December 14, 2017 | Morning Headlines
Two Children Injured In IED Explosion In Gedo
13 December – Source: Goobjoog News – 215 Words
Two people including a small girl were slightly injured when a bomb device suspected to be a mine exploded near the residential home of the local commissioner of Fafahdun location in Bardera district, Gedo region. Fafahdun local commissioner Mr. Adan Shuluk Nunow survived the incident and two other children were injured. “The explosive device was buried at the backside of my home, while others say it’s a hand grenade. Thanks to Allah I am live as you can hear me speaking to you,” said Mr. Nunow. “My daughter and a boy got injured in the attack.” The administrator said the two are in a stable condition and are receiving treatment in a local clinic. “The girl sustained slight injuries on her head, while the boy was injured on one of his thighs” added Mr. Nunow.
In a separate incident, reports from Kumya Barow in Lower Shabelle say Al-Shabaab fighters amputated the right hand of a 19 old teenager identified as Mr. Abdifatah Osman Ahmed for allegedly accused of stealing US$ 5,000 in cash, computers and other items. A local Al-Shabaab court in the area decreed the amputation which occurred in a public gathering where the locals converged and further ordered the accused to reimburse the alleged stolen money and items.
Key Headlines
- Two Children Injured In IED Explosion In Gedo (Goobjoog News)
- Somali Parliament Approves 2018 Budget (Radio Shabelle)
- Somalis Deported From US Shackled For 46 Hours And Abused-Civil Rights Body (Goobjoog News)
- The US Announces Greater Involvement In Somalia Conflict (Presna Latina)
- Somali Port Cities Can Act As Gateway To Africa For Potential Trade Via Gwadar: PM (Associated Press of Pakistan)
- In Somalia An Overlooked Extremist Hotbed Simmers (Wall Street Journal)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Parliament Approves 2018 Budget
13 December – Source: Radio Shabelle – 99 Words
The Lower House of the Federal Parliament of Somalia has passed the 2018 budget during Wednesday’s session in Mogadishu. The Federal MPs unanimously voted in favor of the new budget submitted by the Ministry of the Finance, giving the Federal Government a go-ahead to continue its operations.
During the session, 162 lawmakers endorsed the budget out of the 164 present, 1 rejected while, 1 abstained from voting, according to the first Deputy Speaker Mr. Abdiweli Ibrahim. The Finance Minister Dr. Abdirahman Dualle Beyle, has thanked the legislators for the approval of the budget and promised for accountability and transparency.
Somalis Deported From US Shackled For 46 Hours And Abused-Civil Rights Body
13 December – Source: Goobjoog News – 298 Words
Somali nationals who were returned to the US after their plane developed technical glitches in Senegal were subjected to inhumane conditions, and remained chained for two days in the plane, an American civil rights body has said. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) said in a statement, on Tuesday the 92 Somalis who had been deported from the US suffered in the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and Senegalese security personnel. “For nearly 46 hours, passengers on the plane remained shackled, were not given adequate food or water, and denied access to a working restroom,” said ADC.
Some of the passengers were forced to relieve themselves in empty bottles, while others urinated on themselves, ADC noted adding ‘the air condition on the plane was not working, and the temperature was at an inhumane level.’ The plane carrying the 92 Somalis left the US December 7 destined for Somalia but, grounded in Senegal due to technical problems before reverting to Florida. “The plane sat on the tarmac for nearly 24 hours, with the passengers not permitted to get off-of the plane,” said ADC.
ADC which describes itself as civil rights organization committed to defending the rights of people of Arab descent said it had demanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide immediate medical attention to the Somalis and delay their removal from the US for at least 30 days to allow them meet with their attorneys. “Forcing these individuals to remain restrained for nearly a day on an airport tarmac, in smoldering temperatures, without consistent access to food, water, toilets or air-conditioning is simply inhumane and unacceptable,” ADC Legal Director Abed Ayoub said. Goobjoog News was not able to get a comment from ADC about the status of their request to ICE by the time of publishing this story.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
The US Announces Greater Involvement In Somalia Conflict
13 December – Source: Prensa Latina – 220 Words
The command of the African Command of the United States (AFRICOM) announced today that it will continue operations in Somalia, turning 180 degrees from the announcement weeks ago that limits its military presence here to training tasks. The accuracy appears in a statement which accounts for the air strike yesterday against ‘an Al-Shabaab vehicle carrying an explosive device’ in an area southwest of this capital.
Al-Shabaab (The Youth, in Arabic), which has not confirmed the operation, is an Islamist armed group loyal to the Al Qaeda network, created at the end of the 70s of the last century by the Saudi millionaire Osama Bin Laden with logistic and economic support and training of the Central Intelligence Agency. The airstrike was carried out in coordination with the federal government and we verified that no civilians were killed in the action (…) The US forces will continue to implement all appropriate and authorized measures to protect American citizens and to dismantle the threats of Al-Shabaab, the AFRICOM statement affirms.
AFRICOM is a Unified Combatant Command of the United States established in 2007 and autonomous from the following year whose headquarters are in the German city of Stuttgart, Germany. A US task force operates in this capital to control actions against Islamist armed groups fighting the government of President Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed.
Somali Port Cities Can Act As Gateway To Africa For Potential Trade Via Gwadar: PM
13 December – Source: Associated Press Of Pakistan – 199 Words
Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Wednesday said Somalia was strategically important to Pakistan as its port cities could act as a gateway to Africa for potential trade via Gwadar. The Prime Minister was talking to the President of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, on the sidelines of the Extraordinary Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), being held in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Prime Minister underscored the need for exploring new avenues of bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Somalia, especially in the area of enhancing bilateral trade and connectivity linkages. He reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to contribute towards training and capacity building of the Somali security forces, and other institutions.
President Mohamed thanked the Prime Minister for Pakistan’s invaluable contribution towards peace and development of Somalia. He especially lauded the role of Pakistani peacekeepers towards stability of Somalia in the past, and paid tribute to their sacrifices in the line of duty. He also thanked Pakistan for providing education opportunities to thousands of Somali students, who had been playing a vital role towards development of Somalia. The two leaders reaffirmed the strong and abiding ties between the two brotherly countries and also exchanged views on issues of international and regional importance.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“With key global shipping lanes nearby, a tradition of piracy and proximity to Yemen—another al Qaeda stronghold just across the Gulf of Aden—Somalia isn’t attracting nearly enough international attention, warn senior Western officials involved with the country. “Somalia continues to be a global strategic threat. But, with other international crises, it’s being treated as a sideshow,”
In Somalia, An Overlooked Extremist Hotbed Simmers
13 December – Source: Wall Street Journal – 1208 Words
Maimed in the war between Somalia’s government and Al-Qaeda’s affiliate Al-Shabaab, the patients of De Martino Hospital prefer not to talk about what happened to them. “Everybody’s afraid,” the hospital’s director, Abdi Ibrahim Jiya, said as he walked through a ward filled with recent arrivals. “If you complain and are for the government, you’re afraid of the Al-Shabaab. And if you complain and are for the Shabaab, you’re afraid of the government.” Such is the balance of fear in Somalia’s capital, a bustling city of three million people where, despite years of international military efforts to stamp out Islamic extremists, security remains elusive and government authority fleeting. In October, Mogadishu was hit by Africa’s deadliest terrorist attack—a truck bombing that killed more than 500 people.
Outside Mogadishu, things are worse. Al-Shabaab controls roughly 30% of the country’s territory, Somali government officials estimate. Alongside Taliban-held areas of Afghanistan, that is the world’s largest swath of real estate that remains under jihadist sway since the recent demise of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria. It is also one with a coastline that is easily accessible and as vast as the eastern seaboard of the U.S. “You look at fighters leaving the Levant as ISIS collapses in Iraq and Syria, and the question is: Where do these fighters end up?” said a U.S. military official familiar with Somalia operations. “Al-Shabaab owns a territory in Somalia that may be a place where they go and that’s something that we’re trying to work with the federal government of Somalia to prevent.”
With key global shipping lanes nearby, a tradition of piracy and proximity to Yemen—another al Qaeda stronghold just across the Gulf of Aden—Somalia isn’t attracting nearly enough international attention, warn senior Western officials involved with the country. “Somalia continues to be a global strategic threat. But, with other international crises, it’s being treated as a sideshow,” said Alexander Rondos, the European Union’s special representative for the Horn of Africa.
That is beginning to change under President Donald Trump’s administration. In recent months, the U.S. military began focusing more on Somalia, which has lived through three decades of war and has haunted American policy makers ever since the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” debacle in Mogadishu.
There are now more than 500 U.S. troops operating in Somalia, according to the Pentagon, many of them special operations forces. The U.S. has also dramatically accelerated the pace of airstrikes against al-Shabaab. In one such recent drone attack on Nov. 21, the U.S. said it killed more than 100 militants after targeting an Al-Shabaab camp northwest of Mogadishu. Operating mostly in central and southern Somalia, Al-Shabaab has also launched bloody raids in neighboring Kenya and Uganda. The group, which formally became part of al Qaeda in 2012, can field some 9,000 core fighters on Somalia’s battlefields, according to U.S. military estimates.
Unlike some other major Islamist extremist groups such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram, al-Shabaab refused to reflag itself as a “province” of Islamic State when that movement was ascendant in 2014. A separate Islamic State-linked group in Somalia counts roughly 100-200 men and operates mostly in the northern Puntland region, according to the U.S. military. Much of the fighting against Al-Shabaab is currently done by 22,000 African Union troops from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. That African force, however, has suffered horrendous casualties at the hands of the militant group and is beginning to pull out.