June 15, 2016 | Morning Headlines
Intelligence Director Sacked By President Amid Security Concerns
14 June – Source: Hiiraan Online – 105 Words
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has fired the head of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) Abdirahman Mohamed Tuurayre.
Security analysts believe the move is timely considering heightened insecurity across the country in the run up to the August/September elections. The move is also viewed as a step towards reforming the troubled security apparatus in the capital city of Mogadishu.
In recent months there has been a spate of suicide attacks perpetrated by members of the Al-Shabaab terror gang. Most recently, two MP’s were assassinated after an attack at the popular Ambassador Hotel. The President immediately appointed Abdullahi Gafow Mohamud as the interim acting head of NISA. Mohamud is currently the director for Immigration.
Key Headlines
- Intelligence Director Sacked By President Amid Security Concerns (Hiiraan Online)
- Puntland President Sacks Top Intelligence Officials (Garowe Online)
- Trump Says Many Somalis In Minnesota Attempted To Join ISIS (Goobjoog News/Agencies)
- Expired Food Imported By WFP Seized At Airport Mogadishu (goobjoog News)
- Absorb Troops Kenya Tells UN As Support Is Scaled Down (The Standard)
- Somalia Starts Building Rehab Center For Former Al-Shabaab Fighters (Xinhua News)
- Armed Somali Man Takes Hostage In Texas Town Feds Forced To Accept Refugees (The Daily Caller)
- Somali Camel Traders Pay The Price Of War In Syria (Aljazeera)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Puntland President Sacks Top Intelligence Officials
14 June – Source: Garowe Online – 136 Words
The President of Somalia’s Puntland Government Abdiweli Mohamed Ali has sacked two senior intelligence officials following a weekly security meeting at the presidential palace in the state capital of Garowe.
Ali replaced Puntland Intelligence Agency (PIA) Chief Sharmarke Sheikh Don and his deputy Abshir Adan with Mohamud Abdi Mohamed and Saed Salad Mohamud respectively. Moreover, a new security commander—Abdulkadir Jama Mohamed– will be in charge of security of Intelligence Agency headquarters in Garowe.
Insiders told Garowe Online that operations in the key security agency has been impeded by constant infighting among the top presidential appointees. By Sunday, Puntland President convened a top security meeting that brought together top generals and leading intelligence figures in light of increased Al-Shabaab activities in the northeastern State.
Trump Says Many Somalis In Minnesota Attempted To Join ISIS
14 June – Source: Goobjoog News/Agencies – 383 Words
Donald Trump has responded to the worst terror attack since 9/11 with a no-holds-barred attack on Muslims and Hillary Clinton that played loose with the facts and was rife with inflammatory rhetoric.
Trump said that large numbers of Somali refugees in Minnesota have tried to join ISIS. He pointed out that the Boston Bombers came US through political asylum: “The male shooter in San Bernardino – again, whose name I won’t mention — was the child of immigrants from Pakistan, and he brought his wife – the other terrorist – from Saudi Arabia, through another one of our easily exploited visa programs.
Immigration from Afghanistan into the United States has increased nearly five-fold in just one year. According to Pew Research, 99% of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law,” said trump He claimed Hillary Clinton wanted to disarm Americans and let Islamic terrorists slaughter them, while seeming to overinflate the number of Syrian refugees and insinuating the perpetrator of the Orlando attack was a foreigner.
In a speech pulsating with tough talk that will likely please his supporters, the presumptive Republican nominee also renewed his call for a ban on Muslim migration into the United States — and extended it to cover all nations with a history of terrorism. Hinting at a huge expansion of presidential power, he vowed to impose such a system by using executive orders.
“The current politically correct response cripples our ability to talk and to think and act clearly,” Trump said framed by two American flags at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. “If we don’t get tough, and if we don’t get smart, and fast, we’re not going to have our country anymore. There will be nothing, absolutely nothing, left.”
The massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub on 12th month has been described as a “domestic terror incident,” with at least 50 dead and 53 injured, officials said, making it the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Expired Food Imported By WFP Seized At Airport Mogadishu
14 June – Source: Goobjoog News – 156 Words
Somali government on Tuesday seized 100 bags of expired food, biscuits and food oil reportedly imported by the World Food Programme [WFP] intended to be distributed to the Internally Displaced People in Somalia.
Reliable sources at Adan Adde International Airport said the security forces at the airport confiscated the food: “An airplane carrying expired food items was confiscated by the security agencies,” said the source. The food is said to have been heading to Bardhere town of Gedo region. Our source pointed out that this was the biggest confiscation of goods in the recent years in terms of quantity seized. By the time of filing this report a reaction by WFP had not come through.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Absorb Troops, Kenya Tells UN As Support Is Scaled Down
15 June – Source: The Standard – 404 Words
Kenya wants troops in the African Mission in Somalia (Amisom) assimilated by the UN after the European Union (EU) announced it will scale down its funding by 20 per cent.
Kenya ran into more trouble with EU over the closure of Dadaab Refugee Camp, which houses at least 350,000 refugees from Somalia. The UN and the EU have even sent delegations to Kenya seeking reversal of the decision to no avail.
President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to lobby the UN on the matter at the ongoing European Union Development Day in Brussels, Belgium, where he is scheduled to give a keynote address at a forum, dubbed “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Action, our World, our future”.
The event to be attended by EU members, leaders including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, finds Kenya under pressure over closure of Dadaab. Although Kenya has refused to rescind its decision, citing environmental and security matters, Uhuru insists a stable Somalia is important for her neighbours.
Uhuru will also seek funding to help in the repatriation of refugees, set to start once Kenya and Somalia have agreed on the modalities. Kenya faulted the EU over its decision to slash funding to Amisom, which Kenya Defence Forces are part of, arguing this will greatly affect the troops in their efforts to maintain peace.
“Kenyatta will seek to have Amisom made part of the UN mission,” said Johnson Weru, Kenya’s Ambassador to Belgium. “EU has decided to reduce funding to Amisom and our response has been, if you reduce this funding the net effect will be reduction of troops in the operation. The soldiers receive their stipend from that support.”
Somalia Starts Building Rehab Center For Former Al-Shabaab Fighters
14 June – Source: Xinhua News – 377 Words
Somalia has kicked off construction of a rehabilitation center for former Al-Shabaab combatants in the southern port city of Kismayo.
The UN Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) said in a statement Tuesday that the center, which is the fourth one to be established in the Horn of Africa nation, is part of Somalia’s National Program for Treatment and Handling of Disengaged Combatants.
Speaking during the launch, director of the Disengaged Rehabilitation Program with the Ministry of Internal Security, Malik Abdalla, appealed to the youth who are still part of Al-Shabaab to surrender and reintegrate into the society.
“We are sending a message to the youth who were betrayed to come and surrender. We also want them to come out of the problems they are encountering because the people they are killing are Somalis like themselves, their mothers and brothers,” Abdalla said: “We want them to become part of the community and Somalia at large,” he said and lauded the international community for making it possible for the rehabilitation center to be constructed.
Governor of Kismayo, Abdirashid Ali Goni, said the center will provide accommodation and education to those who had quit the terrorist group: “Today we laid a foundation stone for the disengaged combatants in Jubbaland. This is meant to rehabilitate the youth who were misled through ideology so that they can be supported and given accommodation, vocational education and health, enabling them to rejoin their communities,” Goni said. The center is funded by Germany, with the support of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), the Jubbaland State and other development partners.
Armed Somali Man Takes Hostage In Texas Town Feds Forced To Accept Refugees
14 June – Source: The Daily Caller – 202 Words
Police have shot and killed Mohammad Moghaddam, a 54-year-old man involved in an armed hostage taking situation at a Walmart in Amarillo, Texas, a town known for taking in a flood of refugees.
The hostages are now safe, following the conclusion of the situation at the local Walmart. Moghaddam entered Walmart and fired a minimum of one shot at the ceiling and took two hostages. SWAT officers soon arrived on the scene, and one hostage left the office Moghaddam had barricaded himself in, leading police to believe the situation was over. But it wasn’t over. SWAT entered the office and saw a second hostage. The officers fired shots at Moghaddam, killing him and ending the hostage crisis, according to a statement released by the Amarillo Police Department. Neither hostage was harmed.
The initial statement from the APD in the afternoon read as follows: “APD on scene with armed subject at the Walmart at Georgia and Canyon Drive. APD and several other agencies are on scene at the Walmart on georgia. There are reports of an armed subject inside who may have hostages. More info when it’s available. Please avoid the area so that officers can focus on the scene and not traffic.”
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Livestock is the backbone of the Somali economy with more than 65 percent of the population engaged in some way in the industry. Of the world’s estimated 14 million camels, Somalia, a country of some 10 million people, has more than seven million – the highest number in the world.”
Somali Camel Traders Pay The Price Of War In Syria
14 June – Source: Aljazeera – 840 Words
It is Wednesday morning in a tea shop made of sticks and tarpaulin next to an expansive open air livestock market in the pop-up town of Elasha Biyaha, 16km southwest of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
A group of middle-aged men sit on plastic and wooden chairs, ears glued to a radio broadcasting the 9am news bulletin. The men are camel traders, and they are following the latest news from the wars in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
The conflicts in these faraway countries have affected their trade and livelihoods badly. Business is slow and the traders say they barely make any money: “Business was very good when our animals used to be taken abroad,” Musa Hassan told Al Jazeera, surrounded by camels chewing the cud under the morning sun. He has been in the business for more than 20 years.
The Horn of Africa country used to export millions of camels to these Arab countries each year but when the conflicts started, exports slowed. Then they came to a complete halt as the war in Yemen made it too risky to use the Yemeni sea to export the animals.
“The profit margins are better when the animals are taken abroad. People in those countries have more money and can afford to pay more for our camels,” Hassan explained. In 2014, Somalia exported a record five million livestock to countries in the Gulf, the highest number of live animals exported from the east African country in more than two decades, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). That included 77,000 camels. This year, only 2,000 camels have left Mogadishu port, the largest port in the country.