November 14, 2017 | Morning Headlines
Polls Open In Somalia’s Breakaway Region Of Somaliland
13 November- Source: Xinhuanet – 302 Words
Voting kicked off at 7 a.m. in the breakaway region of Somaliland on Monday as over 700,000 voters lined up in queues to cast their ballot to elect their fifth president. Queues started forming in a number of the stations as voters lined up to vote in 1,642 polling centers. “I am very happy to vote and I will give my vote to the most suitable candidate,” Sagal Mohamed told Xinhua. Muse Bihi Abdi will be defending the ruling party seat while former House Speaker Abdirahman Irro is vying in Wadani ticket. Faisal Ali Warabe is running under Justice and Development Party (UCID). This is the first poll in Somaliland to use a new voter registration system, which itself marks the first use of iris-scan biometric technology in an African election.
Meanwhile, a 60-member team of international observers from 27 countries is monitoring the polls. The international election observation mission (EOM), which has been invited by Somaliland’s National Electoral Commission (NEC), said it will conduct its observation activities in accordance with the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, emphasizing the impartiality and independence of that observation. The EOM is led by the Development Planning Unit (DPU) at University College London (UCL), and Somaliland Focus UK. This EOM marks the fourth election in Somaliland observed and reported on by DPU and Somaliland Focus since 2005. “Preparations for this mission have been intense, and we are very appreciative of the invaluable assistance we have had from so many stakeholders in Somaliland, and from the British government in funding this mission,” Michael Walls of DPU, chief observer on the EOM “Now that we are seeing the hard work bear fruit, we are hoping we will see a spirited and peaceful polling day marking another step in Somaliland’s democratic development,” Walls said.
Key Headlines
- Polls Open In Somalia’s Breakaway Region Of Somaliland (Xinhuanet)
- Hirshabelle President Concerned About New Offensive Against Al-Shabaab (Hiiraan Online)
- Somalia: Suspected Al-Shabaab Gunmen Kill Electoral Delegate Elder in Mogadishu (Somali Update)
- Agency Seeks To Improve Somalia’s Health Industry (Daily Nation)
- US-targeted ISIS In Somalia Could Be A ‘Significant Threat’ (News24.com)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Hirshabelle President Concerned About New Offensive Against Al-Shabaab
13 November- Source: Hiiraan Online – 150 Words
The President of the HirShabelle Federal Member State, Mohamed Abdi Ware says he is very concerned about the new offensive launched by government troops in his state. The HirShabelle leader said, his administration was not consulted on the recent offensive in villages that come under the district of Balcad especially, the village of Basra where recently government troops and Al-Shabaab engaged each other in a fierce fight. “The army forces are following the command of President Farmaajo who declared war.
However, there is need for consultations and for us to have one common viewpoint, the war going on in Basra, frankly speaking as an administration we were not consulted,” said Ware. He added that if attempts are not made to convene a consultation over the matter, then the current offensive might create so many problems. Its reported that the airstrikes targeting Al-Shabaab recently hit areas in Middle Shabelle region.
Somalia: Suspected Al-Shabaab Gunmen Kill Electoral Delegate Elder in Mogadishu
13 November – Source: Somali Update – 149 Words
Suspected Al-Shabaab gunmen have shot and killed a prominent elder in the capital, Mogadishu on Sundaynight the latest in a string of assassinations against the elders, involved in the country’s electoral delegate to selected lawmakers in 2016-2017 elections. The gunned killed Mr. Hassan Ja’iir who was among the electoral delegates who took part in the selection of parliamentarians from Jowhar town. According to witnesses, the elder was confronted by two assailants who shot him dead at close range near his house in Bakaro market in Mogadishu and then, escaped from the crime scene.
Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the assassination of the elder in a statement posted on pro-Al-Shabaab websites. The Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group has killed dozens of elders and electoral delegates who participated in Somalia’s two indirect elections that took place in 2012 and 2016. Late last year, the group vowed to assassinate anybody who is involved in the recent elections.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Agency Seeks To Improve Somalia’s Health Industry
13 November- Source: Daily Nation – 516 Words
In war-torn Somalia where volunteers are hard to come by, one man stands tall. In Somalia, health care is in disarray making proper treatment of tragedy victims a tall order. Fortunately, Dr. Abdulkadir Abdirahman Adan is giving hope to those in need by offering free, 24-hour ambulance service and ensuring people get better medical care. Dr Adan quit a well-paying job in Pakistan to set up Aamin Ambulance that is operating in the capital Mogadishu.
The deplorable state of the health industry nudged the trained dentist to ameliorate the situation. There are few ambulances to transport casualties to hospitals. “When I came back to the country, there was a war going on and people were using wheelbarrows to get patients to hospitals. “It led to deaths on the way to hospitals, the persons carrying the patient would be tired. That motivated me to respond and set up Aamin Ambulance Service. It has helped to stop deaths,” Dr. Adan said, adding that many lack the skill to perform first aid.
With little resources he had, he set up the company that is now 10 years old “I shed tears, it hurt me to see my own countrymen suffering. I was not going to run away. I had to do something. “I put all my savings and bought a second hand van for a start. We slowly grew and today I am proud of where we have reached though I know we can grow even bigger and offer better services. “If I place ‘I’ before the word Aamin, it becomes ‘trust me’,” he explained.
He added that settling on the name has endeared him to the people, who are not used to having volunteers. The company has recorded significant growth, boasting of a team of 35 nurses, paramedics, drivers, along with a fleet of 10 vehicles. He said he has plans of expanding it to other regions. One of the agency that has contributed to his humanitarian endeavours is the United Nations Development Programme, which donated walkie-talkies. The portable radios have enabled his staff work better during emergencies. “When there is an emergency, everyone tries to make a telephone call and there is a jam on the telephone networks. “But the walkie-talkies will make a difference. They will simplify communication among us, coordination among ambulances and collaboration with hospitals.”
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“The ISIS fighters in Puntland are now thought to number around 200, according to a UN report released this month by experts monitoring sanctions on Somalia. The experts traveled to the region and interviewed several imprisoned ISIS extremists. The UN experts documented at least one shipment of small arms, including machine guns, delivered to the Islamic State fighters from Yemen.”
US-targeted ISIS In Somalia Could Be A ‘Significant Threat’
13 November – Source: News24.com – 942 Words
The Islamic State group’s growing presence in Somalia could become a “significant threat” if it attracts fighters fleeing collapsing strongholds in Syria and Iraq, experts say, and already it seems to be influencing local al-Shabaab extremists to adopt tactics like beheadings. The US military this month carried out its first drone strikes against ISIS fighters in Somalia, raising questions about the strength of the group that emerged just two years ago. A second strike targeted the fighters on Sunday, with the US saying “some terrorists” were killed. The Islamic State group burst into public view in Somalia late last year as dozens of armed men seized the port town of Qandala in the northern Puntland region, calling it the seat of the “Islamic Caliphate in Somalia.” They beheaded a number of civilians, causing more than 20 000 residents to flee, and held the town for weeks until they were forced out by Somali troops, backed by US military advisers. Since then, ISIS fighters have stormed a hotel popular with government officials in Puntland’s commercial hub of Bossaso and claimed their first suicide attack at a Bossaso security checkpoint.
This long-fractured Horn of Africa nation with its weak central government already struggles to combat al-Shabaab, an ally of al-Qaeda, which is blamed for last month’s truck bombing in the capital, Mogadishu, that killed more than 350 in the country’s deadliest attack. The Trump administration early this year approved expanded military operations in Somalia as it puts counterterrorism at the top of its Africa agenda. The US military on Sunday told The Associated Press it had carried out 26 air strikes this year against al-Shabaab and now the Islamic State group. For more than a decade, al-Shabaab has sought a Somalia ruled by Islamic Shariah law. Two years ago, some of its fighters began to split away to join the Islamic State group. Some small pro-ISIS cells have been reported in al-Shabaab’s southern Somalia stronghold, but the most prominent one and the target of US airstrikes is in the north in Puntland, a hotbed of arms smuggling and a short sail from Yemen. The ISIS fighters in Puntland are now thought to number around 200, according to a UN report released this month by experts monitoring sanctions on Somalia. The experts traveled to the region and interviewed several imprisoned ISIS extremists.
The UN experts documented at least one shipment of small arms, including machine guns, delivered to the Islamic State fighters from Yemen. “The majority of arms supplied to the ISIL faction originate in Yemen,” ISIS defectors told them. A phone number previously used by the ISIS group’s US-sanctioned leader, Abdulqadir Mumin, showed “repeated contact” with a phone number selector used by a Yemen-based man who reportedly serves as an intermediary with senior ISIS group leaders in Iraq and Syria, the experts’ report says. While the Islamic State group in Somalia has a small number of foreign fighters, the Puntland government’s weak control over the rural Bari region where the ISIS group is based “renders it a potential haven” for foreign ISIS fighters, the report says. The ISIS group’s growing presence brought an angry response from al-Shabaab, which has several thousand fighters and holds vast rural areas in southern and central Somalia, in some cases within a few dozen miles of Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab arrested dozens of members accused of sympathising with the Islamic State faction and reportedly executed several, according to an upcoming article for the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point by the center’s Jason Warner and Caleb Weiss with the Long War Journal.
Civilians in areas under al-Shabaab control have suffered. “Possibly in response to the growing prominence of ISIL, al-Shabaab imposed more violent punishments, including amputations, beheading and stoning, on those found guilty of spying, desertion or breaches of sharia law,” the new UN report says. Some Somali officials say al-Shabaab has begun to de-escalate its hostility against the ISIS fighters as its initial concerns about rapid growth have eased. Al-Shabaab has begun to see ISIS in Somalia as a supplementary power that could help its fight against Puntland authorities, said Mohamed Ahmed, a senior counterterrorism official there. Officials also believe that the Islamic State group has difficulty finding the money to expand. Its fighters are paid from nothing to $50 a month, the UN report says. “For them, getting arms is a lot easier than funds because of the tight anti-terrorism finance regulations,” said Yusuf Mohamud, a Somali security expert. For now, no one but al-Shabaab has the ability to carry out the kind of massive bombing that rocked Mogadishu last month.