June 29, 2018 | Morning Headlines
12 Al-Shabaab Fighters Defect To Government Forces In Jubbaland State
28 June – Source: Halbeeg News – 227 Words
Reports from Lower Jubba region indicate that 12 Al-Shabaab fighters defected to the Federal Government forces on Thursday. The fighters that laid down the arms came from Bar Sanguuni, Bula Haji and Abdalla Biroole villages in Lower Jubba region. Among those who surrendered to the forces are two senior officials who were commanders in several villages in Kamsuma town.
The government forces displayed Al-Shabaab defectors at Barsaguni village before they were ferried to Kismayo for investigation. Moalim Muse Abdullahi Magalow, who was among the fighters who surrendered to the government forces, was an Al-Shabaab commander in charge of Zakawat collection in over five villages in Lower Jubba region. Magalow said he decided to lay down his arms after witnessing the injustice inflicted on poor people by Al-Shabaab: “The poor in the areas under Al-Shabaab control are forced to pay Zakawat whether they have it or not. After witnessing this over the time, I could not tolerate this injustice any further and decided to surrender to government” said Magalow.
On Wednesday, another Al-Shabaab fighter identified as Hussein Mohamed Ramadhani surrendered to the Somali National Army in Jubbaland state. Abdi Ibrahim Abdalla, the SNA commander in Barsanguni village who spoke to Halbeeg News, confirmed the fighter’s defection from Al-Shabaab. Since the defection of former Al-Shabab deputy leader, Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, dozens of the group’s fighters have turned themselves in.
Key Headlines
- 12 Al-Shabaab Fighters Defect To Government Forces In Jubbaland State (Halbeeg News)
- Somali Senate Speaker Invites His Kenyan Counterpart To Mogadishu (Shabelle Media)
- Sudden Storm Kills Two Injures 15 South Of Hargeisa Somaliland (Radio Ergo)
- Suspected Shabaab Militant Killed In Security Operation (Daily Nation)
- UN AU Envoys Conduct Security Assessment On Transition Plan In Somalia (Xinhua)
- A New Approach To Somali Pirates Frees More Hostages (The Economist)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Senate Speaker Invites His Kenyan Counterpart To Mogadishu
28 June – Source: Shabelle Media – 111 Words
The Speaker of Somali Senate Abdi Hashi Abdullahi held talks with his Kenyan counterpart Kenneth Lusaka in Nairobi on Wednesday. Sources said both parliamentary leaders discussed a wide range of issues, including the cooperation between the two Senate houses. During the talks, Abdullahi invited his Kenyan counterpart to pay a visit to Mogadishu, to enhance the relations between the two houses.
On his part, Lusaka assured the visiting Somali Senate Speaker of Kenya’s commitment to help the Horn of Africa stand again on its feet following decades of conflict. Kenya is among the troop-contributing countries to African Union mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, which is protecting the Federal Government from Al-Shabaab attacks.
Sudden Storm Kills Two, Injures 15, South Of Hargeisa, Somaliland
27 June – Source: Radio Ergo – 341 Words
Two people, including a four-year old boy, were killed and 15 people were injured in sudden heavy downpours and strong winds that wreaked havoc in Salahley and Aw-Barkhadle, south of Hargeisa. Feysal Ali Sheikh, the director of Somaliland’s disaster preparedness authority, NADFOR, told Radio Ergo the freak weather occurred without warning, leading to much damage.
He reported that 51 houses made of iron-sheets, wood and clay were swept away in the storm. Among the destroyed houses, 31 were in Salahley, 80 km south of Hargeisa. The people living there have been moved to a local primary school as the students are on break until August. In Aw-Barkhadle, around 10 families were left homeless and moved to stay with relatives. The local primary school in the area also had its roof battered. Sallahley hospital, an orphanage, and 18 business stalls were damaged. The hospital’s perimeter wall was blown down but the hospital is still working.
Around 5,000 families live in the Salahley area, while the Aw-barkhle village is inhabited by 500 families. These families are mostly pastoralists. Amina Mohamed Ise broke her right leg when her house collapsed around here and her three children. “The rain and wind came suddenly at dusk – it went on for 10 minutes. Our house fell down on us while I was inside with the children,” she said. Amina is being treated free of charge at the local hospital. Adan Osman Farah and his family of 10 were among those displaced. Their house flooded and two of his children were injured. They are being treated free of charge in Salahley.
Dr Omar Ali, director of Salahley hospital, which is run by Somaliland’s ministry of health, said they received 11 injured patients, some with broken limbs due to the collapse of houses. The local administration and NADFOR are planning to start reconstructing people’s homes in Salahley and Aw-Barkhadle from Sunday. The sudden storm comes soon after the tropical cyclone Sagar that caused at least 40 deaths and killed a large number of livestock in Somaliland’s Awdal region.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Suspected Shabaab Militant Killed In Security Operation
28 June – Source: Daily Nation – 461 Words
A suspected Al-Shabaab member was on Wednesday killed in Tarbaj, Wajir County, Kenya, in an ongoing operation to flush out the militants. The operation has been going on for more than a week in parts of Tarbaj and Wajir East sub-counties after eight security officers were killed in an IED attack in Bojigaras last week.
The militants made away with firearms and ammunitions belonging to the officers before fleeing towards Somalia border during the attack. Addressing journalists, Wajir County commissioner Loyford Kibaara said that security officers came in contact with about four militants early Wednesday morning before a fierce gun battle ensued.
He added that one of them was killed while another one was seriously injured in the process but was whisked away by the other militants who fled into the bushes. The suspect is said to have been killed in an area between Mansa and Bojigaras. The operation was carried out by a joint team of police officers and police reservists.
Mr Kibaara said the officers are still in the area pursuing the suspects and will remain there until they find the militants: “I want to assure all of you that we will not leave the area until we find all the militants or those who sympathise with them,” said Mr Kibaara. The body of the suspect was later taken to Wajir Referral Hospital Wednesday evening. Mr Kibaara warned the members of the public against providing the militants with food and water, saying some of the residents were using motorcycles to take food to the militants: “We want to warn supporting the terrorists that we will treat you as a suspect because we want this people to starve until they reveal themselves,” he said.
UN, AU Envoys Conduct Security Assessment On Transition Plan In Somalia
28 June – Source: Xinhua – 433 Words
A team from the UN and African Union missions in Somalia ended a three-day visit to southern Somalia on Thursday to assess ongoing preparations for transfer of security responsibilities to the government. Francisco Madeira, Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission, and Lisa Filipetto, head of the UN Support Office in Somalia, visited Kismayo and Baidoa to gain a better understanding of challenges facing AMISOM’s activities in the various sectors. “For us, the more immediate concern is to see how our forces are operating, are faring, how our police forces are doing and also what challenges they are facing and how we can address them together,” Madeira said in a statement issued in Mogadishu.
He said preparations are part of a multifaceted plan to increase the involvement of federal and state governments in the affairs of the country as part of the UN Security Council which authorized condition-based transfer of security responsibilities to Somali national security forces. The AU envoy said the trip was aimed at preparing staff in Mogadishu and in the sectors for the transition which commenced in December 2017 with the reduction of 1,000 AMISOM soldiers. “We are in transition, we have to prepare ourselves for the transition and I came here to see what we already have in place for the process, the needs, the possible challenges we might face and the priorities that we need to put in place in preparation for the transition,” Madeira said.
Both Madeira and Filipetto assessed various AMISOM activities in the field to get firsthand information on the challenges faced by the staff. AMISOM has developed a conditions-based transition plan to transfer the national security responsibility from the AU troops to the Somali security forces guided by the rule of law and respect for human rights. “We can hear a lot when we are in the headquarters but it is important that we come on the ground and see the challenges faced,” Filipetto said. She said the two missions will work closely with AMISOM to improve coordination and service delivery to enable the former deliver its mandate as per the UN requirements. The visit comes at a time when the peacekeeping force is expected to further reduce its forces in the country in accordance with the United Nations Security Council Resolution.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Anger is rising again, as officials in Somalia’s semi-independent Puntland region cash in by selling licences to foreign boats for catches that are depleting the fish stocks that have hitherto sustained Somali fishermen—without their having to resort to piracy.”
A New Approach To Somali Pirates Frees More Hostages
28 June – Source: The Economist – 626 Words
No one seized by pirates can be considered lucky. But many of the seamen taken hostage by Somali pirates have at least been set free fast, once fat ransoms have been paid. At the height of the piracy scourge off the coast of Somalia almost a decade ago, the average ransom to free a crew and vessel was, by one tally, $3.5m.
Some seamen, however, have languished in captivity for months or even years because their companies balked at coughing up—often because their ship was uninsured, or had run aground, or had been disabled by fire, or had sunk. Crew taken from them were sometimes tortured. “Hard as it may sound, these guys, they don’t have any value,” says John Steed, a former UN man in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.
Pirates are still loth to cut their losses by freeing such hostages without payment. Of the few Somali pirates who have given up in this way, most were soon killed, Mr Steed notes, since they could not repay the financiers who underwrote the attacks and the hostages’ upkeep. The resulting trap for such failing pirates and their “forgotten” hostages seemed inescapable.
Yet 54 hostages, held on land by various groups of Somali pirates, have been freed in the last several years. This was because of a new approach, say those who negotiated the deals. Rather than try to convince unscrupulous vessel owners to fork up big ransoms, the negotiators, mostly working for nothing, first estimated the pirates’ costs—often $100,000-$200,000 for renting a boat and getting weapons and kit; expenses for fuel and food; and payoffs to stop government officials, warlords and village elders from interfering. If that amount or a bit more could be raised from charities and sympathisers, pirates would often accept the deal, once convinced that it was their only hope of satisfying their creditors.
Though negotiators have generally adopted the expenses approach, it is not a magic wand. Eight seamen are still held in Somalia, all of them Iranian fishermen seized in 2015. Negotiators must still convince governments that paying the pirates’ expenses will not benefit people with links to terrorist groups. Negotiators must also contend with pirates fearful of being double-crossed by a rival in their group. Such suspicion is sometimes justified, says Leslie Edwards of Compass Risk Management.