November 15, 2016 | Morning Headlines
Government Forces Recapture Town After Al-Shabaab Retreat
14 November – Source: Garowe Online – 168 Words
South West military forces backed by Somali National Army (SNA) have wrested full control of the southern town of Tiyeglow in Bakool region from Al-Shabaab militants on Monday, Garowe Online reports. A senior Southwest state official, told GO that their forces along with SNA retook the town without resistance soon after the insurgents pulled out.
On Sunday, the allied troops had successfully retaken El Garas village in Bakool region before seizing Tiyeglow district, which came under Al-Shabaab control in October. Earlier last month, Ethiopian troops serving with African Union peacekeeping troops (AMISOM) have pulled out of several key areas in southern and central Somalia, giving Al-Shabaab the chance to immediately occupy the vacated areas.
Somali Federal government, however, announced it will push Al-Shabaab out of the remaining areas which they seized from SNA and AMISOM forces. Al-Shabaab was forced out of Mogadishu five years ago, but the group still continues to launch regular attacks on military and civilian targets in its fight to overthrow the western-backed Somali government.
Key Headlines
- Government Forces Recapture Town After Al-Shabaab Retreat (Garowe Online)
- Al-Shabaab Kills Senior Official In Burhakabo Attack (Shabelle News)
- Three Somali-Americans Sentenced For Plotting To Join IS (VOA News)
- Kenya To Miss November Deadline To Close Dadaab Refugee Camp (Reuters)
- Exclusive: Al-Shabab Moves In On Central Somalia (Al Jazeera)
- Somalia’s First Paralympian Aims To Spread Disability Sport In His Homeland (Inside The Games)
- Do Not Conform To Hate. A Somali Diaspora Perspective To Political Changes In US & UK (Sagal Ashour Blog)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Al-Shabaab Kills Senior Official In Burhakabo Attack
14 November – Source: Shabelle News – 132 Words
Al-Shabaab has claimed killing a top government official and several soldiers in two attacks it carried out over the past 24 hours in Burhakabo district in southern Somalia. According to a report by a pro-Al-Shabaab website, the militants launched two landmine explosions in the town on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, targeting a government base and a police station.
Sunday’s bomb attack, which struck a meeting site, killed the acting district commissioner of Burhakabo and two soldiers according to Al-Shabaab. A second attack took place on Monday morning at the city’s police station and no casualties were reported. Both attacks have been claimed by Al-Shabaab militants. The Al-Qaeda-linked group still occupies areas vacated by withdrawing Ethiopia forces in South-central Somalia as the east African country is busy holding the electoral process.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Three Somali-Americans Sentenced For Plotting To Join IS
14 November – Source: VOA News – 416 Words
A U.S. judge in Minnesota has given jail time to three Somali-Americans found guilty of conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State, but handed two of them lighter sentences for cooperating with the government. The harshest sentence was given to Zacharia Abdurahman, who got 10 years in prison. Abdurahman pleaded guilty but did not cooperate with the U.S. government against his friends, who also plotted to join Islamic State.
The prosecution wanted 15 years in prison for Abdurahman, who broke down in court. The judge, Michael Davis, made it clear that Abdurahman received the toughest sentence because he did not testify against his former co-conspirators. Abdurahman was stopped at JFK International Airport in New York in 2014 while attempting to travel to Greece on his way to Syria to join Islamic State. The following year, he was involved in a second attempt to travel to Syria.
Also sentenced Monday was Abdirazak Warsame and Abdullahi Yusuf, both of whom cooperated with the U.S. government. Warsame received 30 months in prison, while Yusuf was released for time served in prison — the 21 months he already had been in jail. Both testified against their former friends. Warsame was accused of planning to travel first to Somalia and then to Syria. He also was accused of encouraging others to travel to Syria, including Yusuf.
The judge said he believed Warsame’s cooperation with authorities was a matter of convenience, while Yusuf’s cooperation was more believable. He said it wouldn’t make sense to send Yusuf to prison for longer because the government would miss a chance to help him. Davis said he hoped to see Yusuf rehabilitated.
Kenya To Miss November Deadline To Close Dadaab Refugee Camp
14 November – Source: Reuters – 418 Words
Kenya will not meet its deadline to close a sprawling Somali refugee camp by the end of November because Somalia could not yet guarantee basic social services for returning refugees, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Monday. “On the question of deadline, definitely we will not meet that deadline,” the spokesman, Mwenda Njoka, told Reuters in the first Kenyan public acknowledgement that it would be missed.
Experts have long said Kenya’s plan to shut down Dadaab camp – home to more than half a million people at its height a few years ago – by that date was impractical. Njoka said the camp -the world’s largest – now had about 250,000 people. That compares to an estimated 350,000 people which U.N. officials had said inhabited the camp in northeast Kenya at the start of the year. Experts have said many Somalis who fled conflict would not voluntarily return until security had improved and more basic services, such as schools and clinics, were in place. Somalia’s government is still battling an Islamist insurgency.
“We will continue engaging with the Federal Government of Somalia and the government of Jubbaland, with a view to seeing how we can be able to continue the process, and hopefully faster,” he said. Jubbaland lies near Kenya’s border. Kenya had said it was determined to shut the camp, where some older residents have lived for quarter of a century and some younger ones have lived all their lives, because of a security threat. Kenya has faced a spate of attacks by Somali Islamists.
The United Nations and Western states warned Kenya not to forcibly repatriate those who live at the U.N.-run camp. New York-based Human Rights Watch said in September some officials were putting pressure on refugees to leave. “We feel pained when people say that we are pushing these people out,” Njoka said, adding that between May and October more than 30,000 had moved voluntarily. “If indeed we were coercing them, why would we be having about 250,000 people still there? Wouldn’t we already have repatriated all of them?” he said.
Exclusive: Al-Shabaab Moves In On Central Somalia
14 November – Source: Al Jazeera – 130 Words
Somalia-based rebel group Al-Shabaab has been on the offensive in recent months retaking strings of towns in south and central Somalia. Since the start of this year the group which is linked to al-Qaeda has retaken at least 10 towns from Ethiopian and African Union troops. They retook four towns in the past month.
Analysts say that the change in fortune of Al-Shabaab is in part due to events outside Somalia. The anti-government protests in neighbouring Ethiopia is the reason, they argue. Ethiopia has thousands of troops in the Horn of Africa country as part of an agreement with the Mogadishu government to fight the armed group. But Addis Ababa denies the claim. Al Jazeera’s Hamza Mohamed visited an Al-Shabaab training camp in central Somalia and obtained these exclusive photos.
Somalia’s First Paralympian Aims To Spread Disability Sport In His Homeland
14 November – Source: Inside The Games – 282 Words
Somalia’s first Paralympian Farhan Adawe hopes his Rio 2016 appearance will help to grow disability sport in the African country. The wheelchair racer made history in the Brazilian city in September as he competed in the men’s T52 100 metres. He finished fifth in his heat in an African record time of 18.49sec which, unfortunately for the 19-year-old, was not quite enough to progress. However, the experience could lead to Para-sport growing in Somalia, with Adawe keen for that to happen.
“I talked to my physical education teacher from school and he started training me, I have not stopped since,” he said in an interview on the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) website. “Now I see myself competing at future Paralympic Games and I will do my best to improve in the lead-up to Tokyo 2020. “But I also want to promote Para-sports in Somalia, and hopefully open many doors.” Adawe is based in Italian city Turin where he arrived at an early age to seek medical attention he could not get in his homeland.
He became inspired after watching the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and, as his country’s sole athlete in Rio, carried the Somalian flag at both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. “Competing at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games alongside the world’s best athletes, all united by their passion for sports, was big for me,” he said. “I could run on new tracks and see how good other athletes were.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“On a grassroots level, Somalis must consider themselves as activists. The fight to preserve our common shared values as mentioned above needs all segments of our communities to proactively get involved in their local or national causes and social justice issues, get involved in politics, lobby your local MP or Mayor, defuse social tensions, promote tolerance, community cohesion, peaceful and stable societies. Most importantly do not conform to Hate!”
Do Not Conform To Hate. A Somali Diaspora Perspective To Political Changes In US & UK
14 November – Source: Sagal Ashour Blog – 1,562 Words
The recent socio-political changes in Europe and America has changed the political landscape immensely, making it difficult to mentally and emotionally digest and understand what all this means to a Somali living in Europe. Somali Diaspora in host countries and in Somalia are very much engaged, and have been following the recent presidential election in America and the Brexit Referendum in UK. Most of them are concerned how this will directly and/or indirectly impact their security, political and social interest. How will the changes manifest in their lives?
It’s in the best interest of all Somalis to analyse what these changes could subsequently produce and lead to, and we must prepare for these changes and challenge them accordingly, to protect our fundamental human rights, community cohesion, freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Within a year, the political leadership and governments of both UK and US, two of the worlds most powerful countries have politically and socially been fundamentally changed, and the status quo is no longer relevant.
Xenophobia, islamophobia and hatred is fuelling the change, and Jeremy Corbyn the leader of Labour Party and opposition in UK said on Marr’s show: “This nasty thing called Xenophobia, if you let it out of the box, it’s hard to put it back in”. Analysing the socio-political changes from a political left perspective. In my opinion offers the best solution and is in the interest of the Somali Diaspora community living in Western Hemisphere, not to mention the interest of the international communities operating in Somalia and hugely investing in our military, humanitarian relief, economic markets and political dynamics.