January 8, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
The Official Opening Of Bander Qasim International Airport Gets Underway In Bosaso
08 January – Source: Horseed Media – 129 Words
The opening ceremony for Bander Qasim International Airport has commenced in Bosaso, the port city in the Bari region of Puntland State of Somalia today. The ceremony was attended by many dignitaries including President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid, ambassadors for China and Italy and other nations from the west. Ex-premiers, members of the federal cabinet and other distinguished guests from the public were equally in attendance. This was a historical moment for the development of Somalia, which is recovering from prolonged civil war that stalled economic progress of the nation. Images of Bander Qasim Airport have dominated social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in the past couple of days. Somalis have welcomed and praised the new airport as a gateway for future stability of the economy in the region.
Key Headlines
- The Official Opening Of Bander Qasim International Airport Gets Underway In Bosaso (Horseed Media)
- ISWA Forces Battle Al-Shabaab In Gof-gaduud Town Near Baidoa (Wacaal Media)
- Voter Registration And Elections Will Not Take Place In The Eastern Regions Says Ali Khalif (Somaliland Informer)
- Somali Restaurant Owner To Attend President’s State Of The Union Address Next Week (Star Tribune)
- Somalia Cuts Diplomatic Ties With Iran Citing Threat To Security (Bloomberg News)
- Ethnic Somalis Are Dying In Kenya And Some Say The Government Is To Blame (Washington Post)
- Kenya Has Become A Perilous Place To Be A Teacher With The Threat Of Al-Shabaab Leaving Young People In Crisis (The Independant)
NATIONAL MEDIA
ISWA Forces Battle Al-Shabaab In Gof-gaduud Town Near Baidoa
08 January – Source: Wacaal Media – 109 Words
Ten people were killed including five members of the Interim Southwest Administration forces in a fierce gun battle yesterday in Gof-gaduud location. Sources say the clashes started on Wednesday evening after Al-Shabaab raided the government forces base in the town which is located 30km north of Baidoa. Director of the Baidoa district hospital Abdifatah Ibrahim Hashi told the local media the institution received up to ten people with different types of injuries. He added an eight month old baby was among the injured. Commander of the ISWA armed forces Mohamed Isak said they managed to kill 15 militants whose bodies he added are still in Goof gaduud.
Voter Registration And Elections Will Not Take Place In The Eastern Regions Says Ali Khalif
08 January – Source: Somaliland Informer – 338 Words
Somaliland is making final preparation in holding free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections slated to take place nationwide in 2017. National Election Commission announced the official commencement of voter registration in Togdher. The leader of Khatumo, Ali Khalif Galeyr has insisted that voter registration as well as general elections will not happen in Sool, Sanaag and Buhodle regions.
Mr. Khalif has warned Somaliland authority not to re-instigate bloodshed in the region once again. The former Somali prime minister and current Somali lawmaker has reiterated that holding elections in the eastern regions is a dream. He called on Somaliland authority to remain their territories and should not meddle the internal affairs of Khatumo and Makhir administrations. Speaking of a meeting with Somalia president, the Khatumo leader has called on the inhabitants of Makhir and Khatumo states to support the cause.
Mr. Khalif has stated that the Federal Government backs the formation of Makhir and Khatumo states. The Khatumo leader has revealed that delegations will be sent to work on the issue of achieving a united administration for Makhir and Khatumo. Somaliland Defense forces are in presence when it comes to the large swathes of the territories in the eastern regions of Sanaag, Sool and Buhodle.
Somaliland authority reiterated the peaceful conducting of voter registration and general elections in the eastern regions. Somaliland is a self declared state in the Horn of Africa which seceded from Somalia in 1991 but it has not achieved international recognition since its inception.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Restaurant Owner To Attend President’s State Of The Union Address Next Week
08 January – Source: Star Tribune – 118 Words
The owner of Afro Deli & Catering restaurants in Minneapolis and St. Paul plans to attend President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address next week. Abdirahman Kahin was invited to the event by Sen. Al Franken. Franken says Kahin is a Somali-American who shows how important people of diverse faiths and backgrounds are to Minnesota’s prosperity. The 38-year-old Kahin says he’s honored to attend the address, and he’s eager to hear Obama speak about ways the U.S. can support immigrants and people of all faiths. Kahin opened the first Afro Deli near the University of Minnesota’s West Bank campus in Minneapolis about five years ago. In February, he opened a second branch in downtown St. Paul
Somalia Cuts Diplomatic Ties With Iran Citing Threat To Security
08 January – Source: Bloomberg News – 191 Words
Somalia’s government cut diplomatic ties with Iran and recalled its envoys after accusing the Iranian Embassy of establishing sects that pose a threat to national security in the Horn of Africa nation. Iranian diplomats have been “directly involved in meddling with internal Somali affairs and have carried out measures that are a threat to our national security,”
Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke’s office said in a statement e-mailed Thursday from the capital, Mogadishu. It said Shiite Muslim sects established in Somalia by the unidentified diplomats were similar to those that exist in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Iranian diplomats were given 72 hours to leave the country, according to a separate statement issued by Somalia’s Foreign Ministry.
Somalia joins several countries in the region that cut ties with Iran amid a diplomatic standoff between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia on Jan. 3 gave Iran’s ambassador to Riyadh 48 hours to leave the country after protesters in the Shiite-majority country stormed the Saudi Embassy and set parts of it on fire. The incident followed the kingdom’s execution of 47 people for terrorism-related offenses on Jan. 2, including a Shiite cleric.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“A number of those who were detained were later released, and some recounted how they were taken to military camps or police stations and tortured while being interrogated about suspected links to al-Shabab. Bodies of several of the victims bore signs of torture, the report said. It said witnesses named at least 10 police and military entities involved in the detentions, although some other victims were taken away by men in civilian clothing driving unmarked cars.”
Ethnic Somalis Are Dying In Kenya, And Some Say The Government Is To Blame
08 January – Source: Washington Post – 1,171 Words
A growing number of Kenya’s ethnic Somalis have vanished or turned up dead after being detained amid a crackdown by security forces on Islamist extremists. The authorities have denied involvement, suggesting many of the deaths are at the hands of al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate based in neighboring Somalia. “We do everything that happens within the fight against terrorism within the confines of the law,” said Mwenda Njoka, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior.
But parliamentarians representing the predominantly ethnic-Somali counties of northeast Kenya have said many of the victims are targets of a campaign by security forces. The 2.3 million ethnic Somalis with Kenyan citizenship have been under scrutiny since al-Shabab began staging attacks in 2011 in this country of 44 million. Suspicions have grown more intense since an attack in September 2013 on an upscale Nairobi mall, which left 67 dead, and an assault on Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya in April, which killed 148 people.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), established by the constitution,released a report in September documenting 25 extrajudicial killings and 81 “enforced disappearances” of ethnic Somalis across Kenya since al-Shabab attacked the Westgate mall.
“With Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the east, the frontier town of Mandera feels like an extension of rural Somalia, the people here sharing both ethnicity and language with their war-torn neighbour. Its future hitched to Kenya’s by the British at independence in 1963, the region fought a four-year secessionist war, setting the tone for north-east’s neglect under successive Kenyan governments. Emergency rule, lasting nearly 30 years, was lifted in 1991.”
Kenya Has Become A Perilous Place To Be A Teacher With The Threat Of Al-Shabaab Leaving Young People In Crisis
08 January – Source: The Independant – 1,214 Words
Morning was several hours off when passengers boarded the ill-fated bus bound for Nairobi. Among them, teachers heading home for the long holidays started to doze off, others murmured quietly. An hour into the journey from Mandera in northern Kenya, Osinga Atibu was awoken from his reverie by the sound of gunfire. Masked men, armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, forced the driver to a shuddering halt. A short while later, the terrified passengers were ordered off the bus, non-Muslims singled out, and forced to lie face down on the ground.
Marked out for execution, Mr Atibu, 29, knew he had no choice but to make a run for it. “I knew I was next. Whether I ran or not, I knew I was going to die,” he recalled in a telephone interview from his home in western Kenya. Twenty-eight Kenyans, 17 of them teachers, died in the massacre on 22 November 2014, almost all of them shot multiple times in the back of the head by gunmen from Al-Shabaab, the Somali terror group. The attack, the culmination of escalating insecurity in north-eastern Kenya, triggered a mass exodus of teachers from the region, leaving behind empty classrooms and young people in crisis.
At the beginning of last year, nearly 700 non-local teachers failed to report for duty in Mandera County, a scene played out across the north-east. Although it had been partly anticipated, the scale of it was shocking. “Seventeen of our teachers didn’t turn up,” said Mohammed Ibrahim, deputy head of Moi Girls Secondary School. “It was devastating,” he added. Seven teachers were left to teach 12 classes.
TOP TWEETS
@SalahOsman0 : #Somalia Football Association President Abdiqani Said Arab wins African president award of the year #Mogadishu
@dqdelite : I’m too excited to sleep. Watching the opening ceremony LIVE! #Bossaso Airport #Puntland#Somalia https://www.youtube.com/watch?
@imanmali : #Somalia for the most part should stay neutral in the international community. We are not at the stage of creating enemies w/ guarantees
@US2SOMALIA : #Somalia accused #Iran of trying to destabilize the Horn of Africa nation and said it has recalled its acting ambassador to Iran.
@HumAdGrp : Congrats to Michael Keating on his new position – hardly a more challenging one!@mfwaldman #Somalia @phoebewp
@AndreasBWest: Brand new #fish processing facilities in #Bosaso encourages growth of blue economy of#Somalia
A worker shows off a bunch of bananas at the premises of Tass Enterprise, a fruit company operating in Wadajir district. Bananas were Somalia’s single most important export crop to Europe and Arabia before the civil war. Today, the banana is undergoing revival that could spell boom times ahead for commercial farmers in the banana growing regions especially Lower Shabelle.
Photo: AMISOM