June 28, 2018 | Morning Headlines

Federal Government Mediates Galmudug Political Crisis

27 June – Source: Garowe online – 230 Words

Somalia’s Federal Government is hosting talks between the top leaders of Galmudug, in the hope of ending the recurrent political stalemate in the Federal Member State. Sources revealed to Garowe Online that Galmudug President Ahmed Dualle Geelle Haaf was in Mogadishu for a meeting with rival Vice President Mohammed Hashi Arabay and State Assembly Speaker Ali Gacal Casir, who are at loggerheads over last year’s Djibouti power-sharing accord. The mediation conference, organized by the Federal Ministry of Interior, is aimed at resolving the renewed rift between the regional leaders to move the fragile state towards the path of sustainable peace and development.

The state officials, who are currently split into two opposing sides, one based in Dhusamareb and the other in Adado city, are expected to bury the hatchet during the talks in Mogadishu. President Haaf has been accused of violating the regional administration’s constitution including extending his presidential term illegally following the merger of Galmudug and the moderate Islamist group of Ahlu-Sunna last January.

The Somali government is said to have forced Galmudug President to postpone the announcement of his new Cabinet line-up due to the escalating dispute over the power-sharing deal. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) brokered peace agreement between Galmudug and Ahlu Sunna in Djibouti last December, where they inked a pact that led to the union of the rival factions in central Somali regions following years of repeated disputes and division.

 

Key Headlines

• Federal Government Mediates Galmudug Political Crisis (Garowe Online)
• Hirshabelle MPs Demand Security For The Region (Goobjoog News)
• Somalia Immigration Department Opens New Office in Balanbale Town (Halbeeg News)
• Somalia National Army Claims Al-Shabaab Leader Dead (CTGN)
• A Somali-American Muslim Explains How the Travel Ban Ruling Will Affect Her (Broadly)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Hirshabelle MPs Demand Security For The Region

27 June – Source: Goobjoog News – 139 Words

Hirshabelle parliamentarian, Nuru Hashi Warsame, has protested over what he considers a security vacuum along the Mogadishu-Balad road. Warsame told Goobjoog News that Al-Qaeda attacks were usually carried out along the road between Mogadishu and Jowhar towns.

He pointed out that the Hirshabelle administration required great security support from the national government: “Security challenges are all over the country, but currently, the road linking Mogadishu and Balcad is a dangerous stretch where Al-Shabaab fighters ordinarily target officials of the Hirshabelle administration. And this issue can only be addressed nationally and not by the Hirshabelle administration alone,” said the MP.

Warsame called on the Somali Federal Government to address the security situation along the Mogadishu-Balad road. Members of Hirshabelle Assembly, alongside their soldiers, were killed along the Mogadishu-Jowhar road last month following a gunfire attack by members of Al Shabaab.

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Somalia Immigration Department Opens New Office in Balanbale Town

27 June – Source: Halbeeg News – 179 Words

Somali Immigration Department has opened a new office in Balanbale town of Galgaduud region for the first time in more than two decades. The agency has been carrying out initiatives to set up branches across the country in recent months.

Officials from Immigration Department have also laid the foundation stone for the construction of other offices of the agency in the town. A local elder Ahmed Issa, who attended the ceremony, has welcomed the opening of the office in Balanbale town: “We thank God, the office will from henceforth provide the services we used to seek from the other towns,” Issa said. An officer from the agency said the office will provide passport applications, registrations and other immigration services.

“This is progress achieved by both Balanbale administration and the immigration department. The office will provide services to the residents,” he said. So far, the agency has opened offices in Adado, Elbarde, Beled Hawo, Qardho, Galkayo and among other towns.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Somalia National Army Claims Al-Shabaab Leader Dead

27 June – Source: Africa CGTN – 239 Words

The Somalia National Army radio is reporting that the leader of jihadist militant group al-Shabaab has died, but the militants have denied this report. The report said that Sheikh Ahmed Diriye, popularly known as Abu Ubeidah, had died in the town of Jilib in southern Somalia after suffering from cancer for a year.

Abu Ubeidah took over leadership of the Horn of Africa-based jihadist group in 2014 following the death of his predecessor Ahmed Godane, who was killed in a U.S. military airstrike.
Before the rumours of his death spread, Somalia and Kenyan media had reported that Ubeidah was suffering from a severe kidney problem and was bedridden.

There were also reports of jostling among senior al-Shabab officials to succeed him.
The militants have responded to the latest reports, saying he is alive and healthy – and that the claims of his death were made up by the Somali government to divert public attention from its own failures. Al-Shabaab has waged war in Somalia for a decade, seeking to topple the government and instill an extreme jihadist system of governance.

The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions others, crippling Somalia’s development and making the country’s governance a nightmare. African Union troops have however been supporting the Somalia forces to battle Al-Shabaab, forcing them to flee their former strongholds and give up towns they had captured. They however still manage to stage attacks, often suicide bombings.

OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE

“On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court upheld Trump’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority nations, sparking uproar from immigration activists and those directly affected by the ban, including former Somali refugee, Hamdia Ahmed”.

A Somali-American Muslim Explains How the Travel Ban Ruling Will Affect Her

27 June – Source: Broadly – 794 Words

In recent weeks, Hamdia Ahmed has been thinking a lot about her experience as a refugee. Her family escaped the civil war in Somalia in 1997 and crossed the border to settle into a camp in Kenya. She was just a few weeks old at the time.

“My parents had to leave everything behind,” Ahmed, now 20, told Broadly. “You’re starting all over with nothing but food provided by the UN and plastic shelters. It was very difficult. My mom literally had me while she was escaping … no medication, no hospital, nothing. People told her, ‘You’re not going to survive. You need to leave this child and abandon her. You need to run for your life.’ She was like, ‘No, I’m going to keep all my five kids together.’”

Ahmed is now a college student and aspiring model living in Portland, Maine, who dreams of working for the UN one day. (Last year, she spoke in front of the global organization to advocate for more education funding for refugee children.) After spending seven years in the Kenyan camp, her family qualified for refugee resettlement status through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and moved to the United States in 2005. She still has an uncle and cousins waiting to immigrate here; her grandmother was also planning to join them, but passed away last month.

Whether or not Ahmed will ever be reunited with her extended family, however, is now uncertain: On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s latest ban on travel from several Muslim-majority nations, including Somalia. “I’m outraged,” Ahmed said about the ruling, adding, “This isn’t [about] national security; it’s about an anti-Muslim agenda.”

In a 5-4 vote, the Court decided that the president “has lawfully exercised the broad discretion … to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States.” The ban, issued as a presidential proclamation last September, also restricts nationals from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and North Korea from traveling to the US. (The nation of Chad was originally included on that list but later removed.)

Thanks to the harmful, anti-Muslim rhetoric being touted by the president and his supporters, Ahmed said that many travel ban proponents believe Muslims are coming to the US to cause trouble. “We’re not,” she said. “We’re here to be Americans and to follow the American dream to make better lives for our family and our kids. We just want to be a part of the American dream. If you’re denying us that based on our religion, then that’s discrimination, and I don’t think that’s what America stands for.”