February 4, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report.
Car bomb targets government official in Mogadishu
04 Feb – Source: Radio RBC – 137 Words
Car bomb targets a government official in Mogadishu. Car loaded with explosives went off today in a market in Mogadishu, Somali capital. The car exploded in the busy Karaan Market. The explosion is believed to have been targeting a government personnel who was at the scene of explosion. At least seven civilians have sustained injuries from the explosion according to a medical staff who spoke to RBC reporter on the ground. Security forces in the capital have immediately reached the scene and commenced investigations. Although no one has claimed the explosion, people are associating it with Al-Shabab since they are known to carry out similar attacks in and around the capital.
Key Headlines
- Car bomb targets government official in Mogadishu (Radio RBC)
- Inaugural Arabian Sea Region Oil & Gas Summit to be held on 26th-27th May in Muscat Oman (Radio Goobjoog)
- QRC QC open health centre in Somalia (Radio Bar-Kulan)
- Al-Shabab fighters storm police station in Bossaso Bari Region (Radio RBC)
- Puntland official survives bomb attack (Garowe Online)
- Negotiate with north eastern teachers Sabatia MP Alfred Agoi tells government (Standard Media)
- Kisenyi: Al-Shabaab terror suspects remanded further (New Vision Uganda)
- Senior Shabaab leader killed in U.S. drone strike (Los Angeles Times)
- Shabaab commander captured in Somalia (Worldbulletin)
- US bank ending of Somali money transfers to have “catastrophic” impact – TRFN (Reuters)
SOMALI MEDIA
Car bomb targets government official in Mogadishu
04 Feb – Source: Radio RBC – 137 Words
Car bomb targets a government official in Mogadishu. Car loaded with explosives went off today in a market in Mogadishu, Somali capital. The car exploded in the busy Karaan Market. The explosion is believed to have been targeting a government personnel who was at the scene of explosion. At least seven civilians have sustained injuries from the explosion according to a medical staff who spoke to RBC reporter on the ground. Security forces in the capital have immediately reached the scene and commenced investigations. Although no one has claimed the explosion, people are associating it with Al-Shabab since they are known to carry out similar attacks in and around the capital.
Inaugural Arabian Sea Region Oil & Gas Summit to be held on 26th-27th May in Muscat, Oman
04 Feb – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 161 Words
International Research Networks (IRN) announced the launch of the inaugural Arabian Sea Region Oil & Gas Summit to be held on 26th-27th May in Muscat, Oman. The Arabian Peninsula has vast reserves of oil and natural gas, and with generous terms for developing fields that have been given by the Governments, the Arabian Sea is an attractive new exploration frontier. Recent discoveries in the region have also boosted the interest of international investors. The Summit will facilitate discussions on exclusive information investors should know about their business in Oman, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Iran. A distinguished panel of speakers consisting of Government Officials and Senior Executives from oil companies will present many subjects including, “Somalia; unexplored hydrocarbons and government incentives for further exploration.”
QRC, QC open health centre in Somalia
04 Feb – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 305 Words
Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) and Qatar Charity (QC) have opened a new health centre in Awdheegle District in Lower Shebelle, 120km south of Mogadishu, Somalia, at a cost of QR280,000 to improve health care services for the local community. Serving the district’s population of 30,000 and neighbouring towns, the centre comprises outpatient, maternity, paediatrics, pharmacy, short observation and inpatient departments. QC Office in Somalia undertook all construction work and QRC Office will manage and operate the centre for one year and then it will be handed over to health authorities.
The opening ceremony was attended by Awdheegle District Mayor Mohamed Oways Abu Baker, Awdheegle tribe’ Grand Chieftain Sultan Meewa Hadji Othman, tribal and local community leaders and QRC and QC representatives. Abu Baker thanked QRC and QC for continuous efforts, providing assistance such as food, aid for farmers to improve crops, and construction of health facilities. “We hope QRC and QC will continue to stand by their Somali brothers. All thanks and appreciation to Qatar’s leaders and people for support of the Somali people.” Othman said, “Thanks to the benevolence of our brothers in Qatar, there will no longer be anyone in Awdheegle suffering due to a lack of services. Our women will never find difficulty in giving birth. QRC and QC have given us a full-fledged health centre with doctors, workers and free medicines.”
The centre follows cooperation between QRC and QC in Somalia under Qatari Alliance for the Relief of the People of Somalia and the Philippines, formed 14 months ago by QRC, QC, Eid Charity and Al Asmakh Charity Foundation. The alliance has implemented tens of relief and development projects for victims of cyclone and drought in Somalia and provided food and non-food assistance, health services, sheltering, productive projects and digging water wells.
Al-Shabab fighters storm police station in Bossaso, Bari Region
04 Feb – Source: Radio RBC – 136 Words
Armed men believed to be loyal to Al-Shabaab have stormed a police station in puntland’s Port town of Bossaso. Although there are no further details about the attack, RBC Radio can report says that the gunmen have attacked the Baalade Police station in New Bossaso village in Bossaso. Police officer patrolling the cell have resisted and stopped the Al-shabaab fighters from entering the station. All Al-Shabab attackers are said to have been killed. A police officer is also confirmed to have died in this attack. Bossaso’s local administration had not commented on the attack so far. This is the second attack Al-Shabab carried out on a police station in Bossaso as Puntland forces are fighting Al-shabaab influx in Gal-Gala mountain ranges.
Puntland official survives bomb attack
03 Feb – Source: Garowe Online – 89 Words
The general accountant of the Puntland government’s Galkayo administration has survived a roadside bomb attack in the town, officials said on Tuesday Garowe Online reprts. The bomb which struck Mr. Said Ali Yusuf’s car has reportedly inflicted a minor damage and the accountant escaped unharmed. Tuesday’s bomb attack was the second to target a Puntland official since last month. The deputy Mudug region’s governor Farhan Ali Hersi has survived a roadside bomb in Galkayo in January.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Negotiate with North Eastern teachers, Sabatia MP Alfred Agoi tells Government
04 Feb – Source: Standard media – 164 Words
Sabatia MP Alfred Agoi has asked the national government to negotiate with teachers who have refused to work in regions deemed insecure instead of threatening to sack them. Mr Agoi said the teachers had legitimate reasons why they wouldn’t go back to those regions. “What the teachers experienced in parts of Mandera last year was beyond the imagination. You cannot force them to go back before you put proper measures for them to feel secure,” said Agoi .
He was speaking at Bukulunya Secondary School after he handed over a Sh6 million school bus purchased through the Constituency Development Fund. Basic assurances Agoi said the teachers, whom the Teachers Service Commission insists must return to their schools in North Eastern region, have not even been given basic assurances or gone through counselling after witnessing horror perpetuated by suspected Al-Shabaab militants. “Life is more precious than a job. The teachers will not be at peace working in the region after what they saw,” said the MP.
Kisenyi Al-Shabaab terror suspects remanded further
03 Feb – Source:New vision – 340 Words
Ten Kisenyi al-Shabaab terror suspects including two women have been remanded again to Luzira Prison due to incomplete investigations.This was after state prosecutor Edward Muhumuza asked Buganda Road Magistrates’ Court presided over by Grade One Magistrate Pamela Lamunu Ocaya to remand the suspects to enable police complete its investigations. “Inquiries are not complete. We pray that the court remands the suspects because the State is still probing them,” said Muhumuza. He said the findings would subsequently be compiled in an indictment report to be used during trial at the High Court.
This prompted court to remand the suspects until February 16. The suspects – nine Somali national and a Kenyan – who were arrested in September 2014 in Kisenyi, a city suburb, appeared in court to answer charges of aiding and abetting terrorism and an alternative count of belonging to a terrorist organization. The maximum penalty of the offence is death on conviction. Richard Rugambwa was present as lawyer for suspect Mohamed Abdulkdir Hirsi alias Mohamed Abdul Aziz Adan. The other lawyers, David Mushabe and Andrew Manzi, were absent.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Senior Shabaab leader killed in U.S. drone strike
03 Feb – Source: Los Angeles Times – 362 Words
A U.S. drone strike has killed a senior Shabab leader near Mogadishu, the Somalia capital, according to Pentagon officials, the third U.S. attack against the Al Qaeda-linked militia since last fall.Yusuf Dheeq, Shabab’s chief of intelligence and external operations, was killed Jan. 31 by a drone-launched Hellfire missile, said U.S. defense officials who were not authorized to speak on the record.
The Obama administration has directed drone strikes and other counter-terrorism operations against Shabab for years. The group has threatened the U.S.-allied government in Mogadishu and has spilled over into neighboring Kenya. The Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, confirmed that Dheeq was the target of the latest drone strike. He said analysts are still assessing results of the attack, but had determined that no civilians were injured.
“If [Dheeq] no longer breathes, then this is a significant, another significant blow to al Shabab,” Kirby said. Shabab, which controls a large swath of rural Somalia, has been trying to regain power since it was driven out of Mogadishu and the port city of Kismayo by U.S.-backed African Union troops in 2011 and 2012.The militia has claimed responsibility for lethal attacks on coastal resorts in Kenya, as well as a Dec. 3 suicide bombing of a United Nations convoy near Mogadishu’s airport.
Shabaab commander captured in Somalia
03 Feb – Source: Worldbulletin – 317 Words
Somali authorities on Tuesday announced the capture of a senior commander of the Al-Shabaab militant group in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region.”The commander was detained by the Somali national army,” Mohamed Osman, a senior official, told The Anadolu Agency. He said the top militant, identified as Olow Barow, had been wounded while fighting near Fidow in the Middle Shabelle region. Barow is now expected to be taken to capital Mogadishu for interrogation. Last week, two Al-Shabaab commanders were captured alive after clashing with Somali army troops in the neighboring Gedo region. In recent days, Al-Shabaab training camps in Middle Shabelle, Lower Shabelle and Gedo have been the target of airstrikes.
On Tuesday, at least 27 militants were killed in an airstrike in southern Somalia. “The airstrike targeted Al-Shabaab camps in Bulo-gudud town in the Lower Jubba region,” Col. Mohamed Sheikh Abdi told local media, while refraining from saying who had carried out the strike. A top Al-Shabaab leader and scores of group members were killed on Saturday near Dinsoor, a town in Somalia’s southwestern Bay region, in a strike believed to have been carried out by a U.S. drone.
US bank ending of Somali money transfers to have “catastrophic” impact – TRFN
03 Feb – Source: Reuters – 632 Words
A decision by a U.S. bank to stop doing business with companies that transfer money from Somalis living in the United States to families back home could have a “catastrophic” impact on the fragile Horn of Africa country, development groups said. The lack of a formal banking system in Somalia is one of the legacies of conflict and instability that has gripped the nation since military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
Each year Somalis abroad use money transfer operators to send home an estimated $1.3 billion, more than all humanitarian and development aid combined, according to a 2013 report by aid groups Oxfam, Adeso and the Inter-American Dialogue.The money provides a lifeline to millions of people in a country rebuilding itself despite an insurgency by Islamist militants, hunger and recurring drought.
The United States is the biggest source of remittances, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the total, Oxfam says. But virtually all major U.S. banks have ended remittance services to Somalis in the United States because of regulations designed to stop money falling into the hands of groups branded “terrorists” by Washington, such as Somalia’s al Shabaab. Last week, Merchants Bank of California, which handles an estimated 60 to 80 percent of the money bound for Somalia, said it was terminating its business with Somali-American money transfer companies.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“It takes leadership to acknowledge one’s mistakes, ask for advice, and listen to the concerns of one’s own constituency attentively. Would he?”
Does President Gas’ political show buzz and ivory tower attitude hurt Puntland?
04 Feb – Source: Wardheer news – 951 Words
President Gas of Puntland is politically isolated within a short time into his mandate and has lost touch with reality in both Puntland and larger Somalia. Despite his continuous travels and repeated tours in some parts of the country, while intentionally avoiding some regions, including those regions considered his political power-base, yet being highly visible in receptions at Villa Garowe with Somalia’s International Partners.
This self-imposed political isolation and complacency is due to the following blunders of his making: The President chose to surround himself at the State House with young novices as his key advisors, who neither have the political skills, education, nor the experience of working in any region of Somalia, not to mention about having slightest field work experience in Puntland State of Somalia. The President is incapable of gauging the mood and the feeling of ordinary men and women towards his leadership performance in terms of the economy, public order and personal safety.
State employees, including security forces are not paid for months after months, often triggering off threatening periodical mutiny of forces, ensuing dangerous security situation, and creating an atmosphere of growing popular deep discontents. The President does not treat this precarious situation as a national emergency and priority number one for the very survival and unity of Puntland. The President is in a state of “a know-it-all“ mind, a superficial Ivory Tower Attitude, devoid of any real and on-the-ground political context and smart understanding of current dismal economic and geopolitical situation of Puntland.
“Somali scholarship suffers from what I consider to be an “ostrich syndrome.” By ostrich syndrome, I mean a symptom that some people exhibit or manifest when they are confronted by confounding and conflicting social, political, or controversial issues in their lives. Instead of confronting the issues, such people would rather ignore them or, as ostriches do, bury their head in the sand, hoping that the threat will go away.”
The Somali Question?
03 Feb – Source: Mareeg Media – 3, 187 Words
More than half a century ago, Frantz Fanon made two pivotal observations about cataclysmic convulsions that would engulf Central and Eastern Africa. The first referred to his prescient observation that the African continent resembles a revolver, and Zaire is the trigger (Fanon, 1966 [2005]). His clairvoyant statement eerily prefigures what political commentators have, since the 1990s, characterized as the potential starting point of Africa’s First World War (Williams, 2013).
On New Year’s Eve 1991, the entire Somali state collapsed, and the people of Somalia began the last decade of the twentieth century mourning, instead of celebrating, the onset of a new millennium. To be sure, this kind of political conflict is not confined to Somalia; it remains a significant feature of the region. The Horn of Africa, which encompasses Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda, is one of, if not the most conflict-prone zones in the world. Several interlocking conflict clusters exist in the region. The first involves the long-standing civil strife in South Sudan, which extends into Uganda and Chad. The second centers around the complicated network of conflicts that link Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Kenya (Prendergast and Thomas-Jensen, 2007).
My purpose in this essay is to force Somali scholarship out of the ostrich syndrome and compel it to see the effect of regional social and demographic transformations on the social and geographic boundary of Somaliness. My argument is that, unless Somalis can subdue the current disintegration of Somalia, the ramparts of the nation as we know them will be severely tested—if not unhinged—by the demographic and economic forces of its neighbors.
Top tweets
@Oxfam 40% of #Somalia‘s population depends on money from loved ones abroad to survive.
@BBCAfrica Today’s #African #proverb: Death and justice affect everyone equally. A Somali proverb sent by Mohamed Bashle, Mogadishu, Somalia
@MOALIMUU #Puntland Prez Abdiweli Gaas and Jubba Prez Ahmed Madobe will be coming shortly to #Mogadishu for discussion with #Somalia Fed Gov leaders.
@Goobjoognews #Somalia Leaders of Somalia federal units gather in Mogadishu for consultation with the Somali President@TheVillaSomalia
@Tommy_Africa #Somalia SOMALIA: Al-Shabab fighters storm a police station in Bossaso, Bari Region http://ow.ly/2Uf99Z
Image of the day
AMISOM Police Commissioner, Anand Pillay, shakes hand with Hiran Regional Police commissioner Col. Isaaq at Belet-Weyne Airport.
Photo: AMISOM