June 7, 2012 | Daily Monitoring Report.
Puntland to counter pirates in Bargaal
07 Jun – Source: Radio Kulmiye – 132 words
Somali’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland has launched operations to dislodge the Somali pirate’s major bases in Puntland such a Bargaal the coastal town in eastern Puntland,
According to officials in Puntland the attack is aimed at to flash out Pirates in the region who are still trying to attack foreign ships and vessels sailing in the waters of Indian Oceans and the far seas outside the coasts of Somalia.
Puntland authority has been waging military operations against the Somali pirates and al Shabaab fighters, who are currently posing severe threats to region. Foreign mercenary company of Saracen International and other suspected NATO jet planes joined the fighting against the Somali pirates in eastern region of Puntland specially in the coastal towns of Bargaal and Urban area of Bidhbidh in the region.
Key Headlines
- Somali president meets with traditional elders in Mogadishu (Shabelle)
- Somali ambassador injured in car accident (Bar-Kulan/ Radio Kulmiye)
- Agencies build new homes for 1500 displaced Somalis (Coast Week/Xinua)
- Puntland to counter pirates in Bargaal (Radio Kulmiye)
- Sheikha Jawaher donates $1m to UNHCR (Gulf Today)
- Tensions Mount in villages near Afmadow (Shabelle)
- U.S. offers millions in bounty for top Somali militants (Reuters/Chicago Tribune/ Fox News/CBC News)
- Dutch Minister visits Puntland (Garowe Online)
- Deadly explosions hit Wabho settlement (Radio Bar-kulan)
- British Somalis going back for a future (Channel 4)
SOMALI MEDIA
Somali president meets with traditional elders in Mogadishu
07 Jun – Source: Shabelle – 108 words
Somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, has on Thursday held a meeting with the Traditional Elders in Mogadishu. During the meeting, Somali president called upon the elders to enhance cooperation with the newly established committee to manage conflicts in Somali Traditional tasked to select the constituency assembly that will also expected to approve the draft constitution and appoint a new parliament of Somalia before next August.
On the other hand, Somali president talked more about the draft constitution, saying that any article deemed inappropriate in the draft constitution will be removed in accordance with the people’s interest.
Puntland to counter pirates in Bargaal
07 Jun – Source: Radio Kulmiye – 132 words
Somali’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland has launched operations to dislodge the Somali pirate’s major bases in Puntland such a Bargaal the coastal town in eastern Puntland,
According to officials in Puntland the attack is aimed at to flash out Pirates in the region who are still trying to attack foreign ships and vessels sailing in the waters of Indian Oceans and the far seas outside the coasts of Somalia. Puntland authority has been waging military operations against the Somali pirates and al Shabaab fighters, who are currently posing severe threats to region,
Foreign mercenary company of Saracen International and other suspected NATO jet planes joined the fighting against the Somali pirates in eastern region of Puntland specially in the coastal towns of Bargaal and Urban area of Bidhbidh in the region.
Deadly explosions hit Wabho settlement
07 Jun – Source: Radio Bar-kulan – 132 words
One person was killed and three others were injured when two explosions went off last night at a restaurant in Wabho settlement, Galgadud region. The explosions were said to be landmines.
The area Ahlu Sunna’s security boss Abdishakur Abdi Hussein who confirmed the incident to Bar-kulan has blamed the al Shabaab for being behind the attacks, saying that innocent civilians were hurt during the incident. Hussein said those injured in these explosions are now being treated at the area hospital.
Ahlu Sunna fighters who conducted search operations at the scene of the incident have arrested six people on suspicion of being behind the attack. It is the first time for such explosions to happen in Wabho settlement of Galgadud region. The area Ahlu Sunna administration imposed a curfew on the area last night.
Tensions Mount in villages near Afmadow
07 Jun – Source: Shabelle – 138 words
Tension over fighting and military exercise is reportedly high in several villages near Afmadow town, south Somalia as TFG forces along with Kenyan army advance on al Shabaab controlled areas in lower Jubba region.
Mohammed Omar Gedi, a Somali MP told Shabelle Media that al Shabaab fighters are regrouping in the vicinity of Afmadow town, 620 kilometres south of Mogadishu, to attack the town which is now under Somali and Kenyan forces.
“They [al Shabaab] are arming local residents; especially young ones to take part the fighting against TFG and Kenyan forces in Afmadow town. I urge people in that area not to accept such misguided advice and send their youth with al Shabaab fighters,” said Gedi. TFG officials have previously promised to recapture the port town of Kisamyo, 500 kilometers south of Mogadishu from al Shabaab militants.
Dutch Minister visits Puntland
06 Jun – Source: Garowe Online – 167 words
The Dutch Minister for International Cooperation and European Affairs visited Garowe, the capital of Puntland, on Wednesday, Garowe reports. Ben Knapen landed at Garowe airport early Wednesday, where he met with Vice President Abdisamad Ali Shire, Saeed Mohamed Ragge Minister of Ports and Counter Piracy and other Puntland officials.
Minister Knapen was accompanied and Dutch Major Gen. Leo Beulen and the director of operations of the Dutch Ministry of Defence. The officials met behind closed doors and discussed the political and security situation in Puntland. Minister Ben Knapen visited the newly built investigation headquarters, where he was accompanied by Puntland officials, including State Minister of Planning Abdulkadir Abdi Hashi.
In a statement provided by the Dutch Minister, he said that more needs to be done to combat piracy, suggesting that prosecution and detention of pirates should be done locally after rule of law is strengthened. Late last month Puntland and Mauritius signed an agreement to temporarily hold convicted pirates, which was overseen by the EU and UNODC.
300 Somali youth anguish in Libyan prisons
06 Jun – Source: Radio Risaala – 165 words
Somalia’s ambassador to Libya, Abdiqani Mohamed Wa’eys talked of the Somali youth suffering in Libyan prison. In an exclusive interview he gave to Risaala Radio, Mr. Abdiqani revealed that nearly 300 young Somali people are still locked up in various prisons in Libya.
The envoy noted that most of these young people were arrested in Libya while trying to reach Italy as illegal immigrants and refugees. Some were even intercepted in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea by Libya’s NTC forces. He added that some of the Somali youth are in poor health conditions and are faced with hardships and dire conditions in the prisons.
The Somali envoy further noted that some parents are solicited for money by unknown people who demand for money in order to release their children but who instead use the money for their own gains. He urged the parents to be wary of such people. Many Somali youth often flock to Libya in the hope of crossing to Italy.
Somali ambassador injured in car accident
07 Jun – Source: Bar-kulan/Radio Kulmiye – 106 words
The former TFG Prime Minister Noor Hassan Hussein (Noor Adde) was last night injured in a road accident at Brussels, Belgium. Noor Adde who is now the Somali ambassador to the European Union has sustained minor injuries and is now recuperating in a hospital in Brussels, according to Hassan Abdulkadir Mudey who a close associate of the former PM.
Mudey said the former PM suffered slight collarbone injuries during the incident, adding that his driver was also injured during the accident. The incident reportedly occurred after the former PM’s car was hit by another car while on his way to attend African ambassadors meeting in Brussels.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Agencies build new homes for 1,500 displaced Somalis
07 Jun – Source: Coast Week, Xinhua – 451 words
The UN refugee agency and Norwegian Refugee Council have built 250 permanent houses for 1,500 persons who were forced to flee due to armed conflict in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in Somalia.
UNHCR Representative for Somalia Bruno Geddo said on Wednesday that the project aims at getting together internally displaced persons originating from other parts of Somalia and local communities in a highly combustible area sitting on a major clan fault line
“By providing land and issuing each displaced family with an ownership certificate, the North Galkayo municipality went a long way to promoting peaceful co-existence between the two communities and finding a durable solution to a long-standing problem,” Geddo said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
Sheikha Jawaher donates $1m to UNHCR
07 Jun – Source: Gulf Today – 278 words
Sheikha Jawaher Bint Mohammad Al Qasimi made a $1 million charitable donation to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help address the ongoing health-related needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia.
“In light of the changing landscape and resulting turmoil we are currently witnessing in our region, we are often reminded of our brothers and sisters in Somalia, of whole families having to flee drought and conflict. As is the case in such difficult humanitarian situations in the wake of displacement, mothers, children and the elderly are often subjected to needless suffering and humiliation. Our hearts are with them and we pray to Allah to lighten their burden and end their suffering,” expressed Sheikha Jawaher.
It is estimated that more than 1.25 million children across southern Somalia are in urgent need of lifesaving intervention. This contribution will go towards preventive and curative healthcare services, which will be provided to some 129,500 Somali IDPs until the end of 2013 with the aim of significantly decreasing mortality rates among the displaced Somali population.
Tension in southern Somalia as al Shabaab mobilise forces
06 Jun – Source: Africa Review – 158 words
Somali militants al Shabaab are amassing troops in lower Juba region, reports indicate. Consequently, tension was mounting among the civilians over an imminent major military operation.
“Militants loyal to al Shabaab (the radical Islamist group) were Wednesday seen positioning ‘technicals’ (battle wagons mounted with machine guns, in and around the town”, a resident in Kismayu, who did not disclose his identity for security reasons, told the local media. Other reports confirmed that militias were being gathered at Birta Dheer and Janaay Abdalla on the outskirts of Kismayu.
The militia manoeuvres follow the seizure of some strategic territory by pro-Somali Government forces supported by troops from Kenya. The captured areas include Afmadow town and Bibi village, west of Kismayu.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
U.S. offers millions in bounty for top Somali militants
07 Jun – Source: Reuters/Chicago Tribune/ Fox News/CBC News – 725 words
The United States is offering rewards of up to $7 million for information leading to the location of seven key leaders of Somalia’s al Shabaab, seeking for the first time to target top echelons of the al Qaeda-linked militant group.
U.S. officials said the rewards, to be announced on the State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” website on Thursday, opened a new front in the battle against al Shabaab and signaled Washington’s determination to press the fight against terrorism across Africa.
“This is the first time we’ve had key leaders of al Shabaab as part of the Rewards for Justice program,” said Robert Hartung, an assistant director at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which administers the program.
“Every time we add someone to the Rewards for Justice site, that is a signal that the U.S. government is sending that it takes the fight against terrorism very seriously,” Hartung said.
The U.S. government in 2008 named al Shabaab to its list of foreign terrorist organizations, imposing financial and other restrictions on the group that had seized control of large areas of south and central Somalia and sought to impose its strict version of Islam on the impoverished Horn of Africa nation.
British Somalis going back for a future
06 Jun – Source: Channel 4 – 1050 words
Parents of some British Somalis are sending their children back to Africa because they fear what might happen to them in the UK, writes reporter Jamal Osman. Hassan, a 20-year-old man from Sheffield, is enjoying life in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Back in the UK he faced so many challenges. His family was always worried about him getting into trouble and ending up in jail – or dead.
Sitting on the rear seat of a white Toyota car, Hassan told me: “Africa’s all right, blud – don’t be thinking that Africa’s dead.“This place is actually better than I thought it was going to be – like everyone else thinks before they get here. Gaza, that’s what I thought.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“Civil war, terrorism and state collapse have made Somalia the Horn of Africa’s most intractable security problem. Neighboring Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya are caught up in a complex political game of containment and unresolved history”.
Solving Somalia: A Complex Political Game
07 Jun – Source: ISN – 1132 words
On July 11 2010, three bombs exploded in two separate locations in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, killing seventy-four people who had packed into bars to watch the soccer World Cup final. Uganda’s intelligence and security services arrested a number of individuals suspected of orchestrating the attacks in the following weeks, and two Ugandan nationals were convicted of organizing the bombings in September 2011.
Over the last three decades Uganda has been no stranger to political violence. This, however, was something different. The Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, which haslinks to al-Qaeda, had recruited Ugandan Muslims to facilitate the murder of their own countrymen. This was an attempt to force the Ugandan government to withdraw troops that had recently been deployed in Somalia as part of an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force (AMISOM).
“The aid and military support that the international community offers to Central and the Horn of Africa may be stifling ‘local solutions to local problems”.
Too Many Players, Too Few Solutions?
07 Jun – Source: ISN – 1651 words
Both Central and the Horn of Africa secure regular spots in the headlines, but not for coveted reasons – simmering violence, religious radicalism and piracy are among the biggest draws. The international community’s aid, advice, military support and diplomacy to the states of the region have achieved some success, failed in certain instances or are evolving as strategies. But on the sidelines, ordinary Africans are still clamouring for a bigger political stake – and a little peace.
“The report followed them to Somaliland, the most peaceful region of Somalia, its relative prosperity standing in stark contrast to the war-blasted images of the country’s capital Mogadishu. Here, the return of hundreds of such Somalis to their ancestral homeland has become increasingly familiar, with the locals even coining a term for such returnees: dhaqan selis (“the rehabilitation community”). This term, unsurprisingly, possesses a somewhat pejorative air, but the returnees have found that they feel more at ease in Somalia than in Britain, although the lack of traditional goat herding skills, admittedly difficult to acquire in Sheffield, London or Bristol, served as cause for embarrassment for the young Somali men featured in the report.”
Somalia: an Antidote to Somali Alienation
06 Jun – Source: Musings of a Durotrigan Blog – 756 Words
So seemed to suggest a Channel 4 report this evening, and with such a conclusion, I do not beg to differ. According to the Office for National Statistics, there were some 108,000 immigrants born in Somalia resident in the UK in the 2011. This figure of course excludes second or third generation Somalis, so the actual and much higher total of Somalis resident here is not publicly available.
The arrival of such a large volume of Somalis has led to the emergence of identifiable and notable Somali clusters in cities such as London, Sheffield, Bristol and Leicester amongst others, and together with the UK’s officially promoted ideology of multiculturalism, this weight of numbers has allowed Somalis to maintain their insular identity, whilst at the same time creating a sense of cleft identity amongst many Somalis born in the United Kingdom who are cut off from the direct experience of their ancestral motherland.
Top tweets
@africaupdate More ‘counter-terror first, peace later’ tactics from the US in #Somalia. More poor choices from DC.http://reut.rs/KHDtCN
@somaliexpert The only #Shabab official I sympathize with over the US #bounty put on them is #Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur.#Somalia.
@Sojeede #DhaqanCelis -The chain of failure starts at the Parents. RT @JamalMOsman: Here is the link of my latest film:http://bit.ly/JOLWyP#Somalia.
@PhilippeStoll Incredible photo gallery of 20 year of lifesaving care at Keydsaney Hospital in #Somalia: http://bit.ly/KTrjFJ.
@LindaNchi #TFG advances 2 KM to Kismayu, We are still in Afmadhow because this time #Shabaab militia is expected to put up a fight.@majorechirchir.
Image of the day
AMISOM Force Commander Lt. Gen. Andrew Gutti (centre) gestures towards a Somali man during a visit to Afgoye Town located 30km to the west of the Somali capital Mogadishu. Photo: AU-UNIST/ STUART PRICE.