October 23, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Conflict of Interest Threatens Rebuilding Somali National Army– UN Report
23 October – Source: Hiiraan Online – 534 Words
Family and business ties between those responsible for ensuring the national army is provisioned, and the company providing its dry food rations — amounting to upwards of $8 million each year —suggest a serious conflict of interest, a new UN report said.The new report by the UN’s Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group alleged that evidence collected by the Group indicates that the army hierarchy has systematically inflated the troop numbers in order to secure greater funding for salaries and rations.“The almost exclusive use of cash for payments, distinct lack of accountability measures, and absence of any independent oversight has left the army leadership free to exploit Government revenue at the expense of its soldiers’ and citizens’ security.” The report said.
The lengthy report has also noted that impunity and misappropriation within the army has dented donor confidence in the Federal Government of Somalia, which it said has acknowledged the gravity of the situation.In contrast, the report has also alleged misappropriation within Somalia’s foreign embassies including the Nairobi embassy, accusing the former Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya Mohamed Ali Americo of irregularities occurred at the Somali embassy in Nairobi.
Key Headlines
- Conflict of Interest Threatens Rebuilding Somali National Army– UN Report (Hiiraan Online)
- Somalia Police Commissioner Arrives in Kismayu (Wacaal Media)
- Galkaayo Streets Flooded After Heavy Downpour (Goobjoog News)
- Puntland President Responds To UN Monitoring Group Report On Somalia (Garowe Online)
- Al-Shabaab Spiritual Leader Pledges Allegiance To ISIS CNN Says (Bloomberg)
- Accused ISIL Recruit’s Conditions ‘Inhumane’ Family Says (Star Tribune)
- Somali Migrant Mother: I Was Ready to Die With My Unborn Child (VoA)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia Police Commissioner Arrives in Kismayu
23 October – Source: Wacaal Media – 81 Words
Somali’s top police officer Mohamed Hassan Hamud and a delegation he was heading yesterday arrived in the Jubbaland city of Kismayu. Accompanied by his deputy and other senior officials, Hamud was received by Jubbaland security minister Mohamed Farah Warsame Darwish and the Police commander of Kismayu Gaboobe Hassan Barre. Sources told Wacaal media that the Commissioner will officially open training for police officers in Kismayu. He is also expected to hand over grants for the local police force to their commanders.
Galkaayo Streets Flooded After Heavy Downpour
23 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 144 Words
A number of streets in Galka’ayo town have been inundated with water after a heavy downpour over the last few days cutting off movement in some parts of the town.
Many people mostly businessmen and students were seen walking in the flooded streets of the town following recent heavy rains this morning.Floods from the torrential rains submerged several houses including the small IDP huts made of cardboard and old rugs that could not withstand the heavy downpour.
The rains have exacerbated the plight of the IDPs, many of whom had been doing odd jobs such as collecting waste, cleaning houses, washing cloth and some begging on the streets of Galka’ayo town.“There is standing water in many streets and this made some of the main roads impassable and badly impacted the transportation and people movement in the town “said one of Galkaayo traders.
Puntland President Responds To UN Monitoring Group Report On Somalia
22 October – Source: Garowe Online- 235 Words
The President of Somalia’s Puntland Government, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali has arrived back in Galkayo on Thursday after a visit to Mogadishu for national consultative forum, Garowe Online reports. Speaking to reporters at Abdullahi Yusuf International Airport, President Ali sidestepped allegations of security failures in United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea report, accusing media of misquoting potential corruption in fishing license sales. UN report acknowledged deteriorating security situation in Puntland due to delayed pays or lack of salaries for security forces, and sacking of senior security commanders. Puntland President dodged a question over United Nations report with ‘only, the existence of forged licenses of illegal trawlers’. Ali instead criticized the press for taking swipe at United Nations Monitoring Group report on Somalia.
Under ‘potential corruption in the sale of fishing licenses’, the report said, Ali’s administration gave license to a company owned by Abdiweli Ali Taar, who shares kinship with him. The Somali Security Service Ltd. was poised to receive 30 pc of government revenue obtained from ‘fishing license sales’ and fines imposed on captured vessels. In October 2014, the same report accused Puntland President of adopting ‘catch and release policy’ that contributed to increasing insurgency. On national consultative conference in Mogadishu, Ali said that Puntland presented its views on format for transition in 2016 over the course of the meeting. Officials and hundreds clad in Somalia and Puntland flags welcomed him to Galkayo.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Al-Shabaab Spiritual Leader Pledges Allegiance To ISIS, CNN Says
23 October – Source: Bloomberg – 122 Words
A spiritual leader of Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab pledged his allegiance to Islamic State, further fracturing the Somalia-based insurgency, CNN reported, citing sources including an unidentified person in U.S. intelligence.Sheikh Abdulqadir Mumin offered his support to ISIS in a video that is expected to be posted online, the broadcaster said. Al-Shabaab, which has been trying to overthrow Somalia’s government since 2006, pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2012.
The split has led Al-Shabaab’s secret police, known as the Amniyat, to arrest and jail members who are suspected of switching allegiance, CNN said. Mumin is thought to be based in the mountainous parts of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia, while the Amniyat mainly operate in southern Somalia, it said
Accused ISIL Recruit’s Conditions ‘Inhumane,’ Family Says
23 October – Source: Star Tribune -944 Words
The family of a Minneapolis man who is awaiting trial on terrorism conspiracy charges say they have been prevented from visiting him in prison, where he remains in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement with little access to the outside world.Fadumo Hussein said that she was repeatedly turned away when she tried to visit her son, Guled Omar, who has been shuttled between several area jails since his arrest last April on federal charges of conspiring with others to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Hussein said her son told her in a brief phone conversation earlier this week that he was living under harsh conditions in the Ramsey County jail and that he was suffering from several ailments because his cell was kept so cold.Authorities insist that Omar, 21, has been segregated from other prisoners for his protection, but declined to comment on why his co-defendants in the case have been moved to the general population in other jails.The last time she tried to see him, Hussein says, she and her daughter were pulled out of line as they entered the jail and told that they would not be let in, without further explanation. With no other way of contacting him, the family racked up a $300 phone bill last month calling Omar, they said.“If this continues, he will suffer mentally,” Hussein said Thursday, through an interpreter. “This confinement is inhumane and the way they’re treating him, it’s something that’s beyond punishment.”
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“The 33-year-old Ali began her journey in March, leaving behind seven kids and their father in Mogadishu, capital of a nation that hasn’t known any peace in a quarter century; a place where the lack of security and scarce jobs made life so unbearable that she decided to risk the dangerous journey to Europe,”
Somali Migrant Mother: I Was Ready to Die With My Unborn Child
23 October – Source: VoA – 719 Words
When Rahma Abukar Ali boarded a migrant ship in Libya on August 22, she knew the trip would mark the start of something new and hopeful or bring an end to her life.Nine months pregnant and looking ready to deliver at any moment, Ali had spent the previous five months making her way from Somalia to the Libyan coast, trudging mile after mile through the searing Sahara Desert. Her only relief from walking came when she slept or was packed into trucks crowded with others fleeing the battle-scarred Horn of Africa.“I was feeling dizzy; I was tired because of the long journey,” she says. “But I could not deliver the baby in Libya, so when I boarded the boat, I was ready to die with my unborn child or make it to Europe.”
Ali made it to Europe, but only after giving birth on a German Navy vessel in the middle of the Mediterranean, a day after she was rescued from the migrant boat.She and her baby daughter, Sophia, are now living at a refugee center in a small German town near Düsseldorf, where she is awaiting a response to her application for asylum. In a VOA interview last week, Ali said she is excited that she completed her journey to Europe and that her children in Mogadishu were happy that she made it.She appealed to the German government to accept her refugee application and allow her family to leave Somalia as well.“I want them now to join us here in Germany,” she said. “They want to see their little Sophia.”
TOP TWEETS
@HarunMaruf:BREAKING: Al-#Shabab rocked by defection of fighters to the Islamic State, intelligence and local sources have confirmed. #Somalia
@AnalystSomalia:#Somalia‘s gov & regions signed interim deal on resource sharing; a positive step, @HIPSINSTITUTEcalled 4 this B4
http://www.heritageinstitute.
@mofasomalia:#Somalia is rich #Livestock #Fishery & 8.9 Million hectares of land & vast marine resources.#ResourcefulSomalia
@KentPage:Congrats to #Somalia for putting an end to the#polio outbreak! (35 campaigns; 2.1M children reached)#unicef
@mofasomalia:#Somalia has one of the highest potentials for onshore wind #power in #Africa. #EnergyAfrica@MinisterMOFA
IMAGE OF THE DAY
The United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Field Support Mr. Anthony Banbury and Ms. Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas, the UN Assistant Secretary-General, Controller paid a courtesy call on the AMISOM Force Commander.
Photo: AMISOM