October 23, 2017 | Morning Headlines
Landmine Blast Kills 6 In Somalia
22 October – Source: VOA – 306 Words
Six Somali civilians were killed in a landmine explosion on Sunday, just days after the country’s deadliest attack killed hundreds. Officials in Lower Shabelle region confirmed to VOA Somali that two women and four men died after an improvised explosive device hit a minibus at Daniga village about 35 kilometers north of Mogadishu.
Deputy Governor of Lower Shabelle Ali Nur Mohamed says the victims were traders bringing farm produce and were travelling from Afgoye to Bal’ad. “They were bringing spinach from Afgoye when the explosion hit their explosion, there are no injuries, all those on board died and the bodies of six people were recovered,” he said.
Mohamed said militant group al-Shabab is burying landmines in the area because they heard the government may be planning a military offensive. He warned officials against publicizing military activities. “There are people in the system of the government who are publicizing military plans on their Facebook pages, saying there is an imminent attack or saying the president is going to Afgoye,” he said. He said security forces have found two more landmines Sunday planted in Elasha Biyaha, a Mogadishu suburb, and says they are being dismantled. Sunday’s attack comes just over a week after the truck bomb in the capital left at least 358 people dead and 228 injured. Nearly 60 people are still missing presumed dead.
https://www.voanews.com/a/
Key Headlines
- Landmine Blast Kills 6 In Somalia (VOA)
- President Farmaajo Heads To Uganda To Seek Military Support Against Al-Shabaab (Goobjoog News)
- Nugal Governor Survives Being Shot By Puntland Police Chief (Garowe Online)
- Why Is Mogadishu Still A Frequent Target For Attacks? (Aljazeera)
- Somalia Deserves Our Empathy (News24)
- Mogadishu Residents No Longer Have An Appetite For Terrorism (Daily Nation)
NATIONAL MEDIA
President Farmaajo Heads To Uganda To Seek Military Support Against Al-Shabaab
22 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 192 Words
President Mohamed Farmaajo Sunday left the country for a three country tour that will see him visit Djibouti, Ethiopia and Uganda to seek international support for enhanced military offensive against Al-Shabaab. The president headed to Uganda Sunday where he is expected to hold security talks with his host President Yoweri Museveni.
New chief of defense forces Abdiweli Jama Gorod confirmed the President’s visit observing that, the President will seek the East African country support in the war against Al-Shabaab. “The president will speak to the top leaders of Uganda to expedite operations against the terrorists. Ugandan forces are part of (AMISOM) and they have to play their role. This is what they will discuss” said Gorod.
The president’s visit follows a meeting with the national army troops in Jazeera base where he flagged them off to frontlines ahead of an expected offensive against Al-Shabaab. President Farmaajo will also head to Ethiopia and Djibouti and thereafter hold a National Security Council meeting Saturday with state leaders. The visit comes days after Somalia witnessed the deadliest terror attack in its history which claimed over 350 lives and more than 300 others with nursing injuries.
Nugal Governor Survives Being Shot By Puntland Police Chief
22 October – Source: Garowe Online – 227 Words
The governor of Nugal region, Omar Abdullahi Farole survived after he was shot at by Police chief of Puntland, Abdulkadir Farah Shire (Ereg) in Garowe following an altercation. Reports reaching Garowe Online’s news desk indicate that the shooting took place at Jubba hotel in Garowe on Saturday evening during a high-level security meeting to discuss region’s stability and the threat of terror groups.
The conference which was attended by Minister of Security, Nugal regional governor, Commander of the Counter-terrorism forces, the Police Commissioner and his deputy, with reports that a dispute broke out between the officials before Gen Ereg fire his gun. Bile Farah Ali, the deputy Police boss of Puntland state has sustained gunshot wounds to the leg and he was rushed to Garowe general hospital to receive medical treatment. “After a dispute, General Ereg picked his pistol and tried to shoot Nugal governor in the head, but the bullets struck Ali’s leg,” said a senior Police officer, who asked not to be named told Garowe online over the phone.
The security conference has ended in dispute and chaos, he said. Meanwhile, Puntland government is yet to comment on the incident. Last year, former Puntland security Minister, Abdi Hersi Qarjab, and five soldiers were seriously wounded in a shootout between Police and Paramilitary forces in the outskirts of the state’s commercial and port city of Bosaso.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Why Is Mogadishu Still A Frequent Target For Attacks?
22 October – Source: Aljazeera – 423 Words
Last week, the deadliest bomb blast to hit the Somali city of Mogadishu killed more than 350 people and injured around 400 others. Questions are now been asked as to why, more than 10 years after African Union peacekeepers set foot in the capital and six years after the al-Qaeda-linked group Al-Shabaab was pushed out, attacks still plague the coastal city. The Somali government blamed the October 14 blast on Al-Shabaab. President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the truck explosion which struck Zobe intersection – a busy junction lined by shops, offices and homes – had all the hallmarks of the group. “This is their fingerprints, this is what they have done,” Farmajo said. Since the start of this year, more than 20 explosions have targeted Mogadishu, killing at least 500 people and injuring more than 630. Most of the attacks were carried out by al-Shabab, which has lost control of most major towns and cities in the country.
Somalia Deserves Our Empathy
22 October – Source: News24 – 659 Words
Over the weekend, a massive truck bomb exploded in Mogadishu, the sprawling, once-lovely capital of Somalia. The explosives went off on a Saturday afternoon, in a busy intersection during a traffic jam. An estimated 300 people, at least, were killed and hundreds injured. First responders arrived to an apocalyptic landscape: bodies burned beyond recognition (including a bus of schoolchildren on their way home), buildings crumbled to ash, survivors running away, relatives looking for loved ones and a zone of devastation the size of a few football fields.
The attack in Mogadishu inflicted a horror on its residents that has become frighteningly common, as al-Shabaab, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, wages a war for dominance. Somali government officials claim the group orchestrated the bombing. It is the most lethal terrorist attack Somalia has ever experienced. And so it was with a familiar disappointment that Somalis in the country and the diaspora, along with other concerned observers, watched as details of the attack failed to headline broadcast news or resonate globally on social media.
There was no impromptu hashtag of solidarity, no deluge of television coverage. It was as if the bombing was just another incident in the daily life of Somalis – a burst of violence that would fade into all the other bursts of violence. The lack of public empathy was startling, but not surprising. There are good reasons. We tell ourselves, that we feel compassion more easily for people who look like us, live close to us, or who share our values. It’s easier to identify with them and to imagine their pain as if it were our own. Empathy for distant conflicts, especially ones happening to African Muslim people, is a stretch.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Mogadishu resident are sick and tired of this state of affairs and just want a normal life where they can send their children to school without worrying about their safety and where they can enjoy a walk on the beach without wondering if they will be attacked.”
Mogadishu Residents No Longer Have An Appetite For Terrorism
22 October – Source: Daily Nation – 724 Words
The horrific twin truck bomb blast in Mogadishu, which killed more than 300 people, was the worst terrorist attack the city has witnessed in recent years. Almost everyone in the city knows someone who was killed or injured in the blast. Traumatised residents have been standing in long lines to donate blood while volunteers are still searching for survivors and those who are missing.
Al-Shabaab has yet to claim responsibility for this attack, perhaps because, as one resident told me, it probably missed its intended target, which some sources say could have been the new Turkish military base or government offices. Hotel:I was sad to learn that the Safari Hotel near the busy K-5 junction, where I spent a few nights on my first visit to Mogadishu in 2011, has almost been levelled. This hotel, a favourite meeting point for residents, was one of the few places in Mogadishu that one could enjoy a cappuccino and where a Wi-Fi network ensured that guests could access the Internet.The restaurant in the hotel had some of the best fish and spaghetti I have ever tasted.
At that time, I didn’t dare to wander around the city on my own so an aid worker lent me his car and driver, who sat behind the wheel with an AK-47 firmly wrapped around his shoulder. Normalcy; We drove around bullet-ridden shells of once-magnificent buildings that used to house government offices, cinemas, hotels and mosques and the former parliament building, which has been reduced to a stump. Yet there seemed to be a desire among the residents to reclaim a sense of normalcy.
I saw boys playing football in crumbling stadiums and women selling goods in “shops” that had no roofs or doors. In the evening, men would sit outside tea shops chewing khat as if the war that has destroyed their city had happened elsewhere. Many told me that were it not for the war, Mogadishu would be one of the best cities in the world. In its heyday, this “White Pearl of the Indian Ocean” was an orderly and beautiful city with pretty boulevards, scenic beachfronts and iconic architecture with Omani, Italian and Islamic influences. Before and during the Siad Barre years, residents would go to the cinema to watch a movie and even listen to live jazz in a club.
As the Somali writer Nurrudin Farah has often lamented, this cosmopolitanism was lost when Somalia plunged into civil war in 1991, and when warlords took control of the city. Not only were buildings and infrastructure destroyed, but with the emergence of Al-Shabaab and other fundamentalist forces, a way of life disappeared. The people of Mogadishu have in recent years tried to rebuild their city but their efforts are continuously hampered by terrorist bombings. For a while it seemed that Amisom forces had vanquished the terrorist group, but that has clearly not happened. Destructive forces have ensured that the capital remains in a permanent state of civil war.