the NISA officials torturing the government official has gone viral on social media. The government official reportedly works with the Yaqshid District administration.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Uganda To Give Verdict On 2010 Shabaab Bombing Suspects
26 May – Source: The East African – 331 Words
A Ugandan court is due Thursday to give its verdict on 13 men tried for masterminding a 2010 bombing by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab that killed 76 people.
The July 2010 suicide bombings claimed by Somalia’s Al-Shabaab targeted football fans watching the World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain at a restaurant and a rugby club in Kampala, and were the region’s worst attacks in more than a decade.”There are 13 suspects and the judgement is expected to be delivered today,” judiciary spokesman Solomon Muyita told AFP Thursday.
The suspects who include six Kenyans, two Tanzanians and five Ugandans have all pleaded not guilty.Judge Alfonse Owiny-Dollo is expected to deliver his verdict at the High Court in Kampala, and could apply the death sentence if the men are found guilty.”It has been a long trial, but all will come to end today when the judgement will be delivered,” Muyita said.The suspects have been tried on a range of charges including terrorism, murder and membership of a terrorist organisation.Two men were already found in guilty in 2011 for their role in the attacks.Edris Nsubuga, who admitted terrorism charges, was spared the death penalty because he expressed contrition over the carnage and was jailed for 25 years.Co-accused Muhamoud Mugisha received five years for conspiracy to commit terrorism.
African Force Says 80% of Somali Regions Seized From Militants
25 May – Source: Bloomberg News – 115 Words
The African Union mission in Somalia has forced al-Qaeda-linked militants to relinquish control of about 80 percent of the country’s southern and central regions, a senior official said.The African force and Somalia’s national army are recruiting police officers to secure areas after they’re recaptured from the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab, acting commander Major General Mohammedesha Zeyinu told reporters Wednesday in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.Al-Shabaab has been in retreat in Somalia since its fighters were forced to withdraw from Mogadishu in August 2011 after a series of military defeats. It still stages deadly attacks in the city as well as on bases used by the multinational force elsewhere in the Horn of Africa country.
Police Arrest Two Suspected ISIS Terrorists, Foil Attacks In Nairobi, Mombasa
25 May – Source: Daily Nation – 498 Words
Police have foiled a retaliatory terror attack and arrested two suspects in Kangemi, Nairobi. The two were radicalised at the Kangemi Mosque after which they got recruited into the ISIS network by Mr Mohammed Abdi Ali, a medical intern who was arrested in April for planning a major a biological attack using anthrax.
Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett on Wednesday said that Mr Kiguzo Mwangolo Mgutu and Abubakar Jillo Mohammed were arrested at their Kangemi house on Tuesday.The detectives also recovered various material that were to be used to manufacture an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in their house. The arrest of the two, police said, had foiled terror attacks with explosives and other weapons that were planned for Nairobi and Mombasa.
Mr Boinett said that following Mr Ali’s arrest last month, members of his network had been planning retaliatory attacks using home-made explosives. Mr Ali’s terror network within Kenya spreads as far as the Coast region, North Rift, Western as well as other countries that include Somalia, Libya and Syria.
Police recovered various materials that were to be used to manufacture an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at Mr Mgutu’s residence in Kangemi. The two are among the authors of a document that has been circulating online purporting the establishment of Jabha East Africa in which they declared their allegiance to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, according to the police.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Although he has no control over what his students do when they leave school at the end of the day, at least he could challenge them to be self-aware. Through his business courses, he might even inspire them to become entrepreneurs and create jobs for themselves in the absence of government development programs in the area,”
Teaching Anti-Extremism In Kenya
26 May – Source: The New Yorker – 1304 Words
When I first met Ayub Mohamud, he was preparing a lesson for the next period at Eastleigh High School, a boys’ secondary school in Nairobi, Kenya. The school is in Eastleigh, a working-class residential and commercial district nicknamed Little Mogadishu because of the mostly Somali immigrant population there; a good number of the school’s students are Somali or Somali-Kenyan, and many are Muslim.
Mohamud, who teaches Islamic studies and business, jogged up a flight of stairs in the school’s courtyard and entered a classroom, where students between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one had already assembled for an Islamic-studies class. “As salaam alaikum,” he greeted them. “Wa alaikum salaam!” they said in return.
“Who can define for us ‘radicalization’?” he asked the students.“It’s a process by which youth are being brainwashed by the bad groups,” one student, dressed in the school’s uniform—a navy-blue sweater, white shirt, and gray slacks—said.“It’s trying to change the mindset of a person,” another student piped up. “How he thinks, to make him believe your ideology.”“Exactly,” Mohamud said, writing the words “ideology,” “mindset,” “process,” and “young people” on the chalkboard. “Though I don’t know why you’re only saying ‘him.’ “ The young men laughed.
As the Somali terror group Al-Shabaab continues to recruit new members amid its campaign of attacks and bombings in Somalia (and, sporadically, across the border in Kenya), Somali and Muslim communities in Kenya have struggled to keep their young people from falling under the group’s influence. Mohamud is the co-founder of Teachers Against Violent Extremism, a network of educators fighting radicalization among Muslim youth in schools, madrassas, and community centers. His anti-extremism class at Eastleigh has brought him attention among students and teachers, and made him a finalist for this year’s Global Teacher Prize.
Mohamud, who is tall and good-natured, was born and grew up in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya, a region that Al-Shabaab has targeted in recent years. The area has long suffered from government indifference, resulting in weak health and education services and infrastructure. His parents, who are of Somali descent, were born in Kenya, too. “I’ve never been to Somalia,” he told me. Before he came to Eastleigh High School, three years ago, he spent ten years teaching in the north, including at Garissa University, a school near the border with Somalia where Al-Shabaab staged an attack last year, killing a hundred and forty-eight people.
In the wake of the Garissa attack and the 2013 Shabaab siege of Westgate Mall, in Nairobi, which killed another sixty-seven people, Kenyans of Somali descent have become the targets of intense suspicion. The Eastleigh neighborhood has seen several forceful police raids and roundups. The surge of Islamic extremism has made stereotyping and profiling worse, Mohamud said: “You are ransacked” during body checks.
TOP TWEETS
@SRSGKeating:Official opening UN Environmental Assembly. Sustainable development fundamental to peace & security incl 4#Somalia
@SalahOsman0:Good Morning. Belewein town is under water after the river bursts its banks due to massive tides #Somalia#Mogadishu
@OCHASom:In #Somalia, 2.2m children under age 5 were vaccinated against polio in 2015 http://bit.ly/1WPwFY7 .@unicefsomalia
@OCHASom:Are you a young person living in #Somalia & passionate about telling stories? @unicefsomalia is looking for you!
@UNdeClercq:Peter de Clercq Retweeted Mikael Lindvall Thank you @Sida @MikaelLindvall for supporting #SomaliYouth, the future of #Somalia!
IMAGE OF THE DAY
President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud joins the celebrations of Africa Day in Mogadishu.
Photo: AMISOM