November 25, 2016 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

Senior Somali Security Officer Killed, 3 Others Injured In Explosion

24 November – Source: Xinhua – 197 Words

A senior Somali security official was killed and three others were injured in an explosion in the restive capital Mogadishu on Thursday, officials said. Spokesman of the local government in Mogadishu Abdifitah Omar Halane said the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-trained military officer was killed after a bomb which was fitted in his car exploded in Shibis district in Mogadishu. “It was a car bomb blast that targeted the security official, the official died on the spot and three other soldiers were wounded in the blast,” Halane said. He said security officers have launched investigations in the latest incident which no group has claimed responsibility. “The security forces are pursuing the attackers,” Halane said.

The car blast occurred at a busy street at Mano-Bolyo junction in Mogadishu’s Shibis district on Thursday noon. However, the police suspect that the militant group is behind the attack. Independent sources say the official and the three other soldiers were working for UAE Embassy in Mogadishu. Somali security troops and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops have stepped up security across the Horn of Africa nation as the country prepares to elect the president and speakers of both Houses next week.

Key Headlines

Senior Somali Security Officer Killed 3 Others Injured In Explosion (Xinhua)
Lower House Elections Close In Jubbaland 10 Women Elected (Goobjoog News)
“Al-Shabaab Is Threatening Our Lives” Somalia Election Delegates Claim (Radio Dalsan)
NATO Ends Anti-Piracy Mission In Indian Ocean (VOA)
AU Somali Military Officers Devise Joint Plan To Combat Al-Shabaab (Xinhua)
International Community Backs Commitment Of Somalia’s Electoral Bodies To Enforce Rules Of Electoral Process And Nullify Results Of Manipulated Voting (UNSOM)
Protest Anxiety In Dadaab As Refugees Troop Back To Somalia (The EastAfrican)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Lower House Elections Close In Jubbaland, 10 Women Elected

24 November – Source: Goobjoog News – 205 Words

Voting has just concluded in Jubbaland marking the end of a tightly contested race that saw the disqualification of a minister and the election of 10 women as the southern state sent 43 legislators to the Lower House. The election of Ibrahim Mohamed Hussein with 47 votes heralded the end of the exercise in Kismayu which started November 8 with the election of the first six MPs among them three women. Jubbaland becomes the first state to conclude the Lower House elections.

A total of 2,193 delegates participated in the exercise which saw the state allocate 23% of the seats to women. Petroleum Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Mukhtar was disqualified from the race after the Jubbaland electoral body declared him unfit to contest on grounds of voter bribery and intimidation of electoral staff. Federal State Minister for Labour Osman Libaah Ibrahim and his Interior counterpart Abdirashid Mohamed Hidig were elected MPs. Former minister of defence and president of Azania (Jubbaland) Professor Abdi Mohamed Gandi was also elected MP after failing to secure senate seat in earlier senatorial polls. Joint Somali army and Amisom forces in collaboration with Jubbaland security forces secured the election centre. UN envoy for Somalia Michael Keating is attending the closing event.

“Al-Shabaab Is Threatening Our Lives” Somalia Election Delegates Claim

24 November – Source: Radio Dalsan – 313 Words

Delegates in the ongoing Somalia elections have demanded for government protection after allegedly receiving death threats from the Somali militant group Alshabaab. In an exclusive Radio interview, several delegates claimed that their lives were in danger and that they feared being targeted by Alshabaab. “I fear for my life now. I have received death threats from Alshabaab through a text message” Abdirazak Hussein a delegate told Radio Dalsan. “I am worried that we have become soft targets for the militants after the election” Hussein a delegate from the Hirshabelle capital Jowhar said. Hussein is a student at the University of Mogadishu and is among the 14025 delegates electing Somali legislators. Most the delegates are drawn from youth, women and student representatives across Somalia A second delegate Rahma Awad who voted as a delegate in the South West capital of Baidoa confirmed similar threats to Radio Dalsan. “I am not feeling safe anymore in this country with this threats” Awad a Salon manager in Mogadishu told Radio Dalsan upon her return to the capital.

Somali militant group Alshabaab which still controls various towns and rural areas in Central and Southern Somalia had vowed to disrupt the 2016 elections. But beside Alshabaab the Radio Dalsan investigation also unearthed threats by well known politicians who had lost their seats. A delegate who seek anonymity for the sake of his security told Radio Dalsan that some delegates were threatened by powerful politicians they voted against. Interior Security Ministry is yet to issue a statement on the alleged threats by Alshabaab and powerful politicians. But speaking to Radio Dalsan a police official in Mogadishu said they will pick up the matter seriously. “We will investigate those claims and the delegates have to come forward and report any threat” Inspector Ahmed Hussein of the Somali National Police Force told Radio Dalsan. ” Our duty is to protect them” he added.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

NATO Ends Anti-Piracy Mission In Indian Ocean

24 November – Source: VOA – 331 Words

NATO has ended Operation Ocean Shield after a sharp drop in attacks by Somali pirates. The Royal Danish Air Force carried out the last Indian Ocean surveillance missions for NATO. The NATO operation had been one part of a highly successful coordinated international response to the threat of piracy that also included the European Union, the United States and other independent nations. During its peak, piracy off the Horn of Africa had an economic impact of $7 billion, with more than 1,000 hostages taken. There hasn’t been a successful piracy attack since 2012, down from more than 30 ships at the peak in 2010-11. The NATO planes flew from the Seychelles. “They have been giving a lot of assistance to us regarding the piracy issue,” said Colonel Simon Dine, a commander with the Seychelles Coast Guard.

“They assist us in training with the Seychelles Coast Guard and the Seychelles People’s Air Force, which has given us a great help to assist in the maintaining of the security of the Seychelles’ territorial water. It’s sad for them to go back, but we are looking forward to continue to work with good relationship for the future.” The commander of the Danish air force detachment that carried out the last mission emphasized that NATO can resume its anti-piracy efforts at any time – whether in the Somali basin or the Atlantic Ocean. NATO is now shifting resources to deterring Russia in the Black Sea and people smugglers in the Mediterranean. NATO’s spokesman Dylan White said in a statement that the global security environment had changed dramatically in the last few years and that NATO navies had adapted with it.

AU, Somali Military Officers Devise Joint Plan To Combat Al-Shabaab

24 November – Source: Xinhua – 308 Words

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) military officers and senior commanders from the Somali National Army (SNA) have agreed on a new plan for joint operations against Al-Shabaab. The senior military officers who ended a three-day meeting in Mogadishu also agreed to undertake major military operations to liberate areas still under the control of the insurgents. “The commanders will reconvene soon to finalize plans for joint operations,” the African Union said in a statement released in Mogadishu on Thursday. The statement said major issues discussed in the three-day meeting included strengthening the SNA, in preparation for AMISOM’s exit from Somalia in 2018. The exit strategy formulated by the Africa Union’s Peace and Security Council calls for the staggered withdrawal of 22,000 AMISOM troops, including Kenya’s, beginning in October 2018 and be completed by the end of 2020.

The troops were deployed to Somalia in 2007 to defend the government against the Al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group Al-Shabaab which has been terrorizing Somalis and East Africans across the region. Omar Abdulle Alasow, the senior International Humanitarian Law/ Human Rights Advisor to AMISOM, said the pan African body’s mission has put in place mechanisms for preventing, mitigating and strengthening compliance of International Humanitarian Law, to reduce the risks of grave human rights violations by troops. “It also has policies designed to investigate and take necessary disciplinary measures against erring uniformed personnel,” Alasow said. SNA Deputy Chief of Defence Forces Maj. Gen. Ali Bashi Mohamed said the meeting had further strengthened cooperation between the joint forces, in countering militant insurgency. “We are going to plan and come up with a common operation, fighting side by side against Al-Shabaab,” he said. “We agreed to work closely to flush out the enemy from the country. There has never been a better time for SNA and AMISOM to come together like now,” Bashi noted.

International Community Backs Commitment Of Somalia’s Electoral Bodies To Enforce Rules Of Electoral Process And Nullify Results Of Manipulated Voting

24 November – Source: UNSOM – 293 Words

The United Nations, African Union, Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, Ethiopia, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States commend the Federal Indirect Electoral Implementation Team (FIEIT), the State-Level Indirect Electoral Implementation Teams (SIEIT) and the Independent Electoral Dispute Resolution Mechanism (IEDRM) for the progress achieved so far in the implementation of the electoral process in a complex and extremely challenging political, security and cultural context. They welcome the determination of the implementing bodies to enforce the rules of the 2016 electoral process as stipulated by the National Leadership Forum (NLF), in particular their resolve to sanction efforts to influence the election results through corruption, intimidation, manipulation or other malpractices.

The international community will firmly support decisions by the FIEIT and the IEDRM to nullify election results that have been rigged through such misconduct and to disqualify candidates who have engaged in such malpractices. The international community will also insist on compliance by all stakeholders with the code of conduct and the rules of the electoral process, including those pertaining to the representation of women in the new parliament. This includes concern over allegations that some clans that have been assigned three or more seats in the federal parliament’s House of the People are refusing to comply with the NLF requirement that one of every three seats be reserved exclusively for women candidates. The NLF decided that the seats of any clan failing to fulfill this requirement will be suspended, pending a decision by the relevant State-Level Indirect Electoral Implementation Team and regional administration on the status of those seats. The international community calls on all parties to scrupulously comply with the rules and the code of conduct governing Somalia’s electoral process in order to safeguard its credibility and the legitimacy of its results.

OPINION , CULTURE & ANALYSIS

“Some refugees who had voluntarily returned to Somalia but slipped back to Dadaab due to insecurity and lack of facilities in their home regions, told The EastAfrican that they had volunteered because they believed that the Kenyan government would arbitrarily return them to Somalia without taking into account where they hail from.”

Protest, Anxiety In Dadaab As Refugees Troop Back To Somalia

24 November – Source: The EastAfrican – 884 Words

On entering Hagadera, one of the five refugee camps in Kenya’s Dadaab complex, the message that greets you reads, “Return is my choice.” This message, written boldly in English and Somali, is supposed to encourage more than 270,000 refugees to take advantage of the ongoing voluntary repatriation launched in 2013 and return to Somalia. The atmosphere is tense as the countdown to Kenyan government’s deadline, which has been extended from November 30 by six months, continues. Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery, while announcing the extension of the deadline from November 30 to the end of May next year, said the extension is due to the ongoing elections in Somalia. Some refugees who had voluntarily returned to Somalia but slipped back to Dadaab due to insecurity and lack of facilities in their home regions, told The EastAfrican that they had volunteered because they believed that the Kenyan government would arbitrarily return them to Somalia without taking into account where they hail from.

The voluntary repatriation programme has been slowed by the Somali government’s lack of resources to provide basic facilities such as shelter, livelihood, health and security. UNHCR recently appealed for $485 million to settle the refugees inside Somalia. Young men gather in groups unsure of their future as the security situation in Somalia still remains fragile. “I was born here and I don’t know anything about Somalia where they are telling us to relocate,” said Mohammed Absame, a 17-year-old born of a refugee mother and a Kenyan father.