Aerial Views of Ifo 2 Refugee Camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Lisa Vives
NEW YORK, May 5 2015 (IPS)

At a meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry this week pledged an extra 45 million dollars for the U.N. which is sheltering over a half million refugees fleeing civil unrest, terrorism and violence in Somalia and South Sudan.

The Dadaab refugee camp – the largest in Africa – was threatened with closure after Somali militants of the al-Shabab insurgent group attacked a Kenyan university not far from the Somali border. Over 147 students, mostly Christians, were slaughtered by the group.

The U.N. set up the first camp at Dadaab in 1991, and many who live in the now-sprawling complex are teenagers and children who have never been to the countries their parents fled.

The funding brings Washington’s refugee aid to Kenya to 289 million dollars in the past two years. The U.S. also has a widening military footprint in the region. U.S. drones have been hunting down and striking at al-Shabab militia from a military hub in Djibouti. This year the U.S. will spend 100 million dollars on anti-terrorism efforts in Kenya, Kerry said.

This anti-terrorism effort could include the sharing of intelligence, which would be useful in preventing future attacks, as well as help with funds to combat youth radicalisation and for counter-terrorism training.

Kerry took issue with opposition leaders in Kenya who call for the immediate withdrawal of Kenyan troops from Somalia – a presence that is blamed for the al-Shabab attacks on Kenyan citizens. Urging Kenya to be a little patient, he added: “The exit strategy needs to be a success.”

Kerry said the Kenyan president has now agreed to leave the refugees in place for the time being. “Kenya has a great tradition of hosting refugees, and the key is to accelerate efforts to have a plan in place for the people in all the refugee camps to be able to return home, in an orderly and voluntary manner, with dignity and with safety,” he said. “That’s his goal. That’s our goal.”

Kerry outlined other planned spending in the region, including five million dollars to finance a court in South Sudan to hold perpetrators of violence to account.

The trip to Kenya was the first by a senior U.S. official since 2012, ending a freeze between the two countries started by charges against Kenyatta for crimes against humanity over post-election violence in 2007 and 2009. The case by the International Criminal Court was closed after failure to win cooperation last year.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

In a prepared speech after the murder of dozens of Kenyans last year, President Uhuru Kenyatta declared a national war on terror. “This is a war against Kenya and Kenyans,” he said. “It is a war that every one of us must fight.”

It was a speech he gave in December after the killing of 36 miners working in a quarry not far from the border with Somalia. They were reportedly slain by members of the terrorist group Al-Shabaab.

Once again, a few days ago, Kenyans reeled in shock, but this time at news of the massacre of at least 147 students – nearly all young Christian males – by a small rebel band filtered through the media.Despite its peaceful appearance, the [Garissa] university college was a known target for the fury of the Somali-based Al-Shabaab group which has been at war with Kenya for many years. The fact that only a small handful of security guards were on duty when the attack began shocked many.

The slaughter began in the dark pre-dawn hours of Apr. 2 while everyone slept until they were awakened by the popping sounds of gunfire. The militants urged students to cooperate. “If you want to survive, come out. If you want to die, stay inside,” they warned the still-groggy students.

“I knew those guys were lying,” said a 23-year-old student Elosy Karimi who described to a reporter how she hid in the ceiling above her bunk bed for over 24 hours.

President Barack Obama, still planning a trip to Kenya, commiserated: “Words cannot adequately condemn the terrorist atrocities that took place at Garissa University College, where innocent men and women were brazenly and brutally massacred. We join the world in mourning them, many of whom were students pursuing an education in the pursuit of a better life for themselves and their loved ones. “

“They represented a brighter future for a region that has seen too much violence for far too long.”

Garissa University College lies northeast of Nairobi, near to the border with Somalia. A small school with a staff of 75, it was recently upgraded to give technical and vocational degrees as part of Moi University. Computer science and information technology were introduced last year. But the bucolic nature of the college, highlighted by a flock of sheep, green leaves and natural springs, was apparent on the school’s website.

Despite its peaceful appearance, the university college was a known target for the fury of the Somali-based Al-Shabaab group which has been at war with Kenya for many years. The fact that only a small handful of security guards were on duty when the attack began shocked many.

It was particularly inexplicable as there had been recent warnings of an Al-Shabaab attack at Garissa and other universities. A travel advisory issued by the British government just days earlier had warned against travel to Garissa.

While some foreign media outlets describe Kenya as “powerless in the face of a ruthless terrorist organisation,” Kenya is a major military power in the region, having one of the highest defence budgets in Africa, thanks to two decades of a steady increase in military spending.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent research organisation, the country purchased 19.8 billion Kenyan shillings (216 million dollars) worth of advanced weapons in five years between 2010 and 2014, up from 919.4 million Kenyan shillings (10 million dollars) between 2005 and 2009 — marking a huge jump in the period — which is the highest in the East Africa.

Yet four gunmen managed to hold off elite counter-terror police and military units called to the scene while they systematically massacred “hostages.” This is hardly unprecedented,” Patrick Gathara, a security analyst wrote in Al Jazeera news service.

“Much the same happened at Westgate (Mall) where four gunmen supposedly kept hundreds of cops and soldiers at bay for four days, apparently taking time off to pray and relax while the security agents looted the mall.”

“The government responded with a crackdown that targeted the ethnic Somali population within Nairobi – little more than an exercise in scapegoating and extortion,” he recalled. “Similarly, Garissa itself, which is populated mainly by ethnic Somalis, has been the site for ‘security operations’ – another term for collective punishment – for well over half a century.”

Government’s failure to stem the rise in insecurity has not gone unnoticed in the Kenyan community, especially since Kenya’s incursion into Somalia in Operation Linda Nchi in 2011. A reduction of troops was expected in 2014 after complaints by the Somali government.

A Twitter feed titled #GarissaAttack quickly filled up with comments and complaints. Ory Okolloh Mwangi, well-known ‘Kenyan pundit’, wrote: “When you look at the resources poured into winning one single seat in Kajiado Central, and then how we are responding to Garissa. Ai?”

Senator James Orengo pleaded:  “We know very well the consequences of a war of occupation. We must withdraw our troops from Somalia to end this. We must rethink our strategy and have a targeted and principled way of engaging Somalia rather than put our people at risk.”

Questions are forming, wrote Gathara, about whether this disaster is just the latest in a series of preventable terrorist atrocities that have now claimed more than 350 lives in the last two years.

An earlier security operation, a week into the Kenyatta presidency, saw the indiscriminate arrest of over 600 Garissa residents, including newly-elected local leaders, by a security team the government itself had described as “rotten”, wrote Gathara.

“Now, after the latest Garissa atrocity, President Kenyatta has issued another directive of dubious legality,” continued Gathara, namely calling up 10,000 new officers despite a court order freezing police recruitment following a corruption-riddled exercise last year.

“What is Kenya’s plan as far as Somalia is concerned?” asked Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, East Africa researcher with Amnesty International, regarding the Kenya’s troops stationed in Somalia. “What does the exit plan look like? Is it two years? Is it three years”?

Edited by Phil Harris    

Somalis deported from Kenya are greeted by Minister for Transport and Air Travel Said Jama Qorshel (blue shirt), State Minister for Foreign Affairs Buri Mohamed Hamza (shaking hands with deportee) and the director of Somali Immigration Department, General Abdullahi Gafow Mohamud (black shirt). It is estimated that some 500 Somalis have been deported, while a further 4,000 are detained in Kenya. Credit: Abdirahman Omar Abdi/IPS

By Muhyadin Ahmed Roble
NAIROBI, May 27 2014 (IPS)

Somalia’s State Minister for Interior and Federalism Affairs Mohamud Moalim Yahye has told IPS that the hasty repatriation and mass deportation of its citizens by Kenya could compromise recent, critical security improvements made by regional governments against the Islamic extremist group, Al-Shabaab.

“The unplanned and uncoordinated deportation of people, especially the youth, will create chaos and anarchy as there are no resources to support and create jobs for them,” Yahye told IPS by phone from Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.

The Somali government has asked that Kenya suspend the current mass deportation of its citizens, which began early April, until the Tripartite agreement for repatriation of Somali refugees is implemented.

The agreement, which was signed last year by the two governments and the United Nations Refugees Agency, aims to send refugees back to Somalia over the next three years. However, the agreement only outlines the voluntary and organised repatriation of refugees to Somalia.

Yahye said that Somalia, where the unemployment rate for youth aged 14 to 29 is one of the highest in the world at 67 percent, did not have the capacity to receive and integrate large numbers of returning refugees and deportees.

As a result, security experts, government officials and politicians in Mogadishu and Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, have raised concerns that deportees and returnees could be vulnerable to recruitment by Al-Shabaab, which desperately needs new blood.

“These young men, if they join the militants, will be an asset that could help the group wreak havoc not only Somalia and Kenya, but the greater region of East Africa,” Zakariye Yusuf, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, told IPS.

Kenya is home to more than one million Somali refugees, half of whom are unregistered migrants, according to Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Kenya’s Usalama Watch — which resulted in over 4,000 people, all most of all of them Somali refugees and migrants, being taken into custody — has resulted in the repatriation of about 500 people to Somalia.

Hundreds are awaiting deportation, according to the Somali Embassy in Kenya. Airline and travel agencies officials say a further 7,000 people — half of them youth — fled Nairobi to Mogadishu after the operation was launched.

Thousands of others are believed to have crossed the Kenyan border and returned to Somalia.

Because of their knowledge of the Swahili language and the culture of the region, Yusuf said these Somali youth could be assigned by Al-Shabaab to return to Kenya, and possibly other East Africa countries, to carry out terrorist activities.

“It will be easy for them to hide, infiltrate the society and run safe houses while coordinating operations than other members who haven’t lived in Kenya,” he added.

Al-Shabaab has been suffering from a lack of financial constrains after losing its foothold on Mogadishu and the port town of Kismayo. The group has also experienced a shortage of foot soldiers over the past three years. Hundreds of its fighters have either been killed, sneaked out of the country, or deserted over to the government, which is promised them amnesty, protection and a better future.

“These young men used to run small scale business or work as shop-sellers in Nairobi, but their life is being interrupted by the crackdown and the deportation,” Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad, a Horn of Africa specialist at Kenyatta University in Kenya, told IPS.

“They are now hopeless back in their country and desperate for doing whatever could help them to make a living. That’s the type of recruits Al-Shabaab is looking for,” he said.

He added that the group, which claimed responsibility for September’s four-day terror siege on Kenya’s Westgate Shopping Mall that resulted in the death of about 67 people, was a dying horse.

“Sending or deporting people, especially young men back to Somalia, is simply giving a lifeline to Al-Shabaab, which has a history of forced recruitment of youth, at crucial moment,” said Abdisamad.

He explained that the deportees and returnees could join the militants either to earn a wage to support their families or for revenge because they feel humiliated and abused by Kenya.

He said the deportations created a situation where Al-Shabaab had an opportunity to recruit energetic and cheap foot soldiers.

“When you mishandle the issue of terrorism, it has a lot of repercussions and that’s what the militants wanted and waited for years for. As a result, nothing has improved in terms of security since the operation was launched,” Abdisamad noted.

Indeed, a senior Al-Shabaab commander Fuad Mohamed Khalaf said last week that his group would be shifting its war to neighbouring Kenya, and threatened to send teenage suicide bombers to Nairobi.

Khalaf urged Muslims in Kenya to fight against their government for the retaliation of their “Muslim brothers” killed in Kenya and Somalia.

Abdisamad pointed out that the operation, which has been marred by lack of clear counter-terrorism strategy,  abuses and harassment, has been counter-productive and serves as a perfect conduit for the Al-Qaeda-linked group’s recruitment.

Boko Haram's latest bomb attack in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on Apr. 14, 2014, claimed 75 lives. Courtesy: Mohammed Lere

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, May 25 2014 (IPS)

As the African Union is set to celebrate its 51st birthday on May 25, it does so as the continent remains caught up in a tide of terrorist conflicts, which many analysts feel the AU has done little to resolve.

“With unsolved conflicts dotted across our continent, really the efficiency of the AU is at stake and highly questionable. We don’t need a rocket scientist to tell us that the AU is wanting, considering the terror attacks in East and West Africa,” independent political analyst Evelyn Moyo tells IPS.

The Somali extremist group, Al-Shabaab, has waged a terror campaign in the Horn of Africa nation and across East Africa, with attacks spreading to neighbouring Kenya. The Sept. 21, 2013 attack on Kenya’s Westgate Shopping Mall claimed over 67 lives and left more than 175 people wounded. The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.

Kenya’s port city and popular tourist destination of Mombasa also experienced a number of terrorist attacks from Al-Shabaab, with the United Kingdom, U.S. and French governments issuing warnings to their citizens not to travel there.

In West Africa, the region has been rocked by instability thanks to the Nigerian-based extremist group, Boko Haram. The group, which is also linked to Al-Qaeda, gained international attention after the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in Nigeria’s northeast Borno state on Apr. 14. The Nigerian government has struggled to contain Boko Haram’s attacks and the extremist group has attacked neighbouring countries, including Cameroon. There are also fears of instability in parts of neighbouring Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Benin, Ghana and even Central African Republic.

Political analyst Malvern Tigere feels the AU has done little to contain the terrorism threat on the continent.

“We have had a situation where the AU has paid a deaf ear to the severity of spreading terrorist attacks across West Africa. On Sept. 21, 2013, Al-Shabaab killed 72 people in a popular Kenyan shopping mall, and what did AU do about that? Is it a trivial thing to have close to 100 people massacred at one go?

“There are terror attacks in Kenya, there are terror attacks in Nigeria, there are also terror attacks in Somalia and all these are mounted in countries with membership to the AU. [There has been] no clear solution from the organisation to thwart such acts, which truly renders the AU spineless,” Tigere tells IPS.

But Zambia’s independent political analyst, Michael Mwanza, disagrees.

“The AU, which was formerly the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), played a pivotal role in ending colonialism and minority rule in Africa. It was AU that gave weapons, training and military bases to colonised African nations fighting for independence,” Mwanza tells IPS.

Over half a century ago, the OAU was formed in Ethiopia on May 25, 1963 and was tasked with resolving colonial conflicts. It was replaced by the AU on May 26, 2001.

“The organisation played a major role in bringing sanity across Africa,” adds Mwanza.

A Tanzanian diplomat in Zimbabwe, speaking on the condition of anonymity for professional reasons, agrees with Mwanza.

“It’s not all doom and gloom in the AU. The organisation played a role to broker Zimbabwe’s Unity government in 2009, bringing peace and stability to a country that was almost sliding into anarchy. It was the AU that in 2011 helped to have Cote d’Ivoire opposition leader Alassane Ouattara recognised as president after then leader Laurent Gbagbo had refused to hand over power after losing at the polls,” the Tanzanian diplomat tells IPS.

Zimbabwean political observer Denis Nyikadzino points out that the AU “does not often resort to using force to bringing calm in conflict situations here, but it uses dialogue and I see nothing wrong in that.”

But Rwandan civil society activist, Otapiya Gundurama, feels that the AU has over the years become lax, leaving the developed world to play the rescue role in African conflicts.

“Over the years, the AU has folded its hands and has become used to having the super powers intervening in its conflicts. That is why instead of the AU creeping instantly to thwart Boko Haram insurgents, we have the U.S., Israel and France deploying military personnel at the border between Chad and Nigeria to help find the kidnapped girls,” Gundurama tells PS.

Observers, however, say that AU on its own cannot resolve all the conflicts brewing on the continent.

“Africa has the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and surely the AU is not the Holy Spirit to singlehandedly end African conflicts,” Harare-based political commentator Innocent Majawaya tells IPS.

Ernst Mudzengi, political analyst and director of Media Centre Zimbabwe, pinned the raging conflicts in Africa on unequal distribution of the continent’s natural resources.

“Despite the AU’s presence, Africa has continued to witness conflicts caused by ineffective governments with few people benefitting from the continent’s natural resources,” Mudzengi tells IPS.

But as the AU anniversary coincides with Africa Day, Catherine Mukwapati, director of the Youth Dialogue Action Network, a democracy lobby group in Zimbabwe, says there is little to celebrate.

“We have leadership crisis in Africa where certain leaders believe they have the mandate to rule ceaselessly and people therefore hunger for leadership renewal, resulting in many people finding no reasons for celebrating Africa Day,” she tells IPS.

Kenya’s government was warned by Muslim clerics about the radicalisation and recruitment of youths by Al-Shabaab six years ago but did not take action, says Sheikh Ahmed, a management committee member of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya.

The state, he told IPS, dismissed the reports as a rift between Muslim clerics and failed to arrest senior preachers who openly give sermons calling on youths to fight believers of other religions and attack places of worship.

“At the beginning it was our problem but not now. This group [of extremists] has taken over the management of mosques. In Mombasa, the police are helping us repossess two mosques seized by the radical agents of violence,” said Ahmed.

On Wednesday Apr. 23, four people, including two policemen, died in a terror attack on Kenya when bombers drove a vehicle into a police station in the capital, Nairobi."This operation strategy is counter productive. The government’s decision to take this route has provoked anger." -- Nuur Sheikh, conflict expert

It was the latest in a spate of terror attacks in this East African nation. Last September, Kenya experienced the worst terror attack in years when gunmen from the Somali extremist group, Al-Shabaab, attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, killing at least 67 people.

But the Apr. 23 attack was seen as retaliation against the ongoing countrywide crackdown on illegal immigrants and refugees suspected of being affiliated with Al-Shabaab.

Nuur Sheikh, an expert on conflict in the Horn of Africa, believes harassment and forced repatriation is likely to incite acute hatred against Kenya and entice more youth to join the Al-Qaeda-linked extremist group.

“This operation strategy is counter-productive. The government’s decision to take this route has provoked anger. Somalis, whether from Kenya or from Somalia, and the Muslim community have suffered brutal police actions.

“This suits Al-Shabaab propaganda and alienates a community that can help fight terrorism,” Sheikh said in a phone interview with IPS.

Tensions have flared between Kenya and Somalia after Kenyan police arrested a Somali diplomat on Friday, Apr. 25. Somalia’s Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed said in a statement that his government was concerned about the arrest of law-abiding Somalis. Somalia has reportedly recalled its ambassador to Kenya.

According to local reports, police have arrested more than 4,000 Somalis and deported some 200 illegal immigrants. On Apr. 9 the first group of arrestees, consisting of 82 Somalis without legal refugee status, were deported. Last week, 91 more Somalis without valid documents were repatriated.

Executive director of the Muslim for Human Rights Forum, Al-Amin Kimathi, told IPS that the current operation was discriminatory and punished communities who have suffered the brunt of Al-Shabaab’s terrorism. He said it disrupted livelihoods, instilled fear and demonised the Somali and Muslim communities.

Police spokesperson Masood Mwinyi denied this.

“Its wrong and misleading to suggest only one community or one religious group is being targeted, we have also arrested Pakistani, Chinese and Indians and other illegal aliens from neighbouring states,” Mwinyi told IPS.

Ahmed Mohamed, secretary general of the Eastleigh business community, told IPS more than 75 percent of major businesses selling textiles, electronics, money transactions, restaurants and guest houses have been closed. The operation is mostly focused on Nairobi’s Eastleigh suburb, where a large population of Somalis reside.

An official from the Ethiopia Ogaden Refugees Association said on condition of anonymity that 14 people from Ogaden region in Ethiopia have been deported.

They all requested deportation to Somalia and not Ethiopia. Since the 1991 fall from power of Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ogaden National Liberation Front  intellectuals have fought for an independent state there and tensions remain between the Ogaden and Ethiopia.

“We must be exempted, our case, our status is different. We are Somalis but from Ethiopia. Any Ogaden deported to Ethiopia will be killed. No doubt, repatriating our people to a foreign country is terrible, wrong,” he said in an interview with IPS.

An Ethiopian who escaped his country after a series of arrests and threats on his life vowed he would never return home or to the camps of Somali refugees.

“We have suffered, we have been harassed here by police, the camps are not safe for us either. We are always threatened because Ethiopia’s troops are in Somalia and they are blamed for killing innocent Somalis,” he told IPS on the condition of anonymity.

The Kenya National Human Rights commission said the government acts constituted a serious violation of the constitution and of international human rights standards. Commissioner Suzanne Chivusia said in a statement that hundreds of detainees have been held under inhuman and deplorable conditions and with limited access to basic provision like food, water and sanitation.

Mwinyi called on civilians with claims of human rights violations by the police force to record their cases with the police.

“We are ready, looking forward to receive and investigate and punish any officer who will be implicated in any illegal act in the operation,” he said.

Independent Police Oversight Authority chairman Macharia Njeru said in a statement that the body has launched investigations over claims of illegal detentions, ethnic profiling and the holding of suspects incommunicado.

Meanwhile, the association of Muslims Organisation in Kenya chairperson, Fazul Mohamed, told IPS that his organisation would pursue an ideological approach to counter misleading interpretations of the Koran by clerics allied to terrorists. He said the organisation has enlisted a strong team of clerics, scholars, politicians and experts to do this. He called it a genuine Jihad or religious war against a section of religious leaders who are undermining Islam and posing a threat to national cohesion.

“We have set the stage for a radical, multifaceted approach that explores all avenues of countering the radicalisation of youths in Kenya, including community policing and rehabilitation of youths who deserted the group or are willing to abandon Al-Shabaab,” Mohamed told IPS.

Somali Army soldiers patrolling a street in the capital Mogadishu on Feb. 23, 2014. Concern grows as hundreds of soldiers who were fired from the army in a restructuring drive protested against their termination of service. Credit: Ahmed Osman/IPS

By Ahmed Osman
MOGADISHU, Feb 27 2014 (IPS)

Residents of Mogadishu have raised concerns about their safety after the Somali army recently fired hundreds of disgruntled soldiers, many of whom are believed to still be in possession of their arms.

Somali military officials said early in February that 700 army soldiers were “relieved of their duties” following the restructuring of the army to make it a more professional force.

Somali National Army (SNA) chief General Dahir Khalif Elmi said that the sacked military personnel were unfit for service as they include elderly and disabled soldiers but added that they would be taken care of by the government.  “This is without a doubt adding to the insecurity in the city and other places because these soldiers do not have any other source of income and that is unsettling for all of us.” -- Mogadishu resident Hawa Ali

However, shortly after their sacking, hundreds of armed soldiers took to the streets in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, to protest against the decision.

“Releasing an army of 700 soldiers complete with their weapons into the city is not only dangerous to people’s security but outright irresponsible,” Ahmed Ahmed, a Somali lawmaker, told IPS.

Ahmed said that the soldiers could be potential recruits for the radical Islamist group, Al-Shabaab. The sacking of the soldiers comes just as the government and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) announced that plans were under way to launch a military campaign against the extremist group Al-Shabaab.

Barre Farah, a retired Somali army officer, said that the decision to “retire” the army personnel was necessary to “modernise and professionalise” the Somali army but expressed doubt about the timing of the move.

“One cannot get why the army decided about it at this time and in this manner, which clearly can harm the security and possibly give ammunition to our enemy,” Farah told IPS in Mogadishu.

Farah said that there was a possibility that the sacked soldiers could join the insurgency as a last resort, thus making it difficult to remove Al-Shabaab from its strongholds in central and southern Somalia.

He, however, said he did not believe recent reports that claimed some of the fired soldiers and army officers had already joined the extremist group.

Soon after the soldiers’ dismissal, residents of Mogadishu, who are already weary of the growing insecurity and attacks on the capital, voiced concern that the soldiers could further destabilise the country.

“This is without a doubt adding to the insecurity in the city and other places because these soldiers do not have any other source of income and that is unsettling for all of us,” Mogadishu resident Hawa Ali told IPS.

Somali government soldiers have been accused of setting up illegal checkpoints in and outside Mogadishu and along thoroughfares that connect Mogadishu with south and central Somali in order to extort money from people. Many fear that the fired officers will now start doing the same.

Mohamed Ugaas, a teacher in Mogadishu, said that allowing the soldiers to leave the army with their weapons was a “recipe for disaster”.

The army remains tight-lipped about the weapons and it is not clear why they were allowed to take them home.

However, one sacked army officer, who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals, said that although most of the soldiers still had their weapons, they are not a threat to the security of Mogadishu.

He added that none of the 700 soldiers have joined the militants and called the reports baseless.

“We are angry about how we were dealt with by the army chief but that has never made any one of us contemplate joining a terrorist group we fought against for years. That is impossible,” the ex-army officer told IPS.

He said he hoped the international community would intervene and help them integrate into civilian life for which they are “not prepared”.

“We need those of us unable to work because of age or disability to be given a decent pension and care. And those willing and able to work need to be retrained to get civilian work or given financial support to start a business,” the former officer said.

However, Somali government military officer, Commander Yasin Jaylani, explained that the sacked soldiers would be taken care of and that new agency would soon be set up to facilitate this.

“You don’t expect the army to simply fire soldiers at random and not have plan to care for them. That is not the case and will never be the case in the future. We are modernising our army to better serve the country,” Jaylani told IPS.

He declined to comment on the allegation that the army did not disarm the fired soldiers saying that will be “looked into”.

Wreckage of one of the suicide car bombs used to attack the presidential palace in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital on Friday Feb. 21, 2014. Nine militants were killed in the attack. Credit: Ahmed Osman/IPS

By Ahmed Osman
MOGADISHU, Feb 24 2014 (IPS)

As the Somali government plans to launch a new military campaign to wipe out the Islamic extremist group, Al-Shabaab, from its strongholds in this Horn of Africa nation, experts say that its Somalia’s innocent who live in areas controlled by the group who will suffer the most.

On Friday, Feb. 21, the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab launched an unprecedented and brazen attack on the presidential palace in the capital Mogadishu in which 12 people, including nine militants from the extremist group, died. “We expect insurgent activities in the short term even if the group is defeated militarily ... But I think Al-Shabaab can be eradicated from the region." -- Mohamed Muse, military analyst

Shortly after, the government and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) announced that plans were under way to launch a military campaign against the extremist fighters.

Senior Somali government military commander Ise Guled told IPS in Mogadishu on Monday, Feb. 24 that preparations for “the final onslaught” against the radical fighters’ strongholds in south and central Somalia were “in their final stages”.

“We will launch the offensive in conjunction with our allies against this group and get rid of [this] menace once and for all,” he said. He declined to say when it would commence.

However, Yusuf Alay, an academic in Mogadishu, told IPS that the group’s “oppression” on locals would increase as military pressure on Al-Shabaab mounts.

Al-Shabaab has been ousted from much of southern and central Somalia but the group still controls parts of the country where it imposes strict Islamic Sharia law, and recruits and trains fighters.

Alay expects the group to start imposing stricter curfews and a blanket ban on the use of smartphones in areas under its control. Already Al-Shabaab has forced the biggest telecoms company here to switch off its mobile internet service.

Alay also expects more youths to be indoctrinated into the group’s extremist ideology and forcibly recruited to join.

“The radical group enforces a stricter form of Sharia law, where people are still subjugated to the worst forms of punishments. [It also] levies huge taxes on the people who are already poor, to finance their activities following the loss of key ports in the south,” Alay said.

He added that while people would be negatively affected if the militants resisted and fought against advancing troops, in the long run those who live in “Shabaabistan” (Al-Shabaab territory) would be better off not being under Al-Shabaab rule.

Mohamed Muse, a military analyst in Mogadishu, said the campaign against the extremist group has been in the making for months now but gained new impetus after Al-Shabaab’s deadly attack on the Westgate Mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, last September. At least 72 people were killed when Al-Shabaab militants stormed the mall.

“We know that there has been a clear understanding of the need to finish off Al-Shabaab on the part of the Somali government and AMISOM so that the task of rebuilding the nation can proceed unhindered. So it is just a matter of when such a move [will] materialise,” Muse told IPS in Mogadishu.

Last month, following the United Nations Security Council authorisation of an increase in AMISOM peacekeepers, nearly 4,300 Ethiopian troops were added to the existing force of 17,500.

Matt Bryden, director of Sahan Research, a think tank based in Kenya, said in a new report for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ African Programme that Al-Shabaab would likely lose all of the territory under its control in the event of a military offensive.

“As a reinforced AMISOM prepares to resume offensive operations, Al-Shabaab is likely to suffer military reverses – including the loss of its remaining strongholds,” Bryden said in the report.

As Ethiopian troops pour into Somalia’s central and southern regions, Al-Shabaab fighters have fled key strongholds in El Bur, Hudur and Barawe.

Already two towns, Hagar, in southern Somalia and Gandershe, just south of Mogadishu, were recently recaptured in surprise attacks by Somali government forces and AMISOM troops.

Bryden said that the militant group has, for some time, been preparing for an “asymmetrical struggle”, as they anticipate defeat in the face of the offensive. He contends the strategy “would permit Al-Shabaab to survive as a potent force in Somalia and the region.”

“For the near term, Al-Shabaab is not playing to win but to survive, subvert and surprise,” he said.

Muse agreed but said the challenges would be manageable if the political wrangling among Somalis were solved before it became a problem.

“We expect insurgent activities in the short term even if the group is defeated militarily, and that is always the nature of counter-insurgency operations. But I think Al-Shabaab can be eradicated from the region,” said Muse.

Somalis have been unable to use the internet on their mobile phones after Islamist group Al-Shabaab banned the biggest telecom company from providing the service to its customers. Credit: Ahmed Osman/IPS

By Ahmed Osman
MOGADISHU, Feb 16 2014 (IPS)

Osman Ali, the owner of an electronics shop in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, has been hard-hit since Al-Shabaab forced the biggest telecoms company to switch off its mobile internet service in this Horn of Africa nation.

“I don’t understand why the government has not done anything to deal with the situation. It could at least try and find an alternative for the people. This has thrown the country into darkness. We are left behind,” Ali told IPS from his shop, explaining that his sales had dropped dramatically since the shutdown.

In January, Al-Shabaab issued a 15-day ultimatum for local giant, Hormuud Telecom, to stop providing mobile internet and fibre optic services because it said they were used by Western spy agencies to collect information on Muslims.Hormuud officials said company staff were forced “at gun point” by Al-Shabaab fighters to switch off the mobile internet service.

According to Internet World Stats, more than 125,000 of the country’s 10 million people use the internet in Somalia. Tens of thousands of people who relied on Hormuud’s services have been unable to access the internet on their mobile phones from Feb. 6. However, fixed broadband services are still available.

The Mayor of Mogadishu, Mohamed Nur Tarzan, told the media that Hormuud officials had said company staff were forced “at gunpoint” by Al-Shabaab fighters to switch off the mobile internet service.

Hormuud, which claims to be the market leader in south and central Somalia “with over 60 percent of market share in both mobile and broadband services”, has not officially commented on the ban.

However, a Hormuud official told IPS on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, that they had no option but to comply.

“I don’t think we had another alternative … we are just business people and cannot confront an armed group’s orders. We tried our best to convince them [Al-Shabaab] that our services do not harm the public in any way, but that was in vain,” the official said.

The company has switched off the service not only to areas controlled by Al-Shabaab but across the centre of the country and in Mogadishu. However, the ban has not affected the northeastern regions of Puntland and the northwestern province of Somaliland where separate mobile networks operate.

Although officials have condemned the move, the government has faced widespread criticism for its “inaction”.

However, following the news of the group’s ultimatum, in a statement on Jan. 11, the then interior minister Abdikarim Hussein Guled condemned the ban and cautioned companies against cooperating with the militants.

But local social media has been awash with criticism of the government, saying that if it had at least provided enough security to local companies it would have had the authority to order the continuation of their services.

Maryan Ali, a 20-year-old student in Mogadishu has not been able to access the internet on her smartphone for nearly a week now.

“I used to follow news and information about the world with my mobile and communicate with family and friends but that is no more,” she told IPS.

Al-Shabaab said in a statement  that mobile internet services were the cause of air strikes that they said were carried out by “the enemy” in areas under their control and “led to the killing and hunting of Jihadists.”

Mohamed Yusuf, an academic in Mogadishu, said that the extremist group’s actions to ban mobile internet services in southern and central Somalia were triggered by the Edward Snowden revelations of widespread U.S. government surveillance programmes it maintained in and outside the country.

In 2013, Snowden, a former technical contractor for the National Security Agency, released secret documents showing how the U.S. government was tapping global internet and phone systems on a massive scale.

“Al-Shabaab has not hidden the fact that their move was prompted by the Snowden revelations and that they feared they could also be a key target for U.S. government spying,” Yusuf told IPS in Mogadishu.

Yusuf also said that the major reason for the group’s decision was the possibility that mobile internet connections could be used to track the leaders and commanders of Al-Shabaab, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist entity and a legitimate target for its drone attacks.

But Mustaf Jama says his mobile internet connection was his sole source of information for his university studies, but now he is unable to access information online from just anywhere and is forced to use internet cafes.

“It was convenient to use the mobile internet to check facts and information as well as news but that is all gone. We are going back a quarter of a century and are being left behind. We don’t know why we are being punished this way,” Jama told IPS.

A white rhino at a sanctuary in South Africa’s Limpopo Province. In 2011, poachers killed 668 rhinos in South Africa. Credit: Jennifer McKellar/IPS

By Ramy Srour
WASHINGTON, Jan 11 2014 (IPS)

Top diplomats and retired U.S. military officials are urging Western and African governments to step up the global fight against illegal wildlife poaching.

Adding new pressure ahead of a major February summit slated to take place in the United Kingdom on the subject, a growing body of evidence suggests that wildlife poaching is funding criminal and terrorist organisations in several parts of Africa. These groups include Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda and South Sudan, who have reportedly turned to the killing of wild rhinoceros, elephants and other protected species to sell their tusks."On one end, you have the poor local tribesman with no job who just needs the money. On the other, you have the organised criminal gangs." -- Andrea Crosta

Such trafficking is associated with a massively lucrative illicit trade.

“Although there’s been a lot of progress [against poaching], we still haven’t been able to stop this crime. We still haven’t achieved momentum,” Gen. Carter Ham, a recently retired U.S. Army general who headed the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) until April of last year, said Friday. “Now is the time.”

Ham suggested that an effective response to poaching in Africa could be to include a strong military component, possibly involving the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), more commonly known as drones.

“The use of drones is not only desirable, but is also likely to be very effective,” Gen. Ham said.

Peter Westmacott, the British ambassador to the United States, seconded the call for a greater security mentality in the fight against wildlife poaching and trafficking.

“The illegal wildlife trade is a tragedy for the natural world, but also for international security,” he said. An important next step, he said, would be the London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade, to be hosted by his government next month.

Also this week, the Washington-based Stimson Centre, a think tank, published a comprehensive report on the growing link between poaching and terrorism. That study, the result of research conducted last fall in Kenya, notes that “the spike in poaching and wildlife crime coincides with the increased involvement of sophisticate transnational organized criminals and terrorist organizations.”

“Although we don’t know the full extent of [this] relationship, we know that there is an important link between poaching and … security,” Jonah Bergenas, deputy director of the Managing Across Boundaries Initiative at the Stimson Centre and the report’s author, told IPS.

“We have to treat this issue not just as a conservation challenge but also as a security challenge that will require a holistic approach, one that entails the building of partnerships both within and outside government.”

Western and African governments, Bergenas says, should cooperate with local actors in order to provide a truly comprehensive solution.

Lucrative temptation

According to the report, wildlife poaching funds a 19-billion-dollar industry worldwide, extending from Africa to East Asia and Western countries. Much of this demand continues to be powered by China.

The impact on wildlife has been stark, and has grown significantly in recent years. In 2012 and 2013 alone, nearly 60,000 elephants and over 1,600 rhinos were illegally killed for their tusks.

The driving force behind this practice is clearly the significant money that can still be made from these products. According to expert estimates, a rhino horn is worth 50,000 dollars per pound on the black market, more than the value of gold or platinum.

This, activists say, makes poaching very hard to resist.

“Most people know that this is wrong, but you need to make a distinction between poacher and poacher,” Andrea Crosta, the executive director of Elephant Action League (EAL), a U.S.-based group that fights poaching and illegal trafficking, told IPS.

“On one end, you have the poor local tribesman with no job who just needs the money. On the other, you have the organised criminal gangs, with weapons and money, who are able to bribe rangers and get their information.”

Crosta says a pair of tusks can be worth a few years’ salary in many African countries.

“To someone with no job and a large family to feed, that’s a lot of money,” he says. “They know it’s wrong, but the temptation is just too strong.”

Together with a team of EAL members, Crosta spent much of 2010 to 2012 investigating poaching in East Africa. According to their findings, large quantities of ivory were getting into Somalia in a systematic, organised way.

Later, they discovered this process was being run by Al-Shabaab.

“We were undercover, pretending to be researchers and zoologists, and that way we were able to speak with small and big traders, poachers and middlemen,” Crosta, who is currently based in the Netherlands, told IPS.

His team was able to unveil an undercover trafficking system that saw between one and three tonnes of ivory getting into Somalia, facilitated by Al-Shabaab, every month.

Blood ivory

Diplomats and others are now calling on Western and African governments to pool resources in order to put an end to this illicit market.

“People need to understand that wildlife trade is no different than the well-known blood diamond issue,” Peter Knights, the executive director of WildAid, an advocacy group that seeks to end the illegal wildlife trade worldwide, told IPS.

Knights noted that a public awareness campaign, similar to the one aimed at delegitimising the “blood diamond” phenomenon, could be successful in stopping illegal poaching.

“One of the best ways to do this is to defund [poaching] from the demand side by educating consumers in Asia and other consuming countries, urging them not to buy these products,” he said.

“Consumers need to understand that these products are not from natural mortality and that their purchase is driving this activity, that poachers are being killed and that the proceeds are being used for the financing of illegal activities.”

Indeed, activists say the human aspect of poaching is often overlooked. Thousands of poachers are reportedly killed every year while hunting for elephants and rhinos, often leaving behind families with no income.

Meanwhile, this week the Chinese government for the first time publicly destroyed several tonnes of ivory (the United States took a similar action in November). The step was widely lauded, particularly given China’s outsized influence on the global wildlife trade.

“This was an important public gesture, but it’s definitely not enough,” EAL’s Crosta. “The Chinese government needs to be seriously pressured, including by the U.S., in order to cut down its internal demand.”

Former Al-Shabaab combatants who handed themselves over to the Somali government. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Muhyadin Ahmed Roble
NAIROBI, Oct 22 2013 (IPS)

For years the Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab was seen as the most cohesive, united and powerful force in the failed state of Somalia. But it is now disintegrating like a house of cards because of internal divisions and power struggles within its leadership, according to Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad, a history and political science professor at Kenya’s Kenyatta University.

“They [the militants] are transforming into warring mini-groups, hunting each other due to their deteriorating ideological differences, and of course [the group is] on the brink of civil war within itself,” Abdisamad told IPS in Nairobi.

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for September’s four-day terror siege on Kenya’s Westgate Shopping Mall that resulted in the death of more than 70 people, and for the Oct. 13 bombing in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Abba, which killed two Somali nationals who were believed to be suspects.

But the militant group, which formally linked with Al-Qaeda in 2012, has been in a leadership and strategy dispute that has divided it into two factions – global jihadists and local nationalists.

Abdisamad sees the militants’ internal divisions as a golden opportunity for the Somali government to bring less extremist and nationalist-minded elements on board.

“Initially, Al-Shabaab came together by default, not by design,” he said, adding that if the Somali government did not capitalise on the rift and reach out to the nationalist faction, the global jihadists would win and become stronger.

“And then, the future of Somalia will be uncertain, the stability of the region will be in question and no doubt the stability of the whole world will be in question too,” Abdisamad said.

He explained that the moment that turned the group’s internal war into an open and public battle was when Al-Shabaab’s two co-founders and top leaders, Ibrahim Haji and Moalim Burhan, were killed by members of the group in June.

Jama, who was better known by his moniker “Al-Afghani” due to his Al-Qaeda training in Afghanistan, had a five million dollar U.S. bounty on his head.

But Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Abdiaziz Abu Musab denied a split within the group and had said that Jama and Burhan were intentionally killed in a shoot-out when they rejected an arrest warrant from a Sharia court.

Two foreign jihadists, the American-born Omar Hammami known as Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, who was on the FBI’s most wanted list with a five million dollar reward for his capture, and Osama al-Britani, a British citizen of Pakistani descent, were also killed by Al-Shabaab last month.

Al-Amriki was perhaps the most well-known Al-Shabaab propagandist because of his English jihadi rap videos. In 2012 he was the first member of the group to reveal its split through a short online video clip in which he said his life was in danger.

He was on the run and survived several assassination attempts by the Amniyat unit, an intelligence division of Al-Shabaab led by Ahmed Abdi Godane, who is also known as Sheikh Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, and is the group’s supreme leader. Al-Amriki was eventually killed in September.

Abdisamad explained that Godane is a supporter of global jihad who believes that Somalia belongs to all Muslims across the world. “[Godane’s] global jihadist faction has an agenda beyond Somalia and wants to spread Islam from China to Chile, from Cape Town to Canada,” Abdisamad said.

Another member of the group who was aligned to the nationalist-minded faction to which Jama belonged, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, escaped from Al-Shabaab’s largest remaining base in Barawe, which is located some 180 km south of Mogadishu.

He surrendered to the Somali government following the murder of Jama and Burhan. According to Abdisamad, Aweys and his faction are considered to be less extremist as their intention is to establish an Islamic state within Somalia borders and not bother neighbouring countries.

“The religious nationalism faction is against globalising the conflict in Somalia, indiscriminate assassinations and the killing of clerics, scholars and everyone who seem to have not favoured the militants. For years they campaigned to replace Godane, which they failed [to do],” Abdisamad said.

The group’s internal division is believed to have contributed to their loss of strategic towns in southern and central Somalia, including part of the capital, Mogadishu.

The Bakara market in the capital city was their main source of funding as the group used to generate millions of dollars from there through taxation and by extortions from telecommunication companies and the business community at large. Al-Shabaab was ousted from Mogadishu in 2011 by Somali forces and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops.

Exactly a year later, the group lost its last remaining and greatest revenue source – the stronghold of Kismayo, a port city in southern Somalia.

According to a United Nations report, Al-Shabaab used to generate between 35 to 50 million dollars annually from the southern seaports of Kismayo and Marko. Both ports are now under the control of Somali forces and AMISOM troops.

“Such a loss of economic sources and internal divisions have led hundreds of Al-Shabaab fighters to defect to the government,” Somali journalist, Mohamed Abdi, told IPS. The group, he said, failed to keep paying their fighters regularly “as they used to do” before the financial constraints emerged.

Abdi said that the financial constraints and the open rift within the group’s leadership have largely demolished the morale, loyalty and capability of the group’s foot soldiers. It has lead to hundreds of them deserting to the government or fleeing the organisation and going into hiding in Somalia or in neighbouring countries.

But Abdisamad Moalim Mohamud, Somalia’s former minister for the interior and national security and a current member of parliament, told IPS that the group remains a threat not only to Somalia, but also to regional and global security.

“They have lost more of their foot soldiers and can’t counter Somali and AMISOM forces directly any more. But they are more capable of conducting effective guerrilla-style warfare such as suicide attacks and storming places like Westgate Mall in Nairobi and the U.N. compound in Mogadishu,” Mohamud said by phone from Mogadishu.

He said that regional intelligence sharing and developing joint monitoring platforms and common anti-terror strategies within regional governments could be used to prevent such a threat. But he disagreed that their internal division had something to do with nationalism.

“Their rift has a lot to do with the leadership change of Al-Qaeda than local politics and it is more about pursuing hegemony over the command and control of the group,” Mohamud said.

Police tape marks the compound where a bomb explosion killed two men on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Credit: Jacey Fortin/IPS

By Jacey Fortin
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 21 2013 (IPS)

The explosion went off at 2:40 on a Sunday afternoon, on a tree-lined side street in Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa. The area was a quiet one – home to foreign diplomats, domestic civil servants and several embassies – and the blast was strong enough to kill two men, startle the neighbours, and demolish a small home.

But if the government’s current theory is correct, the carnage could have been much worse.

Sunday, Oct. 13, was the day of a big football match – a rare shot at the World Cup playoffs for Ethiopia, which ultimately lost against Nigeria in Addis Ababa. Given the debris found at the site of the explosion, including suicide belts and an Ethiopian team jersey, investigators think the men may have been planning to detonate near the football stadium in central Addis, where thousands of fans and security workers had gathered.

But something went wrong, and the two suspects – Somali nationals, according to the government – never made it out of the house before their explosives went off.

Al-Shabaab, a militant group based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack on its Twitter account, but its details were off. “We Claim Responsibility for Today’s Bomb Blast in #AddisAbaba, #Ethiopia, that Left Nearly 10 Kuffar [disbelievers] Dead,” said the Monday tweet, which greatly exaggerated the number of casualties and was not posted until the day after the actual explosion.

“It is a plausible assumption that Al-Shabaab may be connected to the crime,” Kjetil Tronvoll, an Ethiopia expert and senior partner at the International Law and Policy Institute, told IPS, noting that Al-Shabaab has repeatedly denounced Ethiopia and threatened to carry out attacks.

“Ethiopia has a standing high-alert security vis-a-vis Somalia,” he added. “[The recent explosion] gives justification to such alertness.”

The Ethiopian government is adamant about clamping down on extremism in all its forms, said Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at a press conference this month. “Extremism often degenerates into terrorism, so we have to fight extremism as much as we can, and that has no compromise at all.” This approach has garnered criticism from some Ethiopian Muslims – including ethnic Somalis – who claim their communities are unfairly targeted.

“The terrorist incident, if connected to Al-Shabaab, may sadly contribute to a possible stigmatisation of the Somali population at large in Ethiopia,” said Tronvoll.

The Ethiopian government said it would not change its approach to national security on its own soil, and would focus instead on its borders, since the two suspects in the Sunday explosion arrived illegally.

“We will not make any changes to domestic security – that situation is already intact,” government spokesman Redwan Hussein told IPS. “We will only make sure we are more secure when it comes to people getting into the country in the first place.”

In Somalia, Al-Shabaab has positioned itself as a bulwark against Ethiopian and Western influence ever since its inception as the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist governing body that rose to power in Somalia in early 2006. In its early days, it garnered some public support as a counterweight to the Ethiopian troops that effectively ousted the ICU from Mogadishu in late 2006 with backing from the United States.

Over the next few years, Al-Shabaab set up a governing system based on Shariah, or Islamic law. Its territory expanded across most of southern Somalia and the group forged closer bonds with Al-Qaeda, formally linking with it in 2012. But that process wrought some discord between those Al-Shabaab leaders who envisioned a global Islamist movement and those who sought to focus on domestic issues first and foremost.

The cracks began to show after 2011, when Ethiopian and Kenyan troops moved in to bolster troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). At the same time, Al-Shabaab’s refusal of humanitarian aid during a devastating famine was already eroding its public support. In the two years since, Al-Shabaab has been pushed out of its former strongholds in the capital city of Mogadishu and the port city of Kismayo, and vicious leadership scuffles have become a threat to cohesion. More and more, the organisation has struggled to conscript voluntary fighters, relying instead on forced recruitment.

Some analysts see the attacks Al-Shabaab has taken credit for – including the Addis Ababa bomb this week and the massacre that killed 67 at a Nairobi mall last month – as last gasps rather than shows of power. The organisation remains a very real threat, but it no longer enjoys the level of support it once did.

“There might be some fringe elements here and there on both sides, who could use [the Addis Ababa attack] to air some grievances,” Alula Alex Iyasu, an Ethiopia-based analyst at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, told IPS.

“But Muslims and Christians have been living side-by-side in Ethiopia, and in Somalia the vast majority despise Al-Shabaab and affiliated groups. So I’d imagine they’d condemn the Addis bomb wholeheartedly just as if it had happened on their own soil.”

Somalia has lately been making strides in its effort to end two decades of failed statehood. A new constitution and federal government were established last year, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the helm.

The international community has pledged billions of dollars to rebuild the war-torn country, and the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called this week for AMISOM to bolster its troops in Somalia, already numbering about 18,000, with another 4,400.

As Somalia struggles toward order, peace reigns around the explosion site on Rwanda Street in Addis Ababa’s Bole neighbourhood, where a high concentration of ethnic Somalis live side-by-side with Ethiopians, and where children of both ethnicities used to play together in the very compound where the perpetrators of Sunday’s bomb lived and died.

In the days following the blast, police tape was stretched across the gate and a few federal policemen guarded the site. But other than that, life along the leafy street was progressing largely as normal, with ethnic Somali and Ethiopian residents mingling at small shops and stopping to chat on street corners.

If the perpetrators hoped to stir up divisions between Somalis and Ethiopians, as Al-Shabaab once did to rally support for its cause, it would appear they missed the mark — and lost their lives into the process. The Ethiopian national security apparatus, meanwhile, has gained one more reason to keep up its controversial tactics.

“Ethiopia takes these kinds of threats seriously,” said Iyasu. “Somalia has been in this precarious situation for the past 20 years, so in a way this is nothing new for the Ethiopian government.”

Ethiopia’s Muslim community has been taking part in major demonstrations over the last two years against the country’s ruling regime for alleged interference in its religious affairs. Credit: Ed McKenna/IPS

By Ed McKenna
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 10 2013 (IPS)

The refusal by the Ethiopian government to redress grievances harboured by the Muslim community here, which comprises about 34 percent of the country’s 91 million people makes this Horn of African nation vulnerable to extremism.

“If legitimate grievances are not met there is a risk that extremist violent elements will exploit those grievances to further their own aim,” Mehari Taddele Maru, head of the African Conflict Prevention Programme at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, told IPS.

Ethiopia’s Muslim community has been taking part in major demonstrations over the last two years against the country’s ruling regime for alleged interference in its religious affairs. The majority of Ethiopians are Christian.

The mass protests have been non-violent but the Sep. 21 terror attack by the Somali extremist group Al-Shabaab on Kenya’s Westgate Shopping Mall raises questions about the spread of Islamic extremism here, as there are growing concerns that radicalists could exploit grievances if they are not addressed."There is sufficient reason to believe that there is a minority group of extremists who will use domestic grievances to further their own political agenda." -- Mehari Taddele Maru, Institute for Security Studies

Ethiopia’s Salafist Muslims accuse the government of having infiltrated the country’s most important Islamic political institution, the Ethiopia Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, arresting its religious leaders and replacing them with government-approved preachers from the Al Habashi sect.

The Al Habash sect is widely regarded as a moderate alternative to extremist Islamic doctrines such as Wahhabism, while Salafists are Sunni Muslims with a strict and puritanical approach. The Salafist reform movement has been spreading in Africa and in Ethiopia’s Muslim community over the last few decades.

Twenty-nine Muslim leaders have been arrested over the last two years including religious leaders and protest organisers.

The best strategy to diffuse potential extremism in Ethiopia is for the government to address existing grievances and avoid conflating legitimate demands with an onset of Islamic radicalism, says Terje Østebø, an East African Islamist Reform movement expert at the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida.

“There is this dangerous presumption that when Muslims protest for their rights that they are under the influence of radicals. Much of the debate within Islamic society in Ethiopia is about politics of recognition. Young Muslims are trying to find their identity as both Ethiopian and as a Muslim,” he told IPS.

During the Eid al-Fitr holiday in August, thousands of Muslims gathered in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa demanding religious rights. One of the protestors, who was beaten along with his wife and child for holding a placard that read ‘Release our Leaders’, was indignant over the government’s response to the rally. He refused to give his name to IPS due to fear of repercussions.

“We are peaceful Muslims protesting against this government for arresting our leaders. We are not extremists. Our teachers are not extremists. We do not want the government controlling our religious lives. We feel that we do not have any religious freedom. They beat us, shoot us and arrest us. We have no religious rights in this country,” the protester told IPS.

On Aug. 4, 14 Muslims were shot dead by government security forces during an attempt to arrest a local Imam in Central Ethiopia. The government has come under fire from international human rights organisations for its heavy-handed reaction to demonstrators.

“The government continues to respond to the grievances of the Muslim community with violence, arbitrary arrests and the use of the overly-broad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to prosecute the movements’ leaders and other individuals. This is a violation of people’s right to peacefully protest, as protected in Ethiopia’s constitution. The Ethiopian government must end its use of repressive tactics against demonstrators,” Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher, told IPS.

The government has continued to accuse protestors of being extremists under the influence of foreign-backed radical ideologues.

“These protestors want Ethiopia to become an Islamic state and for us to release their teachers. They have been arrested for conspiracy to commit terrorism as this is what they are advocating with support from the Middle East. We will not engage with the protestors’ demands, as we do not negotiate with terrorists,” Shimeles Kemal, the Ethiopian government spokesperson, told IPS.

A report released in June 2013 by the European Parliament revealed how Wahhabi and Salafi groups in Saudi Arabia are working to “support and supply arms to rebel groups around the world.”

There are good reasons for Ethiopia’s government to fear the prospect of extremism taking root in the Muslim community, says Mehari.

“The Horn of Africa has the third-largest Muslim population in the world and has become increasingly volatile due to the war being waged inside Somalia against Al-Qaeda linked terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab, which has declared jihad on Ethiopia several times,” he said.

In 1996, Al Ittihad al Islamiya (AIAI), Somalia’s erstwhile foremost terrorist organisation, bombed several hotels in Addis Ababa, killing five people.

Centred in Somalia, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group sought to establish an Islamic state that would incorporate all of Somalia and portions of Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya.

Although the AIAI base was effectively dismantled by the Ethiopian military, five Somalis were sentenced to death in 2002 for carrying out a series of bomb attacks in Ethiopia.

Since Ethiopian troops joined the U.S-backed invasion of Somalia in 2006, there has been no retaliatory action taken by Somali terrorists against Ethiopians. This suggests high security and a lack of capacity to mobilise Al-Shabaab operations in Ethiopia, says Mehari.

“They have a lot of willingness to attack Ethiopia, they just don’t have the capacity due to fighting counter insurgency forces. Counter terrorism is also very strong in Ethiopia because of world leaders regularly attending the African Union in the capital. The instinct to identify risk and danger in hotels and shopping centres makes an incident like Westgate very unlikely,” Mehari said.

However, the Ethiopian government may be making itself vulnerable to extremist influences by not engaging with demands for independent mosque elections inside the country’s Islamic Affairs Supreme Council.

“There has been a pattern of Salafist extremists using local grievances to recruit Muslims in Mali, the Sahel region and other parts of Africa. In Ethiopia there is sufficient reason to believe that there is a minority group of extremists who will use domestic grievances to further their own political agenda,” Mehari said.

The government’s reluctance to engage with the Muslim rights movement is also consistent with the country’s autocratic leadership strategy, says Østebø.

“This regime has maintained its power by limiting any space for political opposition and civil society to move in. The demands being made by Ethiopia’s Muslim community are secularist, non-violent and part of a Muslim rights movement that is far from being extremist,” Østebø said.

The Muslim Brotherhood has its own army of the young that will not easily be defeated. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS.

By Emad Mekay
BERKELEY, California, Sep 29 2013 (IPS)

Gory social media images that fueled the global Jihadist influx into Syria 18 months ago are back. But this time the outpouring is coming from Egypt.

Pictures on Facebook and Twitter show dozens of bodies wrapped in white burial sheets lying in rows in morgues, hospitals and even mosque hallways. Others show charred bodies with the victims’ brains visible from sniper shots to the head. Most of the posts urge one thing: justice."There's a valid fear that some of them may turn to violence after they have despaired that democracy could ever be a means towards meaningful change.” -- Sami Al-Dalaal

“Our self-control now is not out of fear. It’s out of respect for human blood and for the safety of our country,” said one post on an Islamist Facebook page. “If we are pushed too hard and our back is to the wall, we’ll defend ourselves.”

Three months after a Jul. 3 military coup that removed Egypt’s first elected government, hundreds of anti-coup activists have been killed, thousands injured and many more, mostly Islamists, thrown behind bars without charge or trial. The achievements of the country’s brief two-and-a-half years of freedom have been all but erased.

Amnesty International estimates that at least 1,089 people were killed in just four days – the period between Aug. 14 and 18 during the military operation to disperse anti-coup protestors at Rabaa square and Al-Nahda square in Cairo.

Human Rights Watch called the carnage the largest mass killing in Egypt’s modern history.

Weeks later, the military crackdown is still raging, with casualty numbers reportedly rising almost by the day, prompting calls for self-defence among the country’s targeted Islamists.

Al-Qaeda’s ideology of violence as the only path to change, which was discredited by the mostly peaceful changes of the Arab Spring in Egypt, has now received a new lease on life as a possible and viable option after all, according to several observers of Islamic political movements.

“We followed Western democracy prescriptions to the letter, but the minute a Muslim man comes to office, the world looks away. Nobody really respects democracy,” said one Islamist’s Facebook page.

The urge to resist the bloody crackdown has been most pronounced among young people. In private discussions, many of them, especially from the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest Islamist organisation, express frustration with their leaders for preaching gradual rather than “revolutionary” change.

Some activists described the top policy-making body of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Group’s Shura Council, as “dervishes”, an Arabic word connoting being detached from reality.

“The Iranian revolution model might not be so bad after all,” said one activist who asked not to be identified.

The current military crackdown is so ruthless, sweeping and indiscriminate that it has become a personal daily story for many young people, especially the Islamists. There’s hardly anyone who hasn’t had a brother, father or sister killed, arrested or tortured since the coup, the activist said.

If the young decide to take up arms, it will be on a massive scale. Senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Salah Sultan, before his arrest earlier this week, estimated the group’s active membership to be between 800,000 and a million, not including their families and sympathisers.

Pressure on Islamists towards self-defence comes from unlikely outside corners as well.

The militant Somali Shabab group, which was at the receiving end of preaching from the Muslim Brotherhood that violence was counter-productive, got a chance for payback.

In August, the Somali militant group issued a statement taunting the Brotherhood and urging them to condemn democracy. The call was spurred by the scenes of carnage against defenceless anti-coup protestors in Cairo.

“You are leading Muslims to extermination by your insistence on democracy,” the Shabab said.

The pressure on the Brotherhood’s aging leadership has been so intense since the coup that Essam Erian, parliamentary majority leader before the coup, had to issue several audio messages urging a continuation of “peaceful protests”.

On Sep. 25, the Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement insisting on “peaceful resistance”.

“We all should resist the coup and resist oppression peacefully and without any violence and in a civilised manner,” the group said. “The coup leaders and the oppressors want to create waves of violence that they can use as a cover for their murderous police practices that they excel at.”

Elder Islamists justify their pacifist position on the grounds that there are religious admonitions against bloodletting. From a political standpoint, taking on the U.S.-backed and armed military and their pro-government militias will drag both sides into a civil war that would only strengthen U.S. and Israeli hegemony, they argue. Impoverished and violence-torn Somalia is hardly a model, they say.

“Democracy is still the main option for most Islamists now,” Sami Al-Dalaal, an expert on Islamic movements in the Middle East, told IPS. “Yet there’s a valid fear that some of them may turn to violence after they have despaired that democracy could ever be a means towards meaningful change.”

Dalaal said excluding political groups by force often leads to violence.

“There’s a precedent to that. When the military thwarted democracy in Algeria after Islamist democratic wins, they found no option but to start an armed revolution,” he said.

Dalaal was referring to a bloody civil war two decades ago in Algeria that started after army generals launched a coup and denied the Islamists the chance to take power in elections. Some 100,000 people died in the violence that ensued. The Syrian pro-democracy protests also started peacefully until Bashar al-Assad reacted violently and bloody pictures went viral on social media, starting another civil war.

In Egypt, with the military showing no sign of letting up on use of excessive force, it might be only a matter of time before at least some young Egyptians decide to do what their elders have refused to do: defend themselves.

An attack in Somali capital Mogadishu suspected to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab. Credit: Omar Faruq/IPS

By William Lloyd-George
ADDIS ABABA , Sep 28 2013 (IPS)

Strong action now expected against the al-Shabaab group may well end up strengthening the group rather than weakening it, local people fear. The extremist group is suspected of involvement in the attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi.

In the new round of confrontation expected, many people fear they will suffer most. “As always when these attacks happen, we are the ones who end up suffering,” a 23-year-old student who gave his name only as Mohammed told IPS on phone from Somali capital Mogadishu. “When the politicians and armies fight, our suffering is pushed aside.”

The Islamist group had been on the back foot in Somalia for some time. It faced dwindling support in recent years from an increasing disenfranchised diaspora and from a Somali population growing increasingly tired of violence.“The attack shows that Shabaab under Godane is a force to be reckoned with and a staunch ally of al-Qaeda.”

Several signs have emerged of a weakening of the group. In recent months, al-Shabaab was kicked out of Bakara Market and Kismayo port in Somalia. These were two strategic locations for the group, and huge sources of their income.

Despite an increase in the murder of journalists and bombings in the capital, a serious attack on the national courts and on the UNDP compound in Mogadishu, many analysts had been pointing to a diminishing al-Shabaab. The Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) had been heralded for bringing in a new era of stability for Somalia which saw diaspora returning and restoration of a certain degree of normality.

“Support for al-Shabaab in Somalia is low,” Ahmed Soliman, Somalia expert at the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) told IPS. “Their insurgent tactics targeting innocent civilians gain little support from Somalis who suffer from their actions or Kenyan ethnic-Somalis, who have to endure the negative consequences of being associated with this violence.”

But, he said, “there is a minority at home and abroad who will be emboldened by this attack and who may seek to support the efforts of al-Shabaab.”

The attack on Westgate could seek to draw strength from its growing weakness. The group could capitalise on the reasons for its origin.

Following the U.S-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia and an African force in 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that had been dominant in ruling Somalia was driven out of the capital. A youth wing of the ICU took up arms against the “invaders”. The group, known as al-Shabaab, or ‘the youth’, continues to fight foreign forces.

After Ethiopia sent in significant forces against it in 2011 to bolster Kenyan and African Union troops, al-Shabaab has faced several strategic setbacks. These led to infighting between leaders of the group. It is believed that some leaders were concerned that others were becoming too involved with the global jihadist movement and al-Qaeda.

Al-Shabab leader Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, known as Godane, took over supreme leadership this summer, knocking out the more moderate leaders. He has frequently voiced his loyalty to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

“The attack shows that Shabaab under Godane is a force to be reckoned with and a staunch ally of al-Qaeda,” Stig Jarle Hansen, author of ‘Al-Shabaab in Somalia’ and an expert on Somalia told IPS. “This strengthens al-Shabaab in their own eyes, and strengthens Godane, as well as the organisation in the eyes of Al-Qaeda. But it could hurt their Kenyan networks as Kenya intensify their prosecutions against Somalis residing in Kenya.”

According to Hansen, Al-Shabaab may have attempted to take advantage of the Somali people’s increasing hostility towards Kenya’s support of the Ogadeni clan which dominates Juba state. The state has seen a strong move to secede from Somalia with Kenyan support.

According to Hansen, the attack may also increase support for Godane by “demonstrating an ability to act, and to stop some al-Shabaab leaders who were thinking of leaving from doing so.”

The attack may on the other hand increase financial and political support from the international community for military campaigns against al-Shabaab especially from the U.S. and from European countries, Hansen said. But he warned that “this creates a highly predatory police and army that enables al-Shabaab to score propaganda victories. It also creates a highly corrupt force that al-Shabaab can easily bribe.”

Somalia expert Alula Iyasu said that the government in Mogadishu needs to be careful how it responds.

“While the law and order aspect is critical, the worst thing Mogadishu can make is to think, like the Bush administration did, that terrorism is the work of a finite number of bad people and if you arrest or kill all, the problem goes away. Not the case,” Iyasu told IPS.

“This episode in Nairobi should push Mogadishu and its donors to do more on job creation, schools and other services.”

The Westgate attack will serve as a warning that al-Shabaab, despite recent setbacks, is able to launch more terrorist attacks and to do so beyond Somalia’s borders. Now that the group has shown a stronger alliance with al-Qaeda, many diplomats are concerned Westgate might just be the beginning of a spate of attacks.

“Western and African Union countries will need to analyse the internal dynamics of al-Shabaab more closely, and how it has recently evolved and reorganised after being removed from Mogadishu and Kismayo,” Soliman from Chatham house tells IPS. “I would fully expect intensified efforts to target Godane and the leadership of al Shabaab.”

In the aftermath of the worst terror attack in East Africa in three years, foreign policy scholars here are urging the U.S. government to rethink its counter-terror policy in the region.

As the number of victims rises to 62 in an armed siege that has held dozens of people hostage in a major mall in uptown Nairobi, many are suggesting that the Somali Al Shabaab militant organisation, reportedly linked to Al-Qaeda, may be stronger and better organised than previously thought.

Just over a year ago, joint U.S.-Kenyan forces managed to expel Al Shabaab from their last stronghold in southern Somalia, leading the U.S. government to call it a success story for U.S. counter-terror policy. But what has taken place over the weekend in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall could suggest otherwise.

“This attack should be seen as a call to action,” Katherine Zimmermann, of the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think tank here, told IPS. “What the attack shows is that the fight against terrorism in Africa has stagnated and that groups like Al Shabaab are much stronger than the U.S. administration thought.”

In coming days, U.S. policymakers may look anew at their counter-terror approach, particularly in Kenya, where the government has been a key U.S. ally.

“What this attack does is strengthen the notion that the region ought not to be seen solely through the lenses of counter-terrorism, sacrificing other equally important issues the international community should address,” Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on non-traditional security threats at the Brookings Institution, a think tank here, told IPS.

“Current U.S. counter-terror strategy in the region has focused primarily on targeted attacks against Al Shabaab, while it should have addressed the structural causes of their radicalisation.”

Felbab-Brown cites high unemployment, a weak Somali economy and widespread corruption as the main reasons behind the radicalisation of youths that have joined Al Shabaab. U.S. counter-terror efforts, she says, have devoted little or no attention to these issues.

The U.S. government delivered a total of 445 million dollars in security aid to Somalia between 2008 and 2011, almost 50 percent of total U.S. aid to the country during that period. What seems to be missing from the U.S. strategy, Felbab-Brown says, is “a real effort to improve the Somali economy and urge the government to foster a broader political inclusion of these youth”.

Few analysts would suggest that the issue of counter-terrorism should be left off the agenda in East Africa entirely. But experts in Washington are increasingly urging that U.S. strategy include concrete efforts aimed at strengthening civil society and rebuilding the Somali judiciary system, which remains dysfunctional following decades of civil war.

Following the attack, the U.S. government immediately promised to aid the Kenyan government in the aftermath of the attack.

“We have offered our assistance to the government of Kenya and stand ready to help in any way we can,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.

No surprise

U.S. counter-terrorism involvement in Somalia began in the early 2000s, during the administration of President George W. Bush. At the time, the U.S. government sought to help both Somalia and neighbouring Ethiopia to topple the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which at the time was seeking to replace the power vacuum in Somalia with an Islamic regime run in accordance with Sharia law.

Al Shabaab formed during those years as the military wing of the ICU, and it has since sought to expel “hostile forces” in the region. Yet international forces, facilitated particularly by the United States, eventually made significant inroads in the fight against Shabaab militants.

Between 2011 and 2012, the U.S.-backed Kenyan military led a series of counter-terror strikes inside Somalia that resulted in the ouster of the group from Kismayo, a key coastal town known for its access to the oil routes of the Red Sea and Al Shabaab’s last stronghold in Somalia.

The U.S. Department of State welcomed Kismayo’s liberation as the end of the battle and greeted the “African Union Mission’s (AMISOM) success in driving the al-Shabaab terrorist organization out of strategically important population centers” as important achievements for U.S. counter-terror strategy in the region.

But the group, with a membership estimated at around 5,000 militants, was never really defeated, its continued strength now underlined by this weekend’s siege of the Nairobi mall. The Westgate attack is just the latest in a series of retaliatory measures taken by Al Shabaab against its enemies in East Africa, including a raid against a U.N. compound in June.

“The terrorist attack at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping centre was evidently a retaliation by Al Shabaab for the Kenyan military presence in Somalia since October 2011, and a deliberate signal that they are still a force to be reckoned with,” James Jennings, president of Conscience International, a humanitarian aid organisation that worked in Somalia during the 2010-11 famine, said Monday

“It represents a continuation of the violence that has swirled throughout East Africa in the wake of the disintegration of Somalia, a war now increasingly being exported across the region’s borders.”

Other analysts are suggesting that the mall was an attractive target because Westerners, including those from the U.S., frequented it.

A mother and her children protect themselves pretending to be dead in Westgate mall. Credit: Al Jazeera

By AJ Correspondents
QATAR, Sep 23 2013 (IPS)

Heavy and sustained gunfire has been heard from the Nairobi mall where the Al-Qaeda-linked Somali Islamist rebel group Al Shabab are holed up, holding an unknown number of civilians hostage.

Two Al Shabab fighters have been killed in the ongoing military raid to end the standoff and nearly all hostages have been freed, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for the Interior Ole Lenku said on Monday.

“We don’t want to give you a definitive position on when we think the process will come to an end, but we are doing anything reasonably possible, cautiously though, to bring this process to an end,” Lenku told a news conference.

Black smoke has been seen rising and several blasts have been heard in the area, two days after Al Shabab fighters stormed the mall.

Lenku said a fire inside the mall was the work of the fighters, but that it would soon be extinguished.

He said that Kenyan forces were in control of all floors of the mall, and that “the terrorists are running and hiding in some stores […] there is no room for escape”.

Television images on Monday showed troops in camouflage running to new positions, while an armoured personal carrier was also seen shifting position.

Journalists and their cameras have been moved and no longer have a clear sight of the mall, but can see its perimeter.

“It is us who caused the explosion, we are trying to get in through the roof,” one security official, who asked not to be named, told the Reuters news agency at the scene. There was no official comment.

Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from the vicinity of the mall, said that the concern was that the fighters would not allow themselves to be apprehended, and that they might harm any remaining hostages.

“They went in there with a suicide mission, they knew that it was very difficult for them to get out alive. […] The concern really is the hostages. The ministry says that they have been able to evacuate most of the people in that mall … more than 1,000 people have been evacuated [since the siege began], but the concern is with the hostages [still in the building],” she reported.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it was adjourning the trial of Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto on charges relating to violence following elections in 2007.

The court said Ruto would be excused from the trial, which began earlier this month, for a week to return to Nairobi to help deal with the crisis.

On Sunday, Kenyan security forces claimed to have rescued most of the hostages, but an unknown number remain trapped inside.

Armed men belonging to the Somali group Al Shabab had stormed the Westgate shopping centre on Saturday using grenades and assault rifles. The attack left at least 68 people dead and more than 150 wounded, according to the Red Cross.

Colonel Cyrus Oguna, a military spokesman of Al Shabab, told Al Jazeera that most of the hostages had been released, though he did not provide an exact number. “Most of them were dehydrated and suffering from shock,” Oguna said, adding that four Kenyan soldiers were injured in the rescue operation.

As security forces intesified efforts to end the standoff late on Sunday, Meanwhile, Al Shabab, which has claimed responsibility for the siege, said on its Twitter feed that the “Kenyan government shall be held responsible for any loss of life as a result of such an imprudent move. The call is yours!”

It said “Kenyan forces who’ve just attempted a roof landing must know that they are jeopardising the lives of hostages.”

Al Shabab told Al Jazeera it carried out the attack in which they specifically targeted non-Muslims. Kenyans and foreigners were among those confirmed dead, including French, Britons, Indians, Canadians, Chinese and a renowned Ghanaian poet. Speaking to Al Jazeera later, Abu Omar, a spokesman for the group, ruled out any negotiations over the hostages being held.

The group is demanding that Kenya pull troops back from neighbouring Somalia, where Al Shabab is fighting against the government.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms,” and reminded Kenya that any response must comply with international human rights law.

Published under agreement with Al Jazeera.

Foreign aid workers are increasingly becoming targets of corrupt officials within the Somali government and the Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab.

“The government is laden with corrupt officials and allied clan militias that are determined to use them [aid workers] for their own interests,” political analyst Hassan Abukar told IPS. “Kidnapping foreign aid workers has become a way to extract cash from NGOs. Al-Shabaab is mistrustful of the NGOs for fear of losing control in the way aid is administered and [mistakenly believes] that these relief agencies are spying on the terror group.”

Abukar’s comments come as international and independent aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders (MSF), announced this week that it was pulling out of Somalia after over two decades of delivering aid and healthcare there. The murder and harassment of their staff has made it increasingly impossible for the organisation to operate, Dr. Unni Karunakara, MSF’s international president, told reporters at a press briefing in Kenya on Aug. 14. “With the government unable to prevent attacks on themselves, attacks on aid organisations and their workers are not unsurprising.” -- Ahmed Soliman from Chatham House

MSF, which was one of the very few providers of essential healthcare in the Horn of Africa nation, has persevered to provide aid through a civil war, in-fighting among local clans, and piracy. But it will immediately stop all operations. MSF has been operating in the country since 1991, and treated approximately 50,000 people a month.

“The final straw was the realisation that authorities, armed actors and community leaders were actively supporting or tacitly approving the attacks, the abductions, the killings against our staff,” Karunakara said.

Karunakara explained that in some cases, the actors MSF had negotiated safe passage with had played a role in the abuse of MSF staff, either through direct involvement or tacit approval. “Because of their actions, hundreds of thousands of Somalis will now be effectively cut off from medical humanitarian aid,” said Karunakara.

In total, 16 MSF members have been killed, and MSF says they have experienced dozens of attacks on their staff, ambulances, and medical facilities since 1991.

MSF’s departure from Somalia comes at a time when Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government is trying to change the country’s image after years of civil war and famine. Many analysts believe MSF’s departure will be a huge blow to recent efforts to bring foreign aid and investment to the country.

“The departure of MSF shows the incapacity of the new government to manage local security,” Jabril Ibrahim Abdulle, head of the Centre for Research and Dialogue in Mogadishu, told IPS.

“The MSF withdrawal also comes at a time when the Somali government is trying to change the image of the country from a transitional to permanent government and on the eve of Somalia’s new deal conference to be held in Brussels mid-September where world leaders are expected to pledge millions of dollars to the new government.”

MSF’s departure shows that although the African Union Mission in Somalia and an independent Ethiopian force have driven Al-Shabaab out of the country’s main cities, the extremist group is still able to perpetrate wide-scale violence.

Analysts say there has been a notable change in Al-Shabaab’s tactics as they renew their assault on the capital. Several government institutions and airports have been attacked or bombed and government officials, district commissioners and civil servants have been assassinated.

Recently, the extremist group attacked the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu on Jul. 27, killing three people. And on Jun. 17, the United Nations compound in the city was also attacked. Fifteen were killed in the attack.

“In this context, with the government unable to prevent attacks on themselves, attacks on aid organisations and their workers are not unsurprising,” Ahmed Soliman from Chatham House, an independent policy institute based in London told IPS. “MSF would like civilian authorities to take the conviction of those who perpetrate such acts of violence more seriously. The government can certainly reinforce this message and work towards this goal.”

MSF is not the only organisation to withdraw staff. In recent weeks, owing to the increase in violence, most international organisations have withdrawn their non-essential staff from Somalia. While violence is known to increase during Ramadan and abate afterwards, Abukar believes that it is unlikely to reduce “because of the new dynamics of Al-Shabaab factions that are killing each other for control of territories.”

Evidence of Al-Shabaab’s infighting and the defection of Al-Shabaab’s veteran militant Islamist, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys in July, could be a signal that more violence could be on the way.

Previously revered as a statesman for the group, Aweys was forced to hand himself over to government forces, giving power over to Afghan-trained leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.

Analysts expect that this will fuel more fighting, as this faction is more hardline and determined to achieve an Islamic state. The faction will also want to prove it remains a formidable force in light of the defections.

“The emergence of tribal militias loyal to the federal government, which are vying for power, the widespread of political assassinations that are never prosecuted, and the increasing inability of the government to expand its will and control beyond Mogadishu [means that violence will not abate],” Abukar said.

“As the latest U.N. Monitoring Group report on Somalia has pointed out, the Somali government cannot control a territory without international support.”

While Al-Shabaab fights within its ranks and MSF departs, with fears that more NGO’s may follow, the biggest concerns will be for the Somali people who are now cut off from much-needed medical care.

“Unfortunately the Somali people will pay the highest cost. Much of the Somali population has never known the country without war or famine. Already receiving far less help than is needed, many will no longer find the healthcare they require,” said Karunakara. “In several places, MSF has been effectively the only organisation providing quality medical care.”

As the Somali government announced it would set up a coastguard to combat piracy in this Horn of African nation, insecurity is emerging as the biggest challenge that the government faces – and it is only getting worse.

Osman Aweis Dahir, director of the local Dr. Ismail Jimale Human Rights Organisation, said that the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab has renewed its campaign to bring instability to the country’s capital Mogadishu.

“The little stability that the city had experienced since the Al-Shabaab withdrawal appears to have been broken,” Dahir told IPS from Mogadishu. The Islamist extremist group was forced out of its bases in Mogadishu on Aug. 6, 2011 by Somali and African Union peace-keeping forces. Until the withdrawal, the government only controlled half of the city.

But in recent weeks there has been a rise in the number of ambushes, assassinations and suicide bombs in Somalia’s capital.“The city is like an open shop in a market which its owner has left [unattended].” -- Jama Ahmed Siad, local security expert

“The city has experienced its deadliest attacks in recent times during the past two weeks,” said Dahir. More than 60 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in several incidents across Mogadishu. This is a setback to the rising hopes of a return to relative security.”

On Tuesday, Jul. 30, an officer from Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) was assassinated by Al-Shabaab. His name was added to the growing list of government officials killed over the last three weeks. Included on that list is female deputy commissioner of Mogadishu’s Yaqshid district, Rahma Dahir Siad, who was killed outside her home on Jul. 17.

Even foreign diplomats are not safe in the city. On Jul. 27, Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack on the Turkish embassy that killed three people.

It was the second that day. A few hours earlier a bomb planted inside a member of parliament’s vehicle exploded in the north of the city.

On Jul. 24, Sheikh Abdu Aziz Abu Musab, Al-Shabaab’s military spokesman, said that his group carried out over 100 attacks between Jul. 10 and 24. Half of these, he said, occurred in Mogadishu.

“If anything, the sharp rise in such coordinated attacks is a clear testament to the strength of the Mujahidin and their operational capacity,” he told a pro-Islamist radio station in Somalia.

Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdoon acknowledged his disappointment at the government’s weak handling of the security situation in the country. “We are very concerned [about] the security matter and it was not handled the way we wanted,” Shirdoon told reporters in Mogadishu on Jul. 18. He promised to improve the city’s security.

But Jama Ahmed Siad, a security expert based in Mogadishu, said the government was negligent and lacked a clear strategy to counter the Islamist extremist group’s switch to guerrilla-style warfare.

“Security is the key to all problems in Somalia and when you solve it, you have solved half the problem,” Siad told IPS, adding that the government is yet to understand that.

“For instance, the NISA agents have reduced their presence on the roads entering Mogadishu for the past three months. They used to inspect the vehicles and people entering the city at these checkpoints, where they previously captured members of Al-Shabaab trying to infiltrate the city,” Siad added.

A senior officer at NISA told IPS that the agency had handed the control of these checkpoints to the Somali police and military “but there is a plan to deploy NISA’s agents back there very soon.”

Mohamed Elmi, a civil society activist in Mogadishu, said the government’s main challenge was how to combat the suicide car bombings. He told IPS that government forces did not have the advanced weaponry, technology and training for this.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told journalists on Monday, Jul. 29: “The security forces are at war…but it is not easy to find a suicide car moving around in a city of two million.”

The presidential spokesman, Abdirahman Omar Osman, and the prime minister’s spokesperson, Ridwan Haji Abdiweli, refused to comment to IPS on the security situation in the city.

But one government official told IPS that the government had, on the day of the Turkish embassy bombing, deployed a 1,000-strong counter-terrorism force on the streets in Mogadishu. “The elite force with unique uniforms armed with advanced weapons and their vehicles painted in a distinctive colour are assigned to cleaning up the city of Al-Shabaab members,” said the officer who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Siad said such a force was unlikely to counter the Islamists’ increasing terror attacks. “There is no single Islamist base in the city, but several secret bases that they use. Therefore, such deployment is unhelpful,” he said.

He said the government needed to concentrate efforts on gathering intelligence relating to these secret Al-Shabaab bases and the organisation’s leaders in the city.

Dahir said the government’s weak handling of the country’s internal security casts doubt on its ability to deliver its Six Pillar Policy – a policy framework that aims to secure progress in the areas of security, stability, justice, economic recovery, peace-building, and service delivery.

In a policy brief released in April, the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), the country’s first think tank, praised the government’s foreign policy and diplomatic successes.

Somalia has been gaining more visibility in the international arena, with Mohamud paying high-level visits to Washington, London, Ankara, Brussels, Cairo and several other countries to build his government’s image.

“However, there are disturbing signs of an imbalance between foreign policy priorities and domestic achievements,” the HIPS report said.

And until the issue of domestic security is resolved, Mogadishu’s occupants will remain vulnerable.

“The city is like an open shop that its owner has left,” Siad said.

Former Al-Shabaab combatants who handed themselves over to the Somali government. Defections by Al-Shabaab members were rising dramatically, with many more expected in the coming months. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Muhyadin Ahmed Roble and Yusuf Ahmed
MOGADISHU/NAIROBI, May 8 2013 (IPS)

At 18, Farah Osman should not be a battle-hardened soldier. He should not have spent the last seven years fighting for the Somali Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab, or have been trained by foreign jihadists in handling and repairing weapons and improving his shooting skills.

But he has. And now he is also a deserter. The tall, slim teenager is one of about 800 former Al-Shabaab fighters staying at Mogadishu’s Sarendi Rehabilitation Centre. He hopes he will soon be integrated back into society and into the Somali Armed Forces.

Osman cannot recall the exact month he was recruited as a fighter by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab, but it was near the end of 2006, the year when United States-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia to prop up the Somali Transitional Federal Government.

He was walking home from school on a steaming hot day when his former teacher from a local dugsi or religious school stopped him and took him to an Al-Shabaab base.

Osman sat panicked and alone under a tree in the base for a while, then the teacher returned with a group of men and bottles of mineral water and dates which they distributed to the young boys. Preachers then spoke for hours about the holy war, animosity with Ethiopia, and the importance of defending the country.

It was the year he turned 11.

“Heaven, money and prestige were convincing incentives. Their promises were irresistible,” says Osman.

He says everyone seemed ready to sacrifice their lives to defend their religion and their country.

His trainers were all Somalis, including Adan Hashi Farah “Eyrow”, a war veteran who founded Al-Shabaab, the armed wing of the Union of Islamic Courts. Farah was killed by a U.S. airstrike on his house in the town of Dhuusomareeb in central Somalia in May 2008.

“They offer a mobile phone and a monthly salary of 50 dollars,” Osman says. But he adds that this was not the only thing that pushed him to join the organisation. “I wanted to seem powerful and to be a respected man, and people (at that time) respected a man with a gun.”

For five years, Osman moved through the war-scarred buildings in Mogadishu, around the forests near the Kenya-Somalia borders and in southern Somalia on his mission to kill Somali and Ethiopian forces and African peacekeepers in the hope of going to heaven after death.

Then in October 2011, Al-Shabaab carried out a suicide attack on the education ministry in Mogadishu. More than 70 people were killed, most of them students checking their scholarship status.

“This is when I realised that Al-Shabaab was no longer fighting for religious or jihad reasons,” Osman tells IPS in a restaurant close to Villa Somalia, the country’s White House. “That is not what jihad is meant to represent.”

Osman is not the first or last Al-Shabaab fighter to desert the organisation. Hundreds of fighters across southern Somalia have turned in their guns and surrendered since 2010, when the government offered them amnesty, protection and a better future.

With Al-Shabaab under financial strain because of multiple frontlines and the loss of strategic towns in the country, many more fighters are expected to turn themselves in to the government, which has offered former fighters accommodation and job opportunities.

On one single day in September 2012, in the town of Jowhar, some 80 km from Mogadishu, 250 Al-Shabaab fighters became the largest number to surrender in a single day to Somali forces and the African Union Mission in Somalia.

Mogadishu intelligence chief Khalif Ahmed Ereg told reporters at a press conference in February that defections by Al-Shabaab members were rising dramatically, with many more expected in the coming months. However, the country’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) first investigates defectors before allowing them to join rehabilitation programmes.

Critics have raised concerns about the vetting process for defectors, claiming that many of them still have close ties to the extremist organisation.

Ibrahim Sheikh Hassan, an analyst and former professor of political science at Mogadishu’s pre-war Strategy College, tells IPS that NISA’s screening process is weak and insufficient and that Al-Shabaab are taking advantage to carry out a “planned infiltration” of the government’s security forces.

“They offer some accurate information to make their ‘sham’ defections appear genuine while planning destruction operations within the government,” Hassan adds.

It is a claim that NISA denies, but many of the recent killings, including a bomb blast and suicide attacks in the capital, have been blamed on sham defectors.

In January, an Al-Shabaab member who claimed to have defected from the group tried to kill the prime minister in a suicide bombing at the presidential palace. One government soldier was killed and several others were wounded.

“The agency should come up with another strategy of using the defectors as an asset without officially incorporating them into the agency. Their long-term effect should be a matter of concern.”

The Sarendi Rehabilitation Centre in Mogadishu, where Osman resides, is currently the only one of its kind in the country. But speaking to the national assembly in March, Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdoon said his government planned to open 10 centres to accommodate and rehabilitate Al-Shabaab deserters and soldiers captured in the war.

An official from the government’s rehabilitation programme, who asked to be referred to only as Ahmed, told IPS that there were currently another 800 Al-Shabaab defectors in southern and central regions of Somalia.

Ahmed told IPS the interior ministry was planning to open other rehabilitation centres in south and central Somalia – in Kismayo, Balad Weyne, Baido, Garbaharey, Jowhar, Marka and Guriceel – to accommodate the defectors.

The Sarendi Centre, which opened in March 2012, is run by Somalia’s interior and national security ministry and financially supported by Norway’s foreign ministry. It provides skills training, including football, driving and fishing lessons, and also teaches technical skills.

“Everyone is taught what he has an interest in,” says Osman.

But his interests remain centred on war. He wants to finish his mission of killing the “bad guys” – but as a soldier wearing a government uniform.

Somali government soldiers patrol a street in the newly-seized southern town of Wanla Weyne on Oct. 12, 2012. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Abdurrahman Warsameh
MOGADISHU, Oct 19 2012 (IPS)

A Kenyan military advance into Somali territory to push back Islamic militants has had some measured military success – but is not without controversy.

The capture of the Islamist-controlled southern Somali port city of Kismayo by Kenyan troops and allied forces in late September had been in the making for almost a year since the launch of operation Linda Nchi (Protect the Country) by Kenya.

Hundreds of Kenyan army regulars supported by a local clan militia known as the Ras Kamboni Brigade from southern Somalia and northeastern Kenya joined forces to overrun the front defences of the Al Shabaab militants, following months of slow progress after the Kenyan forces crossed the border between the two countries in October 2011.

Kenya’s Linda Nchi intervention in Somalia has been riddled with controversy since it was launched on Oct. 16, 2011. The stated aim of Kenya’s entry into this war-ravaged Horn of Africa country was the pursuit of Al-Shabaab militants accused of creating insecurity across the border in Kenya.

The radical Islamist group is alleged to be behind the kidnapping of foreign aid workers and tourists and a number of bomb attacks in border areas.

Kenya has reportedly been pushing for the region in southern Somalia known as Azania or Jubaland – where Kismayo is the main city – to be given the status of an autonomous state, to serve as a buffer zone between Kenya and the chaos in Somalia.

The plan is to install an administration in cooperation with a local clan that inhabits both the northeastern Kenyan border regions and Somalia’s southern provinces, with the exclusion or minor participation of other clans who form the majority of the provinces’ residents.

Hassan Mudei, deputy head of the Al Shahid Centre for Research and Media Studies in Mogadishu, says he believes the Kenyan project could fail if local sensitivities are not taken into consideration.

“It will all depend on how local sensitivities and clan differences among the region’s inhabitants are acknowledged and respected. But if the Kenyan troops are seen as occupying forces, I believe they will never win the confidence of the local people, and the project would be doomed,” Mudei told IPS in Mogadishu.

He said that Kenya and the other powers-that-be in the area should give local residents a free hand to work out a formula for sharing power, instead of letting one clan allied with them to try to dominate Jubaland – a move the Somali analyst contended would backfire.

The Somali government, which has small numbers of troops trained by Kenyan forces in the southern regions along the border, has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the Jubaland project, saying it has a sovereign right to decide on the governance of the resource-rich provinces of the south.

Kenya is currently sponsoring talks in Nairobi with leaders of a pro-Kenyan militia and Jubaland. Kenya says the negotiations are aimed at forming an administration for the region, but the Somali government has been sidelined because of its disapproval of the Kenyan initiative.

“We have repeatedly expressed our displeasure at the Kenyan-led political process for the southern regions of Somalia that is now going on in Nairobi,” Ahmed Jama, a member of Somalia’s parliament, told IPS in Mogadishu.

“Definitely we welcome Kenya’s role in helping the Somali National Army (SNA) liberate the country from militant forces, but for the political issues regarding Kismayo, that is only for the Somali government to deal with – and that is not what we are seeing now,” he said.

But Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Major Emanuel Chirchir dismissed claims that the military are helping to prop up an autonomous statelet in Jubaland as “baseless and unfounded.”

Chirchir told IPS that the KDF’s aim under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is simply to enhance stability in the region, and that it does not have a political or occupation agenda.

“The allegations are just rumours,” said Chirchir. “Our mandate under AMISOM is clear, and this is bringing about peace and normalcy in Somalia and not to divide the Somali people along clan lines.”

Chirchir added that after the KDF’s mandate is concluded, it will be up to Somalis themselves, with the help of regional bodies, including the African Union and the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to chart the way forward on how to govern themselves.

He added, however, that the KDF would strive to bring stability to the Horn of Africa nation, “whatever means it would take.”

The coastal city of Kismayo has been under the control of various groups since the fall of the late Somali ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991, as alliances between different clans have changed.

Kismayo, which has been under al Shabaab control for the past five years, has the biggest port and airport of all the southern Somalia provinces. It also has the most livestock and the largest amount of arable land in this country.

“This is in essence a struggle for the resources of the region, and after a single clan failed to establish its authority over others, some have gotten the idea of using foreign countries in alliances to impose themselves over others,” Yasin Elmi, a Somali political scientist, told IPS.

“That is what is happening now with the Kenyan intervention, whether Kenya knows this or not. But that arrangement between a foreign country and a local clan is likely to worsen the situation and prolong the local people’s suffering,” he added.

Mudei agreed, saying any administration formed to run the province – and the city of Kismayo in particular – that does not come out of a local initiative is likely to be rejected by the residents.

“I believe foreign forces cannot rule the city, nor can any administration formed in Kenya, because there are a multitude of Somali clans living alongside each other in the region,” said Mudei. “Therefore it is necessary for the local people to be given a fair say in running the city, and the whole province in general – otherwise it will be seen as foreign-imposed.”

Mudei told IPS that the African Union peacekeeping forces, which Kenya belatedly joined in July, should be confined to establishing security in the region as stipulated in their mandate, and should leave political issues to the new Somali government, which knows the intricacies of local clan politics much better than foreigners.

*Additional reporting by Brian Ngugi in Nairobi.

A mother and daughter who survived the dangerous journey from south Somalia to an aid camp in Mogadishu during last year's famine. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Brian Ngugi
NAIROBI, Jul 18 2012 (IPS)

The United Nations has called for sustained aid efforts in Somalia to prevent the war-torn country from experiencing another humanitarian crisis as more than three million people remain in need of urgent aid.

The U.N. said on Tuesday Jul. 17 in Nairobi that while the situation in the Horn of Africa nation had greatly improved over the last few months, millions remain threatened by acute food shortages and a lack of basic necessities. This, the U.N. said, was compounded by insecurity and insufficient rains. It warned that if aid agencies do not step in to stem the escalating situation, a humanitarian catastrophe could develop.

“While famine conditions are no longer present, we need to make no mistake – the absence of famine does not mean that people are not in crisis. Today, 2.51 million people are still in urgent need of aid and a further 1.29 million could slide back into crisis without sustained assistance,” said Mark Bowden, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.

Bowden, who spoke ahead of an official launch of a revised consolidated appeal for 1.16 billion dollars by global aid agencies on Thursday Jul. 19, said that aid efforts have to be sustained in order to consolidate the gains made in Somalia.

According to the U.N., within 90 days of last year’s famine declaration on Jul. 20, the number of people receiving food aid more than tripled to 2.6 million, while hundreds of thousands of acutely malnourished children received nutrition supplements.

“Mass vaccination campaigns reduced cases of measles by almost 50 percent. By November, 500,000 people in the affected parts of Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle were lifted out of famine conditions. The situation continued to improve, largely due to the effective delivery of aid under extremely difficult circumstances and helped by an exceptional harvest at the beginning of the year,” Bowden said.

“We need to finish the job that we started when we announced the famine last year and act now to consolidate the gains and break the cycle of repeated crises that continues to exist. To do this, we must restore people’s lives and livelihoods,” he said.

Bowden said that half the sum had been raised, but the remaining 576 million dollars was needed to address the requirements of 3.8 million Somalis until the end of the year.

“Humanitarians need these funds to provide urgent assistance for the most vulnerable, while building up Somalis’ ability to cope with future drought and other shocks,” he said.

Friday Jul. 20 will mark a year since famine, which claimed tens of thousands of Somalis, was declared in the war-torn nation. The drought had been prevalent in entire Horn of Africa and was described as the worst in 60 years. It was compounded by high food prices and instability in the region.

According to the Kenyan Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Dr. Romano Kiome, the food situation in the Horn of Africa remains precarious and has been made worse by poor harvests and low rainfall.

“Even in most parts of Kenya, the situation is similarly unfavourable as a result of the poor rains. The government has been forced to go back to the drawing board and strategise on how we will distribute food. We have a considerable number of regions where there are widening shortages,” Kiome told IPS.

Kiome said the worsening food situation in Somalia was compounded by the ongoing conflict in the country.

“Security in Somalia is still a major concern and we second the U.N.’s call for the need to sustain large-scale humanitarian activities across the country,” he said.

Kenya, backed by African Union forces, is engaged in fighting the Somali militant Al-Shabaab in the country that has been afflicted by conflict for more than 20 years.

Most Somalis are still living in refugee camps and remain dependent on food aid from agencies. Many are yet to return to their villages, opting to remain in camps where there is a supply of medical and food aid.

Statistics released separately by the U.N. Refugee Agency on Jul. 17 showed that more than a million Somalis fled their homeland to neighbouring countries during the famine.

Bowden warned that in parts of Somalia, the food situation would deteriorate before it improved as a result of the poor rains from April to June, which were not only delayed but also unevenly distributed.

“We do not expect the south of Somalia to deteriorate into famine in the coming months. But that should not in any way lessen the urgency with which we act,” he added.

Bowden noted that by providing Somalis with sustainable livelihoods, aid agencies could prevent future droughts from developing into a humanitarian emergency.

“We need to help 2.51 million people to obtain life’s basic necessities, such as clean water, sanitation facilities and medical care. We need to help build sustainable livelihoods for people who have been left with few or no resources after years of drought and conflict,” he said.

By Shafi’i Mohyaddin Abokar
MOGADISHU, Feb 23 2012 (IPS)

With an international meeting aimed at resolving the political crisis in Somalia set to take place Thursday, the local media in this East African nation is awash with scepticism, referring to the efforts as a new system of re-colonising the country.

The country has been without an effective government since 1991. The meeting, hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron, will have representatives from global organsiations and over 40 governments, including Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Britain has also invited representatives of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), as well as the presidents of the breakaway Somaliland, Puntland, and Galmudug, and the non-militant Islamist group Ahlu Sunnah Waljama’a (ASWJ).

But one of the country’s most influential political leaders and future presidential candidate, Omar Abdirahman Mohamed, told IPS said that Britain wanted Somalia to have a “weak administration”.

“The U.K. doesn’t want Somalia to have its military reformed and it was the sole superpower that negated the lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia. This shows that the U.K. government is totally against the formation of a stable government and powerful military in Somalia,” said Mohamed, who heads the Mogadishu-based Midnimo Political Party.

In 2008 U.K. law implemented various statutory instruments to enforce the arms embargo on Somalia. The embargo was first implemented on the country by the United Nations in 1992 after civil war broke out. It was partially lifted in 2007 to allow the importation of arms by the African Union Mission in Somalia.

“All Somalis are carefully watching the London conference and its outcome. Let the conference not be a conspiracy against the sovereignty of Somalia,” Mohamed said.

An alleged “leaked” communiqué, apparently written for release after the talks, has been circulating here, fuelling speculation in this East African nation about the negative outcome of these talks.

One controversial point on the document, which is available online, refers to allegedly passing on the functions of government to a caretaker authority until the constitutional discussions are concluded. However, the point further explains that the country’s constitution must be endorsed through a referendum or elected parliament.

The radio station Voice of the Peace said in its editorials that the U.K. was not looking for a lasting solution for Somalia.

Most newspapers including Kulmiye News and Xog-ogaal highlighted stories of locals who were concerned over Somalia becoming a colony once more.

One well-known elder, Ahmed Diriye, told local Radio Daljir he did not believe that the London conference would have positive results for Somalia. “We know that Kenya (does not have a) powerful military and that was (because of the) U.K., and I am afraid that it wants Somalia to have only a police force,” Diriye said.

The country’s President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed denied this saying media reports were “rumours and baseless propaganda” intended to mislead the views of Somalis.

Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed (c) said that the international community was committed to putting an end to the lawlessness in the country. Credit: Shafi’i Mohyaddin Abokar/IPS

“There is no cause for concern over the sovereignty of the country. I can assure the Somali people that the London conference will focus on the interest of Somalia and how the world community can help the country out of its long-existing hardships,” Ahmed said Friday.

He was speaking in Garowe, a town in the breakaway state of Puntland, where the Somali government, regional autonomies, civil society, and ASWJ met to sign a deal outlining the composition of the country’s new parliament when the transitional period ends this August.

Ahmed said that the international community was committed to putting an end to the lawlessness in Somalia.

The British Ambassador to Somalia Matt Baugh told IPS from his Nairobi office that the conference is aimed at delivering a new international approach to Somalia and would form the basis for coordinated and sustained international leadership.

He added said that while the five-hour conference would not solve all the problems in Somalia, Britain wanted it to be “the catalyst for more international engagement in Somalia and more effective Somali leadership.”

He denied local media reports that the London conference will pave the way for a colony in Somalia and said that the British government and the international community wanted to help Somalia emerge from its problems.

“There are no options for colonising Somalia,” the ambassador insisted.

“We are holding this conference now because enough is enough. The suffering during the famine was a wake up call for the international community.  It’s time to arrest Somalia’s relentless decline – and make the most of the opportunities in front of us. We have an opportunity to support a more inclusive and representative political process when the transitional period ends in August,” he said.

However, the extremist group Al-Shabaab, which recently announced a merger with international terrorist group Al-Qaeda, denounced the conference saying that it intends to destroy the existence of Islam in Somalia.

“The U.K. has already colonised many Muslim countries and it wants to have colonies in Somalia again. Christian governments and their puppets are meeting there in London and they will tell the so-called TFG something to implement in the country, but that will not really work,” Al-Shabaab’s main preacher, Sheik Fu’ad Mohamed Qalaf, told the group’s radio station on Tuesday.

Many Somalis are hopeful that the conference will bring lasting peace to their country.

“The path of reconciliation, forgiveness and tolerance is needed so the wounds of your homeland may be healed and the plight of your people may come to an end,” the Imam of Somalia’s Al-Azhar Mosque, Dr. Sheik Ahmed El Tayyeb, said of the conference.

His comments helped some change their negative views of the talks.

“The Imam knows more than we do, so from now on I am very hopeful of the London conference and I am calling all Somalis to help the government implement the conference outcomes on the ground,” Abdi Abdulle Ahmed, a former schoolteacher, told IPS.

Meanwhile, other locals have high expectations of the conference. Well-known Somali folklore dancer Ahmed Abokar Abuna said he hopes that it will bring stability to the country.

“I believe the world is now struggling to solve Somalia’s problems so that Somalis and the whole world will be rescued from the danger of terrorists who have bases in Somalia,” he told IPS while walking along the Via Liberia Road in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab control large parts of southern Somalia and until last year controlled large portions of the country’s capital.

Sahro Moalim, a 22-year-old university student in Mogadishu, said that she had never experienced peace in Somalia and she hoped it would be an outcome of the conference.

Eyni Ahmed, a political analyst and the chairwomen of Somali Youth League, a group that aided with the disarmament of hundreds of former Al-Shabaab child soldiers, told IPS that the situation on the ground in Somalia is currently dangerous and the conference needed to find a resolution for the political turmoil.

“If it continues like this, if lawlessness and killings continue, it will have a bad impact on the country’s existence … so there will come a time when the world will say: ‘There was a country called Somalia once upon time,’” Eyni told IPS.

(END/2012)