August 8, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somali Forces Conduct Operation To Clean Up Roadblocks In Lower Shabelle
08 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 190 Words
Security forces have conducted a heavy operation to clean up illegal roadblocks set up by armed militias in Lower Shabelle region. The move follows constant complaints by the travelers and transport vehicle owners over the past few weeks.Gunmen purporting to be government forces have set up their own roadblocks to illegally collect revenue from the motorists plying roads linking towns of the region. As a result, traders have been forced to hike prices on food and other commodities in the region.The associations of drivers and transport owners have been complaining continuously about the roadblocks where the armed militias demand a huge sum of money, thereby forcing many them to cease travel to several towns in the region.
Somali police forces and Somali National Army [SNA] on Monday announced they had apprehended several of armed men in an operation carried out in Leego town. Speaking to Goobjoog news, Leego district officer, Abukar Abdulahi Isack, said the operation was meant to create safe access for the locals.
He said the security forces were ordered to deal harshly with armed people found at roadblocks: “Those setting up roadblocks and denying people safe access to where they want to go, are not different from members of the Al-Shabaab militia group,” Isack said.
Key Headlines
- Somali Forces Conduct Operation To Clean Up Roadblocks In Lower Shabelle (Goobjoog News)
- Four Govt Soldiers Injured In Mogadishu Blasts (Shabelle News)
- Somali Boundaries Review Commission Says It Will Resolve Regional State Boundary Disputes (Goobjoog News)
- Galmudug President Joins NLF Talks In Mogadishu (Kulmiye Radio)
- Somali Minister Survives Assassination Attempt (VOA)
- Police Intensify Search For Ex-Recce Officer Planning Terror Attack (The Star Kenya)
- Al-Shabaab Remains A Potent Threat To Somalia (CCTV)
- Donald Trump’s Comments About Minnesota Somalis Met With Outrage (Star Tribune)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Four Govt Soldiers Injured In Mogadishu Blasts
08 August – Source: Shabelle News – 125 Words
At least four Somali government soldiers have been wounded, some critically, in double explosions in northern Mogadishu in the early hours of Monday morning. The first blast happened at SISI area in Deynile district after a remote-controlled IED planted at the edge of a highway ripped through a vehicle carrying soldiers.Residents, who spoke to Radio Shabelle on condition of anonymity, said the second explosion targeted the army vehicle transporting the wounded to a hospital. Local officials confirmed the attacks, saying police had launched a search to trace those behind the explosions, who immediately escaped the scene of the attack. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, although Al Shabaab militants are known to carry out such assaults in the capital of Mogadishu.
Somali Boundaries Review Commission Says It Will Resolve Regional State Boundary Disputes
08 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 244 Words
Somali Independent Boundaries Review Commission has promised to resolve the border disputes between regional states in the country. Boundary disputes have been identified as the main cause of violent conflicts between several states including, Somaliland and Puntland, Galmudug and Puntland and Banadir region and the South-West state.The chairman of boundary review team, Khaliif Abdikariin Mohamed, said they will give priority to the problematic boundary disputes between regional states: “The commission is determined to get to the root cause of the problem,” he said and promised to arrange for a meeting between residents from affected regional states.
The disputes have threatened to derail the peaceful implementation of the creation of federal states. He pointed out that the disputes had caused bad blood between members of different states and there was urgent need for a permanent solution to enable citizens of Somalia to co-exist peacefully.Attempts by elders to solve the protracted border disputes have failed: “There have been multiple disputes between states on the boundary issue. There is, however, no established mechanism for resolution of such disputes,” observed, Omar Abdi, a traditional elder from Galkaayo.Mohamed, however, gave an assurance that the boundary commission would play a key role in reducing the growing number of disputes. The commission regretted that boundary disputes had created tension and turned violent in some places, leading to loss of human lives, property and the displacement of people.
Galmudug President Joins NLF Talks In Mogadishu
08 August 2016 – Source: Kulmiye Radio – 137 Words
President Abdikarim Hussein Guuleed of Galmudug State is today expected to join the ongoing National Leaders Forum discussions in the Somali capital after undergoing a successful heart surgery in India.According to a brief statement he posted on his official Facebook page, Guuleed expressed enthusiasm in resuming his leadership role in moving forward the NLF deliberations at this crucial time.
Vice President Mohamed Hashi Arrabey has been representing the Galmudug administration in the ongoing electoral talks during the President’s absence. However, Guuleed is expected to sign the final National Leadership Forum communiqué, according to insider sources.
Somali political leaders have made some significant breakthrough towards the implementation of the 2016 electoral process, in the wake of a longstanding deadlock that had threatened the country’s smooth transition to political stability by at least agreeing on the election dates.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Minister Survives Assassination Attempt
08 August- Source: VOA – 217 Words
A Somali minister survived an assassination attempt Sunday when a hand-grenade was thrown at his car in the capital, Mogadishu.Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan Noah, Minister of Youth and Sport, told VOA that the explosive device hit his car as he was shopping at a local market in Maka al-Mukaramah, the capital’s busy main street.“When I got off from the car, a bomb hit and damaged the car, everybody got shocked and ran away from the scene,” the minister said.“A family friend who was travelling with me was hurt, but I was unhurt,” he added.
The minister said his body-guards were not wounded. Somalia’s security minister said in a tweet two civilians were wounded in the attack.So far, no group has claimed the responsibility for the attack, but the minister said the terrorist group al-Shabaab is behind this attack. Al-Shabaab has carried out several attacks on Somali government officials.On June, Somalia’s State Minister for Environment Buri Mohamed Hamza at more than one dozen other people were killed when the militants stormed a hotel in the capital. Sunday’s attack came hours after Somali officials have released new poll dates for the 2016 elections.
Police Intensify Search For Ex-Recce Officer Planning Terror Attack
08 August – Source: The Star, Kenya – 203 Words
The IG has asked former Recce Squad officer Eric Ng’ethe to surrender before he is arrested for possibly planning a terror attack. It was said Ng’ethe may have been planning an assault at the GSU Recce headquarters following his radicalisation by Al-Shabaab.Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet asked the former officer to present himself to the nearest police station.Boinnet said in a Citizen TV interview on Sunday that officers had been deployed to trail the suspected militant before he launches an attack. “Those who veer off from the force know the consequences. We are working better and smarter through a multi-agency operation to find such criminals,” he said.
Police recovered three AK47 rifles and 178 bullets, during an operation targeting Ng’ethe, at a river bank in Ruiru.The operation followed intelligence reports that the man had been radicalised by the terror group that has carried out several attacks in parts of Kenya. Ng’ethe deserted his job as an officer of the elite squad in 2014. He was a highly trained hostage and rescue cop. Police said the suspect had been spotted at Riyadh Mosque, which is alleged to be the place youths have been radicalised, further cementing suspicion against him.
Al-Shabaab Remains A Potent Threat To Somalia
07 August – Source: CCTV – Video: 4:01 mins
Five years ago, Somali and African Union forces pushed Al-Shabaab militants out of Mogadishu, allowing the Somali government to stretch its authority beyond the capital city. And as businesses and daily activities returned to normalcy, the group has proved that it remains a threat to the peace of the Somali people.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Community leader Hodan Hassan says amid scrutiny of challenges facing the Somali community, many success stories are unfairly overshadowed — including a rise in local entrepreneurship and growth in college educated professionals, including physicians and attorneys. Hassan serves on the Somali American Task Force, a group that has offered feedback to U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger on efforts to prevent radical recruitment,”
Donald Trump’s Comments About Minnesota Somalis Met With Outrage
07 August – Source: Star Tribune – 958 Words
Mahamoud Ibrahim stewed about Donald Trump as he packed for a three-week U.S. Army Reserve training. In aThursday speech, the Republican presidential candidate suggested that Somali refugees have turned Minnesota into a hotbed for terror recruitment and frayed its social safety net.
Trump’s swipe dominated discussion after Friday prayer at Ibrahim’s mosque in Burnsville.“I never thought he’d go there and blatantly call Somali Americans a danger,” said Ibrahim, an Inver Hills Community College student who enlisted in 2014. “It hurts listening to that.”For the state’s Somali community, Trump’s remarks inspired outrage, renewed calls to vote in November and plans to respond during the candidate’s planned visit to the state Aug. 19. Public officials, including Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, fired back on social media. For organizers of events questioning refugee resettlement that have drawn growing crowds in outstate Minnesota this year, the speech offered welcome validation.The remarks were not a departure for Trump, who has previously called for temporarily halting Muslim immigration and the resettlement of refugees from countries that have grappled with homegrown terrorism. But they were the first time he has singled out local refugee groups, in Maine and Minnesota.
Quoting a 2015 Washington Times article, Trump said Minnesota’s Somali refugees have high unemployment rates and represent “a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamist terror groups.” “The state is having tremendous problems,” he said.Trump appeared to be alluding to the recent convictions of nine young Somali-Americans in what the FBI described as a plot to leave the country and join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria.Authorities also charged a 10th man of Somali descent, believed to be among a small group of locals who left to fight in Syria, not all of them of East African origin.
TOP TWEETS
@Fatumaabdulahi:#Somalia #Rio team are incredibly brave. Off to compete with world class athletes when they had poor diet and almost no training! Good luck!
@IlwadElman:Really frustrated that despite the “progress” we’ve made in #Somalia where rape is now supposedly on social & political agenda- we still
@MogBF:#MBF2016 billboard next to the ruins of Old Somali Parliament building. Gorgeous sky and a sign of the new#Somalia
@MinisterHashi:Discussed #OIC #Somalia cooperation on#Education with z new #OIC Ambassador to #Somalia H.E Mohamed Saban.
@SalahOsman0:Good Morning. The pearl of Africa:#Mogadishu is shinning. It is always green #Somalia
IMAGE OF THE DAY
President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, speaks at a dinner he hosted for AMISOM and SNA officials at Villa Somalia.
Photo: Radio Muqdisho