June 8, 2016 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

NISA Soldier Gunned Down Outside Mogadishu

07 June – Source: Shabelle News – 108 Words

Suspected Al-Shabaab members shot and killed a soldier serving with the National Intelligence and Security agency(NISA) at Garasbaley area, outside Mogadishu on Mondaynight. Hassan Mohamud Shine, a NISA soldier, was attacked and killed by pistol-wielding men near his base in the area. The killers escaped shortly before security forces arrived and cordoned off the scene. NISA forces have launched an investigation and arrested two suspects linked to the murder of the soldier.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the killing of the government soldier, but the al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab has carried out similar targeted assassinations against security force members in the past.

Key Headlines

NISA Soldier Gunned Down Outside Mogadishu (Shabelle News)
Several MPs Call For Immediate Ceasefire Between Two Clans In Sool Region(Goobjoog News)
Puntland Beefing Up Security During Ramadan (Garowe Online)
Troops Who Killed Garissa Raid Planner Had Sought to Capture Him (VOA News)
Dadaab Closure Top Uhuru Somalia President Hassan Mohamud Talks (The Star Kenya)
Mogadishu – Nairobi Direct Flights To Begin Soon As Somalia Scores Big In Bilateral Talks With Kenya(NEP Journal)
Somalia’s Uphill Battle To Criminalize Sexual Violence (Foreign Policy Magazine)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Several MPs Call For Immediate Ceasefire Between Two Clans In Sool Region

07 June – Source: Goobjoog News – 115 Words

Several MPs have called for an end to fighting between two clans in Sool region which has so far claimed more than 20 lives in Dharkey-geenyo village. Yussuf Mohamed Ali, Abdullahi Hassan Roble, Noor Jama’a Farah, Abdirashid Abdullahi Mohamed and several others have called on both sides to stop the fighting without condition.Yussuf Mohamed Ali said on Tuesday that the fighting had caused unnecessary deaths and suffering to many families in the town.“I am unhappy with the fighting in the town and we are looking for ways to cease the fighting erupted in those areas. The sides should first stop the fighting and then solve their conflict at negotiating table” the MP said.

Puntland Beefing Up Security During Ramadan

07 June – Source: Garowe Online – 168 Words

Puntland Vice President, Abdihakin Abdullahi Haji Omar, has released an order to beef up security during the holy month of Ramadan for possible terror attacks by Al-Shabaab cells, Garowe Online reports. Omar said, intelligence agencies will be keeping heightened vigil on any terror activities, asking Puntland armed forces to remain deterrent and neutralize threats wherever they may emerge. “Al-Shabaab terrorists who always spill the blood of innocents are making plots, in light of this menace, I order Puntland Defence Forces to stay vigilant against terror and double surveillance,” said Puntland Vice President.

He claimed Al-Shabaab was an obstacle to the stability of the country, vowing harsh response to terrorism perpetrated by the Somali militant group. Omar extended his Ramadan greetings to Puntland people, wishing them prosperous, happy and peaceful fasting. On May 28, Presidential spokesman said in statement that constant coordination has been enhanced among various security agencies. Puntland issued terror alert, days after two Puntland soldiers were killed while defusing mine in the difficult terrain of Galgala.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Troops Who Killed Garissa Raid Planner Had Sought to Capture Him

07 June – Source: VOA News- 577 Words

It was very early on the morning of June 1 when a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado departed the Somali town of Bulogudud, 30 kilometers north of Kismayo.Almost immediately, two U.S. military helicopters came flying alongside the vehicle. The aircraft shone spotlights on the car and fired flares, an indication for the vehicle to stop and its occupants to surrender.

According to regional and intelligence sources, four men got out of the car, but instead of surrendering they spread out and began firing at the helicopters. Somali commandos aboard the choppers fired back, killing all four. The troops then landed to make sure they had killed their target: Mohamed Mohamud Abdullahi, a man also known as Dulyadeyn, Kuno or Abu Fatuma, the name he was widely known by within his jihadist group, al-Shabab. Dulyadeyn, a Kenyan national of Somali ethnicity, was highly sought by the Somali government and its allies for his role in planning attacks inside Kenya, most notably the April 2, 2015, assault on Garissa University College in which 148 people were killed. Kenya had put a $200,000 bounty on his head.

Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, the former director of Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency, described Dulyadeyn as a hard-line jihadist who was a field commander and “good at operations.”“He caused big problems in Kenya. He recruited lots of men for Al-Shabaab, including Swahili speakers whom he then sent back across the border,” Fiqi said.
U.S. and Somali intelligence agents had tracked Dulyadeyn for several days before the June 1 operation. Fiqi believes the intention was to capture him alive.“They tried, as we learned from the security agencies, to capture him but felt it was not possible to do that peacefully. Then the operation was executed and he was killed,” he said.

Dadaab Closure Top Uhuru, Somalia President Hassan Mohamud Talks

07 June – Source: The Star, Kenya – 109 Words

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Somalia counterpart Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Tuesday held bilateral talks at State House, Nairobi.The talks between the two Presidents focused on the decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp, rules affecting aviation between Kenya and Somalia, and cooperation on security.

President Mohamud, who is on an official trip to Kenya and visited the Dadaab refugee camp on Monday, was accompanied by senior officials of his government.Mohamud becomes the first sitting President of Somalia to visit the refugee camp for the more than two decades it has existed.The two leaders will hold a second round of talks at State House on Wednesday.

Mogadishu – Nairobi Direct Flights To Begin Soon As Somalia Scores Big In Bilateral Talks With Kenya

07 June – Source: Nep Journal – 164 Words

All flights from Mogadishu to Nairobi will undergo security checks only in Wajir, Kenya to ease movement of people between the two cities unlike the current practice where checks are done both in Wajir and Nairobi.In a move that is aimed at enhancing trade and movement of people between the two countries, Kenya and Somalia today agreed to also begin direct flights between Mogadishu and Nairobi once the necessary modalities were put in place.

Spokesman of the Federal government of Somalia, Daud Aweys confirmed these was agreed upon in today’s bilateral talks between a Somali delegation led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and his host Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta.Security, trade and closure of the Dadaab refugee camps topped the agenda of today’s discussion which came a day after the Somalia President visited Dadaab.Sources indicate the two sides agreed the Dadaab closure will not be forceful as previously rumored while Somalia was asked to shelve plans to ban importation of Khat from Kenya.

OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE

“Current Somali law on sexual violence is based on the colonial-era penal code that dates back to the 1930s. Under this legislation, rape is not considered a crime against an individual like murder or assault. Instead it falls into a lesser category of “crime against morality” along with homosexuality and bestiality,”

Somalia’s Uphill Battle To Criminalize Sexual Violence

07 June- Source: Foreign Policy Magazine – 1663 Words

After Maryam was gang-raped in a camp for displaced people in 2012, she tried to report it to the police. She was still bleeding heavily when she arrived at the station, but instead of assisting the pregnant mother of six, the officers demanded that she go home and clean herself up. But first, they made her scrub her blood off the floor. She never filed an official report, lost her baby, and was raped again five months later.

For nearly two years, a law that would ensure a measure of justice for survivors of sexual violence like Maryam, whose ordeal was recorded in a 2014 report by Human Rights Watch, has been wending its way through the Somali Parliament. The Sexual Offenses Bill, which would be the country’s first comprehensive law on sexual violence, still faces enormous impediments to passage and even greater impediments to implementation.

But on May 17, it was endorsed by a group of high-level Somali officials, representatives from donor countries, and U.N. and African Union diplomats in what advocates described as an important step toward getting the draft law on the books.“[W]e want the prosecution to make sure that [rape] is not dealt with under the traditional resolution mechanism,” Somali Deputy Prime Minister Mohamed Omar Arte said in urging the bill’s passage. “It has to be a crime that has been committed against the state so that it will not be possible for them to take it out of the court systems to deal with it at clan level/customary law.”