April 19, 2013 | Morning Headlines.
Officials from UN agencies visit Baidoa town
18 Apr – Source: Raxanreeb – 98 words
The new governor of southern Somalia region of Bay Abdi Aden Hoshow on Thursday received high-ranking officials from the United Nations aid agencies in Baidoa town, RBC reports. The high ranking officials from UN agencies including World Food Program, World Health Organization and the Office of Coordinating Humanitarian Activities visited the town on Thursday in a bid to restore aid offices in Bay and Bakol regions.
Key Headlines
- Al Shabaab fights back against “war crimes” allegations (Radio Kulmiye)
- Central region to launch anti-drugs operation (Raxanreeb)
- Blast kills suspected Shabaab militant in Somalia (Daily Nation/Xinhua)
- NU professor to discuss his time as Somalia premier (Buffalo News)
- The 2013 TIME 100: Hassan Sheik Mohamud President of Somalia 57 (Time Magazine)
PRESS STATEMENT
Somalia takes major step forward on counter-terrorism
18 Apr – Source: Prime Minister’s Media Office – 231 words
The Somali Council of Ministers today approved new counter-terrorism legislation intended to bring the country into line with international best practice. Chairing the weekly Cabinet meeting, His Excellency Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon welcomed the draft legislation, which will now be sent to Parliament for debate and ratification.
“This is a very important piece of legislation that represents a key component of the government’s strategy to fight terrorism comprehensively while taking responsibility of our own borders and the security of our people,” the Prime Minister said. The new legislation will govern the conduct and structure of the national intelligence and security agencies and covers legal definitions of terrorism.
“We are in the last stages of a military campaign against an enemy that has been reduced to terrorism and guerrilla operations,” the Prime Minister said. “As an emerging democracy it is only appropriate that we now prosecute a counter-terrorism campaign according to the most robust, transparent and credible laws that have the confidence of the Somali public and fully respect international human rights.”
The Council of Ministers also discussed bilateral relations with the UK, including the Foreign Ministry’s nomination of the new Somali Ambassador to Britain H.E. Ambassador Abdullahi Mohamed Ali, who was appointed and will take office immediately ahead of the Somalia Conference to be held in London on 7 May.
SOMALI MEDIA
Officials from UN agencies visit Baidoa town
18 Apr – Source: Raxanreeb – 98 words
The new governor of southern Somalia region of Bay Abdi Aden Hoshow on Thursday received high ranking officials from the United Nations aid agencies in Baidoa town, RBC reports. The high ranking officials from UN agencies including World Food Program, World Health Organization and The Office of Coordinating Humanitarian Activities visited the town on Thursday in a bid to restore aid offices in Bay and Bakol regions.
Al Shabaab fights back against “war crimes” allegations
18 Apr – Source: Radio Kulmiye – 116 words
Al Shabaab has rejected that it committed war crimes in Somalia after killing 30 more people in a raid on Mogadishu main courts building on Sunday. Human Rights Watch accused the extremist group of committing war crimes in Somalia after deliberate attacks on civilians or civilian objects. Human Rights Watch also said that people who order or commit deliberate attacks on civilians are responsible for war crimes. Al Shabab spokesman, Ali Mohamud Rage who was speaking to a pro-al Shabaab radio in Barawe town southern Somalia said that they do not recognize Human Rights Watch and its reports, saying that the agency defends the interest of the Western governments.
Man dies while planting IED in Mogadishu
18 Apr – Source: Garowe Online – 102 words
Early Thursday morning a man died after reportedly trying to plant an improvised explosive device (IED) in a main intersection in Mogadishu, Garowe Online reports. Authorities said that after Fajr prayers dawn prayers – a man’s body was found in the middle of Turabunka and KM4 intersection in Mogadishu’s Hodan district. Hours later, authorities stated that they had arrested 7 co-conspirators and that the case was still pending.
Central region to launch anti-drugs operation
18 Apr – Source: Raxanreeb – 85 words
The police in central Somalia region of Hiiraan will launch fresh operations to prevent use of narcotic drugs in Beledweyn town, the police commissioner said on Thursday. Hiiraan police police commissioner Colonel Ali Dhux Mahad who on Thursday briefed the media said that many crimes committed in the society were the consequences of using narcotic drugs and the police will launch operations to eliminate drug use and drug trafficking. “The police have arrested several persons related to using and selling drugs.” the police commissioner said.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Blast kills suspected Shabaab militant in Somalia
18 Apr – Source: Daily Nation/ Xinhua – 114 words
A roadside bomb explosion in the Somali capital Mogadishu has killed suspected Al-Shabaab militant, police and witnesses said on Thursday. “The criminal planned to kill and maim innocent people but he was killed instead,” police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise told reporters at the scene of the blast. The street hit by the blast is a main road leading to the usually busy key K4 junction, where schools and universities in Mogadishu are concentrated. “It is fortunate that today schools and most universities are closed at this time of the week, but if it was another day, it would have resulted in a lot of causalities,” Daahir Yusuf, a resident in the area, told Xinhua.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
The 2013 TIME 100: Hassan Sheik Mohamud, President of Somalia, 57
18 Apr – Source:Time Magazine – 115 words
Emerging from the presidential contest of September 2012, Somalia’s Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is discarding destructive clan-based politics in favor of anticorruption measures and national reconciliation as well as embracing vital security-sector and economic reforms. A 17,000-strong African Union force finally helped to restore security in Somalia, but there should be no illusions about the challenges that come with governing a nation torn apart by two decades of civil war. almost 20 years of rebuilding in Rwanda has taught us that there is no definitive manual for leading nations through and beyond debilitating conflict. President Mohamud is faced with the difficult task of balancing much needed international assistance with asserting Somalia’s right to govern itself.
NU professor to discuss his time as Somalia premier
18 Apr – Source: Buffalo News – 94 words
Abdiweli Ali, who took a two-year break from his job as a Niagara University economics professor to serve as prime minister of his native Somalia, will speak about his experiences in the impoverished, war-torn East African nation at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the Castellani Art Museum on the Niagara campus. After his talk, Ali will be joined in a panel discussion by David A. Reilly, associate professor of political science; Brian M. Murphy, associate professor of communication studies; and Khalid Qazi, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“These two letters are precise manifestations of the view that the jihadi experience in Mali and Somalia has been a failure because of poor and harsh policies implemented by the Al Qaeda militants that just alienated local populations”.
The Letters: How Al-Qaeda Failed in Mali and Somalia
18 Apr – Source: Wardheer News – 1614 words
Recently, two separate letters written in Arabic by Al Qaeda leaders in Mali and Somalia have surfaced. The writings paint a grim picture of the jihadist experience in both countries. The first was found in Mali, and the second is an open letter from a Somali jihadist leader to Al Qaeda supreme leader, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri. The first was discovered when reporters from the Associated Press stumbled across a collection of documents that included a letter written by Abdelmailk Droukdel, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), after that radical group was defeated in Timbuktu, Mali, by French forces. Droukdel (also known as Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud) was appointed by the late Usama Bin Laden to oversee Al Qaeda’s operations in North Africa.
The second letter is presumed to have been written by Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee’aad (Al-Afghani), who until two years ago was the deputy emir of Somalia’s Al Qaeda affiliate, Al-Shabab. The letter has appeared on several websites sympathetic to Al-Shabab and carries Al-Afghani’s nom de guerre, “Shaikh Abu Bakr Al-Zaylici.” It is an indictment of the emir of Al-Shabab, Ahmed Abdi Godane, and his brutal, secretive, “un-Islamic” and ruinous style of leadership which has had tragic repercussions on the course of jihad in Somalia.