June 13, 2016 | Morning Headlines
At Least 3 Killed In Clashes Between Somali Army And Militia
12 June – Source: Xinhua News – 144 Words
At least three people, including a soldier, were killed and six others injured in clashes between a militia and the Somali National Army (SNA) on Sunday in Somalia’s central Galmudug state.
Deputy Information Minister in Galmudug state, Dahir Farah Fidow, told Xinhua by phone that the clashes occurred at the Kafalo military base when the soldiers were being paid their salaries: “One SNA soldier and two from the militia were killed,” Fidow said.
“The militia too wanted to be paid salary but the army officers told militia that they are not part of the soldiers who will be paid. This standoff led to the deadly fighting that resulted in (the) three deaths,” he added. The minister said the Somali security forces intervened to calm the situation, while the militia were told they could get salaries after being recruited by the government to join the army.
Key Headlines
- At Least 3 Killed In Clashes Between Somali Army And Militia (Xinhua News)
- Suspected US Drone Crashes In Shabaab-held Somali Village (Goobjoog News)
- UN Monitoring Group Clears Somoil And Gas Executive Director For Africa Mr Hassan Khaire For Links With Extremist Groups (Goobjoog News)
- Somalia Parliament In Deadlock Over Joining East African Army (Shabelle News)
- Al-Shabaab Publicly Executes Six ‘Spies’ In Somalia (Middle East Online)
- Kenya Tells UNHCR Decision To Close Dadaab Camp Is Final (Xinhua News)
- Al-Shabaab Says Executed More Of Its Own In Somalia (Voice of America)
- Somali Domestic Workers At risk As Ramadan Departures Dawn (The New Arab)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Suspected US Drone Crashes In Shabaab-held Somali Village
12 June – Source: Goobjoog News – 219 Words
A suspected U.S. drone crashed in a village located some 70 kilometers north of Balli-Dogle airbase in Lower Shabelle region, local residents said on Sunday. Residents of Goobaale village said the drone crashed the near the village earlier on Sunday. They added that Al-Shabaab fighters immediately cordoned off the crash site. The pro-Al-Shabaab Andalus radio, meanwhile, quoted a group leader saying the militants had seized a U.S. drone, which was on a reconnaissance mission above territories captured earlier by Al-Shabaab.
The drone wreckage and the cameras were retrieved by the group, an Al-Shabaab commander told radio Andulus: “It crashed away from civilian areas. Our fighters took it away and we have removed the cameras from the drone,” said the commander.
In 2015 a suspected US surveillance drone crashed near the town of Bashir town in the Bakool region of the country. The group released photos purported to be of the surveillance drone. Previously drone strikes have targeted senior members of the group, which is fighting to topple Somalia’s internationally recognised government.
Al-Shabaab fighters were driven out of Mogadishu in late 2011 and are struggling to hold on to territory elsewhere in the face of attacks by Kenyan, Ethiopian, Ugandan and African Union forces trying to prevent the ideology of the group from spreading out of Somalia.
UN Monitoring Group Clears Somoil And Gas Executive Director For Africa Mr Hassan Khaire For Links With Extremist Groups
12 June – Source: Goobjoog News – 199 Words
The United Nations Monitoring Group for Somalia and Eritrea through a confidential letter to Somali government and UN Security Council dated 9th of this June, has cleared Mr Hassan Khaire for links with East Africa extremist groups.
Concluding 12 months of investigation, the group found no credible evidence of such links: ‘The Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group has investigated links between Mr. Hassan Khaire and extremist groups. I wish to confirm that the SEMG has not found credible evidence of such links and that, in the absence of any new information received by the SEMG clearly demonstrating such links, we now consider this line of inquiry to have reached a conclusion,” reads the letter addressed to Somali government, a copy of which Goobjoog obtained.
Soma Oil & Gas previously dismissed SEMG investigation, saying that Mr Khaire has nothing to do with any extremist groups: “Mr Khaire does not have any links with East African extremist groups including Al-Shabaab. He has no link or affiliation to any known terrorist organisation or member of a terrorist organisation. [Such] suggestions are highly damaging and defamatory.” Several other Somali nationals mention in the SEMG report last year for having links with terrorist groups still wait to have their names cleared.
Somalia Parliament In Deadlock Over Joining East African Army
12 June – Source: Shabelle News – 137 Words
A member of the Somali Federal Parliament Dahir Amin Jesow has voiced his support for ratification of the East African community Mutual Defence Pact for regional cooperation.
Jesow has called on fellow lawmakers to unanimously endorse the proposed pact, which allows the country to join the East African rapid reaction force. Several legislators are reportedly opposed to the deal, which is being fronted by Somali Defense Minister, Gen Abdulkadir Sheikh Ali Dini.
The Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF), with 5,000 soldiers from 10 nations, will help the region deal with its own rebellions, civil wars and coups, and reduce its reliance on foreign troops. Separately, Somali Parliament has summoned security and finance ministers for questioning over 8 month-long unpaid salaries for Somali police forces, who are in charge of the country’s security.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Al-Shabaab Publicly Executes Six ‘Spies’ In Somalia
12 June – Source: Middle East Online – 264 Words
Al-Shabaab jihadists in Somalia have publicly executed six men they accused of spying, including one they claimed helped kill their supreme leader in a US drone strike, the Al-Qaeda-linked group and local sources have said.
Four of the executions took place Friday evening in the village of Bulofay, in the Bay region in the southwest of the country, the sources said. Three of the men were shot by firing squad while the fourth, accused of helping the United States to kill Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane in September 2014, was decapitated.
“The Islamic court in the Bay and Bakool regions carried out” the executions of “four spies who worked for the US and Kenyan Intelligence Agencies,” the group said in a statement on a pro Al-Shabaab website. “Mohamed Adan Nur Hassan, one of the spies, was responsible for the airstrike that killed” Godane.
Two Kenyans were also executed on Friday in the Jubbada Dhexe region, also in the southwest, for allegedly helping to kill Al-Shabaab leaders in Kenya, the group said in a separate statement. It said one of them was accused of collaborating with Kenyan, British, US and Israeli intelligence services, while the other only with Kenya’s secret service.
Kenya Tells UNHCR Decision To Close Dadaab Camp
12 June – Source: Xinhua News – 408 Words
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has told visiting UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, that the decision to repatriate all the Somalis in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp is final.
Sate House spokesman, Manoah Esipisu, said Kenyatta on Sunday held talks with Grandi in Nairobi and urged the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to support Kenya’s plan to close Dadaab, which is home to more than 300,000 Somali refugees: “That the decision to repatriate the refugees is final, and that partner organizations such as UNHCR should step up the plate and work on this process to ensure it can be accomplished in a humane way and without threat to anyone’s life,” Esipisu told a media briefing.
Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp in northeastern Kenya, was set up more than 20 years ago to house people fleeing conflict in Somalia. Kenya recently announced it will close the camp by December. During the meeting with the UNHCR chief, Kenyatta said the decision to close Dadaab was not born primarily out of financial strain but was rather based on environmental and security risks, according to Esipisu.
“The camp threatens to destabilize communities and escalate inter-ethnic tension between groups, among other notable security threats,” Esipisu said. Kenya claims Somalia-based Islamist group Al-Shabaab, which has staged several bloody attacks in Kenya in recent years, has hideouts in Dadaab. It asked UNHCR to close the camp last April, days after Al-Shabaab gunmen killed 148 people in an attack on Kenya’s Garissa University.
Grandi started a five-day visit to Kenya Thursday to meet with donor community and assess situation at refugee camps in Kenya ahead of the repatriation of the Dadaab refugees. Grandi has visited Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps to assess the situation there and met refugee representatives, and has been briefed on the process of voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees.
Al-Shabaab Says Executed More Of Its Own In Somalia
12 June – Source: Voice of America – 547 Words
Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia say they have executed two of their members, both of them recruited from Kenya, for disloyalty and anti-Islamic activities.
The two Kenyans and a Somali man executed at the same time were killed in Somalia’s Middle Juba region on Friday, local residents told VOA’s Somali Service. The executions also were reported on an Al-Shabaab website.
In the Bay region, four other men were executed Friday, accused of spying for Somali, Kenyan and U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a statement issued on social media by the extremist group. It said one of the four was accused of facilitating the drone strike in September 2014 that killed al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Abu Zubayr.
The two Kenyan fighters who were executed in Jilib town were identified on al-Shabab’s website as Abdullah Abdulhamid Faraj and Jared Mokae Omambia. Faraj, from Mombasa, Kenya, had been accused of “facilitating” killings of Muslim preachers in Kenya, VOA Somali reported. Omambia, who was from the western Kenyan city of Eldoret, was accused of working with Kenya’s anti-terrorism police unit.
Victims of the mass execution Friday in the Bay region’s Bulo Fay village included 26-year-old Mohamed Aden Nur Hassan, who was beheaded. The Al-Shabaab website said he had been accused of providing key information that led to the death of Al-Shabaab commander Godane/Zubayr. Al-Shabaab said Muhiyadin Hirab Ahmed, 27, accused of betraying the leader of the Westgate Mall terror attack in Nairobi, and two others were killed by a firing squad immediately after they were pronounced guilty.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Somalia has an opportunity to learn from other countries that have spent years developing systems to help abused workers in Saudi Arabia by putting in place necessary safeguards from the start. Failing to do so risks placing Somali women at the mercy of unscrupulous recruiters and employers who time and again seek out “cheaper” migrants with fewer protections.”
Somali Domestic Workers At risk As Ramadan Departures Dawn
12 June – Source: The New Arab – 759 Words
Under a new agreement Somalia is sending between 600 and 1,000 domestic workers to Saudi Arabia in time for Ramadan. The month of fasting usually brings an increase in the demand for domestic workers as employers often host large iftar meals to break their fast. This can mean long hours for the workers and more cases of overwork and abuse.
Over the last decade we have documented a plethora of abuses against domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, as well as other Gulf states. Domestic workers report that employers confiscate their passports to keep them from leaving and make them work excessive hours with no rest breaks and no days off.
Many say the employers don’t pay them their full salaries, if at all, that employers won’t let them leave the house, and often leave them without adequate food. In some cases, the employers abuse domestic workers psychologically, physically or sexually.
Major gaps in the Gulf countries’ labour laws coupled with unethical recruitment in home countries foster exploitation and violence. The Gulf countries’ kafala (sponsorship) system ties migrant workers’ residency permits to “sponsoring” employers. Domestic workers need the consent of the employer if they want to change jobs, and those who leave before the end of their contracts can be imprisoned, fined or deported.
Steps taken by the Saudi government to address these problems have been ineffective. An online Saudi web portal, Musaned, set up to help address domestic worker grievances, doesn’t allow them to file complaints online and doesn’t even provide the addresses of labour offices where they can file complaints.
Over the years, several countries of origin have pushed for better working conditions for their citizens who go to Saudi Arabia to work. Some governments – most recently Indonesia and Uganda – have banned their citizens from working in Saudi Arabia altogether.
But restrictions and bans by countries of origin have just led Gulf States and recruitment agencies to seek out workers from countries, particularly in Africa, with weaker legal protection – like Somalia. Bans have also not been effective and often cause workers to circumvent them at even greater risk. However, countries of origin can take measures to improve protection for their citizens working abroad.