January 8, 2016 | Morning Headlines
Somalia Cuts Ties With Iran In Latest Saudi-Led Diplomatic War
07 January – Source: Hiiraan Online – 248 Words
Somali Government has cut ties with Iran on Thursday, in a new political shift for the Horn of Africa nation, which only affirmed its bilateral relations with Iran on Wednesday. The development makes Somalia the latest country to have joined the Saudi-led anti-Iran diplomatic war.
Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran after Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran, ransacking and setting fire to the building in retaliation for Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric and 46 others on Saturday. In a statement issued by Somalia’s Foreign Ministry, the government said it has severed its diplomatic relations with Iran after a ‘careful’ consideration and in response to the Republic of Iran’s continuous ‘interference’ in Somalia’s internal affairs.
The government has also recalled its Charge d’ Affaire in Tehran, and ordered Iranian diplomats to leave Somalia within 72 hours. No comment could be reached from the Iranian mission to Somalia on the development. Somali government’s rapid political shift towards Iran comes one day after its Foreign Minister Abdisalam Hadliye affirmed his country’s relations with Iran, and dismissed reports that the country was planning to expel Iranian diplomats in the country.
United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Sudan are among the countries that sided with Saudi Arabia in its diplomatic row with Iran. However, there have been reports that the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti has also cut ties with Iran, according to the Saudi-funded Alarabiya TV. However, the Djibouti government is yet to confirm the reports.
Key Headlines
- Somalia Cuts Ties With Iran In Latest Saudi-Led Diplomatic War (Hiiraan Online)
- Somali Refugees In Germany Take To The Streets After Government Announced Plans To Strip Them Of Refugee Privileges (Wacaal Media)
- Somali Parliament Speaker Arrives In Dhusamareb For Peace Talks (Shabelle News)
- Somaliland ‘Confident’ Of Independence Recognition (Hiiraan Online)
- Kenyan Teacher Jailed For Enlisting Pupils Into Al-Shabaab (Reuters)
- Al-Shabaab Attack Kills Civilian In Mogadishu (The Gulf Today)
- Tight Security As Jazeera Hotel Resumes Business In Somalia (Xinhua News)
- Kenyan Bus Attack Victim: ‘Let Us Live Together Peacefully’ (Voice of America)
- Honouring Mandera Bus Heroes Is Right Thing To Do In The Fight Against Terrorism (Daily Nation)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Refugees In Germany Take To The Streets After Government Announced Plans To Strip Them Of Refugee Privileges
07 January – Source: Wacaal Media – 97 Words
Somali refugees in several German cities are currently staging demonstrations after the host government announced it will not recognized Somalis as refugees. Abdikani Ali Dalmar, a journalist living in Germany said demonstrators were protesting against this pronouncement by the Germany government. He said the demonstrations have been going on for the last three days and a major one is scheduled for January 28. Germany recently announced that only refugees from Syria and Eritrea will be accorded refugee status and assistance. Somalis were said to be economic immigrants and will not enjoy refugee privileges according to the statement.
Somali Parliament Speaker Arrives In Dhusamareb For Peace Talks
07 January – Source: Shabelle News – 111 Words
A high-level parliamentary delegation led by Somali Parliament Speaker Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawari has arrived in the central town of Dhusamareb, the provincial capital of Galgadud region. A number of federal lawmakers, including deputy Parliament Speaker Mahad Abdalla Awad are accompanying Jawari to Dhusamareb area, which is currently under Ahlu Sunna group. The Speaker is destined to discuss with Ahlu Sunna leaders on peace efforts to de-escalate political tension with Galmudug state of Somalia, based in Adado town. The Federal Government of Somalia is trying to defuse tension between Ahlu Sunna and Galmudug state, which are locked in a political battle for the control of central regions.
Somaliland ‘Confident’ Of Independence Recognition
07 January – Source: Hiiraan Online – 173 Words
In 1991, the northern Somalia breakaway region declared a unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia. However despite its long campaigns for recognition no country has so far recognized it as an independent state. Now Somaliland’s Foreign Minister Saad Ali Shire says the region expects an international recognition and has a permanent representative at the United Nations.
“Of course, we have been looking for recognition for a long time and to some extent we have already some recognitions because we are a country with an army, currency, government and parliament,” he told BBC’s Somali Service on Wednesday. He however declined to give more details about his claims on possible recognition by other nations.
Shire’s remarks come as the regions held rounds of talks with Somalia, which aims to convince Somaliland it to drop its secessionist goal, an approach the latter has dismissed. The talks destined for March seem to have collapsed after the two sides accused each other of holding firm ground, which complicates mediations by the Turkish government. Turkey has encouraged the two sides to make concessions.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Al-Shabaab Attack Kills Civilian In Mogadishu
08 January – Source: The Gulf Today – 199 Words
One civilian was killed and another seriously wounded on Thursday when mortars fired by Al Shabaab insurgents exploded close to the presidential palace in Mogadishu, police said. Explosions were heard in the heavily guarded government district around Villa Somalia, the presidential palace, around noon on Thursday.
“Several rounds of mortar shells landed in the neighbourhood where the palace is located,” police officer Jama Mohamed said, adding one person was killed and another wounded. A government worker, Ibrahim Hussein, said he heard three explosions. The Al Qaeda-linked Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on a pro-Shabaab website: “The attack is part of operations carried out inside Mogadishu by the mujahedeen fighters,” the statement read.
Kenyan Teacher Jailed For Enlisting Pupils Into Al-Shabaab
07 January – Source: Reuters – 268 Words
A Kenyan primary school teacher who recruited pupils into the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab in neighbouring Somalia was sentenced to 20 years in jail by a court on Thursday. The judge ruled the teacher, Samuel Wanjala Wabwile alias Salim Mohamed Wabwile, had taken advantage of poverty in the coastal county of Kilifi where school children walk in tattered uniforms without shoes to bait them using incentives like food.
The East African nation has suffered a string of deadly attacks by Al-Shabaab in recent years, which scared away tourists and damaged economic growth. Officials say dozens of youths have crossed into Somalia in the past three years for training by the militants after being recruited and radicalised at home. Wabwile was arrested in June last year and charged with three counts, including being a member of al Shabaab. The court convicted him of radicalising his pupils during Islamic lessons at the school where he taught in Kilifi, contrary to the law on the prevention of terrorism.
“The accused preyed on the pupils’ feeble minds to impart his ideological beliefs,” magistrate Diana Mochache said. Al Shabaab is blamed for attacks in parts of Kenya including one in April last year on Garissa University in the east where 148 students were killed. In June 2014, the group killed 65 people over a 24-hour period in and around Mpeketoni in Lamu county. It was also responsible for a raid on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in 2013 that killed 67 people. The group seeks to overthrow the Western-backed Somali government and impose its strict interpretation of Islamic law. It has said it has targeted Kenya because of its participation in an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.
Tight Security As Jazeera Hotel Resumes Business In Somalia
07 January – Source: Xinhua News – 325 Words
Somalia’s Jazeera Palace Hotel, which was attacked by terrorists in Mogadishu last year, has been running smoothly amid tight security since it reopened in November last year. Abdinasir Mohamed, the Operations Manager at one of the most popular hotels in Mogadishu, told Xinhua on Thursday that there are security improvements in the hotel including services offered to the customers.
“After the opening of the hotel we have taken action to improve security and no employee has been discriminated or sacked even though they may have suffered injuries. We are also hiring extra staff to bolster our operations and make the hotel the best in the country,” Mohamed said during an interview at the hotel. The hotel re-opened on Nov. 29.
The popular hotel, located at one of the most secure places in Mogadishu, was extensively destroyed when a suicide bomber rammed a truck rigged with explosives, killing at least 15 people and wounding over 40 others. The attack was then described as one of the worst scenes of destruction seen in Mogadishu. Somali militant Islamist group Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Al-Qaida linked military group said it was responding to assaults by an African Union force and the Somali government in southern Somalia. Mohamed said the attacks being witnessed across the Horn of Africa nation especially in Mogadishu will not deter them from carrying on with the hotel business.
Kenyan Bus Attack Victim: ‘Let Us Live Together Peacefully’
07 January – Source: Voice of America – 421 Words
A few days before Christmas, al-Shabab militants ambushed a bus traveling in northeastern Kenya, near the Somalia border. The gunmen demanded the passengers divide themselves between Christians and Muslims. They refused. Salah Sabdow Farah was shot on that bus.
Farah, a 34-year-old teacher and deputy headmaster at a northeastern Kenya primary school, was headed home to the town of Mandera after completing a training program in Masaai Mara, in the southwestern part of the country.
He started his journey by bus Dec. 20. The next day, al-Shabab gunmen attacked.
After shooting at the bus, the militants demanded passengers disembark and divide themselves by religion: “We were told to get down,” Farah said. “We refused. When we refused, they started shooting. So starting that time when they started shooting, we went down, everybody went down in panic. We went down, then we were taken somewhere in a field. We were told to separate, the Christians this side, the Muslims, this side. In the process of people now moving, we had already given the girls some hijab Muslims, that attire for the Muslims, so we gave them.”
Farah and his fellow passengers had had enough. They refused the orders: “And then, at that moment, when we were told to separate, we refused,” he said. “That is the time that the bullet got me, from somewhere far. So it hit me in the hip.” When the ordeal was over, he was taken to Mandera hospital, then flown to Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital for more intensive medical care.
Islam is a religion of peace, Farah says, and Muslims and Christians are neighbors.
“People should live peacefully together,” he said. “We are brothers. It’s only the religion that is the difference, so I ask my brother Muslims to take care of the Christians so that the Christians also take care of us. … and let us help one another and let us live together peacefully.” On Wednesday, police released the names of four suspects in the attack, appealing to the public for help and offering a reward for information leading to their arrests.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“While some might dismiss this as typical of American myth-making, these acts of recognition are portent tools at reconstructing and circulating an alternative heroism that counters the perverted one that terrorists preach and present to hundreds of impressionable youth craving recognition and a sense of purpose.”
Honouring Mandera Bus Heroes Is Right Thing To Do In The Fight Against Terrorism
07 January – Source: Daily Nation – 694 Words
The heroic gesture in Mandera just before Christmas in which Muslims protected Christians from bloodthirsty extremists is a potential turning point in our fight against terrorism. In the incident, which gained media coverage globally, Kenyan Muslims travelling on a bus ambushed by Al-Shabaab terrorists shielded their Christian brothers by refusing to be split into groups and instead asked their abductors to kill them together or leave them alone.
Unfortunately, the significance of this moment has not being fully harnessed by stakeholders at the highest level of government. The State clearly needs to understand the logic of terrorism. Terrorism is like theatre. It is a performance that is aimed, not at its direct victims, but at a dispersed audience often through mass media and popular discourse. Thus, all acts of terrorism have a specific message with a propagandist orientation. Without an audience terrorism would cease to exist.
For instance, the Al-Shabaab militia does not draw religious distinctions when launching attacks in Somalia but pretends to do so here in Kenya. The sub-text in their attacks is that a deep religious fault line exists between Kenyan Muslims and Christians. Westgate marked the launch of this insidious project in which distinctions were drawn between Muslims and people of other faiths. This template was transposed to the Mpeketoni, Garissa, and in earlier Mandera attacks.
In the recent Mandera incident, much to the utter shock of the extremists, the act veered off the script as they helplessly watched. The members of the audience for whom the message was intended decided to craft their own script in line with their own values. The egg on the faces of the terrorists will take long to wear off. The incident proves that Kenyan Muslims are keen to see that those among them who defame their faith are isolated and shamed. However, as we celebrate the Mandera heroes, the State has been slow to give a face and name to the Mandera bus heroes.