March 26, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report.
IJA And AMISOM Amass Troops In The Countryside
26 March – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 135 Words
Troops from Interim Jubbaland Administration and AMISOM peacekeepers have been deployed into new fronts in lower Jubba region where Al-Shabaab fighters are on their back foot. Hundreds of heavily armed IJA forces, supported by AMISOM have been seen amassing in Kulbiyow, bordering with Kenya, in their bid to push Al-Shabaab fighters out from the countryside. Fighters who fled Kudhaa island four nights ago have moved to Badamadow jungle near the Kenyan border, which a perfect long term hideout for militants. IJA and AMISOM are considering all options to prevent Al-Shabaab from regrouping or crossing the border into Kenya. Kulbiyow Commissioner Mohamed Ismael told Goobjoog that the troops are ready for action and will clear Al-Shabaab from their hideouts in the bush.
Key Headlines
- IJA And AMISOM Amass Troops In The Countryside (Radio Goobjoog)
- Fifth Somali Man Killed In Canada Since The Start Of Year (Sahan Journal)
- Former Mogadishu Mayor Says Somalia Is Heading To Balkanization (Radio Goobjoog)
- Humanitarian Crisis In Southern Somalia (Shabelle Media)
- Somali Defence Minister Meets EU Military Officials (Horseed Media)
- African Armies Told To Tackle Terrorism (New Vision)
- Wall Meant To Forestall Forays By Somalia Gunmen (Daily Nation)
- Why A Retired British Army Colonel Has Become The Last Hope For Somalia’s Forgotten Hostages (The Telegraph)
- Despite Low Income Traditional Blacksmiths Thriving In Mogadishu (CCTV Africa)
- In Somalia Wire Transfers Go Underground (Marketplace)
- Turkey In Somalia (Hiiraan Online)
- Business Lessons I Have Learned From Somali Traders (Africa Supply Chain Frontier)
SOMALI MEDIA
Fifth Somali Man Killed In Canada Since The Start Of Year
26 March – Source: Sahan Journal – 287 Words
Canada’s Calgary police are investigating the death of a Somali man whose body was found near a park area early Wednesday morning, Calgary Herald reported. Mohameddek Ali Mohamud, 25, is at least the fifth Somali man to be killed in Canada since the start of the year. A passerby walking near the area discovered the body of Mohamud and called police around 2:30 a.m. It’s unclear how Mohamud died or whether he was killed near the scene where his body was found, said duty inspector Paul Wyatt. Mohamud received a call from someone he knew shortly before midnight, Imam Abdi Hersey said. He left the house and promised to come back but never did. “This young man was very loving, caring, and someone who was extremely happy, joyous, always smiling,” the Imam said. “Someone that always ensures his mom is doing OK. Someone who was always involved in the community.”
Police are asking for the public’s help in their investigation into the death of what the Calgary police described as a suspicious death. “He called for the prayer last night” at a local Muslim in Calgary, Hersey posted on his Facebook page. In the last eight years, 59 people from Alberta’s Somali community have been killed, according to Hersey. “Only 2 out of the above number of cases are resolved. It is extremely disappointing and sad day for the community,” he said in the post. “We’re not hopeful now, and that’s not good,” he said, according to Calgary Herald. “We don’t know what to do, we don’t know what to say.” “Who’s next?” he said. “That’s what comes to my mind all the time.”
Former Mogadishu Mayor Says Somalia Is Heading To Balkanization
26 March – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 141 Words
The outspoken former Mogadishu mayor, Mohamoud Ahmed Noor ‘Tarzan’, who is also the chairman of a new political party, believes that the country is heading for balkanization. Speaking to Goobjoog, the former mayor said that in lieu of the current trend and turn of events in the country, in all likelihood Somalia would be split into small republics parallel to the federal government. “They want to become small republics within Somalia that will do away the federal governments, these republics share borders with foreign countries and the federal army could not be stationed,” said Tarzan. He pointed out that they would be having their own armies, foreign embassies and everything that only states should have. He suggested that before rushing things through, there should be some kind of mechanism in place to ensure this will not happen.
Humanitarian Crisis In Southern Somalia
26 March – Source: Shabelle Media – 120 Words
People who live in towns in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region are facing an acute humanitarian crisis, said to local authorities on Thursday. Speaking to Shabelle Media in Mogadishu, Mohamed Sugal, the Regional Deputy Social Affairs Minister, said that he called on humanitarian aid agencies to help the people in order the victims to get humanitarian assistance. Meanwhile, Mr. Mohamed said that the overall security of region is stronger after Somali troops, along with heavily armed forces from the AU mission in Somalia, pushed Al Shabab out of the region. He however, urged local residents to also strengthen relations between themselves and regional administrations in Middle Shabelle.
Somali Defence Minister Meets EU Military Officials
25 March – Source: Horseed Media – 248 Words
Somalia’s Defence Minister General Abdulkadir Sheikh Ali Diini met senior military officials from the European Union in Mogadishu on Wednesday to discuss on areas of mutual cooperation. According to a press statement from the minister’s office, both sides discussed on the government’s efforts towards stabilizing the country, training and equipping of the Somali forces. Mr Dini thanked the European Union for its massive support towards rebuilding Somalia’s security sector which was torn apart by the two decades of civil war. On their side, the military officials from the European Union Training Mission (EUTM) pledged continued support for Somalia’s army and to providing the necessary military equipment and training. In 2010, the European Union launched a programme in Uganda to train Somalia’s army to secure the country.
The programme was then transferred to Mogadishu with the stabilisation of the military and security situation in late 2013. More than 250 Somali soldiers, including special forces elements, have been trained by the programme. Meanwhile, Somalia’s defence minister stressed that the government will work on the integration of the forces in the upcoming 12 months. Military experts believe that Somalia’s security forces have a long road to travel before they can take charge of the country’s security, but with the commitment to change and the significant funding pledged, they are marching in the right direction. Somalia’s army was once regarded as one of Africa’s largest militaries under former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who was toppled in 1991.
REGIONAL MEDIA
African Armies Told To Tackle Terrorism
26 March – Source: New Vision – 535 Words
African armies should to tackle terrorism from its sources if they are to rid the continent of the vice, prevent future attacks and enhance safety, a senior army officer has warned. Addressing 35 senior military officers drawn from seven countries in Eastern and Southern Africa early this week, Lt Gen Charles Angina, the deputy Chief of Defense Forces (D/CDF) said there was need to dismantle bases of terrorist cells that have always been used as launch pads for several attacks in various countries. The army officers from the Tanzania Command and Staff College-Arusha were meeting at the Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDFs) Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) Headquarters (Mbuya) on a study tour to among others chat a way forward on how to combat terrorism in both regions. “We are pleased with your choice of Uganda for your study tour. It’s important we start learning right from our immediate people who are indeed most often very critical to us and then later we can learn from others who may be a little far,” Angina said.
Led by Brig Alfred Kapinga from Tanzania People’s Defense Forces (TPDF), the students drawn from Tanzania, Kenya, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Burundi and Rwanda were joined in the discussion by their Ugandan counterparts from the CMI; Chieftaincy of Training and Recruitment; Chieftaincy of Policy and Planning and Chieftaincy of Political Commissariat. Speaking during a brainstorming session, Angina said there was need to tackle terrorism from the source, preferably combining a multinational and multidimensional approach like the one being used against the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab in Somalia and is paying off. Several countries in the Eastern African region, Uganda inclusive have suffered terrorist attacks in the past decade or so, many of them masterminded by the Al-Shabaab who claimed responsibility July 2010 twin terror attacks in Kampala that left close to 80 people dead and scores maimed and injured. The same Al-Shabaab has in the recent past stepped up their attacks in the neighbouring Kenya.
Wall Meant To Forestall Forays By Somalia Gunmen
25 March – Source: Daily Nation – 658 Words
Construction of a wall on the Kenya-Somalia border to contain infiltration by militants failed to take off yesterday as earlier announced by the government. There was no activity at the site with the heavy construction equipment still lying in Mandera Town. An administrator in the county, who declined to be named on grounds he is not allowed to comment on the matter, said the construction was now scheduled to start on Monday. County Commissioner Alex Ole Nkoyo had on Tuesday said that the construction of the wall would start yesterday. “There are surveyors already on the ground and any time from Wednesday we shall be starting the project which is to be undertaken by the government itself. “The government has not contracted the project and the amount involved shall be known once the designers are with us anytime from Wednesday(today),”Mr Nkoyo said. Mr Nkoyo yesterday said the wall was part of the government’s response to terror attacks by the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militants.
“The government is building the wall mainly as a precautionary measure to ward off further encroachment on our territory by terrorists from Somalia,” he told the Nation. However, Mr Nkoyo did not disclose how much the project would cost. The county commissioner said the wall would prevent criminals from entering Mandera town and escape towards Bula Hawa town in Somalia. Mandera and Bula Hawa are about two kilometres apart. Mr Nkoyo said there was serious encroachment on Kenya’s territory at the border, particularly on the Somalia side where people have even built structures on the ‘no man’s land’ – the buffer zone between boundaries. Mandera Senator Billow has welcomed the idea and appealed to locals to cooperate with the government in securing the county. “We welcome the idea of building a wall between these two towns because it will control militants,” said Mr Kerrow, while addressing a public rally on Monday.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Why A Retired British Army Colonel Has Become The Last Hope For Somalia’s Forgotten Hostages
26 March – Source: The Telegraph – 1,579
Even by Somalia’s standards, the village of Amara is a lawless place. A tumbledown hamlet in the sunbleached scrubland north of Mogadishu, it lies in a “no man’s land” between turf controlled by local warlords and the al-Shabaab Islamist militia. It is the perfect spot to keep hostages, and during the height of the Somali piracy crisis, its shabby homes served as jails for Paul and Rachel Chandler, the kidnapped British yachters. Last month, another group of hostages finally walked free from Amara – this time four bedraggled, traumatised crewmen from the Prantalay 12, a hijacked Thai fishing vessel. But while their release did not attract the publicity that Western cases do, their place in the history of piracy is already assured. The four sailors had been held for just short of five years, giving them the dubious distinction of being the longest-held Somali hostages on record. Abandoned by the ship’s owners, who had failed to pay kidnap and ransom insurance, six of their fellow crewmen had already died from illness and neglect. That the rest have been spared the same fate is thanks not to a team of special forces soldiers, but to an ex-British army officer with a kind – if slightly unreliable – heart. Two years ago, Colonel John Steed, a former military attache to the British embassy in neighbouring Kenya, began his own personal mission to save those who were dubbed the “forgotten hostages” – the 100-plus sailors who still languished in pirate custody as of 2013. Drawn exclusively from poorer nations, their stories are a dark mirror image of that of Captain Phillips, the hijacked American whose rescue by US Navy seals became a blockbuster movie.
Most have spent years in captivity, left to their fate not just by their employers but by their governments, who lack either the will or the means to mount rescues. Mr Steed’s only chance is to get the pirates to see the sailors as a lost cause too. He tactfully persuades them to abandon hopes of a multi-million dollar ransom, and settle for a much smaller payment of “expenses”, which he scrapes together from charitable donations. A high-stakes, dangerous game, it is not for the fainthearted – something that Mr Steed, 59, is all too well aware of, having suffered a serious heart attack just three months into his work. Still, given how close last month’s release operation came to disaster, it seems his heart surgeon did a good job. After raising a sum believed to be around $150,000 for the release of the four Thais – a fraction of the original $9 million ransom demand – Mr Steed flew to the Somali town of Galkayo, from where he despatched a team of Somali go-betweens to undertake the exchange in a patch of desert outside Amara. All was going fine, until he got a call on his mobile. He could hear a firefight. “An al-Shabaab faction had attacked both my group and the pirates – they were probably after the money,” Cornwall-born Mr Steed told The Sunday Telegraph from his home in Nairobi, where he works from an office in his spare room. “I could hear the rounds going off in the background, and as someone who had a heart attack not that long ago, I could feel my blood pressure going rather high.
Despite Low Income Traditional Blacksmiths Thriving In Mogadishu
25 March – Source: CCTV Africa – Video – 1:57 Minutes
To Somalia now, and we focus on a long forgotten job; traditional blacksmithing. A good number of people in Mogadishu still work as blacksmiths. Now it could be tough, and even dangerous but for many blacksmiths, its their only way to make a living. Mohamed Hirmoge reports.
In Somalia, Wire Transfers Go Underground
24 March – Source: Marketplace – 282 Words – Audio – 4:38 Minutes
Four years ago, famine in Somalia took an estimated 260,000 lives. It would have been worse without a key source of financial support: money transfers from relatives abroad. Family members “could send money in five minutes from Minneapolis to Baidoa,” says East Africa scholar Laura Hammond of the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies Now, though, commercial banks that process remittances have pulled out of the sector. Banks fear extremist groups may be abusing the system to fund terror operations, and that they’ll be punished by U.S. regulators for allowing risky transactions. “Banks have decided to exit relationships in high-risk jurisdictions,” says bank consultant Dennis Lormel of DML Associates. He trains banks to reduce money laundering and terror finance risk. “It’s just not worth it to them. The benefit certainly doesn’t meet the risk.”
Will more Somalis starve? Perhaps not. Many transfers have gone underground. It’s an open secret that couriers are hand-carrying wads of cash across borders, and sending money via non-armored vehicles. Lormel says the risk of so much money moving this way is that it’s not tracked and becomes a channel for potential money laundering. “If I’m a bad guy, I’m going to be more inclined to want to move money though those guys,” he says. The suggestion: well-intentioned bank oversight may be backfiring and aiding terror finance. To Hammond, it’s also worrying for Somalis. Remittance make up as much as 40 percent of Somalia’s GDP, and money transfer groups say less money is going in. If this financial safety net is fraying, the question is whether it will still be there when the next drought inevitably comes.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“As one of the first nations to reopen their embassy in Mogadishu, Turkey went the extra mile to show their commitment and legitimate relations with the government by opening their embassy in downtown Mogadishu, a stark contrast to other nations who have their embassy’s inside the capital’s airport.”
Turkey In Somalia
25 March – Source: Hiiraan Online – 819 Words
President Erdogan’s visit to Mogadishu in 2011, which at the time, was the Prime Minister, was a significant step in moulding the relationship between Somalia and Turkey. Today Turkey’s unwavering humanitarian, financial and educational assistance is clearly evident in the capital. Nevertheless, many people have begun to question the hidden motives of President Erdogan. Whether it’s a political strategy or just genuine aid. The political relations between the two nations [are]not new but rather rekindle an old flame. The bilateral relations between the two date back to the conflict between Abyssinia and Adal in the 1500’s, where the Ottoman Empire and Adal Sultanate were allies during the war. After the collapse of the government regime in 1991, many countries, including Turkey terminated their operations in the country. Later re-establishing their relations with the nation’s newly inaugurated Transitional National Government in the early part of the new decade.Turkey formally resumed diplomatic relations with Somalia in 2011, following the visit of Prime Minister Erdogan, who placed great emphasis on cementing brotherhood between Somalia and Turkey.
The two nations alongside being allies during the 1500’s, were also founding members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in 1969. Erdogan’s visit in 2011 bought many things to the nation and its residents, he pledged that Turkey would build multiple hospitals and reconstruct the airport road leading into the capital. Four years later, it is apparent that Erdogan is a man of his word. The development of the hospitals, schools and the new airport terminal which opened in 2015 provides evidence that Turkey have replenished feasible and tangible assets in Mogadishu. Since 1991, the UN has spent over $110 billion in Somalia in contrast to the $550 million, which Turkey has invested since 2011. This has provided economical and sustainable assets for the nation, with reference to Turkey’s commitment in improving the level of literacy they have provided scholarships for Somali youths to study in Turkey, vocational courses for sectors such as construction and fisheries, and also the development of infrastructure that provides trade and monies for the remittances-dependent economy. This can be seen as a clear example of the value of working internally and on the ground, in contrast to working from a local café 632 miles south of the city, in Nairobi.
“Somalis are also known for their value offerings and services. They often provide credit to their customers, without overextending the debtors’ column. Deals are made without contracts or unnecessary paperwork. They often sell certain stock keeping units (SKUs) at a loss and make successful use of the lost-leader strategy to create traffic and maximize turnover.”
Business Lessons I Have Learned From Somali Traders
25 March – Source: Africa Supply Chain Frontier – 606 Words
As a Somali associate of mine likes to say, when people think of Somalis, they only think of PTW (Piracy, Terrorism & War). As with a lot of Africa, sadly this narrative only focuses on the negative aspects of the community. Somalia and its people have had a number of success stories, notably the Somali money transfer system. Prior to tighter regulation and counter terrorism measures, the money system functioned effectively, catering to a large diaspora population, and despite an enduring conflict and the absence of a stable government. Beyond money transfer, Somalis have been hugely successful traders in the African continent and beyond. In the United States, Minnesotans in particular can attest to their success, despite facing many difficulties when they arrived in the state. In African markets, they have outperformed the traditional survivalist business model. While Somalis might be begrudged for their competitive nature, they are also applauded for the low prices and the services they provide to local communities. While there is lot to learn from the Somali trading culture, it remains much harder to replicate.
In the Somali community, trust plays a major part when accessing business capital. They operate in strong social networks, and through partnerships and community resource pooling, risks are spread and thriving business are created. Somali entrepreneurs have a high appetite for risk and willingness to work anywhere. They often trade in the more dangerous places, such as informal settlements. Most Somali shops are co-owned by several investors. They view their shop as an investment and look to grow their capital collectively. Somalis often sell their shops to local investors for a profit. Somali traders are concerned about turnover, and are also willing to accept smaller profits. They often reinvest their collective capital in additional stores. By operating multiple stores, operations also benefits from bulk buying savings and lower distribution costs. Somalis also invest substantially more in their businesses than local traders. According to Rory Liederman from the University of the Western Cape, Somali start-up capital for a spaza shop (small grocery) in South Africa range between R30,000-R40,000 ($2,500-$3,330), whereas the average South African spaza starts operations with less than R5,000 ($415).
Top tweets
@TheSouthFaceNGO: #Kenya #Nigeria #Libya risk becoming like #Somalia: How rising Jihadism could bring ‘rising’ Africa down http://mgafrica.com/article/
@2kdei: 6 German Nationals Face Charges Over Suspected Ties with #al-Shabab. #Somalia http://sputniknews.com/europe/
@Slavhandeln: Love to the much needed #CadaanStudiesconversation about the exclusion of somalis from different forums.
@CamelHerdersSon: When a news story breaks in#Somalia @BBCNews always runs to @mary_harper – doesn’t a local Somali suffice? #CadaanStudies
@Samatar_Ahmed: Apparently literature on Somalia is only valid if it comes frm westerners while rest of us settle 4 OpEd section of Hiiran #CadaanStudies
@DynamicAfrica: In #Hargeisa, #Somalia. Photo:@willswanson. #dynamicafrica #dailylife #dailyafrica#thisisafrica… https://instagram.com/p/
@AmbAmerico: Subax wanagsan, girls basketball games in Wish basketball stadium in #Somalia have restarted, hope in the air, ala MJ
Image of the day
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahamud who is currently attending the Central State formation and reconciliation conference in Dhusamareeb town in Galgadud region, has started conducted side meetings with separate delegations in order to establish deadlines and next steps. Photo: Federal Government of Somalia