June 16, 2017 | Daily Monitoring Report
AU Vows To Stabilize Somalia Despite Increased Al-Shabaab Attacks
16 June – Source : China.org.cn – 296 Words
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said it would help stabilise and boost security in Somalia, despite increased terror attacks from Al-Shabaab militants. The Special Representative of the AU Commission Chairperson (SRCC) for Somalia, Francisco Madeira, lauded Somali national security forces for swift response to the terrorist attack on a hotel and a restaurant in Mogadishu on Wednesday.“The act of bravery exhibited by the security forces must be commended and is proof that the reforms being undertaken by the government under the new National Security Architecture Agreement are taking shape and beginning to show positive results,” Madeira said in a statement. The attack on Pizza House restaurant and Posh hotel left at least 18 people dead and 19 others injured.
Al-Shabaab militants have claimed responsibility for the attack, which was triggered by a suicide car bomber and targeted customers who frequent the restaurant and adjacent hotel. Six militants who seized control of the restaurant including a suicide bomber were subsequently killed by Somali security forces. Madeira said the attack on civilians on Wednesday night was a desperate attempt by the terrorists seeking public attention, after having suffered serious losses from recent operations by Somali government forces.
Key Headlines
- AU Vows To Stabilize Somalia Despite Increased Al-Shabaab Attacks (China.org)
- President Farmaajo Chairs Emergency Meeting After The Deadly Restaurant Attack (Jowhar.com)
- IS-affiliated Group In Somalia Smuggle Highest Number Of Foreign Fighters In Puntland(Dhacdo.com)
- UN ‘Deeply Concerned’ At Migrants Allegedly Held For Ransom In Libya(Associated Press)
- Senior AMISOM Police Officers Visit Regional States To Discuss Security(AMISOM)
- Why Somalia May Be Next Goldmine For Bold Banks (Business Daily Africa)
NATIONAL MEDIA
President Farmaajo Chairs Emergency Meeting After The Deadly Restaurant Attack
16 June – Source: Jowhar.com – 125 Words
President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who also double up as the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces on Thursday evening chaired an emergency meeting with members of the National Security Commission. The meeting, attended by the Security Minister Mohamed Abukar Islow and senior security officials discussed the deadly Al-Shabaab attack in the capital on Thursday that targeted a popular restaurant in Hodan district.
Security officials briefed the President about the incident, the response made by the security forces and measures to be taken after the attack.The closed-door meeting stressed the need to foil Al-Shabaab attacks in the capital, bolster security and intensify the ongoing security operations. No statement been released after the end of the meeting. The Pizza House Restaurant attack killed at least 30 people mostly civilians including women.
IS-affiliated Group In Somalia Smuggle Highest Number Of Foreign Fighters In Puntland
16 June – Source: Dhacdo.com – 117 Words
IS-affiliated group in Somalia has smuggled the highest number of foreign fighters in Puntland territories, particularly Bari region. Boats carrying the fighters have in the past 48 hours reached coastal areas near Qandala and immediately disappeared into the mountainous areas outside the district. The smuggled fighters number 200 and hail from Yemen, Iraq and Syria. Reliable sources told Dhacdo.com that authorities were not aware of the smuggling until local residents informed them about it.
The reinforcement received by IS comes a week Puntland President Abdiweli Gaas has announced an offensive against militants in the Bari region following the deadly raid on a military camp by Al-Shabaab, which claimed the lives of 80 people, mostly army soldiers.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
UN ‘Deeply Concerned’ At Migrants Allegedly Held For Ransom In Libya
16 June – Source:Associated Press- 362 Words
The United Nations migration agency expressed deep concern for around 260 Somali and Ethiopian migrants allegedly held and mistreated by criminal gangs in Libya, saying it believed that a harrowing video of them posted on social media was authentic.The International Organization for Migration said a video posted on Facebook earlier this month showed “abused Somalis and Ethiopians … huddled fearfully in a concrete room”.The IOM said a Somali journalist based in Turkey recorded the video call from a gang in which some migrants claimed to have been beaten. Some alleged having their teeth pulled out and arms broken. The authenticity of the video could not be independently verified. The agency said some captives’ relatives had received videos asking them to pay $8,000 to $10,000 “or their child or relative will be killed”. The captives’ exact location was not known, but the IOM said the relevant authorities had been informed.
The IOM has long decried risks taken by human traffickers with the migrants and refugees they ferry through relatively lawless Libya and into the Mediterranean sea by boat en route to Italy. Libya has been without a stable, central government since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and has been a major departure point for tens of thousands of people, mostly from the Horn of Africa, who seek to cross the Mediterranean to reach relative peace and stability in Europe.
In the video, posted on Facebook, a man calling himself Abdinajib Mohamed speaks to the camera: “I am here for a year now. I am in trouble. I am starved. Anyone who has gone through such ordeal would have hated life altogether. Look at my body – they beat me every day with batons. They don’t want to release me.”
Senior AMISOM Police Officers Visit Regional States To Discuss Security
15 June – Source : AMISOM – 621 Words
A delegation of senior AMISOM Police officers visited Jubbaland, South West and HirShabelle states to assess the needs of the Somali Police and identify areas that require urgent support. The delegation led by Police Commissioner Brig. Gen. Anand Pillay held meetings with top security officials in the administrative centres of Kismayo, Baidoa and Hiiraan.In Kismayo, the delegation met with Jubbaland Deputy Security Minister, Issak Mohamed Hassan, and discussed issues focusing on training and improvement of security infrastructure for Jubbaland Police Force. “Our commissioner came here to discuss how they can retrain officers and build their capacity to be able to offer leadership to the other officers and manage the affairs of policing services in Jubbaland.
We also came to discuss with them how we are going to renovate police stations or construct new ones so that the officers we are training can be deployed to those police stations and help expand policing services outside Kismayo to other areas,” said Paul Frimpong, the Acting AMISOM Police Reform Coordinator.Jubbaland Police Commissioner, Ahmed Nasir Guled, thanked the senior officials for visiting the region, adding that AMISOM had pledged to support the regional administration on key security areas. “Our discussions focused on four areas; giving more training opportunities to the 600 police officers, who were trained by AMISOM, support to cover other needs of the police force and establishment of police structures so as to transform it into a modern police. They [AMISOM] agreed to help us get other equipment,” Mr. Guled noted.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Somalia is also about to re-introduce its local currency, the Somali shilling. The country has not had an official Somali currency since the collapse of Government in 1991 and is excruciatingly dollarised.The IMF is at the heart of this currency re-introduction. When you hear IMF, that’s over 70 years of experience,”
Why Somalia May Be Next Goldmine For Bold Banks
15 June- Source: Business Daily Africa – 516 Words
What comes into your mind when you hear Somalia mentioned? Al Shabaab? African Union? Famine? Pirates? KDF? However negative it is, you are not to blame. Somalia hasn’t attracted good coverage in a while.And you are probably not alone. A Mogadishu-based bank CEO once confided in me the headwinds he ran into while trying to establish correspondent (nostro) banking relationships with external bank(s)—for the obvious reason all the latter could pick out was risk, risk and risk everywhere.Of course they didn’t proceed. But don’t be fooled, a lot is going on in the country’s economic front. Indeed, Somalia is currently undergoing serious structural reforms—especially in its fiscal as well as financial sector policies. They are now working on consolidating the federal fiscus.
Because Somalia is a federation (essentially, composed of semi-autonomous regions), at the moment, Federal Member States (FMS) collect and appropriate revenues within their collection jurisdictions leaving the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) to finance federal expenditures from revenues collected in Banadir region only.
For instance,Indeed the country is resource-endowed. The country is now seriously looking at retooling its resource exploration rights issuance capacity to the extent that all financial proceeds out of any rights issuance will be domiciled in a single federal fiscus.Essentially, the country is working hard towards capacitising its internal collections—in a bid to move away from direct bilateral budgetary support.
TOP TWEETS
@city_mogadishu: #Mogadishu have taken a new narrative of peace & self reliance, no one can break that new journey, Coward attacks will not deter us #Action
@Adesoafrica: Remittances contribute to 23% of Somalia’s gross domestic product & surpass any amount of aid given 2 the country according 2 the World Bank
@LA_Bagnetto:#Syrianrefugee wanted a better life; he died in the #Mogadishu Pizza House bombing. My heart hurts. #Somalia
@SakariyeCismaan:This is the old #Mogadishu. Beautiful architecture with well planned roads and complete with parks. Look how green it is. #Somalia #Hope
@amisomsomalia:#Somalia joins the rest of Africa to celebrate #DAC17 to raise awareness of the continued need 4 child education. http://bit.ly/2szCssH
@SomaliaNews252: 200 #ISIS terrorists pouring into the northeastern region of #Somalia after defeats in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. They arrived by boats.
@HarunMaruf: Somali cleric Sheikh Mohamed Deer who’s well known in Southwest Somalia was shot dead in a mosque last night as he prepared to pray, report.
IMAGE OF THE DAY
PM, Hassan Kheyre addresses delegates attending the national reconciliation conference in Mogadishu.
Photo:Radio Muqdisho.