January 30, 2017 | Daily Monitoring Report
President Hassan Jets Out Of The Country To Addis Ababa
30 January – Source: Jowhar.com – 95 Words
President Hassan has on Monday morning travelled to the neighboring Ethiopia where he is set to attend African Heads of States meeting which is scheduled to kick off in Addis Ababa today. The president is expected to deliver a speech on the current situation in Somalia. During the summit, the African heads of States will elect the chairperson of the AU commission. On the sidelines‚ Hassan Sheikh is expected to hold bilateral meetings with the participating Heads of States. President Hassan, a presidential candidate, is among 24 presidential candidates vying for the country’s top seat.
Key Headlines
- President Hassan Jets Out Of The Country To Addis Ababa (Jowhar.com)
- Restaurant Explosion Injures 7 People In Middle Shabelle (Goobjoog News)
- President Hassan Invites Over 100 MPs To Dinner A Week Ahead Of The Presidential Election (Jowhar.com)
- Suspects On Police Radar For Financing Al-Shabaab Terrorists (Standard Media)
- My Family Waited 13 Years to Resettle In The United States. Then Trump Slammed the Door In Our Faces (Foreign Policy)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Restaurant Explosion Injures 7 People In Middle Shabelle
30 January – Source : Goobjoog News – 211 Words
An explosion ripped through a restaurant in Burane village Middle Shabelle region on Saturday night, injuring at least 7 people including government soldiers. A resident in Burane village, Osman Ali Mohamed said that 5 civilians and two soldier were wounded in the explosion in restaurant frequented by Somali soldiers. “A bomb planted inside the restaurant exploded while several people were inside. We can confirm that 5 civilians and one Somali soldier injured in the blast,” he said.
Muse Bihi, another local resident living nearby said that he heard huge blast at the restaurant. “I was sitting close to the restaurant when the bomb exploded, after a few minutes I saw 6 people including Somali soldier brought with injuries” he said. Witness Mahad Sheikh said a huge explosion was heard followed by a large plume of smoke rising from the area. He said the area was cordoned off by Somali soldiers in the village. “I saw heavily armed Somali troops arriving on the scene to enhance the security after the incident. The situation now is stable,” said Sheikh. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Somalia’s Al-Shabaab often carries out similar attacks in the country. Burane village is located few kilometres in the outskirt of Mahaday town in Middle Shabelle region.
President Hassan Invites Over 100 MPs To Dinner A Week Ahead Of The Presidential Election
30 January – Source: Jowhar.com – 215 Words
A week ahead of the presidential election, President Hassan Sheikh on Sunday night invited over 100 MPs from both the Lower and Upper Houses to a dinner in a bid to seek support for his presidential ambition. Galmudug President Abdikarin Guled, HirShabelle Vice President Ali Gudlawe Hussein, Former Vice President of Jubaland, senator Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail Fartag and Abdirashid Hiddig were among senior officials in attendance of the event to rally support for President Hassan Sheikh’s bid to be re-elected as the country’s president for the next four years.
Speaking at the venue, Abdirashid Hiddig promised to give his vote to President Hassan, saying that it was imperative to allow the president accomplish his unfinished business. Other notable parliamentarians who spoke at the venue include Sheikh Adan Madobe, Muse Sudi Yalahow and Mohamed Omar Dhalha, all expressing support for the president’s re-election bid. President Hassan thanked the MPs for their support and confidence in him, promising to implement his pledges for a better Somalia if re-elected. The event was said to be the biggest of its kind by a presidential candidate so far, triggering new fears that President Hassan has attracted a significant number of MPs during the past few weeks with reports that most of MPs from Southwest have thrown their weight behind him.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Suspects On Police Radar For Financing Al-Shabaab Terrorists
30 January – Source: Standard Media – 540 Words
Security agencies are investigating a woman in Umoja, Nairobi, following reports she sends money to her sons who joined Al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia. The woman, who runs several businesses in Umoja, is on the radar of security agents after it emerged she uses conduits to remit the money to her sons in Somalia. Kenyan Al-Shabaab operatives based in Somalia, among them Ahmed Iman Ali aka Abu Zinira, senior Al-Shabaab leader in charge of media propaganda Erick Achayo Ogada aka Ibrahim Ogada and Kennedy Yogan Mwok aka Anwar, have been getting their remittances from stalls they own in Gikomba market.
However, following sustained Government operations inhibiting financing from Majengo and Gikomba stalls, some Kenyan terror operatives based in Somalia are now using their families and relatives as conduits of money transfer to Somalia, police said. “Police have also been following up on their associates and investigations reveal the group based in Somalia has revived old networks by relying on financial facilitation from their relatives in Kenya,” said a police officer pursuing the matter. The woman is said to be sending money to her son Ogada and some of his kin who are in Somalia.
She allegedly manages several properties owned by her sons and herself from which she has been collecting rent and remitting to Somalia to facilitate their terror operations. “The properties, which are registered under her son’s name, include a residential house in Umoja and a one-storey commercial building at Nasra area in Nairobi,” said a police report seen by The Standard. According to the report, the woman has sent over Sh4 million to her son in Somalia since 2013. She is also believed to own a residential house in Kamulu and a lorry whose proceeds she uses to complement the remittances from her son’s properties. “Such facilitation has enabled Anwar to participate in previous gruesome attacks within the country, including the June 2014 Mpeketoni attacks and June 2015 attacks in Baure against innocent Kenyans.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“The words I write may travel all around the world, but I am confined to the refugee camp where I was born. I can’t move freely in Kenya; I need a permit to leave Dadaab. My whole life, it seems, I’ve been living the American dream. I just don’t know how much longer I can bear to live it outside of America,”
My Family Waited 13 Years to Resettle In The United States. Then Trump Slammed the Door In Our Faces.
29 January – Source: Foreign Policy- 1138 Words
The phone chimes. I know who is calling, even without looking at the screen.“You have heard about it, right? What Trump did…,” Maryan trails off.“Yes, I read about it on Twitter,” I reply, almost without emotion.“Why us? Why always our family?” she asks.“Dear, I don’t know, walaahi” — by God — “please calm down.”
In truth, I don’t know how either of us can be calm right now. The executive order suspending refugee admissions to the United States and blocking entry from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including my parents’ home country of Somalia, means that my family will likely never be reunited in America.
A quarter century after my parents fled to a refugee camp in Kenya, and 13 years after our family applied to be resettled in the United States, the door has finally been slammed shut. My sister lives in Richland, Washington. My parents were in the final stages of the vetting process for a visa; they are scheduled to be interviewed at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in February. And me? I am still caged in the refugee camp where I was born.
It didn’t always feel this hopeless. I remember the excitement of learning that the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) had opened a resettlement case for my family to come to the United States. I was eight and had just started the third grade. It was my first encounter with America, a place the other refugees spoke about the same way they spoke about the hereafter. America was Elysium in their imagination, and my family was among the first to be shortlisted to go there.
My parents stopped sending me to school, assuming I would be in an American classroom in a matter of months. In those days, we were all naive about the resettlement process. People suspended their lives immediately after UNHCR opened their cases — children dropped out of school, families gave away their belongings, and shopkeepers packed up their wares. Couples even stopped making love. A pregnancy, it was said, could delay getting to America.
When my sister Maryan finally got her green card in 2005, my interest in the United States grew. I started reading American romance novels — Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steel — and the occasional horrors, mostly Stephen King. All paperbacks, old and torn, from the library at my secondary school. Soon I was devouring Morrison, Walker, Fitzgerald, Salinger, among many others.
TOP TWEETS
@HassanIstiila: #BREAKING Alshabaab fighters arrested seven people including two women in connection with the killing its officer in #Somalia Gedo region
@HarunMaruf: Somali woman and her two children detained at Dulles Airport for 20 hours without food
@karldonert: Can #Ethiopia’s #railway bring peace to #Somalia?http://flip.it/M1VVv #geopolitics
@Rooble2009: Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu accepts credentials from the newly appointed#Somaliland representative to Ethiopia
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/
@simonallison: With one attack, Al Shabaab targets 3 elections – in Addis, Nairobi and Mogadishu. Clever strategy #Kulbiyowhttps://www.dailymaverick.co.
@abdirashidmd: Manipulation is still concern but i hope, the choicest will roll to victory in Feb. 8 vote.
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Burundi Chief of Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Prime Niyongabo Visits somalia and held meetings with the AMISOM Force Commander, Lt. Gen. Osman Noor Soubagleh and other senior AMISOM officials
Photo: AMISOM