October 28, 2015 | Morning Headlines
Lack Of Funds Pushes Al-Shabaab Towards ISIL-Puntland
27 October – Source: Garowe Online – 236 Words
Funding crises have pushed Somali terror group, Al Shabaab to shift balance towards the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Puntland Government in Northern Somalia claimed on Tuesday. The remarks come less than a week after key Al Shabaab ideologue Abdulkadir Mumin defected to Islamic State, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is desperately seeking to extend influence into the East African country. Puntland Security Minister, Abdi Hirsi Ali (Qarjab) said on VOA Somali Service that funding slash by Al Qaeda split Al Shabaab. He added that Puntland views all forms of terrorist organizations including Daesh, Al Qaeda and East African franchise, Al Shabaab as existential threat. “There have been speculations that Al Shabaab is facing severe funds shortage. We believe that Al Shabaab is being sponsored by clandestine terror networks,” Puntland Security Minister noted.
Puntland has beefed up security at entry points, such as coastal areas as Yemenis fleeing conflict continue to stream in. Although radical cleric Mumin courted controversy with his IS-leaning interests among Al Shabaab ranks, Al Shabaab Northeast could be pondering imminent merger with the IS. United Nations investigators unveiled in confidential report that they follow with concern; Al-Shabaab’s destabilizing activities in stable Puntland. Puntland forces waged fierce military offensive on militants in mid-2010. However, terror campaign resumed in early 2014, and Al Shabaab has ever since opted for unprecedented hit-and-run attacks, largely in Bossaso Port City.
Key Headlines
- Lack Of Funds Pushes Al-Shabaab Towards ISIL-Puntland (Garowe Online)
- SNA and AU Troops Recapture Al-Shabaab Military Base After Deadly Fighting (Goobjoog News)
- Chief Justice 60 Somaliland Federal MPs Fault Special Treatment Of Somaliland In Electoral Process(Goobjoog News)
- Somaliland President Appoints Ministers After Mass Resignations (Hiiraan Online)
- Behold I Was Lost But Now I am Found! Confessions Of An Al-Shabaab Recruit (Daily Nation)
- Finland Narrows Asylum Criteria For Somalis (Reuters)
- UN Human Rights Agency Urges Decency From Australia And Nauru Over Alleged Rape Victims(WAtoday)
- Why Terrorists Have Had Success In Kenya (Daily Nation)
NATIONAL MEDIA
SNA and AU Troops Recapture Al-Shabaab Military Base After Deadly Fighting
27 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 194 Words
Deadly gun battle between SNA supported by AMISOM soldiers and Al-Shabab fighters took place in the outskirt of Luuq town.The allied forces launched massive on a village manned Al-Shabab fighters and prompted hours fighting which left casualties on both sides.The troops have now captured the village as Al-Shabab fighters have fled the area, according reliable sources.
Over the past few weeks, Somali military soldiers and African Peace-Keeping in Somalia (AMISOM) forces have been launching attacks aimed at flushing out of Al-Shabaab fighters from Jubba and Gedo regions.Three days ago Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) troops struck and killed 15 suspected Al-Shabaab fighters in Yantooy, Jubba River in operation to capture Jilib town in Somalia. KDF spokesman Col David Obonyo said the troops struck Sunday morning and killed the 15 before recovering two boats that they were using to cross the river. Obonyo said the terrorists were trying to cross Jubba River when they were attacked.“The two boats they have been using to cross river Juba were also destroyed. There was no casualty on the KDF side,” said Obonyo.
Chief Justice, 60 Somaliland Federal MPs, Fault Special Treatment Of Somaliland In Electoral Process
27 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 355 Words
A group of 60 Federal MPs and the Chief Justice Aiyded Abdullha Ilka-hanaf have protested the move to consider the break-away region of Somaliland as a special case in the consultative process on finding the electoral formula for 2016 polls.In a statement to the media, the lawmakers and the head of the supreme court, all who hail from Somaliland have termed the decision as sectarian and only aimed at promoting the secessionist agenda being advanced by the northern state.“From the onset, the failure to incorporate Somaliland leadership in the National Consultative Conference was a big mistake. And to treat Somaliland as a special case different from the rest of the country is a threat to unification and only serves the interest of those who want to divide the country into two,” said group spokesman Yusuf Mohamed, MP.
The group said the Constitution defines Somalia as one and does not in any way contemplate the existence of another country within Somalia. “There is no special mention or arrangement for the status of Somaliland in the constitution. The constitution only identifies it as a northern state and we are representatives of that region in the Federal Parliament,” added Ali.The National Consultative Forum in its facilitation guide last week in Mogadishu noted that regional consultations for Somaliland, Middle Shabelle and Hiiraan would take place in Mogadishu.But the lawmakers have faulted the arrangement noting that giving special mention to Somaliland only serves to embolden Somaliland administration in their quest for independence from the South.
The group said they will be writing to the United Nations to intervene in the matter.The development comes at a time Somaliland ruling party and government is being rocked by dissent after six ministers and two deputies resigned in a huff after falling out with President Mohamed Silanyo for his preferred choice of one of the candidates for the party chair position.
Somaliland President Appoints Ministers After Mass Resignations
27 October – Source: Hiiraan Online – 267 Words
Amid the apparent divisions within the ruling party, the President of the breakaway region of Somaliland has appointed new minister after resignations of 12 top officials including ministers and directors on Monday.President Ahmed Silanyo accepted the resignations of the ministers including the foreign, justice and presidential palace who accused him of siding with Kulmiye party’s presidential candidate.
Dr. Said Ali Shire,was appointed as the foreign minister, replacing Mohamed Bihi who resigned along with other ministers while Ali Hassan Mohamed was appointed as the general works and transport minister. In the presidential decree issued Tuesday, Mr. Silanyo has also appointed five more ministers to fill the positions abandoned by other ministers including the presidential palace minister, a long time close ally of the president.However, it’s unclear whether the information minister Abdullahi Dahir, who attended the resignations’ press conference, has also resigned.
The latest mass resignations by ministers and directors have dealt a big blow to the government of president Silanyo, which is struggling to improve its public image despite public discontent towards his recent bid to extend his term for two more years.Somaliland has avoided decades-old conflict which ravaged southern Somalia by building its independent army, finance system and government.
According to political analysts, the resignations reflected the political instability of the Somaliland government, which has long credited for maintaining peace and political stability in the region.The development could also precede more defections by officials, they said.Somaliland has declared a unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, however, no country has so far recognized it as an independent state.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Behold, I Was Lost, But Now I am Found! Confessions Of An Al-Shabaab Recruit
28 October – Source: Daily Nation – 1,957 Words
What do you do if you have an interesting story to tell but fear the repercussions? You tell it anyway, and if you fear you might not have the spine to take the backlash, you hide your identity. That is exactly what I am going to do, because I have a story that I can’t keep bottled up inside me any more. I have agreed to have my pictures used alongside this story, but they, too, will not reveal my identity. Excuse me.
I was born in 1985 in Ziwani, Nairobi. I come from a family of three; the elder of twin brothers — my parents separated in 1993. I sat my Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam in 1999 and scored 420 marks. I could not proceed to high school though, so I sought a livelihood on the streets and alleyways of Ziwani, and soon I was selling bhang.
The business, if I may call it so, gave me enough money to feed and clothe myself, as well as something for the occasional partying. I was at one of those parties when I met a girl with whom I started cohabiting in 2002. A year later we bore a son, but the elation turned into self-doubt soon after when I realised I could scarcely feed the expanding family. To supplement my income from the bhang business, I started mugging people, but this new venture was quite risky. On the day my son was born in 2003, for instance, I was beaten senseless by a mob that caught me mugging a woman. I lost some of my teeth and they broke my chin.
As I recovered at Kenyatta National Hospital, where I took four days to regain consciousness, I reasoned that I needed to arm myself if I were to keep mugging people safely, and so, soon after I was released from hospital, we ganged up with colleagues in the crime business and acquired a pistol from a supplier in Kayole at a cost of Sh78,000. A few days later, we snatched two guns from the police, bringing our illegal arms stock to one pistol and two rifles.
Then we graduated from mugging to hijacking matatus in Eastleigh, Huruma and other parts of Eastlands in early morning raids. We targeted nightclubs too. In 2005 I stopped partying and scaled down the armed robberies, concentrating instead on the bhang business because a lot of my friends had been killed, probably by the police. In 2006, I got arrested with two kilos of bhang, charged in court but managed to sneak away from the police as we left the courtroom, in handcuffs. I was rearrested two weeks later, charged afresh and sent to jail in Nairobi’s Industrial Area Prison because I could not afford the Sh300,000 fine. My wife moved back to her parents while my mother, who had bought a plot in Kitengela, struggled to bail me out after depositing her title deed with the courts.
I had spent two months in jail by then, and by the time Mum risked her Kitengela plot to set me free, something had changed inside me. Since I am a Muslim, I was accommodated in Block L12 at Industrial Area Prison, and it was here that I met a man we called Mohammed who told me stories of war and why it was good to be on the “frontline”. He spoke in a coded language, always dropping such words as “further studies”, “battlefield” and “destiny” in his sentences. By the time I left, I had become quite interested in this “destiny” talk.
Nobody really knew where he (Mohammed) got the money, and months after we met I learnt he was also in charge of recruiting those willing to go to join a fighting force Somalia. He gave me $700 (approximately Sh70,000 at current exchange rates) and told me to think about his cause, and then he disappeared. I was excited about this new opportunity to earn a living, and — don’t ask my why, or how; when you are young, broke and barely literate, rational thinking is scarcely your forte — I thought he was recruiting on behalf of the Somali military.
Finland Narrows Asylum Criteria For Somalis
27 October – Source: Reuters – 195 Words
Improved security in large parts of Somalia means that Finland is likely to grant asylum to fewer Somalis arriving in the Nordic state, its immigration service said on Tuesday. Around 24,000 of the more than 680,000 refugees and migrants to have streamed into the European Union from war-torn and deprived areas of the Middle East, Africa and Asia have entered Finland and both it and the EU at large have struggled to cope.
The Finnish Immigration Service said that given improved security in southern and central Somalia as well as the capital Mogadishu, not all Somalis coming from these areas could now be deemed “to run a personal risk of falling victim to violence”. Judging whether Somalis qualify for asylum will now hinge on individual circumstances, it said in a statement, while special attention would be paid to vulnerable groups including women and children.
Of the 24,000 asylum seekers that have arrived in Finland this year, about 1,900 come from Somalia and 17,000 from Iraq. Last week, the immigration service tightened criteria for Iraqi asylum seekers to focus on individual circumstances, citing a reduced risk of “falling victim to violence”
UN Human Rights Agency Urges Decency From Australia And Nauru Over Alleged Rape Victims
28 October – Source: WAtoday – 489 Words
The United Nations human rights agency has condemned the official response to sexual assault victims on Nauru and says a pregnant refugee who says she was raped should urgently receive an abortion if she wants one. A 23-year-old Somali woman who goes by the pseudonym Abyan has alleged a rape at Nauru 15 weeks ago left her pregnant. She is seeking a termination.
The Turnbull government flew her to Australia for the procedure earlier this month, but returned her to the island a few days later, claiming she rejected treatment when it was offered. Abyan’s advocates said she simply asked for counselling so she could make an informed decision before proceeding. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville said the organisation has been in direct contact with Abyan who is mentally and physically fragile and “deeply traumatised by her experiences since the day of the alleged rape”.
“She has refused to give information to the Nauru police about her attacker because she is understandably afraid of reprisals,” Mr Colville said in a statement. “She does not feel safe, given that her alleged attacker lives on Nauru, which is a very small island state with a population of around 10,000.”
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Kenyans’ tendency to consider all matters through ethnic lenses has caused lack of nationalism and patriotism, making the country a soft target for Al-Shabaab attacks”.
Why Terrorists Have Had Success In Kenya
27 October – Source: Daily Nation – 491 Words
Kenya’s National Police Service has issued an alert to the effect that Al-Shabaab suicide bombers could be planning major terrorist attacks in the country.This troubling news comes in the wake of another report attributed to the International Organisation for Migration and the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims that at least 700 Kenyans have quietly returned home after quitting Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
This turn of events begs the question why Al-Shabaab and other extremist groups have succeeded in operating in Kenya, unlike Ethiopia, which has a higher Somali population, is more involved in Somalia, and has a longer border with that war-ravaged country. Some graduate students of Terrorism and International Security at Kisii University, Nairobi campus, came up with the following hypothesis regarding Al-Shabaab’s attacks in Kenya: One, unlike Kenya, Ethiopia is a closed society where dissent that could undermine federal security is not tolerated. Ethiopia’s security apparatus have more leeway to ruthlessly deal with terrorists and their sympathisers. Suspects can be held incommunicado and denied legal representation. Two, Ethiopia’s media is not free and it is closely monitored.
Media, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once observed, is the oxygen of terrorism. Terrorists are likely to act if their heinous actions are captured on the news. Kenya’s vibrant media has given Al-Shabaab the incentive to attack by signalling that the victim is vulnerable. In Ethiopia, any terrorist attack is unlikely to make it to the front pages or prime time news. Three, Nairobi, unlike Addis Ababa, presents many strategic, symbolic, and value-laden targets for extremist groups. Westgate, rumoured to have Israeli connections, was a high-value target that grabbed global headlines and heightened Al-Shabaab’s profile. The presence of the offices of international agencies such as the UN and the resultant high number of expatriates increases Nairobi’s attraction for terrorists.