November 17, 2016 | Morning Headlines
AU Troops Kill 12 Al-Shabaab Militants In Somalia
16 November – Source: Xinhua – 152 Words
Troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have killed 12 Al-Shabaab militants and captured a town in the past two days in southern Somalia. In a statement received on Wednesday, the AMISOM said its troops and the Somali army killed the militants and injured 14 others in an ambush targeting the militants who were moving to Barire district in Lower Shabelle region on Monday. “A large cache of weapons” were seized.
The statement however said: “Fleeing Al-Shabaab killed two innocent civilians in retaliation.” On Tuesday, the joint forces took control of Mir-tugo area in Middle Shabelle as Al-Shabaab militants fled.
“The energy (Al-Shabaab) was routed from Mir-tugo town and joint forces are patrolling the town and are in total control of it,” the statement said. Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabaab has lost several of its key strongholds in the past four years, but still carried out frequent attacks in the country.
Key Headlines
- AU Troops Kill 12 Al-Shabaab Militants In Somalia (Xinhua)
- Bomb Explodes Near Government Building In Kismayo Town (Garowe Online)
- President’s Men Make A Comeback As November Vote Takes Shape (Goobjoog News)
- Piracy Still A Threat Off Somalia Despite Successes: UN Official (Xinhua)
- Welcoming Kenya’s Decision On Dadaab Camp UN Urges Flexibility On Time Frames For Somali Refugees (UN News Centre)
- Man Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison In ISIS Trial (MPR News)
- The Next Election To Pay Attention To Is In Somalia (MPR News)
- Can Local Muscle Defeat Somalia’s Al-Shabaab? (BBC)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Bomb Explodes Near Government Building In Kismayo Town
16 November – Source: Garowe Online – 156 Words
At least three people were reported injured in an explosion that hit Kismayo town, the regional capital of Jubaland state on Wednesday, Garowe Online reports. A bomb that was planted nearby the municipality office in Kismayo and frequented by Jubaland State troops has exploded, according to eyewitnesses.
“A blast has ripped through a restaurant opposite the administrative headquarter of the town, wounding three soldiers,” said the source. Jubaland’s Police forces spokesman, Jama Hasan Ahmed, confirmed the blast but stated no causalities among the State forces. No group claimed responsibility, but the police official accused Al-Shabaab militants of being behind the blast, as it is known to carry out similar attacks targeting officials, civilians and security forces. Security officers have started investigations into the incident, according to local police officials.
Al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabaab has intensified its attacks recently in central and southern Somalia in a bid to topple the UN-backed Somali Federal government based in the capital Mogadishu.
President’s Men Make A Comeback As November Vote Takes Shape
16 November – Source: Goobjoog News – 521 Words
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s closest allies among them former justice minister Farah Abdulkadir secured a return today to the Federal Parliament bolstering the President’s candidature as the November 30 poll draws closer. Delegates from President’s Mohamud’s home turf, HirShabelle State today endorsed the President’s men in the first round of voting, adding to a number of current and former ministers allied to the president who have also been elected to the Upper and Lower Houses in various states.
Former National Intelligence Services Agency, NISA and current ambassador to Turkey Abdullahi Ali Sanbaloolshe earned a seat in the Lower House after garnering 48 votes leaving the remaining three seats for his rivals Hassan Ali Abdi and Abdirahman Jima’le Abdi. Farah Abdulkadir, the man considered to wield substantial power and say in President Mohamud’s administration easily swept to victory with 50 votes while his only opponent had to contend with the remaining one vote.
Abdulkadir who was appointed Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister during Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed’s term as Premier played a critical role in President Mohamud’s bid for Villa Somalia in 2012. His inclusion in Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke’s list of cabinet ministers in January 2015 alongside Sanbaloolshe caused uproar in the House forcing Sharmarke to drop them. Also elected today from HirShabelle is current Internal Security Minister Abdirizak Omar Mohamed alongside former Gender Minister Khadijo Mohamed Diriye and current MP Mohamed Hassan Ibrahim Qoono, all President Mohamud’s allies.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Piracy Still A Threat Off Somalia Despite Successes: UN Official
16 November – Source: Xinhua – 463 Words
The threat of piracy off the coast of Somalia looms large despite significant gains made against it, a UN official said Wednesday. Andrew McLaughlin, the Program Officer in charge of Global Maritime Security at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told Xinhua in Kenyan capital Nairobi that a fragile political, economic and security situation in Somalia could provide a fertile ground for piracy to thrive. “Piracy in Somalia has not been defeated but only countered. The threat can recur since the security and economic situation in Somalia remains dire,” McLaughlin said in an interview with Xinhua. He regretted that Somalia’s limited military capability and high youth unemployment could undermine efforts to eradicate piracy.
“Push factors like high youth unemployment should be addressed to boost anti-piracy operation in Somalia. Strengthening the rule of law is crucial to eliminate this menace,” McLaughlin said. He said that the creation of strong political institutions would act as a bulwark against piracy and other transnational crimes that have thrived along the Somali coast.
The UN office on Drugs and Crime has also been actively involved in counter-piracy operations in Somalia waters together with international naval forces and major shipping lines. McLaughlin revealed that UNODC played a role in the Oct. 22 rescue of 26 Asian sailors held hostage by Somali pirates since March 2012. “We coordinated with Oceans Beyond Piracy and provided security to facilitate the rescue of sailors. We also assisted in chartering an aircraft that airlifted sailors to safety in Nairobi,” said McLaughlin. He added that kidnappings for ransom in Somalia has experienced a slump but warned that complacency might lead to recurrence of the criminal enterprise.
Welcoming Kenya’s Decision On Dadaab Camp, UN Urges Flexibility On Time Frames For Somali Refugees
16 November – Source: UN News Centre – 376 Words
The Office of the United Nations High Commissions on Refugees (UNHCR) welcomed today a statement from the Government of Kenya in which it reiterated its continued search for solutions for refugees at the Dadaab camp, where it has been hosting and protecting refugees from Somalia for many years. In a press release, UNHCR praised Kenya’s commitment to “voluntary, human, safe and dignified returns in accordance with international law.” “The voluntariness of returnees is key,” the statement read. According to press reports, Kenya said it will delay by six months the closure of the Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest.
Earlier this summer, UNHCR said it expects the majority of the remaining refugee population to return to Somalia throughout 2017 and possibly into early 2018. UNHCR has supported people’s returns from Dadaab for years and on 25 June 2016, it worked with the Governments of Kenya and Somalia to devise an action plan to that effect. Since 2014, some 35,000 people have received support in their voluntary returns to Somalia. A survey this summer found that 283,558 refugees were living at Dadaab, 58,000 fewer than in the past.
The agency is calling upon the Government of Kenya to be flexible in terms of a return time frame in order to meet the different elements of the plan that was devised earlier this year, citing a concern that rigid time frames would be difficult to meet.
“For solutions to be genuinely voluntary, people must be properly informed and able to make their individual decisions free from pressure and in full awareness of the facts.” UNHCR is urging all stakeholders to focus their attention on the implementation of the action plan in all dimensions, not only in Kenya, but throughout the region and inside Somalia as well. In order to ensure this occurs, it recently appointed Ambassador Mohamed Abdi Affey as Special Envoy for the Somali refugee situation.
Man Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison In ISIS trial
16 November – Source: MPR News – 1,137 Words
A 22-year-old Minneapolis man has received the harshest penalty yet out of nine men involved with a plot to leave the United States and join the terrorist group ISIS. Mohamed Farah, the elder of two brothers in the conspiracy, will serve 30 years in prison. When delivering the sentence, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis reiterated his conclusion that the group amounted to a “terror cell in Minneapolis” that repeatedly deceived everyone around them in hopes of taking up arms with Islamic State militants in Syria. Davis also acknowledged the lack of support and de-radicalization services in the United States prison system.
“I have traveled the world trying to figure out what to do with this jihadist behavior,” Davis said. “There’s nothing in our criminal justice system that can even come close to try to rehabilitate someone who has extreme jihadist ideology … Terrorists and their supporters should be incapacitated for a long period of time.”
Farah and two other men scheduled to be sentenced today were expected to receive harsher penalties than their peers. Rather than pleading guilty, the three men took their cases to trial and were convicted in June. After delivering his sentence, Davis said he wanted to send a broader message about the dangers of terrorism recruitment in Minneapolis.
“This community needs to understand there is a jihadist cell in this community. Its tentacles spread out. Young people went to Syria and died,” the judge said. “You might want to publicize these are just young kids that are misguided, this court is thankful there was a trial so all the evidence could come out … The lies you did should be published so there’s no doubt of what’s happening here.”
The Next Election To Pay Attention To Is In Somalia
15 November – Source: MPR News – 77 Words
Somalia will elect a president at the end of November, and that election will have a large impact on the Somali population in Minnesota. Alastair Leithead, BBC foreign correspondent in Mogadishu, spoke in a recorded interview about the build-up to the presidential election in Somalia.
Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar joined MPR News host Tom Weber in the studio, speaking on what this election means to Somali-Americans, and how it will affect the Somali community in Minnesota.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“The reasons thing are going better in the relatively new state of Jubaland is because the regional administration has taken security into its own hands.”
Can Local Muscle Defeat Somalia’s Al-Shabaab?
17 November – Source: BBC – 793 Words
The newly trained, freshly equipped Somali police officers kick up clouds of dust as they goose-step around the parade ground in time to the marching band drums. Six hundred members of Jubaland state’s police force have recently graduated, hundreds more will soon go through training and, for the time being, their efforts have brought security to the streets of Kismayo. The port city in Somalia’s southern-most state has managed to avoid the high-profile suicide car bombings and armed assaults on hotels that the capital, Mogadishu, regularly suffers. The head of the regional security force is confident they are keeping Al-Shabaab out of town.
“Jubaland is one of the most peaceful places in Somalia,” says Brig Gen Aden Koojaar, commander of Jubaland Forces (JLF). “The area controlled by the Jubaland administration is a place where people sleep peacefully day and night, and there’s no problem at all.” That is something of an exaggeration – high-profile figures and visiting Westerners still need an escort of at least one pick-up truck full of armed men. And you do not have to go far out of town before Al-Shabaab clearly has the upper hand. It is just 40km (25 miles) inland from Kismayo but takes more than two hours crushed in the back of a stifling armoured personnel carrier to reach the village of Abdale Birole.
Bumping along the sandy dirt road, the top gunner scans the low, thorn-scrub forest for movement, and watches the track ahead for any sign of roadside bombs. Driving recklessly alongside is the JLF – heavily armed and packed into pickup trucks or “technicals” as they’re known here – far more mobile and streetwise outriders.
Al-Shabaab once controlled the whole region, including Kismayo, but this Kenyan army patrol is heading to a village recaptured from the Islamist militants just six weeks before. The Kenyans are part of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia known as AMISOM. Thousands of troops from Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi, Djibouti and Uganda are here to help provide military muscle so Somalia can try to build a federal state.