August 31, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Puntland Reveals Plotters Of Galkayo Bombings
31 August – Source: Shabelle News – 139 Words
Puntland has released the identities of the masterminds of last week’s twin suicide attacks in northern Galkayo, which left over 20 people, including soldiers and students dead. Puntland state said Mohamed Bashir Mohamed Nur (Binu Mohamed), 40 – 45 years-old who is Head of Al-Shabaab for the explosions in Puntland is among the perpetrators.
The second mastermind is Nur Mohamed Abdullahi, known as Nur Deq, 45, head of Al-Shabaab for assassinations and blasts in Mudug region, according to a statement released by Puntland. In the statement, Puntland state has ordered its security agency forces to arrest the alleged Al-Shabaab commanders behind Galkayo attack and bring them into justice. On 21 August, 2016, two Al-Shabaab bombers in explosives-laden vehicles attacked a local government office and market in the Puntland-administered northern Galkayo city, killing more than 20.
Key Headlines
- Puntland Reveals Plotters Of Galkayo Bombings (Shabelle News)
- Puntland Vice President Urges Somali Leaders To Jointly Fight Against Al-Shabaab (Goobjoog News)
- Two Vehicles Transporting Ballot Papers Hijacked In Sool Region (Goobjoog News)
- What Next For Somalia?: Women’s Role In Somalia’s Future (NTV Radio)
- AMISOM Police Holds Sensitization Meeting On Countering Violent Extremism (AMISOM)
- Turkey Condemns Somalia Terrorist Attack (Anadolu Agency)
- Somaliland And Khaatumo Talks Herald The Demise Of The Union (Wardheer News)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Puntland Vice President Urges Somali Leaders To Jointly Fight Against Al-Shabaab
31 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 139 Words
The Vice President of Puntland, Abdihaakiin Haji Omar has called on Somali leaders to jointly fight Al-Shabaab fighters barely a day after the suicide attack took place in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab claimed the responsibility for Tuesday’s attack that left over 20 people dead and 30 people injured. Omar noted that Al-Shabaab can be defeated by launching operations across Somalia.
“I call on the leaders to give attention to this issue of fighting against Al-Shabaab, the group kills innocent people every day,” said Omar. Al-Shabaab, has carried out a series of deadly attacks in the Horn of Africa country as it seeks to topple the Western-backed Somali government. Al-Shabaab, which controls several towns and villages in south and central Somalia, was driven out from the capital city, Mogadishu by Somali forces supported by AU forces in 2011.H
Two Vehicles Transporting Ballot Papers Hijacked In Sool Region
31 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 149 Words
Two vehicles carrying ballot papers for the upcoming Somaliland elections have been hijacked by unidentified gunmen in the Sool region. The two vehicles were transporting boxes of ballot papers to Holol constituency in the outskirt of Las-Anod town. “It is unlikely that the perpetrators were aware the boxes contained ballot papers as the vehicles and boxes are unmarked,” Somaliland electoral commission said.
Somaliland, a former protectorate of Britain is scheduled to hold presidential elections march next year. In March this year, tension mounted in the region after the breakaway region of Somaliland deployed hundreds of troops and battle wagons in the region which parts of it is controlled by Khatumo state.
Despite lacking an international recognition, Somaliland which runs its own parallel government and army considers itself as an independent state after it declared a unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
What Next For Somalia?: Women’s Role In Somalia’s Future
31 August – Source: NTV – Video: 6:12 Minutes
The second part of the series “What Next for Somalia?” looks at the preparedness ahead of the election and the role of women in Somali politics. After President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud assumed office in 2012, one of his promises was to ensure that in future elections, there would be universal suffrage where all adults would vote. But this has not happened. Somalia’s leaders will be voted by 135 clan leaders. One of the presidential candidates, the only female in the race Fadumo Dayib says this is not an election but a selection by a few people.
AMISOM Police Holds Sensitization Meeting On Countering Violent Extremism
31 August – Source: AMISOM – 345 Words
AMISOM Police today held a community sensitization meeting on countering violent extremism and radicalization in the southwestern city of Baidoa. The campaign took a community-policing approach in its mobilisation programme and is one of a series of community sensitization meetings planned by the police component of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) ahead of the forthcoming electoral process.
The Baidoa meeting was attended by Abdirashid Abdullahi, the Governor of Bay Region and representatives from civil society organizations, women leaders, youth, senior Somali Police Force officers and officials from the Interim South West Administration (ISWA). The Bay Governor affirmed the residents’ resolve to cooperate with security forces to counter violent extremism.
“The local community has a role to play in this. They have been sensitized about this at the district and the regional level. The Ministry of Security and the Ministry of Interior have carried out awareness activities to encourage community members to participate in security programmes and counter any threats on the safe conduct of the forthcoming electoral process in Baidoa,” Mr. Abdullahi said.
Turkey Condemns Somalia Terrorist Attack
31 August – Source: Anadolu Agency – 189 Words
Turkey strongly condemned a militant attack on a hotel near the presidential palace in Somalia on Tuesday that killed at least 15 victims and injured more than 20 others, including MPs and ministers. “Turkey is a friend and brother of the Somali people and we are determined to provide any kind of support to achieve peace” in Somalia, the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.
Turkey also expressed its condolences to the families of the victims of the attack in Mogadishu, according to the statement. Al-Shabaab militants detonated a truck filled with explosives outside the SYL hotel that houses several government officials and diplomats. A shopkeeper in Mogadishu told Anadolu Agency he saw clouds of smoke in the air.
“It’s a terrifying scene. I don’t know when we shall have peace in this country?” Ali Adhe said via telephone from Mogadishu. Somalia’s al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab took to the pro-Shabaab Radio Andalus to claim responsibility for the attack that is in effort to overthrow the western-backed government. The militant group has carried out several attacks in Somalia and neighboring Kenya, killing hundreds of innocent victims.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“In their defence, those founding fathers of Somalia were at least honourable nationalists for whom the union once enacted became sacred, unlike the current incumbents in Villa Somalia who are shamelessly corrupt and trade on the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia.”
Somaliland And Khaatumo Talks Herald The Demise Of The Union
31 August – Source Wardheer News – 501 Words
Prof. Ali Khalif Galaydh, the President of the Khatumo State of Somalia, has lately toned down his usual virulent anti Somaliland rhetoric. The one-clan enclave, he says, is not the one responsible for the creeping break-up of Somalia’s unity contrary to the hitherto received conventional wisdom since the clan’s declaration of secession in May 1991.
The culprits, he intones, are Mogadishu and its myopic self-seeking southern rulers, namely Culusow and company, who couldn’t care less about the union, and have done much to ruin it. Few in the north, whether unionists and secessionists, would disagree with the professor’s perceptions and assessments.
Prof. Galaydh’s revelation about the current southern ambivalence about the union is nothing new but goes back to the negotiations for the union at independence, when northerners had to press for Somali unity at all costs to them and, in the face of foot-dragging from southerners, had to satiate their greed and consent to their grab of all the leading posts of the State.
For all their sacrifices, their reward was to be ungratefully dubbed as the “misguided dimwits”. In their defence, those founding fathers of Somalia were at least honourable nationalists for whom the union once enacted became sacred, unlike the current incumbents in Villa Somalia who are shamelessly corrupt and trade on the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, with Khatumo a victim preyed on by its predatory neighbours, Somaliland and Puntland, often in unholy alliance, and with the tacit or open collusion of Hassan Culusow and his Prime Minister for their personal or clannish ends, Prof Galaydh sought guidance in history. He took leaf from the book of the former Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, who, despairing of liberating their Israeli-occupied territories, resorted to the most inconceivable desperate action by opening peace talks with his arch-enemy.
TOP TWEETS
@Suheyfa : First Batch:250 students graduate from Jamhuriya University of Science&Technology in Mogadishu.#Somalia.#Hope.
@UKinSomalia : UK ambassador to #Somalia@HarrietLMathews held media engagement with #Somalilandwomen journalist associatio
@Eye_on_Somalia : #goobjoog Puntland says it will respond to any ‘Aggression’ from Somaliland: The semi-autonomous reg…http://bit.ly/2bFGaV5 #somalia
@Eye_on_Somalia : #goobjoog Somali’s Farhan Hadafo at Rio as Somalia makes its debut at the Paralympics Games: By Kari… http://bit.ly/2bAsa4r #somalia
Girl_Stats_ 8: Likewise, in #Somalia only 3.3% of #childrenunder 5 have their #births registered http://girl-stats.org/stats/
@lasoco : What next for Somalia?: Women’s role in Somalia’s future – NTV Uganda http://j.mp/2bZFSvQ #Somalia
@USAIDSomalia : @USAID and FGS agree to partner for access to education for all Somalis @US2SOMALIA #Somalia@Etimisks
IMAGE OF THE DAY
250 Students graduated from Jamhuriya Science and Technology University in Mogadishu Wednesday.
Photo: @Suheyfa