July 20, 2018 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somali National Security Council Orders Reopening Mogadishu Roads
20 July – Source: Halbeeg News – 186 Words
Somali National Security Council has issued a directive ordering the reopening of major roads in the capital, Mogadishu. Hundreds of Somali forces, who were deployed to different parts of the city, had been mounting a number of roadblocks to prevent Al-Shabaab attacks in recent months.
In a meeting between Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and the council, the forces were ordered to reopen the roads within 24 hours. Among the roads ordered reopened, are 30th Street, Afisyone and Maka Al-Mukarama streets.
The roads, ordinarily blocked with barriers, have inadvertently restricted the movement of people and vehicles. The Somali government has increased operations in their huntdown for Al-Shabaab members and their sympathisers in and around Mogadishu city.
The government forces backed by AMISOM have lately launched offensives against Al-Shabaab fighters in south and central regions of Somalia. In the meantime Al-Shabaab has similarly stepped its deadly bomb attacks in city. Over the last two weeks, the group killed over 20 people in suicide bombs at the Interior Ministry near the presidential palace. Al-Shabaab wants to overthrow the Somali government and install their owned administration in the country.
Key Headlines
- Somali National Security Council Orders Reopening Mogadishu Roads (Halbeeg News)
- Traditional Elders And Al-Shabaab Meet In Hiiraan Region (Radio Kulmiye)
- Inter-Clan Battle Erupts In Galgadud Region Central Somalia (Goobjoog News)
- Al-Shabaab Launches ‘Aggressive’ Child Jihadi Recruitment In Somalia (Breitbart.com)
- Homeland Security Extends Legal Protections For 500 Somalis In US (Voice of America)
- When Is A Nation Not A Nation? Somaliland’s Dream Of Independence (The Guardian)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Traditional Elders And Al-Shabaab Meet In Hiiraan Region
19 July – Source: Radio Kulmiye – 116 Words
Reports from Bula Burde District in Hiiraan region, state that elders from HirShabelle held a meeting with Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab is said to have discussed with elders on how their children can support them in the fight against the government.
Abdi Dahir, the District Commissioner of Buula Burde, who spoke to KNN today, sent a warning message to the elders who met with Al-Shabaab fighters in the outskirts of the town. Following the meeting, the commissioner explained that they summoned the elders with a view to find out what they discussed with the Al-Shabaab. He warned the elders against any further contact with Al-Shabaab, who are hiding on the outskirts of Buula Burde District in Hiiraan region.
Inter-Clan Battle Erupts In Galgaduud Region, Central Somalia
19 July – Source: Goobjoog News – 125 Words
A heavy inter-clan fighting erupted in Galgaduud Province in central Somalia on Wednesday night, amid efforts to bring an end to the recurring hostilities in the region.
The battle, which stretched for two hours, broke out in Mayeran area, in the outskirts of Herale village, after armed militiamen clashed over the land ownership. The number casualties was not immediately established owing to the remoteness of the village and lack of proper communication. However, sources say tension is still brewing.
Local authorities and clan elders are trying to halt the bloody conflict by bringing the warring sides to the negotiating table with a view to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict. Many people have been forced to flee from their homes because of the clashes.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Al-Shabaab Launches ‘Aggressive’ Child Jihadi Recruitment In Somalia
20 July – Source: Breitbart.com 455 Words
Al-Shabaab jihadists in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region have ramped up “aggressive” child recruitment efforts, forcing outgunned residents who refused to surrender their kids to ultimately flee after fighting the heavily armed al-Qaeda affiliate, Kenya’s Standard newspaper reports Thursday.
Al-Shabaab reportedly ordered elders and parents and other community members in rural areas, to provide hundreds of children for recruitment. The development sparked off clashes between Al-Shabaab militias and the locals in Gullane and Kadere villages. A local resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Al-Shabaab had displaced hundreds of locals who refused to surrender their children to fight for the group. “Many people fled from their homes after Al-Shabaab started the aggressive child recruitment campaign. We call on the government to intervene,” the resident declared, stressing that both parents and children have been forced to flee to avoid forced recruitment.
According to a report unveiled by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) in January of this year, the Islamic terrorist group that operates in and around Somalia has already recruited “thousands of children for indoctrination” to become the next generation of jihadists since it launched its violent campaign against the Somali government in 2006.
In the January report, HRW revealed that it is using death threats to coerce civilians into surrendering children from their community “for indoctrination and military training.” Al-Shabaab’s violent tactic has reportedly already forced community elders to surrender thousands of children, including 300 in one region alone.
Homeland Security Extends Legal Protections For 500 Somalis In US
19 July – Source: Voice Of America – 264 Words
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decided Thursday to extend temporary legal protections to about 500 Somalis who sought refuge in the United States. The majority of those affected live in Minnesota, home to the nation’s largest community of Somali-Americans.
Twenty-two U.S. senators had sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen urging the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali nationals who have taken refuge in the U.S. after escaping conflict and violence in Somalia. In the announcement, Nielsen determined “the ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions that support Somalia’s current designation for TPS continue to exist.”
Democratic Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, who has led the effort to extend humanitarian protections, told VOA Somali the danger still exists in Somalia. Taking to Twitter, she later added, “We must work to find a long-term solution. Without it, hundreds of our Somali neighbors who fled violence, human rights abuses, and who call this country home could face deportation.” Though Somalia’s TPS designation was renewed for 18 months — until March 17, 2020 — it was not redesignated, meaning only current beneficiaries can re-register.
OPINION, ANALYSIS & CULTURE
“The argument against Somaliland’s independence rests largely on factors beyond the country’s control. Somaliland officials are used to hearing that if their independence were recognised, it would set off a domino effect for nationalist movements, destabilising the continent. If Somaliland were independent, what would stop other regions from trying the same thing?”
When Is A Nation Not A Nation? Somaliland’s Dream Of Independence
20 July – Source: The Guardian – 3820 Words
When you are in Somaliland, there is never any question that you are in a real country. After all, the place has all the trappings of countryhood. When I arrived at the airport, a customs officer in a Somaliland uniform checked my Somaliland visa, issued by the Somaliland consulate in Washington DC. At the airport, there was a Somaliland flag. During my visit, I paid Somaliland shillings to drivers of cabs with Somaliland plates who took me to the offices of ministers of the Somaliland government. But, according to the US Department of State, the United Nations, the African Union and every other government on Earth, I was not in Somaliland, a poor but stable and mostly functional country on the Horn of Africa. I was in Somalia.
Even among unrecognised states, Somaliland is a special case – it is both completely independent and politically entirely isolated. Unlike South Sudan before its independence, Somaliland’s claim for statehood is based not on a redrawing of colonial borders, but an attempt to re-establish them. Unlike Taiwan, it is shackled not to a richer, more powerful country, but a poorer, weaker one. Unlike Palestine, its quest for independence is not a popular cause for activists around the world.
The journalist Graeme Wood has described places such as Somaliland as the “limbo world”: entities that “start by acting like real countries, and then hope to become them”. What separates “real” from “self-proclaimed” countries is simply the recognition of other countries. There’s no ultimate legal authority in international relations that decides what is or isn’t a real country, and differences of opinion on that question are common. What separates the Somalilands of the world from, say, Sweden is that Sweden is recognised by its peers.
Statehood may be a legal concept, but achieving it is an entirely political process. To the degree that foreign officials acknowledge Somaliland at all, they are generally sympathetic to its history and admiring of its recent accomplishments. Somaliland’s main obstacle is not the world’s animosity, but its indifference. Its current predicament answers the question: what would happen if you created a new country and no one noticed? Somaliland is pretty easy to get to.
There are regular flights to the capital, Hargeisa, from Dubai and Addis Ababa. The city – a scruffy, sprawling town of cinderblock houses and potholed roads – feels coated in a fine film of desert dust. It’s usually extraordinarily dry, although periodic violent downpours in the rainy season leave the mostly unpaved streets damp and soggy. Camels are the traditional livelihood, food source and currency of Somali herders, and even in the big city, it’s not unusual to see them loping through busy downtown traffic. Food stalls crank out steaming, heaping plates of chewy camel meat (not bad) and thick, frothy camel milk (nauseating – to me, anyway).
From other stalls, money-changers dispense grimy, faded bricks of shilling banknotes held together by rubber bands. When I was visiting, the shilling was trading at about 7,000 to the US dollar – although given that you can’t exchange Somaliland shillings anywhere outside Somaliland, I don’t exactly understand how this exchange rate is set. When paying for anything in a store with shillings, unless you know what you’re doing, it’s generally best to just hand over one of these bricks to the clerk and let him take out what he needs. Nowadays, most people are more likely to pay for basic goods and services by transferring cellphone credit.
Try to book a hotel in Somaliland online from the US and you are likely to be referred to a travel advisory stating: “The US Department of State warns US citizens to avoid travel to Somalia because of continuous threats by the al-Qaida affiliated terrorist group, al-Shabaab.” But once you’re there, you quickly realise that such warnings are unnecessary.
TOP TWEETS
@DhaayahaOnline: A Somali military court sentences 18 soldiers to five yearsin prison each for instigating clan-based discord and insubordination.Created just last year, the soldiers are from the 14th October battalion based in for the formerly UAE-run-training campin Mogadishu. @Tuuryare_Africa
@DalsanFM: 2 District Commissioners Kidnapped By Al-shabaab In Gedo
@HarunMaruf: BREAKING: The national security council orders reopening of Mogadishu roads incl 30th street, Maka Al-Mukarama, Afisyone within 48hrs. Govt forces have been blocking the roads 2+ months with barriers in an effort to impede truck bombs but inadvertently restricted public movement.
@adancabdulle: Retweeted Harun Maruf: For the past year & half, NISA was used as an instrument of terror against unarmed civilians & political opponents…now it’s terrorizing itself. Emblematic of a government in a serious disarray
@SahraCabdi: #BREAKINGNEWS: BBC Somali, veteran Journalist Yonis Ali Nur died in #London. He was one of my first trainers for media, during the BBC Training in #Marko, Somalia, early 2000s. He was respected journalist that worked in decades with #RadioMuqdisho & #BBCSOMALI May his soul RIP.
@TheVillaSomalia: H.E @m_farmaajo is back to the country after a successful Somalia Partnership Forum that yielded fruitful outcomes. The president thanks the #EU and @Sweden for co-hosting the SPF.
@BashiirMaxmud: #Somalia: Puntland forces withdrew from #Af-Urur vicinity late yesterday making the village fall in to the hands of #Alshabaab who are now fully controlling it. The withdrawal has come following residential tip-offs of possible assault from#Alshabaab. #Bari Region.
@DalsanFM: Somalia Now A Comesa Memberhttps://www.radiodalsan.com/
@HarunMaruf: Relief as U.S. Department of Homeland Security extends Temporary Protected Status for Somalia for 18 months.
IMAGE OF THE DAY
National Security Committee meeting in Mogadishu.
@DalsanFM