July 13, 2016 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

New Al-Shabaab Leader Labels Turkey Somalia’s ‘Enemy’

13 July – Source: AFP – 139 Words

The leader of Somalia’s Shabaab jihadist group Ahmed Diriye described Turkey as “the enemy of the nation” and accused foreign peacekeeping forces of plundering the country, in an audio message published Tuesday. In his first such message since taking control of the Al-Qaeda affiliate following the death of his predecessor in a US drone strike in September 2014, Diriye said Turkish interests in the country were “looting Somali resources more than they help”.

The group is fighting to overthrow Somalia’s internationally-backed government and regularly claims attacks in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere in the country. In the 44-minute recorded message published on social networking sites and broadcast by a Shabaab radio station, Diriye also accused foreign peacekeeping forces of widespread human rights violations against Somali civilians including rape.
“Somalia is under the occupation of invading Christian crusaders. The so-called international community deceived the Somali society to accept that the Ethiopian and other AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) forces are peacekeepers while their aim is to conquer the Somali territories, in order to plunder its resources,” he added.

– ‘Enemy of the nation’ –
“The Turkish government is the enemy of the nation, today Somalia’s economy is in total collapse because of their intervention… Turkey has invaded this country economically… They have taken control of the Somalia economy and all they want is to keep the nation in poverty.” Turkey has significantly increased its role in the country in recent years, playing an active part in reconstruction efforts and supporting humanitarian projects. Turkish businesses manage both Somalia’s main port and Mogadishu’s airport.

Key Headlines

New Al-Shabaab Leader Labels Turkey Somalia’s ‘Enemy’ (AFP)
Somali Deputy PM In Kismayo For Security Talks With Jubbaland President (Sahal News)
IGAD Delegation Reaches Beledweyne Hiiraan (Shabelle News)
Two Blasts Heard In Mogadishu (Shabelle News)
African Union Pre-election Assessment Team Reiterates Commitment To Support Political Processes In Somalia (AMISOM)
Malala Says Somali Refugee Girls’ Future At Risk If Kenya Sends Them Home (Reuters)
Trial Begins For Virginia Washington Women Accused Of Fundraising For Al-Qaeda Affiliate (The Associated Press)
Terror Threat Strands Riders In Mandera (The Star)
Terror Attacks Did Not Kill Jazeera Palace Hotel Manager’s Spirit (Standard Digital)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Somali Deputy PM In Kismayo For Security Talks With Jubbaland President

12 July – Source: Sahal News – 126 Words

A high-level delegation from The Somali Federal Government led by deputy prime minister Mohamed Omar Arte recently arrived in Kismayo where they have been holding talks with the Jubaland leaders.

The two sides are said to be discussing a range of issues including security and intensification of fight against terrorism in the region. National intelligence chief Gen. Abdulahi Gaafow Mohamud is among the delegation with other top security chiefs including Somalia’s police commander Gen. Mohamed Hassan Hamud. The deputy PM also met with regional stakeholders to address electoral process and the progress made by the Federal Gov’t in its efforts on holding fair elections across the country. Al-Shabaab which pledges allegiances to Al-Qaeda is still considered as a security threat to Somalia and its neighboring countries.

IGAD Delegation Reaches Beledweyne, Hiiraan

12 July – Source: Shabelle News – 126 Words

A high-level delegation from IGAD – Intergovernmental Authority on Development has on Tuesday arrived the strategic town of Beledweyne, located in central Somalia. The IGAD’s special envoy for Somalia Mohamed Abdi Afey and Gen Ganbre, an Ethiopian army general are heading the delegation arrived in Beledweyne, reports said.

Upon their arrival, the IGAD officials held meeting with local elders, politicians and discussed on ways to form a federal state for Hiiraan and middle Shabelle regions.IGAD is making efforts to end the long-standing standoff between tradition elders of Hiiraan province over the regional state formation process spearheaded by federal government. Despite security and political challenges, Somalia is heading to a critical period of presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held in August, later this year.

Two Blasts Heard In Mogadishu

12 July – Source: Shabelle News – 76 Words

Two explosions were heard near a police station in Somali capital, Mogadishu on Tuesday evening. A police station in Mogadishu’s Waberi district is reported to have been attacked with the explosions. Security forces cordoned off the scene and conducting an operation. At one person was reportedly injured in the explosions. The sounds of the powerful explosions could be heard across the city’s downtown, with no reports of the type of the blasts and who carried out.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

African Union Pre-election Assessment Team Reiterates Commitment To Support Political Processes In Somalia

12 July – Source: AMISOM – 364 Words

A four-member pre-election assessment team from the African Union Commission has concluded a two-day working visit to Somalia. The team, which arrived in Mogadishu on a fact-finding mission yesterday, pledged more support from the African Union, to Somalia’s political processes. “The situation in Somalia requires that we engage fully and in a more robust manner to be able to support AMISOM. We are aware of the fact that as AMISOM gains ground, the requisite stability to support the security situation is sometimes lacking and this sometimes leads to reversal. For overall security in Somalia, there is need to have the political element to support and give more permanent nature the security that is created by AMISOM,” Mr. Olabisi Dare, the Head of the AU Humanitarian Division in the Political Department, of the African Union Commission and leader of the delegation said.

Mr. Olabisi reaffirmed the African Union’s support to Somalia beyond the forthcoming elections. He said the 54-member continental body was keen to support the growth of the country’s institutional structures and federalization process. “We want to support this particular electoral process, but then beyond that, we need to develop institutional capacity, that then gives the state the capability to be able to run itself,” Olabisi said. During their visit, the delegation met with the senior leadership of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the Federal Government of Somalia, representatives of political organisations, civil society, the Federal Indirect Elections Implementation Team, the Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) Mr. Raisedon Zenenga and the UNSOM technical election team.

“Without the achievements made by AMISOM in creating the space, for the political process to make progress, we would not be where we are today. What has not been achieved today on the political front is not for want of sufficient security space. The security space to achieve what was set for 2016 is there,” Mr. Raisedon Zenenga noted, during consultations with the AU team in his office. The pre-election assessment team will make recommendations to the African Union Commission, which will inform continued support to AMISOM and guide an election observer mission to monitor the August – September electoral process.

Malala Says Somali Refugee Girls’ Future At Risk If Kenya Sends Them Home

12 July – Source: Reuters – 644 Words

Somali schoolgirls risk losing out on education and becoming child brides if they are forced to leave the world’s largest refugee camp in Kenya and move to their war-torn country where there are not enough schools, Malala Yousafzai said on Tuesday. The Pakistani teenage education activist, who survived a near-fatal attack by the Taliban in 2012, spent her 19th birthday in Dadaab camp, which Kenya wants to close, citing security concerns. “The problem is that there aren’t enough schools in Somalia,” Yousafzai told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, sitting in a classroom in one of Dadaab’s seven secondary schools. “If they (girls) do not go to school, then they get married at a very early age — and the same would have been my future if I couldn’t go to school,” she said.
“You are only just like someone else’s property and I never ever wanted that. I wanted to be myself.”

Trial Begins For Virginia, Washington Women Accused Of Fundraising For Al-Qaeda Affiliate

12 July – Source: The Associated Press- 548 Words

For a woman accused of supporting the Somali terror group Al Shabab, Hinda Osman Dhirane began her trial with an unusual admission: she is an ardent Al Shabab supporter. Dhirane’s attorney, federal public defender Paula Deutsch, began her opening statement Monday reading parts of a poem Dhirane had written as an ode to Al Shabab fighters. “We make no bones about the fact she was a supporter of Al Shabab,” an Al Qaeda affiliate centered in Somalia that claimed responsibility for the 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya that killed 67 people, among other attacks, Deutsch said. “But it’s talk. It doesn’t prove that she necessarily provided substantial assistance to Al Shabab.”

Prosecutors, though, say Dhirane, 46, of Kent, Wash., and Muna Osman Jama, 36, of Reston, Va., did more than just talk about supporting Al Shabab. The two were charged in 2014 with funneling small amounts of money — less than $5,000 — to Al Shabab fundraisers. Even small amounts of money in U.S. dollars can provide significant buying power in Somalia for weapons and the like, prosecutors said.

Terror Threat Strands Riders In Mandera

12 July – Source: The Star – 193 Words

Hundreds of passengers are stranded in Mandera and Nairobi as buses plying the route indefinitely suspend operations. The suspension comes after an attack on buses, heading to and coming from the frontier county by suspected al Shabaab militants. Those affected are mainly passengers who travelled to Mandera to join their families for the Eid celebrations.
Some companies have said they will not resume services until security of passengers is assured by the government. Mandera Bus Owners Association chairman Mohamed Bardad accused the government of laxity in dealing with the terror group. Bus owners said police refused to accompany their buses after five of their colleagues were killed in an ambush.

On July 1, at least six passengers were killed when suspected militants or local criminals sprayed bullets on two buses. A senior police officer, who did not want to be named, said the fighters are still in the area after they were spotted by residents. “The well-armed men are still within the Kenyan borders near the route. We do not know when they will attack next,” he said. Efforts to reach county commissioner Fredrick Shisia were unsuccessful.

OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE

“During the attack in which lives were lost, the hotel suffered extensive damage and the easiest step to take after that number of attacks was to give up, close shop and walk away, but that would be tantamount to making evil doers victorious,” says Jazeera Palace Hotel manager Justus Kisaulu.

Terror Attacks Did Not Kill Jazeera Palace Hotel Manager’s Spirit

12 July – Source: Standard Digital- 1,189 Words

Three terror attacks have not made Justus Kisaulu think of fleeing Somalia. In fact the last attack which was the deadliest found him in his office, and only strengthened his resolve to stay on. Kisaulu has been the general manager of Jazeera Palace Hotel in Mogadishu for the past four years. He says, he has on different occasions stared death in the face but quitting is not an option. When the hotel officially reopened on the second last day of September 2015,
Kisaulu said there is hope and resilience and those are the major things that matter most in Somalia. “During the attack in which lives were lost, the hotel suffered extensive damage and the easiest step to take after that number of attacks was to give up, close shop and walk away, but that would be tantamount to making evil doers victorious,” he says. Kisaulu, 35, was born and bred in Kilungu in Makueni County.
He has worked in the hospitality industry all his adult life. “After college I started working with NAS Airport Services in Nairobi then moved to Nomad Palace Hotel in Garissa and later went to Nairobi,” he narrates.
While at working at Nomad, Kisaulu would meet Abdikarim Siad, a Somali citizen who encouraged him to visit Mogadishu. Siad is the proprietor of Jazeera Palace Hotel. Kisaulu says he asked him to visit because he wanted to set up a hospitality project and “wanted me to be part of it.”