December 16, 2015 | Morning Headlines
Somalia Leaders Call For Hostility Cessation In Central town
15 December- Source:Garowe Online – 155 Words
Federal Government of Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke have strongly condemned renewed hostility in central Beledweyne town on Tuesday, Garowe Online reports. The President called on warring clans to right away abandon conflict, threatening responsible figures with accountability. “Clan clashes must end and those who are involved should know that they will be held accountable,” Mohmud warned.
He decried the death toll in his first remarks on the fighting that has led to deaths over the last two days. On his side, Prime Minister Sharmarke deplored the clan grudges and called armed confrontations ‘unfortunate’. “It is unfortunate that there is [bloodshed] in Beledweyne at a time when Somali people are deciding on their future. Fighting should be ceased and [parties] must heed peace,” said Prime Minister Sharmarke. On Monday, at least four people have been reported killed in the clan clashes while over a dozen others were wounded –
Key Headlines
- Somalia Leaders Call For Hostility Cessation In Central town (Garowe Online)
- Federal Ministers And Galmudug President Arrive In Beledweyne (Shabelle News)
- UN Somalia Envoy Demands Perpetrators Face Justice After Killing (Garowe Online)
- AU Troops Intervene In deadly Somali Clan Fight (The East African)
- Alloy Wheel Theft Lands Somali Repeat Offender In Jail For One Year (Malta Independent)
- Why Is the FBI Obsessed With This Portland Imam and His Mosque? (TheNation)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Federal Ministers And Galmudug President Arrive In Beledweyne
15 December – Source:Shabelle News – 91 Words
A high-level delegation, which includes Galmudug president Abdikarim Guled and five ministers have today arrived in Beledweyne city on a mission to end the inter-clan fighting at Howlwadag village.The internal security minister of Somalia Abdirisak Omar Mohamed is part of the delegation reached Beledweyne. According to the residents the visiting officials are expected to meet with local elders.The inter-clan fighting has killed at least 20 people and displaced hundreds of families from their houses at Howlwadag area located west of Beledweyne, where two clan are battling over unresolved feud.
UN Somalia Envoy Demands Perpetrators Face Justice After Killing
15 December- Source:Garowe Online- 112 Words
United Nations envoy to Somalia, Ambassador Nicholas Kay has said that he was shocked by the killing of two humanitarian workers, urging justice on Tuesday, Garowe Online reports.“I am deeply shocked at killing today of Amina Mohamed Nur & Abdirisak Adan Adawe. May they rest in peace. Perpetrators must face justice. So sad,” he wrote on his twitter. EU Ambassador Michele Cervone d’Urso reacted to the incident in similar manner, calling the heinous act ‘despicable murder’.Unidentified assailants shot and killed the UNHCR workers on Mogadishu’s Maka Al Mukarama road on Monday.Security officials are insisting that search operations are ongoing over the killing of two humanitarian workers.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
AU Troops Intervene In deadly Somali Clan Fight
15 December – Source: The East African – 193 Words
The African Union (Amisom) troops from Djibouti and Ethiopia Monday reportedly intervened to quell a deadly inter-clan confrontation in central Somalia.The clashes that erupted on Sunday have claimed at least 14 lives, reports indicated.According to the reports from Beletweyne town, the capital of Hiran region, two militias turned their guns on each other when one group sought revenge for two men killed earlier in the week.The dead, the reports said, included the combatants and civilians at Howlwadaag neighbourhood on the western side of the town.The clashes are said to have left at least 40 other people wounded, among them those hit by stray bullets.
Residents confirmed that confrontations had resumed on Monday, albeit with less intensity, prompting the Amisom intervention.Traditional clan elders, led by Ugas Abdurahman Ugas Khalif, were also reported to be trying to mediate between the warring sides.“Stop the fire and acknowledge the old Somali saying that wars do not produce boys, instead they kill boys,” remarked Ugas Abdurahman, addressing both sides.Somali clans often fight over control of power and resources and the cycle is often worsened by revenge attacks and long lasting rivalry.
Alloy Wheel Theft Lands Somali Repeat Offender In Jail For One Year
15 December – Source: Malta Independent – 121 Words
Mohamed Haji Abdilwahid Nur, 36, of Somalia, residing at the Marsa Open Centre, today was given a one-year jail term after he admitted to stealing an alloy wheel from an establishment known as ReBek Tyre Service.The theft took place Monday at 5pm in Marsa. He also admitted to relapsing, breaching public peace and being unable to control his actions due to the amount of alcohol he consumed.
This is the eighth time that the Somali migrant was arraigned in four years over different crimes. It is understood he tried to run off with the alloy wheel but did not make it far before he was caught.Police Inspector Robert Vella prosecuted while Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera presided over the case.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Kariye was born in 1961 in Hargeisa, a city in northern Somalia. His father was an imam as well; Kariye has said that through his father’s example he became “very motivated to follow the right path.” He arrived in Oregon in 1982, spent a year at a high school in Salem, and went on to study at Portland State University. He worked as a teacher in Pakistan in the early 1990s, a period that would later become of interest to federal investigators,”
Why Is the FBI Obsessed With This Portland Imam and His Mosque?
15 December – Source: The Nation – 3442 Words
Three days before the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a Muslim cleric arrived at the airport in Portland, Oregon, with his four children, a brother, several thousand dollars in cash, and tickets to the United Arab Emirates.
Inside the terminal, federal agents and local cops surrounded them and arrested the cleric, a Somali-born American citizen named Sheikh Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye. The following day, a customs inspector testified in court that two checked bags containing Kariye’s personal items tested positive for explosives. The judge ruled Kariye a flight risk and denied bail. The cleric would spend the next five weeks in custody.
Kariye leads Masjed As-Saber, a Portland mosque that had been infiltrated by an undercover informant months before his arrest. The operation was part of a case later known as the Portland Seven—one of the first major domestic terror prosecutions following 9/11. Kariye was never charged with a terrorism-related offense, but in the eyes of the federal government, he’s never been exonerated. Nearly 15 years after his initial arrest, both he and his Portland community continue to be the subject of intense interest from the government’s counterterrorism apparatus. In July, prosecutors moved to strip Kariye of his citizenship, claiming that he lied to immigration authorities about his alleged prior affiliations with terrorist groups.
Dig beneath the surface of the government’s portrait of Kariye, however, and it’s possible to see him not as a national-security threat but as an object of obsession—as well as a case study in the way that domestic counterterrorism operations since 9/11 have singled out Muslims for intrusive surveillance and selective prosecution, based on things they’ve said, people they’ve known, and things they could do in the future. In the wake of the recent mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, counterterrorism officials are recalibrating their strategy to better identify isolated threats. There have been calls for the increased surveillance of Muslim communities, based on an assumption that Islamic radicalism is more dangerous than other kinds. Kariye’s case presents something of a cautionary tale. It’s not clear that the relentless pursuit of the imam, as well as the seemingly lengthy surveillance of other worshippers at his mosque, has made Portland or the rest of the country any safer. Instead, it has alienated the Muslim community in Portland and discouraged it from cooperating with law enforcement.