June 17, 2015 | Morning Headlines
Mogadishu Security Swoop Nets Militants In Mogadishu
16 June- Source: Radio Danan – 146 Words
Somalia’s security forces have arrested six-wanted Islamists as a major security swoop continues in the north of the Somali capital, officials say. Hundreds of soldiers have conducted house-to-house search operation in Yaqshid district, north of Mogadishu on Monday few days before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts during which militants usually step up attacks against the government and the African Union forces in Somalia. A large quantity of guns and grenades were reportedly confiscated during the operation. Military officials told local media that rocket-propelled grenades, machine-guns, ammunition, chemicals, explosives and military uniforms were said to have been found during searches in the city. Although the Islamic extremist group Al-Shabaab was ousted from its bases in Mogadishu in 2011, militants continue to stage lethal attacks across the city. Al-Shabaab, which has links with Al-Qaeda has vowed to step up attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Key Headlines
- Mogadishu Security Swoop Nets Militants In Mogadishu (Radio Danan)
- Puntland President Makes Major Cabinet Reshuffle (Horseed Media)
- Fire Outbreak In Hamarjadiid Market Halts Business Activities (Goobjoog News)
- Government Delegation Faces Hurdles In Talks With Ahlusuna As Group Demands Naming Of Upcoming State After Themselves. (Wacaal Media)
- AU Leaders Took Important Decisions At 25th Summit (The Citizen South Africa)
- How Kenya Defense Forces Trailed Lamu Attackers (The Star Kenya)
- World Food Program Cuts will Affect Nearly 1000 Participating in Salesian Programs at Kakuma Refugee Camp (Mission Newswire)
- On Living And Learning In Somalia: ‘For Every Story Of Violence…There Are 100 Stories Of Compassion’ (Minnpost)
- Why Italy Is Campaigning Against Somali Compact? (Geeska Afrika)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Martial Court Acquits Four Over Hotel Attack
16 June – Source: Somali Current – 173 Words
A martial court in Somalia has acquitted four security officers charged with helping militants that attacked Hotel SYL in Mogadishu in January this year. Justice Colonel Hassan Ali Shute said the court has ordered the release of the four suspects after the prosecution failed to produce sufficient evidence against them. “The court declares today that four officers charged with SYL Hotel attack have thus been released and that they should be released from prison,” he ordered. Former commander of Hodan Police Station, Mohamed Dahir Abdulle, Lieutenants Mahat Abdi Omar and Hassan as well as inspector Ahmed Qadar Mohamed were today acquitted by the court. The same court has previously released five other suspects, mainly security officers, for lack of evidence. Al-Shabaab militants have claimed responsibility for the attack on SYL Hotel in Mogadishu on 22 January at a time Turkish delegates were meeting with their Somali counterpart prior to the first visit of Turkish president Racep Erdogen who visited the country in defiance of Al-Shabaab.
Puntland President Makes Major Cabinet Reshuffle
16 June – Source: Horseed Media – 150 Words
Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali has made major changes to his cabinet on Wednesday, with ministers being sacked or moved into other roles. According to the new cabinet list, eight new ministers have joined the government, majority of them new faces to replace eight others who were dropped. The changes to the government affected key ministries, including Security, Planning & International Cooperation and Education. They were all fired on charges of failing to deliver according to expectation despite there being no regulations or law that specifies cabinet conduct and performance. The reshuffle, a year and half after the last cabinet was formed, is one of the first major cabinet reshuffling done by the President since taking over office in January, 2014. In his speech to the regional Parliament on Monday, the President pledged to improve the economic sector and address the recent insecurity incidents.
Fire Outbreak In Hamarjadiid Market Halts Business Activities
16 June – Source: Goobjoog News – 109 Words
The business activities in Hamar-Jadiid market of Wardhigley district of Mogadishu has been at standstill since yesterday night after fire gutted stalls and warehouses and destroyed properties of immense value. The businessmen whose premises were destroyed by the fierce fire stated that the normal business activities in market have stopped. The fire outbreak has largely affected the links between the market in the district and nearby areas that rely on the market. The fire which started last night was reported to have erupted at tea a house but its cause remains unclear. Clouds of smoke are seen coming from the clothes market where the fire outbreak started.
Government Delegation Faces Hurdles In Talks With Ahlusuna As Group Demands Naming Of Upcoming State After Themselves
16 June – Source: Wacaal Media – 195 Words
A meeting between the Federal government of Somalia and Ahlusuna in Dhusamareeb has reportedly experienced some hiccups after the paramilitary group failed to sway Ahlusuna delegates. Interior and Federal Affairs Minister Abdirahman Odowa who reached the town yesterday with a government delegation to spearhead the talks has reportedly faced a hurdle after the group asked for the naming of the upcoming state after themselves. However, the minister said that while the name ‘Ahlusuna’ has been in existence for many years, the request was unrealistic as the region needed to have a name that will incorporate area residents regardless of their political affiliation. The group alleges that they have shed blood and invested time and resources in liberating the region from Al-Shabaab and therefore deserved appreciation which should be done by naming the upcoming state after them. The fate of the meeting is unknown as Ahlusuna looks adamant not to cede ground and the government is terming their demands unrealistic. The group calls the shots in large swathes of Galgaduud region including Dhuusmareeb which has been earmarked as the capital of the state under formation in Adaado.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
AU Leaders Took Important Decisions At 25th Summit
16 June – Source: The Citizen, South Africa – 1, 196 Words
Despite the major distraction of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s visit, African Union (AU) leaders took important decisions at their summit which ended on Monday, including a big one towards financial independence. They also adopted the first ten-year plan to implement the ambitious Agenda 2063 initiative to uplift the continent, and launched negotiations for a Continental Free Trade Agreement, which would liberate trade across all of Africa. And they took steps to try to bring peace to various persistent conflicts on the continent and to combat growing terrorism, from Boko Haram in West Africa, through Al Qaeda in the Sahel via Islamic State in Libya to Al-Shabaab in the east. South African officials have hailed in particular the agreement to scale up financial contributions from member states, so that the AU can fund 100% of its operations, 75% of its programmes and 25% of its peace and security activities.
The aim is to make the AU more independent of foreign donors who still provide about 60% of the overall budget. To help them meet their greater obligations, the AU has proposed a basket of alternative sources of funding to its members, including levies and taxes on air fares, smses, oil and other natural resources. But however they pay, the members will have to pay more, also because of the added costs of big AU initiatives like Agenda 2063. Their contributions will be based roughly on the size of their economies. So South Africa will be in the top tier of five countries which will each have to pay 12% of the AU budget. That could increase South Africa’s annual dues from about $17 million to $60 million. The leaders agreed that the top-tier countries – which also include Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria and Angola – would contribute equally, despite a large discrepancy in the size of their economies. Angola’s economy, for instance is nearly three times smaller than South Africa’s. The reason for this discrepancy is to prevent the larger economies – especially South Africa and Nigeria – from dominating the AU.
But Angola had objected strongly to having to pay so much more than it is now paying. This issue was not resolved at the summit and will be discussed later. A major theme of the summit was economic integration of the continent. Just before the summit, the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) was launched in Egypt, combining the free trade areas of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) , the Community of Eastern and Southern African States (Comesa) and the East African Community (EAC) into one market of 26 countries and over 600 million people with a GDP of about one trillion dollars. Officials said that Ghana’s President John Mahama, current chair of Ecowas – the Economic Community of West African States – had said at the summit that the creation of the TFTA had greatly accelerated the moment towards the Continental Free Trade Area as Ecowas could now negotiate directly with the TFTA. That would embrace all but ten of the AU’s 54 member states into one market.
How Kenya Defense Forces Trailed Lamu Attackers
16 June – Source: The Star, Kenya – 408 Words
Kenya military Intelligence had tracked the al Shabaab militiamen killed on Sunday morning for over four months, after finding out that they had sneaked back into the country, the Star has established. The Star exclusively reported on May 29, 2015, that Luqman Osman Issa and his gang of terrorists had sneaked into Kenya and were planning attacks. Intelligence reports indicate that Issa, aka Shiriwa, was the leader of a gang that sneaked into the country sometime in February and had been hiding with his group in Boni Forest as they prepared for a Mpeketoni-like attack. The revelation comes as four suspected al Shabaab fighters who escaped from the Sunday morning incident were shot and killed in Boni Forest on Sunday afternoon, shortly after 12 others had been killed.
Issa is reported to have been the leader of the June 2014 Mpeketoni attack and a brother of another terror suspect implicated in the 2002 Kikambala attack and currently serving a sentence in Sudan. Another of the suspects killed in the Sunday morning attack on a military base is suspected to be British-born Thomas Evans, aka Abdul Hakim. They had been planning attacks to avenge the killing of the group’s external operations boss, Dan Garar, and were holed up in the port of Kuday in Southern Somalia. They escaped into Kenya after Amisom and Somalia National Army troops liberated Kuday and the islands of Mdoa and Dagazi last week. The group, most of them of them Kenyan, are believed to be an al Shabaab offshoot that escaped into Boni Forest and is attempting to enter either Lamu, Malindi or Kwale. The group was led by Issa, who goes by the aliases Deere and Shirwa. The group is said to be in the Lakta Belt in Boni Forest.
World Food Program Cuts will Affect Nearly 1,000 Participating in Salesian Programs at Kakuma Refugee Camp
16 June – Mission News Wire – 770 Words
The U.N World Food Programme made an announcement in June that due to a shortfall in donor funding it plans to cut food rations for half a million refugees living in camps in northern Kenya, according to a recent Thomas Reuters Foundation article. Food rations will be cut by close to a third for the primarily Somali and South Sudanese refugees at the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps. Also affected are the more than 1,000 refugees participating in Salesian programs at the Kakuma refugee camp. Kakuma was established in 1992 near Kenya’s border with South Sudan and was a place of refuge for unaccompanied minors fleeing warring factions in what was then southern Sudan. Today, the Kakuma refugee camp has more than 180,000 refugees, well over the 120,000 person capacity for which it was built. More than 44 percent of the refugees at the camp are from South Sudan and arrived after fleeing the country to escape conflict and violence.
Kakuma is operated by UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, in collaboration with Salesian missionaries in the country as well as several other humanitarian organizations. The camp offers refugees safety, security and life-saving services such as housing, healthcare, clean water and sanitation. According to UNHCR, for the third year in a row, Kakuma continues to receive record numbers of refugees from South Sudan. By late December 2014, there were more than 42,000 new arrivals in Kakuma. Without a lasting ceasefire and peace and reconciliation in South Sudan, UNHCR predicts the steady influx into Kenya is likely to continue throughout 2015. The World Food Programme distributes 9,300 metric tons of food for 500,000 refugees in northern Kenya each month at a cost of $9.6 million. Unless more than $12 million is raised, there will be a critical food gap during August and September of this year.
“We are very worried about how this cut may affect the people who rely on our assistance,” says Thomas Hansson, World Food Progammes’s acting country director for Kenya, in a statement in the Thomas Reuters Foundation article. “But our food stocks are running out, and reducing the size of rations is the only way to stretch our supplies to last longer. We hope that this is only a temporary measure and we continue to appeal to the international community to assist.” Salesian missionaries at Kakuma operate the Holy Cross Parish and the Don Bosco Vocational Training Center where 1,044 young men and women are being trained in critical employment and life skills. There are many courses available at the training center and those studying welding, carpentry and bricklaying often utilize their new skills helping to build infrastructure within the camp.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Once you talk to people, it’s a lot easier to connect and understand than just read about them. A lot of people are more trusting. For every story of violence you hear about Africa, there is 10 or even a 100 stories of compassion and trust. All I saw were people saying to me: ‘Come to my house. Let’s have tea together.’ I never felt unsafe.”
On Living And Learning In Somalia: ‘For Every Story Of Violence…There Are 100 Stories Of Compassion’
16 June – Source: Minnpost – 1, 811 Words
Coming of age in Edina, Karsten Potts learned about Somali culture, language and history though a group of Somali-American friends. He left Minnesota to study at Occidental College in Los Angeles. But his interest in learning about Somalia never faded. Indeed, Potts focused on the region as his special area of interest throughout his college years. And when he graduated, Potts accepted an internship post with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, working seven months in Djibouti, a small country that borders Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and later spent some time in Somalia and Kenya. In recent years, the region has suffered a number of attacks by terrorists as well as episodes of hostage-taking and kidnapping that target foreigners. Recently, MinnPost sat down with Potts, who returned to Minnesota in April, for an interview about his experience in the region.
MinnPost: What motivated you to pursue an internship in Africa?
Karsten Potts: I had a lot of friends in high school who are from Somalia. What I knew of the conflict in Somalia was related to “Black Hawk Down.” I knew that my friends were here because of the conflict. But I didn’t know whether the conflict was over, why it started and the dynamic. So I started to know more about it. I got more and more interested in the topic and ended up focusing on East Africa for my thesis in college.
MP: You lived in Djibouti for seven months. What surprised you the most about your stay there?
KP: How safe it was to walk around. From everything I’ve heard about Africa, especially, ‘If you’re a westerner, you have to be careful and you pretty much can’t walk around alone in a city.’ That was not the case in Djibouti. You can walk around until 11 o’clock at night — and there would be no threat or physical violence. People might ask you for money, but nobody got mugged.
MP: You said people would ask you for money. Tell me more.
KP: Yeah, pretty routinely. It’s the result of sailors that are there because they don’t have to pay for their house or for their food usually. French sailors would go to downtown and just blow their paychecks. If someone was begging, they would give money a lot easier. One time, I knew where the bank was and some guy asked me, ‘Hey where are you going?’ I said, ‘To the bank.’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ll show you.’ I said, ‘No, I know where it is.’ He follows me to the bank. I go in. I get my money. I come out. He says, OK, $5. I did not pay him.
“Professor Afyare identified four major domestic grievances that are vexing the Somali people: Trust deficit; Demand for democracy; Access to basic service; and Call for equitable share of resources. The neighboring countries (Ethiopia and Kenya), the international community, and Somali leaders used these grievances to push for clan based federalism as a solution that keeps each clan in separate traditional territories.”
Why Italy is Campaigning Against Somali Compact?
16 June – Source: Geeska Afrika – 1, 232 Words
“Somali Compact progress report”. Despite the crisis, there was some progress on key political milestones, according to Nichlas Kay. But the question is, Why Italy is campaigning against Somali Compact on State-building? Italy works against the Somali Compact on Statebuilding : On May 6, the Italian Institute for International Affairs- “Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI)” in Rome- held one day high level closed door seminar sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Embassy of Italy to Somalia. The Title of the Seminar was “Somali Perspectives: Institutional and Political Challenges.”
The report of the seminar highlights the participants’ positions and suggestions on Federalism and the nexus between security and development. It suggests change of policy priority of Italy towards Somalia from “state to state” relation to “state to regional federal states” relation. It also proposes the mobilization of international support for the clan dominated regional States at the expense of the Somali State which itself exists ostensibly. The suggested policy shift of Italy subverts the Somali priorities listed in the 2012 provisional constitution, then restated in the Somali Compact between the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) and the International donor Community (Partners) agreed upon in Brussels, Belgium in September 2013, for the promotion of peacebuilding and statebuilding in Somalia.
The organizers of the seminar passed up the opportunity to get fair and balanced Somali perspectives because they avoided to invite critical observers of the current troubling reality in Somalia exacerbated by the implementation of federalism without constitutional and legislative provisions. Therefore, the recommendations of the report are based on incomplete or inaccurate assessment of the reality in Somalia. The report re-emphasizes the view of “clan” federalism as “the most viable option to stabilize Somalia after 20 years of conflict and fragmentation,” and as a fact on the ground. Two of the fallacious reasons adduced in support of this view are “to prevent the reimplementation of failed policies in centrally controlled system of government in Mogadishu and “to compensate the inability of the central government to maintain control over the national territory.” Those fallacious reasons assume two things. First, every government in the capital Mogadishu is prototype of the ousted military dictatorship regime. Second, a capable central government based in Mogadishu failed to maintain control over the national territory for incompetence. Both assumptions are false.