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Swedish Man Shot Dead In Somalia
A Swedish journalist has been shot dead during a huge rally in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, held to back Thursday's peace agreement.
A BBC correspondent says a lone gunman shot the Swedish man through the heart in a crowd of thousands of people.
The deal was agreed by the interim government and the Islamist group which controls the capital.
Both sides have agreed to recognise each other and stop fighting, but some key issues remain unresolved.
The BBC's Hassan Barise in Mogadishu says nobody was expecting a deal after only one day of talks in Sudan.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said it was a "positive development" and urged both sides to continue talks.
Our correspondent says the seven-point deal makes no mention of the question of whether foreign peacekeepers are needed, which has sharply divided the two sides.
Take my advice, and be aware: war leads nowhere
Somalia's President Yusuf
Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf wants peacekeepers but the Union of Islamic Courts is strongly opposed - especially to any involvement of troops from Ethiopia, which is seen as being close to Mr Yusuf.
Another issue not addressed is whether the Islamists will join the interim government.
The Islamic courts leader has said the movement does not want to establish its own government, but our correspondent says many Somalis feel that it does.
'No extremism'
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir described the accord as "the beginning of the end of conflicts in Somalia."
The two sides also agreed to stop "media campaigns" against each other and to meet again on 15 July, when the outstanding issues may be addressed.
In a statement, Mr Annan urged "the two parties to remain engaged in dialogue to promote peace and national reconciliation" and commended the Arab League for its mediation.
President Yusuf was in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for the talks but the agreement was signed by Foreign Minister Abdullahi Sheekh Ismail.
Afterwards, he embraced Islamic scholar Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, who led the Union of Islamic Courts team along with deputy chairman Sheikh Husein Mohamud Jumaale.
Mr Yusuf said: "We have no interest in shedding any blood, and we will seek every possible way to preserve the life of the Somalis.
"This is your chance to end the suffering and start developing. Take my advice, and be aware: war leads nowhere."
Mr Ibrahim moved to calm fears that the Union of Islamic Courts could provide a safe haven for Islamist fighters.
"There's no extremism in Somalia and no terrorist element in Somalia. Anyone who wanted to check this, he can come and see with his own eyes," he said.
There have been fears of conflict between the Islamic courts, which control much of southern Somalia, and the interim government, based in Baidoa, 200km north of the capital, Mogadishu.
These fears increased last weekend after the Islamists said Ethiopian troops had crossed the border, apparently in support of Mr Yusuf's government.
International pressure is mounting for both sides to negotiate a peaceful settlement and to establish Somalia's first effective national government for 15 years.
Posted on Friday 23rd June at 12:52:46 Return of Order in Mogadishu
Charles Onunaiju
At last, the pearl in the horn, as Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia was formerly called might be making a slow crawl to normalcy after functioning as elaborate theartre of interminable conflicts, involving assorted war lords and their clannish followers, since the collapse of the dictatorship of General Said Barre in 1991.
A group of determined Islamic radicals with the speed of lightening marched on triumphantly to Mogadishu, putting in total disarray, freelance gunmen loyal to the various assorted war lords that has converted the once beautiful capital to a haven of gangster rampage. The gunmen who had laid siege to the capital quickly dispersed without much of a fight, nearly two weeks ago, when the Islamic radicals stormed it in a last bid to restore sanity in a city that has long became a global metaphor for political impunity and social chaos.
The Islamic radicals arrived on a waiting and desperate population, long fatigued with the rivalry and bitter wrangling of the warlords whose seemingly balance of terror has done well to perpetuate the conflict and embolden the intransigence of the belligerents to the durable torment of the long suffering Somalis. The new arrivals has not only conquered territory but appeared to have won hearts and minds too. In what looked like a blitzkrieg, the Islamic fighters have tightened their grip on Balcad a strategic town 30 kilometres north of Mogadishu and were advancing on Jowhar, one of the warlord's last strongholds, some 90 kilometres north of the capital. Meanwhile, the rump of Somalia's impotent and fractured transitional government, recognised by most of the world, but with actual little authority over Somalia, is nervously sitting out in the dusty town of Baidoa, some 250 kilometres to the North West of the ravaged capital.
They might just seek accommodation with the Islamic radicals. Analysts fret that "the big battle for Mogadishu is over." At least that is the views of many Somali exiles and e ven diplomats, at the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, from where they are trying to make sense from the unfolding scenario in Mogadishu. However, opinions, according to reports are widely held that if currently the battle for Mogadishu is over, it is just about to begin for the rest of Somalia.
Meanwhile, the arrival of the Islamic radicals in a swift and disciplined military conquest of Mogadishu with little or no looting and other infractions, typical of the freelance gunmen, shooting for the secular war lords has inspired respect among the residents but raised alarm bells in other quarters. The question uppermost in such quarters is whether Somalia or at least swathes of it will now become a training ground and haven for al-Qaeda types or by contrast, whether a comprehensive victory for the Islamic movement would offer a chance of stability, irrespective of the political ideals of the victors and no matter how authoritarian they may be.
Already, American officials, whose insti nct is to smell al-Qaeda in every Islamic political fermentation, are nervous at what they see. The Muslim radicals are already enjoying a support across the country's intricate but crucial clan lines. Many children in Mogadishu are already been educated in Muslim schools and with a dose of anti-America propaganda. Already, the Muslim radicals under the platform of a union of Islamic courts have seemed to achieve the unity of purpose and discipline, reminiscent of the Talibans in Afghanistan, the Koranic students militia who trained in the neighbouring Pakistan and whose stunning military victory with the tacit support of American intelligence ended the fractious fighting of the Afghan war lords.
The ruthless authority of the Talibans were at first welcomed as better than the deadly chaos of the quarrelsome Muhjahideen, who jointly brought down the soviet backed Afghan regime but could not find any other purpose to work together. If the Somalia Islamic radicals are perceived in this light by the fidgeting Americans, then , some many pretences could be found to neutralise them, especially as the American establishment has vowed the "war against terror" as the principal reason for their incompetence at home. But whatever the image, Washington may have made of the Islamic radicals, Mogadishu secular war lords are simply metaphor for chaos and indiscipline.
Earlier this year, they formed a self-proclaimed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and counter terrorism, with the aim of deterring the bourgeoning influence of the Islamic movement and perhaps catching one or two al-Qaeda suspects, who might have been hiding in the chaos of Mogadishu. That, they calculated would improve their standing and win them more backing from Washington. Already, several sources have claimed authoritatively that the America's Central Intelligence (CIA) have been funnelling money to the war lords with disastrous results. Reports say how European diplomats were "aghast at what the Americans were doing", with the same reports continuing at how "some in the state department and the CIA privately bemoan what they see as both the half-heartedness of the operation and failure to foresee its messy results." Already, an American diplomat based in Nairobi that oversees the Somali politics for the state department has been fired from his post, ostensibly for speaking too much.
One result of American meddling in Somali politics on the side of the hated war lords is that Washington has become too unpopular in Mogadishu now more than ever. American flags are been burned even in quieter parts of the city and anti-American rhetoric is finding a wider audience. Memories are been revived of 1993, when 18 American soldiers were killed in Mogadishu after the downing of two helicopters and several hundred Somalis were killed, mostly by Americans, during the rescue attempt. America has also been widely blamed both inside Somalia and among exile groups and dip lomats in neighbouring countries for egging on, the warlords who have been accused of sparking the gun battles that have flared up off and on in northern Mogadishu, for the past month. Some 350 fighters and civilians have been killed, and at least 2000 wounded, reports say.
One of the two hospitals in Mogadishu been run by the international committee of the Red Cross which is struggling to bring in medical supplies has been taken over by a warlord militia. However, there is hope that a comprehensive victory for the Islamic movement in the South would at least restore order and perhaps give Somalis a sustained period of respite for the first time since the collapse of the General Said Barre regime in 1991 after 30 years in power. Observers believe that if food, medicine and cash can now be brought in, Somalis may at last be able to start rebuilding their devastated and long ravaged capital.
It is widely believed that much will depend on how the Islamic movement conducts itself and how they are received both within and outside Somalia. So far they have shown that they are not Talibans and has been acting with considerable restraint, promising to restore law and order. As mark of being effectively in control, they have reduced the number of check points and reopened the port. Reports from the capital say that many of its residents, believe that the Islamic radicals are less brutal and greedy than the warlords they have displaced. Nobody actually is missing the warlords.
Meanwhile, the Muslim movement are doing their best to distance itself from any remote association with the al-Qaeda. In a letter sent last week to embassies in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, they strongly deny harbouring terrorists, disavow terrorism and even invite diplomats to come and see for themselves. As a step to shed any toga of Puritanism and exclusivity, they have hinted at a willingness to negotiate with the feeble transitional government in Baidoa, even promising to offer it three or four cabinet posts, including those previously held by the secular warlords sacked for their part in the fighting in Mogadishu.
However, as part of such accommodation, the Islamic movement would be expected not to impose sharia law on Somalia at least under a transitional government of national unity. Meanwhile, nobody is mentioning elections and it is not expected to be on the card, soon. If eventually, a modicum of peace did break out, Somalia would still be a patchwork state - but more or less a functional one for that matter. By every stretch of comparison since 1991, that would be an improvement.
The recent violence, which ended in the victory of the Islamic movement, has been concentrated in Mogadishu, in the country's southern third. Much of the rest of the country, however, have been fairly steady. To the north, the self proclaimed breakaway state of Somali land (once British Somali land, the rest of Somalia being run by Italy until its defeat in the Seco nd World War) has been fairly well governed . It has a chance of erecting its statehood, especially if it drops its claim to a chunk of Somalia's autonomous north-eastern bit, known as Puntland which may have oil. Other towns elsewhere such as Kismayo in the South has been fairly self-governing, but it is very obvious that the Islamic movement, seeking the widest possible national consensus would not accept the secession of the self-proclaimed Somaliland.
There is wide apprehension that if the Islamic movement's olive branch is not reciprocated, it might become hardened and seek help from anywhere in a bid to consolidate power. Americans, still wielding influence on the defeated warlords might as well urge them to snub the Islamic movement. But that would be a terrific short sightedness, though a creative vision is not at all, a characteristic of the current occupants of Washington. Should the Islamic movement be pushed to isolation and desperation, the modicum of law and or der restored in the wake of their conquest of the ravaged
Mogadishu, two weeks ago, could easily give way to the return of political impunity and repression as they would naturally take all measures to consolidate their military victory. It would not be in Washington interest to stoke the fire of chaos in Mogadishu. It is better to hold somebody accountable even if he is not a friend, than to promote a vacuous theatre, in which all characters play out without a rule not to talk of a referee. An order in Mogadishu even enforced by Islamic radicals, viewed with suspicion is better that the chaos of the past 15 years or so.
Posted on Friday 23rd June at 12:49:32 Somali Deal Calms Tensions, But Obstacles Remain
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A deal to avert confrontation between the Somali interim government and Islamists who control Mogadishu have calmed fears of new fighting in the Horn of Africa country for now -- but many tough issues stay unresolved.
The two sides signed an agreement in Khartoum on Thursday to suspend military and propaganda campaigns, recognise each other and meet on July 15 for more talks in the Sudanese capital.
The move was welcomed by diplomats and analysts, worried about the worsening relationship between the Islamists, who seized Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords on June 5, and Somalia's weak but internationally recognised government.
"It's a step in the right direction -- there was a real risk that the two sides were going to end up fighting," a Western expert on Somalia said. "It's a sign of pragmatism on both sides -- good will is stretching it a bit far."
Both parties have yet to address a range of sensitive issues such as foreign peacekeepers, power-sharing and the government's return to the capital from its temporary base in the provincial town of Baidoa. Some were sceptical about the Khartoum deal.
"These are just empty talks, both groups are still receiving arms shipments, training their forces and preparing for war, it is just an international relations exercise," a U.N. expert, who closely follows Somalia, told Reuters.
RADICALS UNHAPPY?
An Islamic Courts Union spokesman said Thursday's deal might anger some radicals within the diverse movement comprising 14 courts of moderate and hardline influence.
"When they see their people shaking hands with those people (government), they are not pleased," said Nairobi-based spokesman Abdurahman Ali Osman.
"They might try and put more conditions because what they want to see is (President) Abdullahi Yusuf on the run."
A spokesman for the government -- formed in neighbouring Kenya in 2004 in the 14th attempt to restore central rule to Somalia since 1991 -- was upbeat.
"We welcome the outcome of the meeting and view it as an important step towards ending the 15 years of anarchy in our country," Abdirahman Dinari said in Nairobi. "We wish to thank the Islamic courts for their commitment and desire to engage with the government ... we assure them of our commitment too."
Diplomats say building trust will be a major challenge after a flurry of accusations and counter-accusations between the two sides following the Islamist victory in Mogadishu.
The Islamists have accused Ethiopia, Yusuf's main backer, of sending 300 soldiers across the border and rejected the government's proposal for foreign troops in Somalia.
The government, on the other hand, has accused Muslim fundamentalists around the world of backing the Islamists who now control a swathe of southern-central Somalia.
Mogadishu residents said a large, Islamist-backed demonstration was being organised for later on Friday, after prayers, in support of the Khartoum pact.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Posted on Friday 23rd June at 12:47:07 Swedish Man Shot Dead In Somalia
A Swedish journalist has been shot dead during a huge rally in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, held to back Thursday's peace agreement.
A BBC correspondent says a lone gunman shot the Swedish man through the heart in a crowd of thousands of people.
The deal was agreed by the interim government and the Islamist group which controls the capital.
Both sides have agreed to recognise each other and stop fighting, but some key issues remain unresolved.
The BBC's Hassan Barise in Mogadishu says nobody was expecting a deal after only one day of talks in Sudan.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said it was a "positive development" and urged both sides to continue talks.
Our correspondent says the seven-point deal makes no mention of the question of whether foreign peacekeepers are needed, which has sharply divided the two sides.
Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf wants peacekeepers but the Union of Islamic Courts is strongly opposed - especially to any involvement of troops from Ethiopia, which is seen as being close to Mr Yusuf.
Another issue not addressed is whether the Islamists will join the interim government.
The Islamic courts leader has said the movement does not want to establish its own government, but our correspondent says many Somalis feel that it does.
'No extremism'
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir described the accord as "the beginning of the end of conflicts in Somalia."
The two sides also agreed to stop "media campaigns" against each other and to meet again on 15 July, when the outstanding issues may be addressed.
In a statement, Mr Annan urged "the two parties to remain engaged in dialogue to promote peace and national reconciliation" and commended the Arab League for its mediation.
President Yusuf was in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for the talks but the agreement was signed by Foreign Minister Abdullahi Sheekh Ismail.
Afterwards, he embraced Islamic scholar Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, who led the Union of Islamic Courts team along with deputy chairman Sheikh Husein Mohamud Jumaale.
Mr Yusuf said: "We have no interest in shedding any blood, and we will seek every possible way to preserve the life of the Somalis.
"This is your chance to end the suffering and start developing. Take my advice, and be aware: war leads nowhere."
Mr Ibrahim moved to calm fears that the Union of Islamic Courts could provide a safe haven for Islamist fighters.
"There's no extremism in Somalia and no terrorist element in Somalia. Anyone who wanted to check this, he can come and see with his own eyes," he said.
There have been fears of conflict between the Islamic courts, which control much of southern Somalia, and the interim government, based in Baidoa, 200km north of the capital, Mogadishu.
These fears increased last weekend after the Islamists said Ethiopian troops had crossed the border, apparently in support of Mr Yusuf's government.
International pressure is mounting for both sides to negotiate a peaceful settlement and to establish Somalia's first effective national government for 15 years.
Posted on Friday 23rd June at 12:44:58 Somaliland: President Hunting Support from Five African Nations
Somaliland’s president is on a tour of five African countries, trying to gain more support for his breakaway region. President Dahir Riyale Kahin is visiting Tanzania Friday after a stop in Kenya earlier this week. His other stops include Zambia, Rwanda and Uganda.
Professor Iqbal Jhazbhay is an expert on the Horn of Africa at the University of South Africa. From Johannesburg, he spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about the reasons for the Somaliland president’s official visits.
“It’s clear that the head of Somaliland, President Kahin, had submitted a formal application for membership of the African Union. He recently met with the chairman of the African Union, Professor Alpha Konaré. And as part of the diplomatic initiative and a follow-up on the African Union’s fact-finding mission to Somaliland last year, the president of Somaliland is undertaking a regional tour.”
Jhazbhay says that Kahin was invited to visit Kenya this week by President Kibaki, and indications are the meeting went well. “I think the regional states as well as the international community are open to seeing how they could really promote stability, state building and democracy on the Somali coast.”
The South African professor says the AU may be willing to consider membership for Somaliland, because the region conforms to old colonial boundaries, similar to southern Sudan and Eritrea, which have been looked upon favorably by the AU. He calls Somaliland an example of “home grown democracy,” which may be attractive to the United States as it fights elements of terrorism in the region.
Posted on Tuesday 20th June at 20:42:54 Journalists Group Condemns Shutdown of Radio Station
A reporters' advocacy group has condemned the shutdown of a Somali radio station and the detention of two of its reporters.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says it is alarmed by the closure of Radio Shabelle in the city of Baidoa on Sunday.
Somalia's transitional government shut down the station after it broadcast a report saying 300 Ethiopian soldiers had crossed into Somalia. Ethiopia has denied the report.
The advocacy group quotes Radio Shabelle's deputy director Mohamed Amiin as saying militiamen entered its premises and detained the two journalists, Mohamed Adawe and Ali Mohamed Saed, for about eight hours. It says the government gave no explanation for its action.
The station remained off the air on Monday. Deputy Director Amiin says the station stands by its report that Ethiopian troops took up positions at Baidoa's airport on Saturday.
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Posted on Tuesday 20th June at 20:40:36 Stop U.S. Meddling in Somalia
IS THE US OUT TO DERAIL THE SOMALI peace process? A better question still would be whether the US is trying to exorcise the ghost of its 1993 debacle by getting back into Somalia through proxies.
These are the issues that need to be addressed if the suspicions aroused by Washington's decision to convene what it refers to as the Somalia Contact Group are to be removed. Also requiring urgent explanation is the surprising decision by the US to exclude regional nations that have played a key role in attempts to bring peace to the failed Horn of Africa nation.
While it is widely accepted that the international community wants a quick solution to the Somalia problem and perhaps this is what informs the new initiative - by Washington - to leave out the countries of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), and Kenya in particular, raises doubts about the seriousness of the effort.
Unless the US is serving a hidden agenda that has little or nothing to do with the interests of the Somali people, choosing to leave out nations that have been involved in seeking a solution for the past 14 years does the entire peace process no good. It merely points to a desire to serve the superpower's geopolitical interests.
If the US is an honest broker, why would it choose to work with Norway, the United Kingdom, Tanzania, the European Commission and the UN - as a mere observer - and not the regional countries?
For it to be effective, any solution to the Somali problem must be homegrown, which is why the African Union mandated Igad to preside over the process, with Kenya as the host.
Admittedly, the Igad peace process has been long and tedious, but Somalia has been without a formal government for 15 years, which makes a quick solution a pipedream.
Any initiative outside that arrangement would be, to say the least, completely unhelpful, if not outright diversionary.
Posted on Tuesday 20th June at 20:38:57 Ethiopian Government Denies Reports of Troops in Somalia
The Ethiopian government says it has not sent troops across its border with Somalia. Over the weekend the Islamic alliance that took control of several parts of Somalia accused Ethiopia of launching a military incursion into the country in support of the powerless Somali transitional government.
Bereket Simon is advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He tells English to Africa reporter James Butty Ethiopia is concerned about the Islamic Alliance in Somalia exporting its fundamentalist revolution.
“As you know, the Somali situation has been always complicated. Recently, the warlords and the Islamic fundamentalists fought and at last the fundamentalists won the war, and they have started pushing in every direction. So it’s the fundamentalists who becoming bold with every passing day, and they are marching forward to the north to the Ethiopian border.”
Bereket says Ethiopia is concerned about the upsurge of fundamentalism in Somalia. He says like the African Union, Ethiopia also supports the federal transitional government in Somalia.
“As you know the transitional federal government was formed after several negotiations that took place in Kenya, and that is the legitimate outcome of negotiations and that’s why the African Union recognizes it as the legitimate government. So Ethiopia fully backs the position of the African Union, and we recognize the transitional federal government of Somalia. We don’t recognize the warlords and we don’t recognize the fundamentalists.”
The Islamic Alliance has also accused the Ethiopian government sending weapons to the federal transitional government. Bereket describes these accusations as blatant lies.
“The Ethiopian government believes that it is the African Union that it is African Union decision that should be implemented. So Ethiopia is not acting unilaterally in this respect.”
By James Butty
Washington, DC
20 June 2006
Posted on Tuesday 20th June at 20:37:59 Another Lesson From The ‘War On Terror’
In March, Tom Porteous warned: ‘Somalia's current predicament provides yet more compelling evidence that if the West is to win its war on terrorism it needs to engage with Islamists, not seek to eliminate them.’ Here is his update.
In Somali terms, the military victory of the Islamic Courts militia in the battle for Mogadishu is a political earthquake as significant and consequential as the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections earlier this year. It also presents the United States and its allies with a similarly clear-cut policy choice.
The choice is this: engage with Somalia's Islamists on the grounds that they are now a crucial political force in Somalia and offer the best chance in years for peace and the reconstruction of a Somali state; or, continue to oppose them and condemn Somalia to more years of violence and absence of government in which terrorism and extremism will thrive.
The capture of Mogadishu marks the emergence of Somalia's Islamists as a primary national political force in the country. It is also now clear that the success or failure of current European and Kenyan backed efforts to reconstruct a peaceful, unified Somali state will depend on the cooperation and inclusion of the Islamists -- something which the sponsors of the peace effort have so far not been prepared to face up to.
In recent years, the Islamists have proved to be the only political movement in Somalia with a genuine national project for state reconstruction. They have also won popular support and legitimacy as the only group willing and able to provide viable and reliable social services, security and justice in the absence of a government or significant international engagement. Somalia's other political movements represent little more than narrow and corrupt clan and personal interests and they have been discredited by the opportunistic and violent behaviour of their leaders. Few doubt that the Islamists will play a dominant role, perhaps the dominant role, in any credible and representative future government.
Until now the United States and its regional allies have sought to marginalise and eliminate the Islamists on grounds of their association with terrorists. Ethiopia, the key US ally in the Horn of Africa, has done much of the dirty work on Washington's behalf. It has sent its troops into Somalia on several occasions since the mid 1990s to dislodge and destroy Islamic militant groups. And in 2001 it organised and financed a coalition of warlords to scotch a regional effort to form a Somali government because of the fears the embryonic administration was under the influence of Islamists.
After 9/11 and the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan Somalia became the focus of US attention as a possible alternative home for Al-Qaeda. These fears have not been realised. The number of known Islamist terrorists tracked to Somalia is actually relatively small. But Somalia has nonetheless been the target of numerous harsh counter-terrorism measures, mostly planned from the military run US counter-terrorism outfit set up after 9/11 in neighbouring Djibouti. In the recent battle for Mogadishu, the CIA was almost certainly backing the coalition of warlords, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, which has now been defeated by the Islamic Courts militia.
This whole strategy has now badly backfired -- and illustrates once again the poverty of US strategic thinking on how to deal with Islamism. As in the Palestinian territories (and in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Iraq for that matter) the United States' focus on security and terrorism in Somalia, together with the ideological orthodoxies of its "war on terror," has led Washington to ignore the complex politics of the country and helped to empower the very same political forces (i.e., the Islamists) it aimed to marginalise or eliminate. It is now reported that US officials who pointed out the shortcomings of US strategy in Somalia were told to shut up or posted elsewhere.
If the United States and its allies continue to thwart the nationalist aims and ambitions of the mainstream Islamist movement in Somalia, it is likely that this will continue to push Somalis towards acceptance of more extremist views, groups and methods. And because of the large number of Somali refugees in Europe and elsewhere, this would have repercussions well beyond Somalia's borders.
Somalia shows yet again that the United States badly needs a strategy to deal with political Islam that moves beyond containment or confrontation. Such a strategy would accept the need to engage with and accommodate mainstream Islamists as a means not only of drawing the sting of Islamist extremism and terrorism but also of addressing the political and social problems of so called "failed states" in the Muslim world like Somalia, Afghanistan and Palestine.
A Somali government dominated by Islamists may not be everyone's cup of tea. Inevitably the chronic violence of Somalia in recent years has bred a fair degree of religious extremism -- again the parallels here with Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are striking. But a government that included Islamists would be a lot better for Somalis, for the region and probably for the United States than no government at all. Supporting the emergence of such a government through the current EU sponsored peace process, which makes the Islamists both responsible and accountable, is the only viable strategy on the horizon.
But US engagement with and acceptance of the Islamists has a cost: compromise and accommodation. As elsewhere Islamists have won credibility and legitimacy in Somalia because they propose serious solutions to domestic political and social problems, and because they articulate popular anger at the coercive policies of the United States and its allies in the Muslim world.
Is Washington ready to listen, to learn and to adjust its policies in Somalia and elsewhere? Probably not yet. But a few more setbacks in the war on terror and that may change. The alternative is for the United States to slip further into confrontation and war with an increasingly (and justifiably) angry Muslim world.
Tom Porteous is a syndicated columnist and author, formerly with the BBC and the British Foreign Office.
Posted on Tuesday 20th June at 20:36:45 Diarrhoea Kills 20 Children In The South
NAIROBI, 19 June (IRIN) - An outbreak of watery diarrhoea in Afmadow District in southwestern Somalia has claimed the lives of at least 20 children during the past 10 days, medical sources said on Monday.
"At least 20 children under the age of five have died in the last 10 days of watery diarrhoea," said Hassan Mursal, a clinical officer of Afmadow District Hospital. Some 50 people were arriving at the facility to seek treatment for diarrhoea every day, he said.
Mursal blamed the outbreak on contaminated water drawn from wells in the area. "We suspect the problem is the water people are drinking, but unfortunately we don't have chlorine to treat the wells. There is little we can do, because we are running out of ORS [oral rehydration salts] and the small children need IVs, which we don't have," he said.
The highest one-day fatality rate was "on 11 June, when nine people - six of them children - died," he said. "I suspect the number [of fatalities] is much higher, because many people don't make it to the hospital and are buried immediately," said Mursal, who appealed for medicines and water-purification kits.
"If they do not come soon, many more people will die," he said.
Posted on Monday 19th June at 19:53:10 Diplomats Mull Peacekeepers For Somalia
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- African and Western diplomats agreed to send experts to study conditions in Somalia before deploying a peacekeeping mission there, African Union officials said Monday, after militias vowing to impose Islamic rule took over the capital of the Horn of Africa country.
Also Monday, there were signs of increasing tension between Somalia's transitional government, which was powerless to intervene in the recent fighting and has called for peacekeepers, and the Islamic militias, who fiercely oppose outside intervention.
"I think we have reached a consensus that we have to move very, very fast on this issue," European Union Ambassador Timothy Clark said after a meeting at African Union headquarters to review the situation in Somalia.
"There is a real sense of urgency that the situation could unravel very, very fast unless there is a muscular response," including sending a substantial force that has the mandate to restore peace and stability in Somalia, he told The Associated Press.
The meeting did not decide when peacekeepers would be deployed because the U.N. Security Council first would have to ease an arms embargo on Somalia imposed in 1992 so that troops can carry arms in that country without violating international law, said Assane Ba, spokesman for the African Union's conflict management department.
The gathering was attended by members of the African Union's executive body, the commission, representatives of the seven-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development that leads peace efforts on Somalia and U.N., EU, British, Swedish, Italian diplomats.
The meeting in the Ethiopian capital follows an international meeting the United States convened last week in New York in response to the Islamic militia's growing power. That meeting concluded with the U.S.-organized group of nations lending its support to Somalia's transitional government and demanding unfettered access so aid groups can help Somalia's impoverished people.
The United States has been criticized for allegedly backing warlords against the Islamic group, which was seen as undermining the transitional government.
"We want the support of the United States of America quickly. ... Our government needs stability and support," Somalia's foreign minister, Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail, said after the meeting.
Islamic militia consolidates hold
Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other.
The Islamic group portraying itself as capable of bringing unity and order after 15 years of chaos has seen its militias emerge victorious across southern Somalia, including the capital, in on-and-off battles since February against an alliance of secular warlords. More than 330 people, most of them civilians, were killed in battles leading to the Islamic militia's June 6 capture of Mogadishu.
Since then they have run the warlords out of at least two other southern Somalia towns, further consolidating their hold on the region of Somalia that has seen the worst violence in the past 15 years.
Somalia's weak transitional government, which had not had a role in the recent fighting and has no real military, has a foothold in the southern Somali town of Baidoa. The transitional leaders hope to assert their authority through negotiations with the Islamic group, known as the Islamic Courts Union, but a vote by its parliament last week endorsing foreign peacekeepers angered the Islamic leaders.
Somalia's transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf told the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Somali service that he would only open talks with Islamic Courts after they withdraw militias to Mogadishu, lay down their arms, recognize his administration and accept the transitional constitution.
The leader of Somalia's Islamic group, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, on Monday rejected the conditions, adding his group would not open dialogue with the government if it continues to press for peacekeepers to be deployed in Somalia.
The diplomats said dialogue was key.
"The emphasis so far has been on getting the transitional federal government to have dialogue with the Islamic Courts. We are discussing deployment, but we will not make a decision ourselves on deployment today," Mohammed Ali Foum, the African Union's special representative for Somalia, told the AP during a break in Monday's meeting.
U.S. diplomat talks to Ugandan leader
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer held talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on events in Somalia. Uganda and neighboring Sudan are expected to send the first contingent of peacekeepers to the anarchic nation.
Museveni and Frazer agreed that the international community should coordinate initiatives to stabilize Somalia. They also "affirmed the need to continue support for the Somali Transitional Federal Government and the need to prevent Somalia from being a safe haven for terrorists," according to a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Uganda's capital, Kampala.
The Islamic group's Ahmed said Saturday that 300 Ethiopian soldiers had entered the country to help the transitional government. Ethiopia is Somalia's traditional rival, but also a supporter of Somalia's transitional president, Yusuf.
An adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi denied Ahmed's claims, but said his government had massed troops along the border and was monitoring the Islamic militants' advance across the country.
Ministers of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an East Africa group, on Tuesday imposed a travel and banking ban and asset freeze on Somali warlords and said that their governments will draw up a list of individuals and groups to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
On Friday, the African Union's Peace and Security Council said it endorsed those decisions.
Posted on Monday 19th June at 19:52:25 Islamists ban films, World Cup
Militiamen loyal to Somalia's Islamic courts raided cinemas, switched off the generators and expelled audiences watching the World Cup, before announcing that showing Western films in public had been banned, officials said on Monday.
A day before Islamic Sharia law took effect in Jowhar, about 90km north of Mogadishu, heavily armed Islamic fighters, led by the notoriously hard-line Sheikh Abu Muslim, shut down all public cinema halls until further notice, effectively barring public watching of World Cup matches.
"We ordered all the cinema halls in Jowhar to close temporarily. In principle, we are against watching of Western films, but we shall consult to see if we can allow watching of the remaining matches in the World Cup," said Sheikh Ali Hassan of the Joint Islamic Courts.
He said the ban, at the moment, applied to public cinema and not household televisions. But not all residents own TVs and satellite dishes to relay the matches from Germany.
Jowhar's football fans reacted furiously.
"If the situation continues like this, we shall demonstrate against it," protested Bashir Ali (25).
"We do not like these Islamists because they are banning us from watching football. We welcomed them warmly after they chased away the warlords, but what they are doing now is unacceptable," added Yusuf Mohamed.
On Sunday, Islamic leaders in the capital Mogadishu issued a special waiver to allow watching of the World Cup, a week after they barred the tournament, saying some of its elements, notably alcohol advertisements, were evil.
The bar had prompted violent protests in which two people were shot dead.
But the hardliners, who routed United States-backed secular warlords from the capital earlier this month, retained a ban on films that show "pornography, drug dealing and any form of evil", after much negotiating with cinema owners and residents.
In the past two weeks gunmen loyal to the Islamic Courts have routed the warlords from Mogadishu and Jowhar after four months of clashes that killed at least 360 people and wounded about 2 000.
Last year, the courts started to close cinema halls, arguing that they were showing productions of both Bollywood and Hollywood, which contravened their strict interpretation of Islamic teachings.
Somalia pulled out of international sporting events after the country plunged into anarchy following the violent ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. -- AFP
Posted on Monday 19th June at 19:48:58 Warlords Flee Capital
In Somalia, Islamic Militia leaders say the last remaining warlords have fled the capital, Mogadishu, following their defeat by the Islamic Courts militia. If the reports are true, the departure of the two men, Musa Sudi Yalahwo and Bashir Raghe, will effectively rid Mogadishu of warlords; they were among a group of brutal faction chiefs who have ruled the lawless capital since the fall of Mahamed Siad Barre in 1991. Voice of America English to Africa reporter Douglas Mpuga spoke with Mohamed Dare, a news editor with RadioAfrik in Mogadishu, about whether warlords are gone.
"The warlords left last night, they escaped by boat," he said. Dare said the warlords' destination was not known but their followers were gathering to discuss moving forward and to announce a new Islamic party for the clan of Musa Sudi, one of the warlords.
Mohamed Dare confirmed that with their departure, Mogadishu is now free of warlords. He said the Islamic militias welcomed the development because they think the departure of the warlords will bring peace and stability.
Mohamed Dare said that Ethiopian forces had gathered at the border and some had actually entered the country and clashed with residents. Although Ethiopian officials admit their troops are deployed along the border, they deny reports of conflict with civilians. Dare said residents at the border had seen the Ethiopian troops, but could not estimate how many there were. He said the Islamic Courts Militia have vowed to fight any foreign force that enters Somalia.
Let us know what you think of this report and other stories on our website. Send your views to AFRICA@VOANEWS.COM, and include your phone number. Or, call us here in Washington, DC at (202) 205-9942. After you hear the VOA identification, press 30 to leave a message. We want to hear what you have to say!
By Douglas Mpuga
Washington, DC
19 June 2006
Posted on Monday 19th June at 19:47:52 Bleakest Malnutrition Situation In Somalia In Years
Nairobi
Recent outbreaks of fighting and the worst drought in a decade have pushed many people in Somalia to their limit, creating the bleakest malnutrition situation in years, WFP and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have warned.
Somalia Country Representatives Zlatan Milisic of WFP and Christian Balslev-Olesen of UNICEF said this alarming situation was compounded by the difficulty in reaching the 1.7 million people in Somalia who needed help in the wake of last season’s devastating drought.
Current malnutrition rates are acute. At 23 percent they are well above the 15 percent that signals an emergency. In southern Somalia, five surveys since January found that one fifth of children under five were so malnourished they needed supplementary or therapeutic feeding.
Targeted feeding
An estimated 58,000 children need targeted feeding but current programmes reach fewer than 10 percent of these children.
With insecurity and access issues having hindered efforts to expand these programmes, both Milisic and Balslev-Olesen said it was essential that WFP’s general food distributions continue without any delay.
They called on Somali authorities, donors and others to take urgent action over the next 10 weeks to get food and other assistance through to those most in need.
“August to September is the earliest that we can expect any harvest from the current rains – until then many children and families will continue to have nothing,” Milisic said.
Long recovery
“And for pastoralists whose animals died in the drought, it means little. For them, recovery will take much, much longer. This is not an optimistic outlook.”
Balslev-Olesen said the rising malnutrition rates showed clearly the effects of the drought that hit Somalia and the Horn of Africa when last year’s rains failed – made worse in many areas of Somalia because fighting and rampant insecurity blocked access with desperately needed assistance.
“We must act now,” said Balslev-Olesen. “The present calm, following weeks of fighting, offers an opportunity that the Somali and international communities must grasp to get assistance to thousands of malnourished children and their families” he added, explaining that UNICEF nutritional supplements for children had to be delivered together with general food assistance from WFP for whole families if they were to be effective.
Difficult environment
Milisic said WFP has so far in 2006 delivered 32,000 metric tons of food assistance to 1.15 million people in southern Somalia – the area worst affected by the drought – as well as a further 4 metric tons to people in northern areas.
Although this in itself was a major achievement in one of the most difficult operating environments in the world, he said WFP and its partners were well aware that more was needed.
Somalia’s plight was also slipping out of sight, he said, with the start of the rains in April leading some people outside the country to assume that the worst of the crisis was over.
“There is a perception that once the rains start, the drought’s effects are washed away – but that just isn’t the case, especially for pastoralists,” Milisic said.
Rainy season
Though there could be no proper assessment of the rainy season until late June or early July, early indications were not overly promising, Milisic said.
“Normal or somewhat below normal rains are what the experts are pointing to at the moment,” he said.
WFP needs US$42 million to give food aid to 1.1 million people in the south for the remainder of this year because of drought and provide the full food basket in its rations including corn-soya blend, pulses and vegetable oil -- to prevent a further deterioration in the nutritional status of people likely to remain reliant on food aid for the coming months.
And, WFP targets another 1.1 million people in other parts of the country with ongoing livelihood support activities.
So far this year, WFP in Somalia has received generous contributions from Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Turkey, Sweden, Britain’s Department for International Development, the United States, the United Nations and private donors.
UNICEF needs $4 million in additional funding for nutrition and related interventions.
Posted on Sunday 18th June at 19:50:04 Madaxweyne Dhan Oo Qaran Inuu Yidhaahdo Wax La Iigu Yeedhay Garan Maayo Oo Waan Iska Tagaya Waa Ayaan Darro".. Weraysi Axmed Siilaanyo
Wergeyska Maalinlaha ah ee Haatuf ayaa shallay weraysi dhinacyo badanleh wuxuu la yeeshay Guddoomiyaha Xisbiga KULMIYE Axmed Maxamed Maxamuud Siilaanyo, haddaba weraysigaasi oo dhinacyo badan taabanaayey ayaa u dhacay sidani:
Axmed Silaanyo ugu horeyn mar la weydiiyey sida uu u arko socdaalka madaxweyne Rayaale uu ugu baxay Kenya, waxa uu yidhi “Marka u horeysa anigu wax war ah oo aan ka hayay safarkiisaa iyo dadweynuhu toona may jirin, maanta uun baa lagu war helay inuu madaxweynuhu tegay, wareysigii BBC-dana waan dhegaystay, waxaanan u arkaa in ay ayaan darro tahay in madaxweynaha dalku mar walba si qarsoodi ah uu dalka uga baxo oo marka madaarka uu ka baxayana uu laba erey yidhaahdo, marka uu ka soo degana uu laba eray yidhaahdo, marka uu baxayana ummadda si cad uguma sheego hawsha uu u baxayo sida ay ku timid iyo waxa uu u baxayaa wax ka rabo toona, marka dambena si kaafi ah oo tafaftiran oo xog u noqota dalka iyo dadka uma sheego, marka horena wada tashi balaadhan kama sameeyo safarkiisan uu maanta u baxay Nairobi, sidii jawaabihiisu ahaayeen ama isagu qirtay waxa uu sheegay inuu madaxweynaha Kenya marti-qaaday oo uu u yeedhay, markii la weydiiyey wadciga qarsan ee ka taagan Somaliya oo aanay wax badani kala cadayn miyaad la kulmaysaa C/laahi Yuusuf iyo dawladiisa, Maya buu ydhi ee la kulmi maayo ee aniga waa la ii yeedhay oo waan tegayaa.
Haddaba, madaxweyne dhan oo qaran inuu yidhaahdo waxa la iigu yeedhay garan maayo oo madaxweyne kalaa ii yeedhay, dabadeedtana waan iska dhaqaaqayaa oo waan tegayaa wax la isugu yeedhayna ma ogi, horta waa ayaan-darro aad u weyn, hadii sida tuhunku yahay ama hadal hayntu tahay in lays tusayo ama si toos ah ha loo xidhiidhiyo ama si dadban ha loo xidhiidhiyee, madaxda ka socota Somaliya waajibku waxa uu ahaa inuu wada tashi balaadhan ka sameeyo dalka gudihiisa oo golayaasha leh oo axsaabta leh oo dawlada leh, madax-dhaqmeedyada leh, arimahan oo in badan ayay axsaabta mucaaradka iyo dadweynuhuba ay odhan jireen markii shirka Imbagaati furmay halkaa arrimo ina khuseeya ayaa ka soo socda, in laga tashado miyaan loo baahnayn, waxa la odhan jirey wax shuqul ah oo ay inagu leedahay ma jiree, yaan dadka la marin habaabin, imika maxaa keenay halkaasaan tegayaa, haduu la kulmayana inuu sheego ayay ahayd oo uu yidhaahdo cidaasaa lay tusayaa, haduu ogyahay sow inuu weydiiyo may ahayn, hadii uu madaxweyne meel u baxayo meesha uu u baxayo, waxa uu ka hadlayo, cida u yeedhay waa inuu sii ogaadaa oo uu ka war-qabaa, ummaddiisana runta u sii sheegi karaa, ummaddan marka la baxayo wax laga qarinayo, marka la soo noqdana sheeko macaan oo haasaawe ah oo wax walba waanu ku guulaysanay ah loola imanayo isaga oo aan waxba u sheegin oo la yidhaahdo wax waliba way inoo hagaagayaan, ama la marin habaabiyo waa ayaan darro. Waxaan qabaa tan maanta taagani waxyaabihii hore ee baayac-mushtar iyo scholar ship aynu weydiisanay tababar iyo nal baanu weydiinay, arintani maanta way ka duwan tahay. Arinta ka taagan Somaliya waa xaalad cakiran oo xasaasiya, waa arin u baahan inta aanu madaxweyne meel u boodin aynu hubsano siday wax u dhacayaan, wada tashi aynu ka galno, iyada oo dadweynuhu wada tuhunsan yihiin waxa loogu yeedhay inay la xidhiidho kulamo noocaas ah.
Ta kale, waxa jira dalka arimo xaasaasi ah, arimihii shidaalka ka taagan, tii guurtidaa taagan, waxaad moodaa inuu ina Rayaale maalinba maalinta ka sii dambeysa uu xadhkaha sii goosanayo, in aanu shicib, baarlamaan, dawlad, wax iskaga tirinayn, laba todobaad ka hor arin ayaan-darro ah ayaa ka dhacday degaanada Daroor, dadka halkaasi deganina dhaqan ahaan iyo dhalasho ahaanba Hargeysa iyo Daroor way isku xidhan yihiin, arinta halkaa ka dhacday gurmad badan oo dhinac kasta layskaga yimid ayaa laga galay, weli kamaan maqal madaxweynaha Somaliland Daahir Rayaale Kaahin isaga oo ka yidhaahda xitaa inta uu koonfur ka yidhaahdo inuu yidhaahdo, walaalayaal is-daaya kamaan maqal, isaga oo sidaa leh, maxay daaran tahay ma waxaanay istaahilin inuu madaxweynuhu wax ka yidhaahdo, mise waa si kale, anigu waxaan aaminsannahay, maanta hawlahan halkan u yaala madaxweynaha Somaliland, malaha isaga dhibaato kuma hayaan ee dadkuun bay damqayaan, anigu waxaan qabaa talaabooyinkaa is-daba jooga ah ee uu qaaday inay dadka ku abuureen werwer iyo niyad jab inay ku kordhinayso.
Waxa maanta loo baahan yahay doorkii shicibka, waxaa la soo ururiyaa dad lagu kharash garaynayo lacag oo la yidhaahdo sidaa dhaha, dadka is-yidhaahda muujiya dareen kaa ka duwan, waxa la yidhaahda nabadgelyaday duminayaan, shicibku haduu xaqa u hiilinayo waa inuu barbar istaagaa mawqifka baarlamaanku uu qaato iyo distoorka qaranka, waxa muuqata inuu ina Rayaale ka badheedhay inay wixiisa oo kali ahi sharci yihin oo aanu distoorka waxba u arkayn”.
Mar la weydiiyey Axmed Siilaanyo, sida uu u arko dhacdadii uu ciidanka bileysku ku gadooday, waxa uu yidhi “Waxay ahayd ceeb iyo kashifaadii ugu weynayd ee dawlada ku dhacda, waxaas oo kale waa waxyaabaha ay dawladuhu isku casilaan, waxaynu ognahay shidaalkan la yidhi caalamkii buu ka kacay, waxaanad moodaa inuu ummaddan wax kasta loola imanayo oo aanay diirayn”.
Mar la weydiiyey mudooyinkan dambe xisbiga UCID inay isku soo dhowaadeen labadooda gudoomiye, iyaga oo awal kala aragti duwanaa, waxa uu yidhi “Waxaan filayaa inay keentay in aanu dalka u wada damqanay, dalka xaaladiisu halkay maraysaa noo muuqatay, dareen isku mid ah noo muuqday, dalkii inay digtaytarnimo ka socotaa noo muuqatay, danta dalka iyo aayaha ummadda na midaysay oo aanu u midownay”.
Mar la weydiiyey rajada uu ka qabo inuu madaxweyne Rayaale la kulmi doono madaxda xukuumada Imbagaati, iyo hadii arimahaasi uu ku talaabsado waxa ay yeelayaan, waxa uu yidhi “Horta arimahaasi sharci baa ka yaala, horena waxa uu u yidhi arki maayo, isaga oo arintaa ku kaca mooyee, anigu waxba ka odhan maayo, balse hadaad iweydiisay waxa laga fili karo ina Rayaale, wax waliba way ka suurtoobaan oo intaa u dhaafi maayo”.
Source: Wergeyska Haatuf.
Posted on Friday 16th June at 11:00:41 Maxkamad Islaami ah oo laga hirgeliyay Gobolka Hiiraan oo meel fagaaro ah looga dhawaqay.
Kulan ballaaran oo lagu qabtay meel fagaaro ah oo ka tirsan Gudaha magaalada Beledweyne ayaa markii ugu horesay looga dhawaaqay maxkamada Islaami ah oo sida la sheegay la wareegi doonta Guud ahaanba Maamulka iyo nabad-galyada Gobolka.
Kulanka ku dhawaaqista maxkamadda oo ay ka soo qeyb-galeen dhamaanba inta badan shacabka ku dhaqan magaalada Beledweyne ee xarunta Gobolka Hiiraan, Culimaa'udiin, Qaar ka mid ah mas'uuliyiinta maamulkii hore ee Gobolka, Odayaasha dhaqanka, iyo wax-garad kale ayaa waxaa hadallo kala duwan ka soo jeediyay Qaar ka mid ah Xubnaha Ururka la magacbaxay, Golaha Midnimada iyo iyo Bad-baadada Ummadda soomaaliyeed oo iyagu sheegay in xiligan dalku marayo marxalada tii ugu wanaagsaneyd maadaama dadku qaatay in lagu dhaqmo Shareecada Islaamka oo sida hadalka loo dhigay gobolka Hiiraana uu taageeray.
Shiikh Faarax Maalin Maxamuud oo ah Guddoomiyaha Maxkamadda Cusub ee lagu dhawaaqay ayaa sheegay in shacabka ku dhaqan Gobolka Hiiraan wax badan ay ku soo daaleen ku dhaqanka wax aan aheyn shareecada Islaamka oo salka ku haya sida uu yiri sharciyo dadku iska sameystay, laakiin Ilaah mahaddii wixii xiligan ka dambeeya ay garteen in ay qaataan ku dhaqanka Shareecada Islaamka oo ah waxyaabaha laysku xukumo tan ugu wanaagsan.
Shiikh Faarax Macalin waxaa uu intaas ku daray in aysan dooneyn in ay cid-gaar ah ku dulmiyaan dhismaha maxkamadda laakiin ay tahay uun fikir dadku gartay, waxaa uu hoosta ka xariiqay in marnaba aan cidna lagala tashan doonin arinta ku saabsan sugida nabad-galyada oo ay hanan doonaan ciidamada Maxkamada.
Dadka ka soo qeyb-galay kulanka ku dhawaaqista maxkamadda ayaa intii ay socdeen qudbadaha muujinayay dareen taageero iyagoo ku dhawaaqayay kalmado ay ku soo dhaweynayaan dhismaha maxkamda, waxaa xusid mudan in kulanka aysan ka soo qeyb-galin Guddoomiyaha Gobolka Yuusuf Dabageed, iyo kan degmada Aadan Garaaso oo labaduba ku sugaa Xiligaa gudaha magaalada.
Dhanka kale ciidamo ka amar-qaata maxkamada cusub ee lagu dhawaaqay ayaa saacaadihii aynu soo dhaafnay la wareegay goobihii muhiimka ahaa ee magaalada sida Saldhigii Booliska, Gaalshirihii degmada, Buundada kala barta magaalada iyo Goobo kale, iyadoo sidoo kalana la arkayo dhaq-dhaqaaq aad u balaaran oo ay ka sameynayaan Gudaha magaalada, laakiin waxaa ay dadka ku wargaliyeen in aysan wax qal-qal ah muujin gaar ahaan goobaha shaleemooyinka ah oo qaarkood markii ay bilaawdeen dhaq-dhaqaaqyada ciidamada albaabada loo laabay.
Howl-galka ciidamada maxkamadda islaamiga ah ayaa waxaa jira fikrado kala duwan oo uu dadku ka muujinayo, Qaar ka mid ah dadka ayaa arintan la xiriirinaya in ay ka dhalatay qabsashada magaalada Jowhar, islmarkaana la doonayo in sidoo kale Gobolka lagu soo dhaweeyo mas'uuliyiinta midowga maxkamada, halka dadka qaarkiina ay qabaan in arintani tahay mid culimadu iskeed u qaadatay oo aysan jirin cid ay gacan saar la leeyihiin, walow qaar ka mid ah culumaa'udiinka ku dhawaaqday maxkamadda Islaamiga ah ee gobolka Hiiraan ay sheegeen in ay soo dhaweynayaan howlgalka ay bilaabeen Midowga Maxkamadaha.
C/raxmaan Diini, Hiiraan Online
Posted on Thursday 15th June at 10:58:09 Interview with Abdulahai Dahir, coordinator of Somali Reunification Women's Union
NAIROBI, 14 June (IRIN) - Abdulahai Dahir, coordinator of Somali Reunification Women's Union (SRWU), works with displaced people in Bosasso. He tries to dissuade would-be migrants from risking the sea crossing by showing them graphic photographs of those who died attempting it. His organisation also helps distribute food to about 3,000 Ethiopians who are stranded and homeless in the port.
QUESTION: Why does Bosasso have such a huge number of displaced people in need of care?
ANSWER: Bosasso holds a huge population from various corners of the region. Movement of people started in 1992, when the Somali government collapsed. The majority of people who fled were IDPs [internally displaced persons] from the southern part of the country. But there are also foreigners, and they come because of the port. Now the majority of foreigners are Ethiopians, but previously Ethiopians were far less than Tanzanians and migrants from Asia.
Q: Many of these people get on small boats and die tragically at sea. What are the Bosasso authorities doing about it?
A: This tragedy cannot be stopped, for many reasons. First of all, there are so many people coming from Ethiopia, but nobody really knows what's behind it. Why is it happening? We have seen more and more coming from the various borders around Puntland.
You can see the Ethiopians are coming in a poor condition. They are not coming comfortably - they are coming by foot, by road, about 700 to 800 kilometres. So what we understand is that Bosasso is not their main destiny, not their goal. Their main aim is to travel to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, where they hope to get a better life and better job opportunities.
Q: Does the international community have a responsibility here?
A: The only way the international community can intervene in this situation is to assist with the local administration and provide vital facilities and resources to tackle the problem, to train police and coast guards. We have to raise awareness so that people know of the dangers.
We get numbers of the deaths on the Yemeni beaches, and we go to the displaced camps and we tell people, we show pictures of the bodies. Since we started showing them, I think the numbers are decreasing. So many are youths, you know, they don't know anything. But we know there are some experienced and ruthless people backing it - saying you can go and get good jobs, have a good life - and encouraging them to take the risk.
Posted on Wednesday 14th June at 19:45:48 Warlords Flee As Islamists Seize Key Warlord Town
Mogadishu/Nairobi - Militias allied to the Islamic Courts Union Wednesday seized control of the town Jowhar where an alliance of secular warlords had earlier retreated after losing control of the Somali capital Mogadishu to the Islamists a week ago, local news reports said.
The fall of the last bastion of the anti-terrorism alliance, located some 90 kilometres from Mogadishu, has thrown the allegedly United States-supported alliance into freefall with at least three of its leaders on the run, according to Radio France Internationale (RFI).
Meanwhile, a key alliance leader, Abdi Hassan Aweile Qeidi, reportedly defected to the Islamists after six East African states imposed travel bans and asset freeze sanctions on all the warlords after a hastily-convened meeting Tuesday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Kenya, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Uganda are all members of the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which was founded in 1986 to tackle common drought-related problems, but has since become the vehicle for dialogue on regional security and politics.
These developments come a day before a planned US-led meeting of the so-called Somalia Contact Group to be held in New York Thursday.
IGAD states have welcomed the meeting but voiced their concern that neither the African Union, IGAD nor the fledgling Somalian transitional government had been invited to the event.
The Horn of Africa nation has been carved up into anarchic fiefdoms by warlords since since the overthrow of dictator Siad Barre in 1991.
'We hope that the next meeting will invite Kenya, Ethiopia and IGAD states as the solution will be easier with collaboration from the affected region,' Raphael Tuju, Kenyan foreign minister said.
Four months of fighting between the warlords and the Islamists for the control of Mogadishu has led to some 300 deaths and the displacement of thousands more.
While the United States has not denied or confirmed its support to the warlord alliance, it has voiced concern of possible links between the hardline anti-Western Islamist courts to the Al-Qaeda terror network.
Posted on Wednesday 14th June at 19:41:05 Country in Plea for a Peace Force
The Transitional Government of Somalia has appealed for an international peacekeeping force in the wake of the recent flare-up of violence in the capital.
It warned that the situation could deteriorate into a catastrophe if urgent measures were not taken.
Prime Minister Ali Gedi at the same time accused the international community of paying lip service to the conflict in his country by adopting a "wait and see" position.
"The fighting in Mogadishu has worsened the dilemma. The development in Somalia is leading to another catastrophe, " Gedi told an emergency ministerial Inter-Governmental Authority on Development meeting in Nairobi yesterday, which was convened to address the crisis in Somalia.
"It is painful to witness the destruction taking place in Somalia and yet the international community has adopted a wait- and-see position. The Somalia people feel this is, punishment," lamented Gedi.
He warned that unless the international community took action immediately, "the issue of Somalia will become a regional and global problem."
He said his Government was ready to hold dialogue with the Islamic militia and other forces committed to restoring peace to the country torn apart by decades of civil war.
Kenya's Foreign Affairs minister Raphael Tuju reiterated Nairobi's position to bar Somali warlords from seeking refuge in the country and he urged other nations in the region to do the same.
"Kenya is not going to allow people to operate in the country when they are creating chaos in Somalia. We will share the same message with IGAD member states and the rest of the region," he said.
The European Union Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Luis Michel said the Commission supported peace initiatives spearheaded by IGAD, adding that the Somalia conflict should not be allowed to spill over. "The time for divisions and symbolic gestures has ended. We must move from mere moral support to effective tangible results," he said.
IGAD executive secretary Attalla Bashir supported calls for the deployment of a peace support mission saying the devastating consequences of the war were regrettable.
Posted on Wednesday 14th June at 19:38:01 Fighting Erupts Around Jowhar Outskirts
Reports from Jowhar Township in Somalia middle Shabelle Region indicate heavy fighting broke out around Borrow village some 15KMs away from the Jowhar.
The fighting erupts between Islamic Courts that advanced on the Town and militiamen loyal to Mohamed Dhere, Anti Terror member warlord who controls the town.
No more details are available yet but reliable sources in Jowhar told Shabelle Radio that heavy gun fire is heard in the Town while evacuation has already started
The fighting also started around several frontlines including Jowhar airport surroundings some fifteen KMs away from the town.
Posted on Wednesday 14th June at 19:36:53 Doctors Without Borders Says Childhood Malnutrition is Up
The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says there’s been a sharp increase in the number of severely malnourished children in south-central Somalia.
Doctors Without Borders says in the past two weeks, many children have been treated at its therapeutic feeding center in Dinsor, in Somalia’s Bay region. Xavier Simon is the group’s head of mission there.
“In 2005, we used to admit about 10 kids per month. Over the last two weeks we admitted between 70 and 80 kids per week,” he says.
Simon says it’s not because of the recent drought.
“There is food available in the market, but some people cannot afford it. So we cannot say that there is no food anymore. There is a lot of food in the market, but some families, especially nomadic families, have almost no resources. They’re just relying on camel meat. Most of the time it’s not enough to feed all of the family,” he says.
More than 330 children are currently being treated at the Doctors Without Borders therapeutic feeding center in Dinsor.
“There are two different phases (of treatment). There is phase one and phase two. Phase one is for very malnourished children with associated disease. And phase two is when they’re starting to be better and they are not sick anymore, but still malnourished,” he says.
Simon says children go through a continuing cycle of malnutrition and disease, such as malaria, TB and diarrhea.
The next harvest is not expected until July, so he expects the high malnutrition rate among children in south-central Somalia to continue for weeks to come. Conflict has left the country without a functioning health system.
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By Joe De Capua
Posted on Wednesday 14th June at 19:35:36 Somali Warlords Slapped With Sanctions
East African states on Tuesday imposed travel sanctions and froze the bank accounts of Somali warlords who have been blamed for igniting the latest round of deadly fighting in the capital, Mogadishu.
A ministerial meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc key to the formation of Somalia's transitional government, agreed to catalogue "all those involved in the use of illegal arms" and recommended they should be "subjected to legal international process for prosecution for crimes against humanity".
The sanctions, which took immediate effect, include imposing a travel ban and freezing the bank accounts of all warlords, with the exception of those who surrender, and open dialogue with the powerless Somali administration, according to an official communiqué.
In apparent reference to Washington's backing of the weakened warlords, IGAD countries, namely Uganda, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and nominally Somalia, urged the "members of the international community not to offer official or non-official unilateral support to any party" in Somalia without consulting IGAD and the federal government.
The sanctions will affect warlords -- some of whom are members of the Joint Islamic Courts -- who have families and business interests across the region, officials said.
Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju said imposing sanctions was the only way to restrain the United States-backed warlords, who are reported to regrouping in northern Mogadishu and their remaining stronghold of Jowhar, 90km north of the capital.
Kenya was the first regional country to slap sanctions on the warlords. Last week it deported prominent Mogadishu businessman Abdirashid Shire Hussein, accused of financing the US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT).
Previous attempts to implement such sanctions have foundered, with some IGAD members accused of taking sides in the intricate Somalia conflict and violating the 1992 arms embargo.
In addition, the ministers agreed that the arms embargo should remain in place, but exemptions should be made to allow the government to establish law and order.
Yemen has offered to mediate dialogue between the Joint Islamic Courts' alliance, which last week seized large swathes of the capital from the warlords, and President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's government.
Talks launched a fortnight ago collapsed over the weekend when the hard-line Islamists pulled out in protest at the government's proposal for the deployment of peacekeepers in Somalia.
European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel said the world must empower the Somali government, based in the regional town of Baidoa, about 250km north-west of the capital, if stability is to return to Somalia.
"The time for divisions, polemics and symbolic gestures has ended. We must move from mere moral support to effective tangible results," Michel told the ministers.
Outgoing US ambassador Willam Bellamy said Washington, which has been chided for its covert operation in Somalia, is willing to help Kenya restore peace in the shattered Horn of Africa nation.
"We need to help Somalis start serious reconciliation processes," Bellamy said. "The US and Kenya want to see [that] dialogue and reconciliation are achieved in Somalia."
Nearly 350 people were killed and more than 2 000 wounded, many of them civilians, in four months of bloody battles in Mogadishu before the Islamic militia routed the ARPCT. -- AFP
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 18:51:43 Islamists Deny attacking Baioda
The Chairman of Somalia Joint Islamic Courts announced he has no intention of attacking Baiodoa, the temporary seat of the Transitional Government.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Axmed, Chairman of Somalia Joint Islamic Courts
Sheik Sharif sheik Ahmed has denied reports indicating armed Islamic militias are heading to Baidoa where the government is based.
"That is totally pure propaganda, we don't need to attack or interfere Baidoa". Sheik Sharif said adding that Baidoa locals have to decide their faith.
"We should not support foreign Peace keeping forces in Somalia but we have no the intention of waging attack on Baidoa" he said.
In an interview with Shabelle Radio, Sheik Sharif also stated that attacking Jowhar, the only warlord strong hold left is not on the agenda at this stage.
"We have given chance to their local clan elders" he said referring to the warlords left in parts of Mogadishu."We should not support foreign Peace keeping forces in Somalia but we have no the intention of waging attack on Baidoa" he said.
In an interview with Shabelle Radio, Sheik Sharif also stated that attacking Jowhar, the only warlord strong hold left is not on the agenda at this stage.
"We have given chance to their local clan elders" he said referring to the warlords left in parts of Mogadishu.
Mustafa Haji
Mogadishu
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 18:48:28 Renewed Clashes Leave Several Dead
Three persons have been killed and others wounded after fighting broke out between local Clan militias around El-Hur village of Harardhere in Somalia Mudug region.
Armed Vehicle
The fighting erupted yesterday afternoon after militiamen from Sa'ad and Saleban sub-clans exchanged fire until night fall.
Sources in the area told Shabelle that wounds have been taken to hospitals around Harardhere and Hobyo districts, both in Somalia central regions.
There has been local elders brokered peace deal that implemented for the past months, but sources say this fire exchange could result renewed clashes.
The clashes came amid planed meeting by both sides at Hin-Dawao in Harardhere district of Mudug region.
Mustafa Haji
Mudug
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 18:47:09 European Suggests Easing Somalia Embargo
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Diplomats stepped up efforts Tuesday to support Somalia's transitional government after the capital of Mogadishu was taken over by an Islamic militia, with a top European official suggesting easing an arms embargo and regional governments considering sanctions against warlords.
Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed transitional government could only watch from the sidelines last week as a militia of the Islamic Courts Union, which the U.S. accuses of harboring al-Qaida terrorists, battled the warlords and seized Mogadishu.
The militia now controls most of southern Somalia, while northeastern Somalia is run by an autonomous government allied to President Abdullahi Yusuf's administration and central Somalia is controlled by several groups.
Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Affairs, speaking Tuesday on the sidelines of a regional meeting on Somalia, said easing the embargo to allow Somalia to develop a police force and army would be one way for the international community to respond if the government presented a plan for stabilization after more than a decade of lawlessness.
"We have to back ... and to empower the federal transitional government" of Somalia, Michel told The Associated Press.
Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Raphael Tuju told the AP the seven-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, was considering imposing a region-wide travel and banking ban and asset freeze on several Somali warlords. Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's called for the sanctions, apparently fearing more bloodshed should the warlords revive the battle for Mogadishu.
IGAD mediated talks two years ago that led to the formation of Somalia's transitional government.
"I think the time is up," for the warlords and all the chaos in Somalia, said Tuju, whose country already has imposed a unilateral travel ban on four Somali warlords.
Kenya's ambassador to Somalia, Mohamed Affey, said that eastern Africa countries supported the sanctions because they wanted Somali leaders to focus on rebuilding their country.
Somalia, "belongs to them, they must find the moral courage to make it right. If they mess it up, they are unwelcome in the region," Affey said.
Earlier, Michel said that he told Yusuf and Gedi that the international community could help if the government presented a plan to stabilize the Horn of Africa country.
"I told them it was very important to have a stabilization plan," Michel said, adding that could lead to "some exemptions, targeted exemptions on the arms embargo in order to make it possible for the national army to develop itself and also to develop the police force."
Earlier, Tuju told the IGAD meeting that the takeover of Mogadishu was a "popular uprising" and the warlords are people who had "terrorized" the Somali capital for 15 years.
He said that IGAD will continue to support the Somali transitional government.
"We should not allow a power vacuum to develop in Mogadishu," said Tuju, who chaired Tuesday's meeting.
Without naming the United States, Tuju said that the country that had backed the warlords fueled the conflict in Mogadishu and was sabotaging, "the international community in its efforts to assist the people of Somalia to rebuild their country."
Tuju said that IGAD supported the U.S.-led war on terror, but, "the war against terror will only succeed if we work with the governments of the various states and not through individuals or groups who are pursuing narrow self interests."
Gedi told the IGAD meeting that his government was willing to negotiate with the Islamic Courts Union that now controls Mogadishu.
Referring to the United States' backing of the warlords without naming the U.S., Gedi said, "The transitional federal government will not accept and will not support those who may seek to bypass the administration."
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, then turned on one another.
Two years after the transitional government was formed in Kenya, it has been unable to establish its authority in Somalia. It is weakened by internal rivalries and includes many of the warlords blamed for tipping the country into chaos. The Islamic leaders portray themselves as a new force capable of restoring order.
In another diplomatic effort, the State Department said it was forming a Somali Contact Group on Thursday in New York to address the Somalia situation.
Yusuf's government has been unable to enter the capital because of security concerns. He has asked for regional troops to help his government take control of the country, but leaders of the Islamic Courts Union have rejected the idea of foreign troops in Somalia.
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 18:46:08 Somalia PM Gedi Appeals For International Help
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The international community should act in Somalia before the anarchic Horn of Africa country's woes spill over its borders, interim Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi said on Tuesday.
Mogadishu recently witnessed the worst violence in a decade when Islamic militia battled a self-styled anti-terrorism warlord coalition, widely believed to be backed by Washington, and seized the city last week.
"It is very painful to witness this tragedy, and still the international community is in a position of 'wait and see'," Gedi told a meeting of east African ministers of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Nairobi.
The ministers are discussing the recent violence in Mogadishu and the possible deployment of foreign peacekeepers to Somalia.
"The people of Somalia ... feel that this is a punishment," said Gedi. "How many hundreds of innocent civilians have been massacred in Mogadishu in the last couple of months? How many others were wounded? How many were displaced and are still in a desperate situation?"
Around 350 people, mostly civilians, were killed in three months of fighting. Hundreds more were wounded in artillery duels involving mortars and anti-aircraft artillery.
NO EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT
Somalia has been without effective government since former strongman Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, ushering in more than a decade of chaos.
Somalia's parliament is expected to approve inviting in foreign troops and the government, based in the southern city of Baidoa and too weak to enter Mogadishu, has repeatedly said it cannot operate without foreign peacekeepers to provide security.
Even if parliament passes the motion, the proposed force of Ugandan and Sudanese troops cannot go in unless the U.N. Security Council lifts an arms embargo in place since 1992.
The last foreign military intervention in Somalia, by U.S. and U.N. troops, ended with their humiliated withdrawal in 1994.
Gedi appealed to the seven-nation IGAD bloc and the international community for assistance.
"The developments in Somalia are leading to another catastrophe. The transitional federal institutions are doing their best but they cannot achieve alone any tangible result without having other partners ... supporting us," Gedi said.
"If we sit and wait and see, the issue of the Somali people could be out of control. It will not be limited to Somalia, it will be a regional problem, it will be a global problem," he said. "Therefore it is better to prevent then wait for treatment later on."
The interim government, formed in neighboring Kenya in 2004, was quick to make overtures to the Islamic courts after the victory of their militia in Mogadishu.
"We appeal to the Islamic courts to join the efforts of the peace process but the dialogue should be in line with the Transitional Federal Chapter of Somalia, democracy, human rights, free elections and peaceful transition," Gedi said.
By Marie-Louise Gumuchian
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 18:43:56 Somalia's New China Envoy Sweeps Away The Cobwebs
BEIJING (Reuters) - Old typewriters, dusty passports, faded diplomatic pouches, invitations to embassy parties from 1991 and pictures of a man deposed as president 15 years ago -- Mohamed Awil has a lot of stuff to clear out.
Not the normal duties of a senior diplomat in the world's most populous nation.
But as Somalia's new ambassador to China, Awil also has a tougher job ahead of him -- convincing people his country now has a viable central government, is back on track and will soon be open for business again.
The former Swedish trade unionist returned to help his homeland from exile in Sweden in 2002, and for his efforts was rewarded with the ambassadorship to China, with responsibility for affairs in Japan, the Koreas, Australia and Thailand.
Yet Somalia is so poor Awil gets no money from his government back home, which is appealing for international aid. There is only one other Somali working in the embassy, aside from himself, and most of the rooms are empty.
"There was still a picture of Mohamed Siad Barre above my desk when I moved in December," said Awil, referring to the man whose ouster in 1991 marked the collapse of central government in the country of some 10 million people on the horn of Africa.
LEAFY COMPOUND
Somalia has had an embassy in China since 1960, and it still stands on its original site off a leafy road in Beijing's diplomatic quarter, near the Iranian and Argentinian delegations.
Though Siad Barre was deposed in 1991, his ambassador to China stayed on, representing a government which existed no longer and a country that had descended into fiefdoms run by competing warlords.
In October 2004, in the 14th attempt since 1991 to restore a central government, Ethiopian-backed Abdullahi Yusuf was elected Somali president by lawmakers, though they were until recently based in Kenya and do not dare enter the capital.
Awil contends they are a viable and legitimate government, despite widespread scepticism in the international community.
"There is a government. Please stop saying that there is no government," Awil told Reuters, walking around the building. "There is a central institution whether the U.S. likes it or not.
"We have a parliament. We have a head of state," he said, adding that with warlords having been driven from the capital Mogadishu by an Islamic militia, the United States should throw its weight behind the new government.
"America has never supported the peace process. Now they have a chance."
Somalia's interim president has accused Washington of covertly supporting the warlords now swept out of Mogadishu.
PICTURES OF CAMELS
The signs of the former regime litter the embassy.
Pictures of pre-war Mogadishu and Siad Barre meeting Chinese leaders are piled up in one room, while portraits of the man himself have been hidden in musty cupboards, behind photographs of camels.
In one room sit old passports with visas issued by the long abandoned Chinese embassy in Mogadishu.
In another can be found the grey diplomatic bags that were once carried to the capital by European airlines that years ago stopped landing in Somalia.
Awil says for now the priorities of his government are rather more mundane than looking for investment from Chinese companies.
"Our priority now is peace and security," he said. "When we have security, the door is open for any country."
And one day perhaps, Chinese tourists will flock to Somalia, Awil added, pointing out that the Chinese admiral Zheng He visited the Somali coast 600 years ago on one of his voyages of discovery.
However, since December the embassy has only issued about 15 visas, for business.
"We can't guarantee your safety," he said of tourist trips.
Not that having a visa issued by his government would be much use, as airstrips all over the country are under no single authority and many charge their own visa or landing fees, often at the point of a gun.
Somaliland, in the northwest, broke away in 1991 and has been run as a de-facto independent state ever since.
A blip, insists Awil.
"Other cities and regions are with the government," he said. "There is no problem outside the capital."
For the time being, Awil is redecorating the embassy, cutting back the weeds and sorting through the files left by the previous diplomatic residents. He hopes a large but desolate reception room, decorated with a few scattered seats and some wobbly shelves, will be ready for Somali National Day in a few weeks.
In the garden, which grew unchecked for 15 years, the ambassador himself made a bid at cutting back the trees and bushes. But they had come back, leaving the grounds a marked contrast to the manicured gardens of more affluent Beijing embassies.
"We have a gardener no
By Ben Blanchard
(c) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 18:42:23 Somali Mps Begin Debate On Peacekeepers
Baidoa, Somalia - Somali lawmakers began debating on Monday whether to allow peacekeepers from a regional grouping into the lawless country, which has not had an effective central government for 15 years.
Two weeks ago, Islamic militias took control of the capital, Mogadishu, after defeating secular warlords in fighting that has been on and off since February and has left more than 330 people dead, many of them civilians.
Parliament's debate, taking place in Baidoa, 250km northwest of Mogadishu, follows the Cabinet's approval of such a move on May 21 to improve security in the Horn of Africa nation.
On Monday, the Islamic Courts Union chairperson, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, told the British Broadcasting Corp's Somali service that Islamic militias would oppose any peacekeepers entering Somalia.
The regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development group, or IGAD, which mediated talks to form Somalia's UN-backed transitional government, is set to have an unscheduled meeting Tuesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to discuss developments in Somalia.
Louis Michel, the EU's commissioner for development and humanitarian affairs, is also scheduled to hold meetings in Nairobi with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, the current chairman of IGAD, and Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
In its May 21 meeting, the Cabinet backed only peacekeepers from Uganda and Sudan in a bid to overcome earlier hostility from lawmakers who last year voted down a similar proposal because it could have allowed troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti to be part of such a mission.
The lawmakers argued that the neighbours could not be neutral because they had engaged in previous wars or clashes with Somalia.
In February 2005, the Cabinet asked the African Union and Arab League to send between 5 000 and 7 500 troops with a one-year mandate to protect the government as it organises a police force and army.
The African Union endorsed that decision and authorised IGAD to set up the mission. IGAD has offered to send peacekeepers if Somali leaders agree on a proposal.
Somalia has been without effective government since 1991, when largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another. The transitional government, weakened by internal rifts, has made little progress toward asserting any authority in the country.
Allowing peacekeepers into Somalia was among the issues that divided the Cabinet last year. Some warlords-turned-ministers said that Somalia did not need outside help. They went to Mogadishu to prove they could make it secure, but have not succeeded.
Parliament and the government now meet in the southern town of Baidoa.
Since the peacekeeping proposal was first raised, security has deteriorated further in Mogadishu.
One of the secular warlords who lost control of Mogadishu to the Islamic militias vowed Sunday that the battle for Mogadishu was not over.
However, it was unclear how many fighters and weapons the defeated alliance had, and many of the US-backed warlords remain in hiding.
The threat came a day after Islamic fighters stopped showings of the World Cup soccer tournament, one of the first signs that the fundamentalist force now controlling nearly all of southern Somalia could install strict Islamic rule.
Muse Sudi Yalahow said that his group of secular warlords was regrouping to fight the Islamic militia, whom he accused of having ties to al-Qaida. US officials have said they supported the warlords' fight against Islamic leaders sheltering three al-Qaida leaders indicted in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
The warlords' leader is believed to be in Ethiopia seeking reinforcements.
The Islamic militias are controlled by the Islamic Courts Union, which is a fragile alliance of radical and moderate Muslim groups from different clans. On Saturday, its leader, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, denied that he wanted to impose a Taliban-style government and said: "We will accept the views of the Somali people."
Ahmed said no one in his organisation had connections to al-Qaida.
"American concerns are based on misconception," he said. "They used to take information from warlords... Islamic courts do not harbour foreign terrorists." - Sapa-AP
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 18:40:16 Midowga Maxkamadaha oo sheegay in duulaan aysan ku aheyn Baydhabo
Midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga ayaa sheegay in aaneey wadin dhaq dhaqaaq ciidan oo ku wajahan magaalada Baydhabo, oo ay sal dhigatay dowladda Meel KG ah ee Somalia.
Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed
“Waa been abuur hadalada sheegaya ayuu yiri Gudoomiyaha Midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed in ay wajahan yihiin xarunta gobolka Baay ee Baydhabo oo fariisin u ah dowlada C/laahi Yuusuf.
Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed oo xalay u waramayay Barnaamijka qubnaha Shabelle ayaa yiri” waxaanu Dhowreynay niyad wanaag ka yimida inta laga wada hadlayo dowladda Meel KMG ah ee Somalia, iyadoo ay u cuntamiweysay sida muuqata kulankii shalay ee Baarlamanka Somalia ay ku yeesheen Baydhabo, ee looga doodayay ciidamo shisheeye oo soo gala dalka Somalia, aaqirkiina heshiis la’aan ayay ku kala dareereen mudanayaasha Baarlamanka oo maanta loo balamay si ay u sii ambaqaadaan go’aan ka gaarista ciidamo shisheeye oo dalka yimaada, xilli ay dowladda Mareykanka ay qabanqaabineyso kulan khamiista soo socota ka dhacaya magaalada New-york oo heer danjireyaal ah looga hadli doono arimaha dalka Somalia.
Iyadoo hadalka Sheekh Shariif sheekh Axmed ee is hortaagidda ciidamo shisheeye oo yimaada Somalia ay caqabad ku tahay hankii uu qabay Madaxweyne C/laahi Yuusuf.
Gudoomiyaha Midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga ee Muqisho waxa uu yiri “Inta ay ku hadaaqayaan dagaalka waxaa wada sida ay qabaan wadaado mayal adag iyo kuwo daroogo ka ganacsada”
Waxaa kale uu sheegay Baydhabo qorshaheeda dadka jooga ayaa laga rabaa , isagoo aan muujin qorshahaasi waxa uu yahay, isagoo sheegay in dowladda FS ay tahay mid lagu soo doortay hab qabiil, ayna aheyn mid dimuquraadi ah, go’aankana uu leeyahay shacbiga.
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 12:43:03 Madaxweyne C/laahi Yuusuf oo magacaabay taliyaha nabad sugidda
Mogadishu 13 June. 06 Madaxweyanaha Somalia C/laahi yuusuf ayaa maalintii shalay aheyd u magacaabay taliyaha ciidamada nabad sugida Soomaaliyeed Sarkaal la sheegay in uu ka soo jeedo Maamul goboleedka Puntland.
Madaxweynaha Somalia
Sarkaalkaan oo lagu magacaabo Col. Daraawiish, kuna heyb ah Madaxweyne C/laahi Yuusuf ayaa warar hoose oo laga helay magaalada Baydhabo waxa ay tibaaxayaan in Madxweynaha uu magacaabay sarkaalkaan xilli uu ka dhoofayay garoonka diyaaradaha ee Baydhabo.
Col. Daraawiish oo ahaa sarkaal ka tirsan ciidamada xoogga dalka heeystana darajo Colnel ayuu Madaxweyne C/laahi Yuusuf u dalacsiiyay generaal, ka dib Markii uu u magacaabay Taliyaha nabad sugidda.
Madaxweynaha Somalia ayaa horey ugu Magacaabay Taliyaha ciidamada Booliska Soomaaliyeed Gen. Cali Madoobe oo ay isku heebyihiin, iyadoo tanina dad badan ay u arkaan mid xad gudub ku ah nidaamka awood qeybsiga beelaha oo ay ku dhisan tahay dowladda FS.
Waxaana magacaabista taliyahaan ay ku soo beegmeysaa xilli dhowaan Madaxweynaha Somalia maleeshiyadiisa ay la wareegtay gacan ku heynta magaalada Baydhabo.
Posted on Tuesday 13th June at 12:42:18 U.S. To Hold Somalia Meeting In New York Thursday
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - The United States will host an international meeting on Thursday in New York to discuss Somalia and how to support its interim government after Islamists took over the capital Mogadishu last week.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United Nations, Sweden, Norway, Britain, Italy and Tanzania had agreed so far to attend the first meeting of the so-called Somalia Contact Group and other countries might join the discussions.
We will be "talking about how the international community and, in particular, these countries might coordinate their policies, might bring together their political, diplomatic and perhaps other resources to try to help support the transitional federal institutions in Somalia," said McCormack.
Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991 and an interim government established in late 2004 is too weak to enter the capital where militia loyal to Islamic courts seized control a week ago.
The interim government, which has met members of the Islamist side in Mogadishu, has repeatedly said it cannot operate in the lawless country without the help of foreign peacekeepers to provide security to the interim leaders.
But a senior Islamic judicial official warned Somalia's interim government that talks on the country's future would be broken off if its parliament invited in foreign peacekeepers.
A State Department official said he had not heard any discussion about the issue of international peacekeepers being on the agenda of Thursday's New York meeting.
Posted on Monday 12th June at 18:50:12 Madaxweyne Rayaale Iyo Wefdigii Uu Hogaaminaayey Oo 12:00 Duhurnimo Caga Dhigtay Magaalada Nairobi Arbacadana La Kulmaya Mwai Kepaki
Madaxweynaha Jamhuuriyadda Somaliland iyo wefdigii uu hogaaminaayey oo maanta ka ambabaxay magaalada Hargeysa ayaa isla maanta waxay gaadheen magaalo madaxda dalka Kenya ee Nairobi, waxaana halkaasi ku soo dhaweeyey wasiiru dawlaha arrimaha dibadda ee dalka Kenya, jaaliyadda reer Somaliland ee ku dhaqan dalka iyo weliba suxufiyin ku sugna madaarka uu madaxweynahu ka degay, waxaanu madaxweyne Rayaale la kulmi doona dhigiisa dalka Kenya Mwai Kepaki maalinta arbacada ah, haddaba warsaxafadeed uu ku saxeexanyahay wasiirka warfaafinta ahna isagu afhayeenka wefdigani madaxweynaha oo goor dhawayd soo gaadhay xafiiska wararka ee Somaliland.Org, lagagana hadlaayo arrintani ayaa isagoo dhamaystiran wuxuu u qorna sidani:
‘’Madaxweynaha Jamhuuriyadda Somaliland iyo weftigii uu hogaaminey ayaa 12:45 daqiiqo ka degay Magaalada Nairobi ee Dalka Kenya, halkaasi oo ay ku soo dhaweeyeen Saraakiil sar sare oo uu horkacayo Wasiiru Dawlaha Madaxtooyada. isla markaana ah u qaybsanaha arrimaha gaarka ah, wax kaloo ka mid ahaa dadkii soo dhaweeyay Madaxweynaha Wasiirka Maaliyadda oo beryahanba ku sugnaa Dalka Kenya iyo Jaaliyadda Somaliland ee ku nool Dalka Kenya iyo madaxdooda, isla markaana waxa ku sugnaa Madaarka Saxaafadda Maxaliga ah iyo ta Dibadda, halkaasi oo Madaxweynuhu ku siiyey Saxaafadda ujeedada Socdaalkiisa. Madaxweynaha iyo weftigiiisa oo uu halkaa kaga biiray Wasiirka Maaliyadda. Weftiga waxa rasmiyan loo dejiyey hudheelkii Xukuumaddu ugu tala gashay inay deganaadaan weftigu intay ku sugan yihiin dalka Kenya.
Madaxweynuhu, wuxuu la kulmi doonaa Madaxweynaha uu martida u yahay Mudane, Moi Kibaki Maalinta Arbacadda, isagoo martiqaad rasmiya u fidiyey Madaxweynaha JSL.
Allaa Mahad Leh
Cabdillaahi Maxamed Ducaale
Wasiirka Wasaaradda Warfaafinta JSL
Posted on Monday 12th June at 12:45:07 Wada Hadalada Wajigii Labaad Ee Odayaasha Labadii Beelood Ee Ku Dagaalamay Degmada Daroor Oo Maanta Si Rasmi Ah U Furmay
Waxaa Maanta Magaalada Daroor Ee Kililka Shanaad Ee Ethiopia ka furmay wajigii labaad ee wada hadalo ay si toos ah u yeelanayaan odayaasha iyo waxgaradka laba beelood oo reer Somaliland ah oo deegaanka daroor dagaalo dhawaan ugu dhex mareen, sida uu Somaliland.Org u xaqiijiyey Maanta Maxamed Cabdilaahi Xuseen oo khadka Telefonka magaalada Daroor aanu kula xidhiidhnay waxaa labada dhinac oo ay dhex socdaan odayaal, waxagarad, cuqaal iyo salaadiin aan ka mid ahayn labada beelood ay iskugu yimaadeen goob galbeed kaga toosan magaalada Daroor oo si fiican loo goglay halkaasi oo ay isku soo horfadhisteen labada dhinac, waxaana beeshiiba hore looga dhex doortay 50 Xubnood oo masuul ah oo hore loo dhaariyey.
Dhex dhexaadinta iyo is waafajinta doodda labada dhinac ayaa waxaa si habsami ah ugu gar naqaaya xubno iskugu jira Salaadiin, Cuqaal, Odayaal, Nabadoono iyo siyaasiyiin aan iyagu ka tirsanayn labada beelood ee walaalaha ah ee iyaga dagaalku hore u dhex maray, oo laga soo xulay dhammaanba beelaha Somaliland, waxaana maanta guddidani dhex dhexaadka ah ay soo uruuriyeen qodobada looga duulaayo wada hadalkani, iyadoo labada dhinacba la hor dhigay ajandaha ka dibna la dhegaysanaayey doodaha garnaqsiga iyadoo qodob qodob loo xeerinaayey, waxaana labada dhinac ka muuqday sida uu noo soo tabiyey Maxamed Cabdilaahi Xuseen oo ka tirsan suxufiyiinta ku sugan goobta uu shirku ka socdo degenaan iyo laab wanaag ay beel weliba beesha kale u hayso, sida la filayana waxaa maalinta berri ah la sii ambaqaadi doonaa xallinta iyo isku garnaqsiga labada dhinac oo ay goob joog dhex dhexaad ah ka yahiin guddida beelaha kale ee reer Somaliland laga soo xulay, waxaa todobaadkii hore iyaguna Hargeysa iyo Burco ka ambabaxay ergo ka kooban 40 xubnood oo iyagu ku sugan hadda magaalada Daroor kana qayb qaadanaya xallinta iyo wada hadaladani, ergadani oo iskugu jiray labada beelood ee xalka laga dhex wado iyo beelaha kale ee reer Somaliland.
Waxaa Dagaal muddo todobaado ah ka hor ku dhex maray deegaanka Daroor laba beelood oo reer Somaliland ah, iyadoo sida la sheegayana khilaafku uu ka bilaabmay markii labada dhinac ay isku qabteen baraago kuwa biyaha laga cabo, waxaana dagaaladaasi ku dhintay dad tiradooda lagu qiyaasay 50 Qof halka dhaawacu uu ku dhawaa 60 Qof.
MOHAMED ABDI HASSAN (DIRIDHABA)
Posted on Monday 12th June at 12:29:50 Baarlamanka Somalia oo kulan adag leh maanta
Baydhabo 12 June. 06 Baarlamanka Somalia ayaa saakay lagu wadaa in ay ka doodaan ciidamo shisheeye in dalka La keeno, ka dib markii qoraal xukuumadu soo diyaarisay oo lagu dalbanayo ciidamo shisheeye shalay laga hor aqriyay Baarlamanka Somalia.
Baarlamanka Somalia
Xubnaha Baarlamanka FS ayaa maanta ku balansan hoolka shiraraka ee xarunta ADC ee magaalada Baydhabo, iyadoo ajandaha kulanka uu yahay qorshaha amniga qaranka, waxaana kulankaan uu salka ku hayaa kulankii shalay dhex maray baarlamanka oo lagu soo bandhigay decumentiyo qeexaya qorshaha amniga qaranka iyo suurto galnimada ciidamo ka socda dalalka Afrika in la keeno Somalia.
Kulankaan oo ah mid ka duwan kulamadii hore ee Baarlamanka ayaa lagu wadaa in ay soo xaadiraan inta badan mudanayaasha jooga magaalada Baydhabo, waxaana horyaala qodob adag oo keeni kara in isbadalo uu ku keeno Baarlamanka sidii kal hore ka dhacday Nairobi oo dagaal la isku adeegsaday kuraas uu ku dhex maray Xildhibaanada.
Gudoomiyaha Baarlamanka Somalia Shariif Xasan Sheekh Aadan ayaa shalay u sheegay mudanayaasha in maanta labada subaxnimo ay yimaadaan, iyadoo kulanka maantana uu ku soo beegmayo xilli Madaxweynaha Somalia iyo Ra'isulasaaraha ay safar dibadda ah ugu ambabaxayaan si ay uga qeybgalaan kulan looga hadlayo arimaha Somalia.
Max'ed Cadaawe
Posted on Monday 12th June at 12:26:52 Midowga Maxaakiimta: Wax wada hadal ah lama galeyno dowladda FS
Midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga ee inta badan gacanta ku dhigay awooda caasimadda Somalia ayaa ku goodiyay in aanu wax wada hadal ah la galeyn dowladda FS ee fadhigeedu yahay magaalada Baydhabo, tan iyo inta ay ku fikireyso ciidamo shisheeye oo dalka yimaada.
Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed
Gudoomiyaha Midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed oo ay hareer fadhiyeen Culuma udiin ka tirsan Maxkamadaha islaamka ayaa waxa uu caawa shaaca ka qaaday in dowladda Somalia haatan Maxkamaduhu wax meel la dhigi karin, wada xaajoodkii la filayayna uu noqdey mid hakad ku yimid, ka dib markii Maxkamadaha islaamka ay dareensadeen hadal dowladda Maanta ka soo yeeray fadhigii ay Baarlamanku yeesheen oo la xiriiray in dowladda ay ka fikireyso qorshe ciidamo shisheeye dalka lagu keeno.
Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed ayaa tusaale u soo qaatay ciidamada shisheeye dalalka ay tageen iyo dhibaatooyinka wali ka taagan, isagoo aan tilmaamin Somalia hadii ay yimaadaan waxa dhici kara ayuu sheegay in horey Somalia dhibaatooyin ciidamo shisheeye markii ay yimaadeen ay kala kulmeen.
Waxa uu sheegay in tani ay meesha ka saareyso isku soo dhawaasho bilow ah oo u dhaxeeyay Midowga Maxkamadaha iyo dowladda FS.
Waxa uu sheekhu tilmaamay in loo baahan yahay in baarlamanka uu muujiyo mas'uuliyad.
Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed ayaa waxa uu sheegay in loo baahan yahay in la ogaado ciidamada shisheeye markasta oo ay yimaadaan dal dhibaatooyinka ay geeystaan, isagoo sheegay in ciidamada dowladda ay ku fikireyso uu ku jiro dowlada Ethiopia, waxaana uu sheegay in Ethiopia laf ahaanteeda ay Somalia cadowtooyo badan ay kala dhaxeyso.
Tani Waxa ay meesha ka saareysaa rajadii laga qabay isku soo dhawaashaha dowladda iyo Maxkamadaha, iyadoo aan la ogeyn waxa ay ku keeni karto fikirka baarlamanka oo Berri ka hadli doona qorshe dowladda u soo gudbisay oo ah in ciidamo shisheeye la keeno dalka.
Maanta ayaa fadhigii baarlamanka laga hor aqriyay qoraal ay soo gudbisay xukuumadda FS oo ku aadan sidii ciidamo shisheeye oo Afrkan iyo carab ah loo keeni lahaa dalka somalia.
Posted on Sunday 11th June at 12:27:51 Islamic Victors Must Decide Somalia's Future
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Islamic militants in Somalia have succeeded where the United Nations, the United States and a gallery of warlords and clan elders failed: They have, for now, brought peace to Mogadishu.
But having defeated a U.S.-backed alliance of secular warlords, they must unite a country whose political, religious and clan divisions have rendered it lawless, destitute and a hideout for al-Qaida terrorists and criminals for 15 years.
Success may depend on who prevails among the victors themselves: religious moderates who want to restore traditional Somali society or those seeking a strict, Taliban-like Islamic republic.
"These guys are battling internally to decide whether to go for a draconian, sharia law-based administration or whether they're going to be generally laissez faire," said John Prendergast, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group, which monitors conflict zones.
"If they come down hard on social and political rights, you're going to see a backlash against them."
The country they are fighting over is in dire shape.
Mogadishu -- the capital where an estimated 1.2 million people live and made famous by the book and movie "Black Hawk Down" -- has degenerated into a huge, looted shanty town since the last effective central government collapsed in 1991.
Public buildings have been dismantled brick by brick, and people live in improvised tents on the old foundations after being driven from their homes by often senseless violence.
Most families cannot afford to send their children to the few formal schools that exist, so they attend ad hoc training led by local Islamic clerics. An entire generation has little knowledge of the outside world.
What they do know of the outside world may be what their elders have told them about Western intervention, some of it disastrous. Identity is based on family and clan, with little national allegiance.
For Mogadishu's young men, many of whom are illiterate, a career as a freelance gunman working for a warlord has been the best way to guarantee a regular meal and a ration of khat, an addictive, semi-narcotic plant chewed by many Somalis. These militiamen strike terror in average Somalis, sometimes robbing, raping and killing with impunity.
Public support for the Islamic Courts is high because they have brought a semblance of justice and security, though some worry about the consequences.
"I like the Islamic courts because they work on creating a secure environment for our business," local trader Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed said. "But I am worried that they might come up with too much taxation ... they're stubborn because they think everything they say is a holy thing from God."
The fundamentalists have raided bars and destroyed video halls showing risque films. The death penalty has been imposed for a variety of offenses.
Most Somalis welcome the stability brought by the Islamic militants, but they also support the weak, U.N.-backed transitional government currently struggling to assert its authority. They see it as a way to rejoin the international community, which most Somalis consider the best opportunity for prosperity.
Posted on Sunday 11th June at 14:35:27 Warlord Alliance Prepares For An Attack
Witnesses in Somalia's capital Mogadishu have said that the US-backed warlord alliance are preparing to defend their last remaining stronghold in Jowhar from the Islamic militia.
Fighters loyal to a US-backed warlord alliance reinforced their last remaining stronghold in Jowhar, Somalia, on Friday as Islamist militia in control of the capital, Mogadishu, prepared for an attack, witnesses said.
Heavily armed gunmen backed by machine-gun mounted pickups set up barricades and took up positions around the town of Jowhar as hundreds of residents fled on hearing that the Islamists planned to assault the town, they said.
Elders said that alliance militia commander, Hassan Bhisow, ordered the new deployments after reports that Islamic militia were gathering to the south and west of Jowhar, about 90 kilometers north of Mogadishu.
The Islamists had withdrawn from a position close to Jowhar on Thursday after elders persuaded them not to attack but were re-grouping in the towns of Balad and Walewein, according to residents there.
"We got word the Islamist militia were gathering in Balad and Walewein and are ready to attack us, so Bhisow sent enough fighters to villages around Jowhar to erect defences," one elder said.
Alliance fighters were stationed at the nearby Garsale trading post and along the key road leading to Walewein, about 70 kilometers southwest of Jowhar, witnesses said.
Balad resident Ali Hussein said that the Islamic militia was awaiting orders to move on Jowhar despite pledges from their leaders in Mogadishu that they are not interested in pursuing new territorial gains.
"The plan to attack Jowhar is there but nobody exactly knows when it will happen," he said.
Many in Jowhar, the last stronghold of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), said that the Islamist withdrawal from positions to the south was a feint and that the attack would come from the west.
On Thursday alliance commanders vowed a fight to the death to defend Jowhar and 24 hours later tension was blatant with gunmen patrolling the streets and nervous residents packing up belongings to leave, witnesses said.
Alliance fighters said that they were awaiting the return of Jowhar warlord Mohamed Dheere, believed to be in neighbouring Ethiopia securing arms and men, to attack the Islamists in Balad, about 60 kilometers south.
"If they haven't attacked us by the time Dheere comes back, we will definitely go after them," said one gunman.
Nearly 350 people have been killed and more than 1,500 wounded, many of them civilians, in four months of bloody fighting between the alliance and Islamist militia, who earlier this week seized most of Mogadishu.
The capital was largely calm on Friday as most residents attended Friday prayers in the city's mosques, but tensions ran high, particularly in northern areas controlled by the Abgal sub-clan that has rejected the Islamist victory.
Two alliance members, warlords Musa Sudi Yalahow and Bashir Raghe Shirar, are holed up with Abgal elders and have warned that they will attack the Islamists if they attempt to take Jowhar or seize the rest of the city.
Gains by the Muslim militia have sparked fears of a Taliban-like takeover of Somalia, especially in the United States, which accuses the Islamists of harbouring extremists, including Al Qaeda operatives.
The chairman of Mogadishu's Sharia law court coalition Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has denied those charges and this week sought to allay Western concerns that they intended to turn Somalia into a radical Islamic state.
The United States reacted calmly to Ahmed's pledge, but has said that it is reserving judgment on the Islamists and might be willing to work with them if they are truly committed to fighting terrorism.
Washington's concerns manifested themselves in February when it helped the warlords form the ARPCT, giving the alliance cash and intelligence support to hunt down extremists allegedly hiding in Somalia.
The covert program has been highly criticised for fuelling rampant insecurity in an already strife-torn Somalia that has been wracked by chaos since it descended into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.
Middle East Times
Posted on Sunday 11th June at 13:56:35 UN Envoy In Somalia For Talks On Humanitarian Assistance
A top United Nations envoy is currently in Somalia, holding a series of high-level talks on the political situation in the Somali capital Mogadishu, and what humanitarian assistance is needed by the people affected by the recent fighting there.
Ian Steel, the spokesman of the UN political office for Somalia, said on Saturday that Francois Lonseny Fall, the UN Secretary General's Representative for Somalia, is in Somalia meeting local authorities.
According to Steel, Ambassador Fall, who was accompanied by UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Eric Laroche, had met with envoys and senior members of the international community in Nairobi and held discussions with the governor of Mogadishu, who briefed him on the situation in the capital and appealed for humanitarian and medical assistance.
"Ambassador Fall will return to Nairobi on Monday," Steel said by telephone.
Fall is scheduled to brief the Security Council on the situation next week, and this will follow this week's call by the 15-member UN Security Council for all concerned to comply with the arms embargo and avoid any further destabilization in a country that has seen intensifying violence as Islamic forces reportedly took control of Mogadishu after fierce battles with other groups.
Somalia, one of the world's poorest countries with a population of some 8 million on the east coast of Africa, has been without a functioning government ever since the collapse of President Muhammad Siad Barre's regime in 1991.
Currently Mogadishu is the only capital in the world where the UN does not have access for international humanitarian staff, due to insecurity, despite an estimated 250,000 internally displaced living in the city.
Source: Xinhua
Posted on Sunday 11th June at 13:55:38 Somalia May Seek AU Troops
The Somali parliament is meeting in Baidoa to discuss how the ongoing fighting in the country can be brought to an end.
The government has asked parliament to approve a request to bring African Union troops into the country, to help halt the violence and disarm the various factions, Aljazeera's correspondent in Somalia reported on Sunday.
The Somali prime minister is to discuss military support with East African prime ministers at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). If parliament and the East African nations agree to the plan, it will be referred to the UN Security Council, the Somali prime minister said.
The Somali parliament has previously rejected a similar proposal, which involved bringing forces from neighbouring countries, such as Ethiopia and Kenya.
Contact group plan
The head of the Somali Islamist group which seized control of Mogadishu has welcomed US calls for the formation of a "contact group" to support the country.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chairman of Mogadishu's Joint Islamic Courts, backed the proposal to form a Somalia Contact Group, but criticised the US for its support of the local commanders he drove out of the capital last Monday.
Ahmed told a local radio station: "It was wrong for America to support warlords that are unpopular within their community."
Ahmed denied that the Islamic courts were harbouring terrorists, contrary to accusations made by the US.
"The Islamic courts have written to the international community stating their position," Ahmed said, referring to an open letter to diplomats on Wednesday denying accusations that the Islamic courts had links to the al-Qaeda network.
On Friday, Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman, said the contact group would meet this week in New York with other interested states which he did not identify. A senior state department official said these were likely to be Britain, Italy, Norway and unspecified African countries.
Call for surrender
Ahmed has also urged members of the reportedly US-backed, Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) to surrender peacefully.
At least three of the commanders from the alliance are believed to be in the Karan district, where they are protected by a powerful clan and Somali watchers believe they are planning new fighting.
Washington, which has never confirmed or denied its support for the commanders, said it would "reserve judgement" on the Islamists.
Aljazeera + Agencies
Posted on Sunday 11th June at 13:54:45 Dagaal xooggan oo maanta ka dhacay Magaalada Baydhabo
Ugu yaraan 8 ruux ayaa dhimatay, tiro kale oo aan la cayimin-na wey dhaawacmeen kadib markii uu maanta gudaha magaalada Baydhabo dagaal qaraar ku dhexmaray maleeshiyooyin deegaanka ah iyo kuwo ilaalinayay aqalka uu degan yahay Madaxweyne C/llaahi Yuusuf Axmed.
Dagaalka labadan Maleeshiyo ayaa wuxuu dhacay kadib markii maleeshiyo deegaanka ah oo deganeyd agagaarka xarunta ADC-da ay is-af-dhaafeen maleeshiyo ku heyb ah Madaxweynaha oo ka soo baxay Xerada Mannaas oo magaalada Baydhabo 35km u jirta, kuwaasi oo aakhirkii labo qori ka qaatay Maleeshiyooyinkii isbaarada u taalay agagaarka Xarunta ADC-da.
Kadib waxaa lagu soo waramayaa in maleeshiyooyinkii labada qori laga soo qaatay ay weerar ku qaadeen maleeshiyooyin ilaalo ka ah Guriga Madaxweynaha,halkaasina waxaa ka dhacay dagaal aad u xooggan oo sababay in ay dhintaan dadkaas tirada badan oo uu ku jiray Malaaq Seemow Cabdi Garruun, halka uu dhaawac soo gaaray Xildhibaan Xuseen Afaraale.
Malaaqa ayaa xiliga ay haleeleysay rasaasta uu u geeriyooday waxaa uu ku howlanaa waan waan uu ka dhex waday labada maleeshiyo ee dagaalka dhexmaray, halka Xildhibaanka dhaawacmayna uu waan waanta wax ka waday.
Wararku waxay intaas ku darayaan in xaaladda ay haatan degan tahay, inkastoo mararka qaarkood laga maqlayo halkii dagaalka ka dhacay rasaas ay isku ridayaan labada dhinac oo wax xooggaa laga kala durjiyay.
Waa markii seddexaad oo ay gudaha magaalada Baydhabo ku dagaalamaan Maleeshiyooyin deegaanka ah iyo kuwo ku heyb ah Madaxweynaha, waxaana taasi u sabab ah sida wararku sheegayaan iyadoo Magaalada Baydhabo ay ku wada sugan yihiin labo maleeshiyo oo kala heyb ah isla markaana aan hal meel amar ka wada qaadan.
Salaad Iidow Xasan (Xiis)
Posted on Friday 9th June at 17:28:41 Xisbiga UCID Oo Soo Dhaweeyey Isbedelada Ka Dhacay Magaalada Muqdisho Isla Markaana Tallooyin Usoo Jeediyey
Xisbiga UCID ayaa maanta soo dhaweeyey isbedelada iyo wajiga cusub ee magaalada Muqdisho foodda la gashay, isla markaana waxay usoo jeediyeen kooxaha Maxaakiinta Islaamiga ah ee gacanta ku dhigay magaalada Muqdisho talooyin dhawr ah oo ay ugu horayso in aanay raacin waddooyinkii qaloocna ee kooxahii ka horeeyey qaddiyadda Somaliland ugu sheegan jireen qayb ka mid ah soomaaliya, Guddoomiyaha Xisbiga Ucid Eng. Faysal Cali Waraabe iyo masuuliyiinta Xisbiga UCID oo saaka shir jaraa'id ku qabtay Xarunta Xisbiga ee magaalada Hargeysa ayaa sidaasi ku sheegay.
Guddoomiyaha Xisbiga UCID oo ka akhriyey shirkaasi jaraa'id qoraal ah hadafka uu Xisbiga UCID ka taaganyahay marxaladda cusub ee magaalada Muqdisho foodda la gashay ayaa sheegay in xisbi ahaan ay soo dhawaynayaan isla markaana wuxuu digniin u diray Mudane Faysal Cali Waraabe Qolooyinka gacanta ku dhigay oo uu sheegay in ay dhistaan dawlad xukunta isla markaana hanata dalka soomaaliya iyo dadkeeda, wuxuuna ugu baaqay maxaakiinta Islaamku inay xidhiidhka ka goostaan wuxuu ku tilmaamay Guddoomiyaha xisbiga Ucid maamulka aan meelna ka talin ee saldhigiisu yahay baydhabo, guddoomiyaha Xisbiga UCID wuxuu digniin sidoo kale u diray kooxaha maxaakiinta isagoo sheegay in aanay raacin waddooyinkii kuwii ka horeeyey ee ah in saylac ilaa raaskanbooni ay matalaan, balse ay u aqoonsadaan Somaliland qarran madax banaan oo jiritaankiisa iyo masiirkiisa shacabka ku nooli ay gaadhsiiyeen, waxaa kale oo guddoomiyaha Xisbiga UCID usoo jeediyey wadaaddada maxaakiimta islaamku inay u furaan albaabada baadhitaan caalami ah oo lagu hubiyo ayuu yidhi in argagixiso ku dhuumanayso oo ay joogto magaalada Muqdisho, haddii kale ayuu yidhi xitaa maraykan iska daayo annaga Somaliland ayaanay naga bad baadayn.
Guddoomiyaha Xisbiga UCID wuxuu sheegay in ay diyaar u yahiin oo ay markii horaba seegtay inay isku soo dhaweeyaan fekradaha siyaasiyiinta soomaalida oo ay dhex dhexaadiyaan, balse Guddoomiyaha mar la weydiiyey in arrimahaa uu sheegay ay yahiin qaar faraha la gallaya arrimaha Soomaalida isla markaana waxba kama jiraan ka dhigaya qaddiyadii Somaliland ee hore ee ahayd inaan Somaliland waxba ka khusayn soomaaliya, wuxuu ku jawaabay "maya taasi maaha waa dad aanu jaar nahay oo dhibaatada ka jirta muqdisho annaga ayey saamayn nagu leedahay oo ethiopia ayey saamayn ku leedahay oo jibouti ayey saamayn ku leedahay oo mandaqadda oo dhan ayey saamayn ku leedahay waana waajib naga saaran in aanu la talino oo aanu wanaagooda u sheegno ayuu yidhi mudane Faysal Cali Waraabe.
MOHAMED ABDI HASSAN (DIRIDHABA
Posted on Thursday 8th June at 17:30:09 Mareykanka oo sheegay in uu wada hadallo la furayo Maleeshiyooyinka qabsaday Magaalada Muqdisho
Wakaaladda Wararka Reuters ayaa shaacisay in Dowladda Mareykanka ay wada hadallo la fureyso Midowga Maxkamadaha Islaamka ee dhawaan ku guuleystay in ay gacanta ku dhigaan inta badan awooddii magaalada Muqdisho, iyadoo taasina ay dowladda Mareykanka u arkeyso is-bedel cusub oo ka dhacay dalka aanu sharciga ka jirin ee ku yaala geeska Afrika.
Hadalkan ay shaacisay Wakaaladda Wararka Reuters oo laga soo xigtay Mr. Sean McCormack oo ka tirsan Waaxda Arrimaha Dibadda dowladda Mareykanka ayaa wuxuu ku soo beegmayaa iyadoo Madaxweynaha Mareykanka George W. Bush uu shaaca ka qaaday in ay si taxadar leh u eegayaan is-bedelka ku yimid Soomaaliya, gaar ahaan Magaalada Muqdisho, isagoo intaas ku sii daray in aaney aqbali karin in Soomaaliya ay noqoto meel ay isku uruursadaan Argagixisada kadibna ay ka qorsheeyaan weeraro ay ku qaadaan dalal kale oo gobolka iyo Caalamkaba ah.
Mr. Sean McCormack wuxuu sheegay in Mareykanku uu go'aankan qaatay kadib markii ay eegeen marxaladda cusub ee uu cagaha la galay dalka Soomaaliya oo aaney xiligan ka jirin dowlad awood leh oo lagala xaajoodo amuurihiisa. Dhanka kalena Sarkaal sare oo ka tirsan Dowladda Mareykanka oo diiday in la shaaciyo magaciisa ayaa sheegay in uu jiro qol uu Mareykanku u sameystay in uu kula hadlo jilayaasha siyaasadda Soomaaliya eemar kasta is-bed-bedesha.
Sida uu Mareykanka ugu lug leeyahay Soomaaliya
Bishii December 1992-kii Dowladda Mareykanka waxay Soomaaliya u dirtay 28 kun oo Ciidamo ah, kuwaasi oo ku socday Howlgal loogu magac daray Rajo soo celin "Operation Restore Hope". Bishii Oktoobar sanadkii 1993-kii waxaa Mareykanka Soomaaliya looga dilay 18 Askari oo weliba ahaa kuwa sida aadka ah u tababaran ee Rangerska loo yaqaano, iyadoo lagana soo riday labo diyaaradood oo Helicopters ah, gaar ahaan nooca “Black Hawk”. Markaasi kadib Ameerikaanku wuxuu tuhmay in ay Maleeshiyooyinka Soomaalida ay dagaallada la galay Ciidamadii Mareykanka ay tababartay Al-qaacida. Bishii Maarso sanadkii 1994-kii ayuu Mareykanku soo af-jaray howlgalladii uu Soomaaliya ka waday.
Agoosto 1998-kii qaraxyo loo geystay Safaaradihii Mareykanka ee Kenya iyo Tanzania ayuu Ameerikaanku ku tuhmay in ay ku lug lahaayeen Dad Soomaali ah, waxaana kadib loogu warbixiyay in ay xubno ka tirsan Al-qaacidda ay joogaan Soomaaliya. Qaraxyadii loo geystay labadaas safaaradood ee uu Mareykanku lahaa waxaa ku dhintay dad lagu qiyaasay 200 oo ruux.
December 2002 ayuu Ameerikaanku u soo diray 1,300 oo Ciidamo ah, kuwaasi oo saldhig ka sameystay dalka Jabuuti, iyadoo ujeedada ciidamadaas loo soo dirayna ay tahay in ay ugaarsadaan kooxo mayal adag oo loogu sheegay lix dal oo ku yaala geeska Afrika, kuwaasi oo ay Soomaaliyana ku jirto.
Posted on Thursday 8th June at 12:29:20 Guddoomiyaha Midowga Maxkamadaha Islaamka oo sheegay in uu ka fekerayo in uu iska casilo xilka uu u hayo Maxkamadaha
Guddoomiyaha Midowga Maxkamadaha Islaamka ee Magaalada Muqdisho Shiikh Shariif Shiikh Axmed ayaa u sheegay Wargeyska Sharqal-awsat ee ka soo baxa magaalada London ee dalka Ingiriiska in uu ka fekerayo in uu iska casilo xilka guddoomiyenimada Midowga Maxkamadaha Islaamka.
Shiikh Shariif waxaa uu sheegay in sababta uu xilkaas isaga casilayo ay tahay iyadoo ay Maxkamadaha Islaamka ee uu hoggaaminayay ku guuleysteen ujeedoodyinkii loo sameeyay ee ahaa in ay magaalada ammaan ka dhigaan, cid kasta oo danaha bulshada ka soo horjeedana ay wax ka qabtaan.
Mar wax laga weydiiyay Shiikh Shariif sida ay ugu suurtagashay in ay dagaalladii Muqdisho kaga guuleysteen Hoggaamiyayaashii Isbaheysiga La dagaalanka Argagixisada ayaa sheegay in ay arrintaas ahayd mid alle xagiisa ka ahaatay, isagoo xusay in shacabkana ay u hiiliyeen Maxkamadaha Islaamka.
Shiikh Shariif waxaa uu sheegay in ay soo dhaweynayaan wada hadal ay la yeeshaan dowladda Federaalka Soomaaliyeed, wuxuuna caddeeyay in aaney jirin cid uu albaabkooda ka xiran yahay. Dhanka kalena, Shiikh Shariif Shiikh Axmed oo xalay wareysi siiyay BBC-da laanteeda afka Soomaaliga ayaa beeniyay warar Maxkamadaha lagu xamanayay oo sheegayay in ay doonayaan in dowlad ku dhawaaqaan, wuxuuna tilmaamay Shiikha in shacabka ay iyagu u madax banaan yihiin ka talinta masiirkooda, isla markaana aysan iyagu u socon in ay dadka wax ku qabsadaan.
Wareysiyadan uu bixiyay Guddoomiyaha Midowga maxkamadaha Islaamka ee magaalada Muqdisho ayaa waxay ku soo beegmayaan iyadoo xooggag u daacad ah Midowga Maxkamadaha Islaamka ay ku guuleysteen in ay qabsadaan fariisimo badan oo ay horay u joogi jireen Maleeshiyooyinka Hoggaamiye kooxeedyada ku bahoobay Ishabeysiga La dagaalanka Argagixisada.
Salaad Iidow Xasan (Xiis)
Posted on Wednesday 7th June at 16:59:16 Kenya Slams The Door On Somali Faction Leaders
AIROBI, 7 June (IRIN) - A day after Kenya banned leaders of Somalia's armed factions and their associates from entering the country, authorities deported a prominent Somali businessman with alleged links to a group of secular politicians who have been engaged in a bloody conflict with Islamists in Mogadishu.
The Kenyan government said the faction leaders were undermining efforts by the nascent transitional administration to restore stability in the war-scarred Horn of Africa country.
"The government would like to reiterate its previously stated position that it will not permit its territory to be used by those who persist in destabilising Somalia and undermining our ongoing efforts to restore peace and security in that country," Kenya's Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Police arrested Abdirashid Hussein Shire from a hotel in Nairobi on Wednesday but freed him when he said he was already booked to leave Kenya on a flight to Dubai. "He has already left for Dubai," an associate who answered the businessman's mobile telephone told IRIN. Shire is said to be a backer of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, which was ousted from Mogadishu on Sunday by forces loyal to the city's Islamic courts.
Kenya hosted and played a key mediation role during the lengthy reconciliation talks between Somalia's numerous factions, which culminated in the formation of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004. However, the TFG has been beset by internal divisions and opposition from various faction leaders, undermining its ability to establish its authority in Somalia.
"The warlords have become some kind an internal opposition to the Transitional Federal Government, and Kenya hopes that by sanctioning them it will help strengthen the TFG," said an analyst on Somali affairs. "Putting pressure [on the warlords] is useful, but one of the main problems has been failure by the TFG to develop a strong constituency, especially among the Hawiye [clan] in Mogadishu to create a more inclusive government." Several of the most influential warlords in Mogadishu belong to the Hawiye clan.
Veteran Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat, who was the chief mediator during the Somali reconciliation conference in Nairobi, said Kenya's decision to ban the warlords from visiting the country would have little effect on the political situation in Somalia because most of them have already been discredited at home.
"They have already been discredited by the majority of the people. They spoilt something [the transitional government] that was very delicately negotiated here [Nairobi]. They should have discussed with the government," said Kiplagat.
Mohammed Affey, Kenya's ambassador to Somalia, said his country was only interested in strengthening the TFG and was determined to hinder any efforts to scuttle that process.
"The underlying fact is that we want a strong, credible government in Somalia, and we will discourage those who instigate trouble and then come here to recuperate when the going gets tough," he told IRIN. "We [Kenya] invested heavily in the process of establishing a government for Somalia, and we will help only those forces that want stability in Somalia," said Affey.
The Kenyan capital of Nairobi is a regional business hub, and many Somali leaders have homes or business interests in Kenya. The Kenyan government hosted Somalia's entire government, including the transitional parliament, in Nairobi for about eight months following its creation because the Somali leadership could not agree on where the new administration would be based inside Somalia.
There are more than 100,000 Somali refugees living in three camps in the Dadaab area of Kenya's Northeastern Province, which borders on Somalia. Most of the refugees in Dadaab arrived in the 1990s, having fled factional warfare and war-related famine that engulfed the country following to ouster of Muhammad Siyad Barre in 1991. Thousands of Somali immigrants live in Nairobi, where most of them are engaged in trade.
Posted on Wednesday 7th June at 16:44:39 U.N. Urges Peace Talks In Somalia
MOGADISHU, Somalia, June 6 (UPI) -- The top U.N. envoy for Somalia calls on Islamic forces, which have reportedly taken control of the capital Mogadishu, to begin peace talks.
"Members of the international community welcome reconciliatory statements from the transitional federal institutions and encourage a similar approach from the Union of Islamic Courts and other parties in Mogadishu," Francois Lonseny Fall, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative for Somalia, said in a statement Tuesday.
The transitional government, based in Baidoa, about 155 miles southwest of Mogadishu, has been working with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the African Union and others to develop a national security and stabilization plan.
"The international community reiterates its support to the efforts of the TFIs in pursuing dialogue, reconciliation and stable governance in accordance with the Transitional Federal Charter, and stands ready to provide assistance within this framework," Fall added.
Somalia, a country of 8 million people forming the Horn of Africa, is one of the world's poorest and has been torn by factional fighting for the past 15 years. Since 1991, it has been without a functioning government.
In addition to the factional fighting, Somalia has been beset by serious drought.
Currently Mogadishu is the only capital in the world where the United Nations does not have access for international humanitarian staff, due to insecurity, despite an estimated 250,000 internally displaced people living in the city.
Posted on Wednesday 7th June at 16:38:56 Somalis Flee Warlord Stronghold Fearing New Battle
MOGADISHU, June 7 (Reuters) - Scores of Somali residents fled the warlord stronghold of Jowhar on Wednesday fearing a bloody offensive for control of the town by Islamic militia who took Mogadishu two days ago.
Gunmen loyal to sharia courts seized the capital on Monday from a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords, widely believed to be backed by Washington. Their victory came after fierce fighting that had killed 350 people since February.
Locals said the warlords were preparing to defend their last redoubt of Jowhar, 90 km (55 miles) north of the capital, including an advance line outside the town. "There are so many fighters and weapons in Jowhar but most of them have been taken to the Congo military camp 5 km (3 miles) away," Abdi Warsame, a farmer, said by telephone from the area.
Fighters loyal to Jowhar warlord Mohamed Dheere had been reinforced by allies defeated in Mogadishu and the strategic town of Balad, on the road north, which fell on Sunday, he said.
"Some people have started fleeing Jowhar for fear of the fighting," Warsame said. "Most people are saying they have no option but to support whoever takes over Jowhar."
Islamic militiamen said their men, camped south of Jowhar, have been ordered to prevent planes from landing on the town's airstrip to block any escape by the warlords.
"The airplanes should not land for security reasons," said Moallim Hashi Mohamed, an Islamic militia leader.
Analysts say if the Islamic militia capture Jowhar, they will control most of the south of Somalia, raising questions about whether they will help install a weak interim government in the capital or set up a rival administration.
ISLAMIC COURTS
The government, too weak to enter Mogadishu, has been based in the provincial town of Baidoa since February.
Mogadishu resident Ali Abdikadir said a family member of one of the most senior Islamic clerics told him they have a government in waiting.
"The day they take over Jowhar they will announce their government," Abdikadir said. "I don't think they plan to cooperate with the interim government. Some of them even said the government should surrender to the Islamic courts."
The Islamic victory dislodged warlords from Mogadishu for the first time since they ousted military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, but clan fighters vowed to reclaim lost ground.
Ali Nur, a warlord fighter, said a new war against the Islamic side would be waged by the Sa'ad clan of slain warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed. A disastrous attempt by U.S. troops to capture him in 1993 was depicted in the film "Black Hawk Down".
"We are strenghthening our defences, digging trenches and putting up sand bags, preparing for war as a clan and not as the coalition," Nur said in a clan district of Mogadishu, against a noisy backdrop of heavy bulldozers.
President George W. Bush expressed concern about Somalia, saying he wanted to ensure the failed Horn of Africa country did not become a safe haven for al Qaeda.
Washington, which has shied away from direct involvement in Somalia since a humiliating 1994 exit of U.S. and U.N. troops, has refused to discuss reports it is funnelling $100,000 a month to warlords, but says it will support anyone fighting terrorism.
Chairman of the Mogadishu Islamic courts Sheikh Sharif Ahmed appeared on Wednesday to back away from comments made at a rally in which he vowed to turn Somalia into an Islamic state.
"Socialism was tested as a way of ruling the world but failed, democracy has been tested and is failing, the only way now is to try Islam. But it's up to the people to decide," he told Reuters.
Kenyan police detained a member of the warlord coalition, Abdirashid Shire Ilqeyte, on Wednesday at a luxury hotel in Nairobi, immigration department sources said.
The government said it had banned warlords from entering Kenya and would not permit the country to be used by those who "persist in destabilising Somalia".
By Mohamed Ali Bile
(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Nairobi)
Posted on Wednesday 7th June at 16:36:32 Keep Out Of Somalia, Islamist Warns US
The leader of Islamist fighters controlling Somali capital Mogadishu warned the United States it would pay dearly for any intervention in the country, a pan-Arab paper reported on Wednesday.
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the chairperson of the Islamic courts that have battled warlords for four months, said the US would face a disaster similar to a botched 1993 intervention that left 18 US army officers and 300 Somalis dead.
"If US forces intervene directly against us in Mogadishu, then we are ready to teach them a lesson they will never forget and repeat their defeat in 1993," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told Saudi-owned daily Asharq al-Awsat.
He rebuffed US accusations that his group, which are militias affiliated with the country's 11 Islamic courts, may be linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.
"We are not terrorists and we have said hundreds of times that America's talk about terror in Somalia is fabricated for suspect political motives," he said.
"We have no link to those being pursued by America, which is the biggest terrorist nation in the world despite its calls for democracy and respect for noble human values."
On Monday, the Islamists declared victory over a US-backed warlord alliance and their control of the capital following four months of bloody battles.
US President George Bush said on Tuesday that he was "concerned" about unrest in Somalia and that the US would ensure that the country does not become a haven for al-Qaeda.
Washington has never publicly confirmed or denied its support for the alliance but US officials told Agence France-Presse they had given the warlords money and intelligence to help to rein in "creeping Talibanisation" in Somalia.
The Horn of Africa nation was plunged into anarchy with the 1991 ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and analysts have long warned it could become a hotbed for radical Islam along the lines of Afghanistan.
Eighteen US army officers and almost 300 Somalis were killed in fighting in 1993 following a botched rescue attempt of a downed US helicopter in Mogadishu.
US troops left Somalia in March 1994 after arriving in December 1992 on a humanitarian mission. -- AFP
Posted on Wednesday 7th June at 16:34:48 Fears Of Fresh Islamist Offensive In Somalia
Fears of fresh Islamist offensive in Somalia
07 June 2006 16:30
Residents are fleeing the northern Somali city of Jowhar amid fears of an offensive by an Islamist militia which took Mogadishu two days ago.
Gunmen loyal to sharia courts seized the capital on Monday from a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords, widely believed to be backed by Washington.
The victory came after months of fierce fighting that left at least 350 people dead. It dislodged warlords from Mogadishu for the first time since they ousted military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
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The warlord alliance was created in February with US support, in a bid to curb the growing influence of the Islamic courts and hunt down extremists.
The controversial US-backed alliance has been denounced by the Somalia's largely powerless transitional government as well as Kenya, which yesterday banned all Somali warlords from its territory, closing off a traditional safe haven.
If the Islamist militia captures Jowhar, it will control most of the south of Somalia, raising questions about whether it will help install a weak interim government in the capital or set up a rival administration.
The Somali government, too weak to enter Mogadishu, has been based in the provincial town of Baidoa since February.
US monitoring situation
US President, George W Bush, has expressed concern at the situation in Somalia, saying he wants to ensure the country does not become a safe haven for terrorists.
The US, which has shied away from direct involvement in Somalia since the humiliating 1994 exit of US and UN troops, has refused to discuss reports it is funnelling $100,000 a month to warlords.
A failed 1993 operation in Mogadishu left 18 US servicemen and up to 1000 Somalis dead. Troops eventually left US Somalia in March 1994 after arriving in December 1992 on a humanitarian mission.
US State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, has claimed Washington was not destabilising Somalia by supporting local warlords, but insisted it needed to fight the presence of al-Qaeda in the east African country.
Mr McCormack said the US would work with any people 'who are interested in combating terrorism'.
The warlord alliance was created in February with US support, in a bid to curb the growing influence of the Islamic courts and hunt down extremists.
The controversial US-backed alliance has been denounced by the Somalia's largely powerless transitional government as well as Kenya, which yesterday banned all Somali warlords from its territory, closing off a traditional safe haven.
If the Islamist militia captures Jowhar, it will control most of the south of Somalia, raising questions about whether it will help install a weak interim government in the capital or set up a rival administration.
The Somali government, too weak to enter Mogadishu, has been based in the provincial town of Baidoa since February.
US monitoring situation
US President, George W Bush, has expressed concern at the situation in Somalia, saying he wants to ensure the country does not become a safe haven for terrorists.
The US, which has shied away from direct involvement in Somalia since the humiliating 1994 exit of US and UN troops, has refused to discuss reports it is funnelling $100,000 a month to warlords.
A failed 1993 operation in Mogadishu left 18 US servicemen and up to 1000 Somalis dead. Troops eventually left US Somalia in March 1994 after arriving in December 1992 on a humanitarian mission.
US State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, has claimed Washington was not destabilising Somalia by supporting local warlords, but insisted it needed to fight the presence of al-Qaeda in the east African country.
Mr McCormack said the US would work with any people 'who are interested in combating terrorism'.
Posted on Wednesday 7th June at 16:33:57 Qaar ka mid ah Mas'uuliyiinta Maamulka Gobolka Hiiraan oo ka digay saameyn Gobolka ay ku yeeshaan Dagaallada ku soo fidaya qeybo ka mid ah Gobolka Shabeelada Dhexe
June 07, 2006: Wixii ka dambeeyay markii Maleeshiyooyinka Maxkamaduhu soo gaareen deegaano ka tirsan Gobolka Shabeelada Dhexe waxaa gudaha Gobolka Hiiraan ka jiray Walaac iyo Aragtiyo is-khilaasan oo dhamaantood ku saleysan saameynta ay dagaaldaasi ku yeelan karaan Gobolka.
Kulan qeyb ka ah shakiga iyo walaaca dadweynuhu qabo ayaa markii ugu horeysay waxaa xaruta Maamulka degmada ku qabtay Guddoomiyaha Degmada Beledweyne Aadan Cabdi Ciise ( Aadan Garaaso) oo ka hadlay sida uu u arko suurtagalnimada in Gobolka ay soo saameeyaan dagaallada socda, isagoo tilmaamay in aan loo baahneyn in Bulshada Gobalku ay kala Taageerto wax uu ku tilmaamay Kooxo aan la ogeyn hadafkooda siyaasadeed, waxaana uu Guddoomiyuhu carrabka ku dhuftay in ay jiraan Kooxo taageersan Howlaha Maxkamaduhu wadaan oo marka la eego ah ayuu yiri arrin qaldan.
Shirka Guddoomiyaha Degmada Aadan Garaaso oo ay ka soo qeyb galeen qeybaha Bulshada ayuu guddoomiyuhu uga digay in kooxaha qaar Gobolka ka abuuraan xiisado la xiriira waxa ka jira Magaalada Muqdisho, walow hadana Guddoomiyuhu uusan carrabka ku dhufan kooxaha uu ku cel-celiyay.
Inkastoo walaacani jiro ayaa waxaa xusid mudan in dadku si weyn u hadal hayo xiriirka ka dhaxeeya Mas'uuliyiinta xarun la magac baxaday Xarunta Dhaqan celinta, oo dhowr bilood ka hor laga aas-aasay gudaha Gobolka, iyadoo hadal heynta ugu badani ay tahay in uu jiro ugu yaraan xiriir u dhaxeeya labada dhinac.
Warka ka soo baxay Guddoomiyaha dagmada ayaa sidoo kale waxaa dhinacooda taageeray qaar ka mid ah culimaa'udiinka Gobolka oo sheegay in diintu aysan aheyn mid siyaasad lagu dabaqi karo, islamarkaana ay wanaagsan tahay in Gobolka Hiiraan laga ilaaliyo khilaaf la mid ah kan ka socda qeybo ka mid ah Dalka.
Si kastaba arrintu ha ahaatee Gobolka Hiiraan ayaa xiligan u muuqda mid ku jira marxalad ku wajahan xaaladaha cusub ee ku soo kordhay dalka, walow hadana aysan jirin Go'aamo rasmi ah oo ka soo baxay dhinaca Maamulka.
C/raxmaan Diini, Hiiraan Online
Beledweyn , Somalia
Posted on Wednesday 7th June at 13:58:48 Sidee Hargeysa Looga Dareen Qaatay Wajiga Cusub Ee Ka Bilaabmay Magaalada Muqdisho Iyo Dalka Soomaaliya
15 sannadood ka dib markii xukunka laga tuuray keligii taliyahii hore ee Maxamed Siyaad Barre waa markii ugu horaysay ee muqdisho uu ka bilaabmo kacdoon shacabku taageersanyahay isla markaana quwad ama awood keliya ahi ay wada xukunto magaalada Muqdisho oo shan iyo tobankaasi sannadood kala qayb qaysanayd, kooxaha islaamiyiinta ah ee Maxkamadaha ayaa sida la sheegaayo waxay gacanta ku dhigeen dhammaanba magaalada Muqdisho iyo Balcad, waxaanay hadda ku sii siqayaan magaalada Jahwar.
Tan iyo markii dagaalada u dhexeeyay labadii kooxeed ee midina la magac baxay la dagaalanka argagixisada iyo soo celinta iyo kooxahani ku bahoobay maxaakimta islaamka ee muqdisho oo loo tirinaayey in shacabka reer muqdisho ay badiba taageerada u hayeen ayaa shacabka Reer Somaliland waxay isha kala socdeen warbaahinta iyagoo u arkaayey dagaalkaasi mid tiiftiisa iyo tiiraanyadiisa leh marka loo eegaayo khasaaraha naf iyo moodba leh ee ka soo gaadhaayey shacabka rayidka ah, waxaana shacabka reer hargeya ugu ducaynayeen aafada muqdisho inuu ilaahay qaboojiyo, balse shacabku waxay badiba ka ahaayeen dhibaatadani dhex dhexaad iyagoo dhinaca kalana jecla in labada qolo midi uun xoog roonaado si loo bad baadiyo dhiiga badan ee daadanaya, balse dhinaca kale shacabka reer Hargeysa waxay u arkayeen nimanka hogaamiye kooxeedka ee isku bahaystay waxaa loogu yeedhay la dagaalanka Argagixisada in aanay dhab ka ahayn waxay u dagaalamayaan balse ay ka ahayd shaqo cusub oo marayakanku ku siiyey shakhsiyaad maraykanku ugu tuhun qabo inay ku suganyahiin goobaha ay ka talinayeen maxkamadahu, waxaana loo arkaayey mid ka baxsan dhaqanka soomaalida meel kasta ha joogaane, dhinaca kalana waxay u arkayeen ururadani isku bahaystay maxaakiimta islaamka qolooyin asal raac ah oo haddii ay gacanta ku dhigaan magaalada Muqdisho u keeni karta shacabka colaad kaga timaadda dhinaca dawladaha galbeedka, taasi oo ah in sidii nidaamkii Taliban oo kale ay la soo darsi karto, iyagoo dhinaca kalana shacabka Reer Somaliland indhaha ku hayay nidaamka cabdilaahi Yuusuf oo ay u arkaan niman aan itaal lahayn balse baalka gorayada ku doonaaya inay kula shuraakoobaan kolba quwadda ka talisa muqdisho.
Isku soo duubo Magaalada Muqdisho iyo dalka Soomaaliya iyo dhammaanba mandaqadda Beriga Afrika ayaa waxaa ku soo kordhay waji cusub oo leh waayahiisa iyo wakhtigiisa, dalka maraykanka oo sheega inuu la dagaalamo argagixisada ayaa wuxuu saldhig weyn ku leeyahay dalka Jibouti oo wakhtiyadani danbe indho kale wuxuu ku eegaayey xaaladda magaalada Muqdisho isagoo loo tirinaayey inuu taageero dhaqaale iyo mid dhiiri gelin ah siinaayey,
Mawqifka Xukuumadda Somaliland Ka Taagantahay Wajiga Cusub Iyo Dagaalada Ka Socday Muqdisho.
Wallow aanay xukuumadda Somaliland sheegin mawqif cad oo ay ka taagantahay wajigani cusub ee magaalada Muqdisho ay gashay, iyadoo markasta xukuumadda Somaliland gidaar iskaga tiirisa dhammaanba dhaq dhaqaaqyada ka socda Soomaaliya oo dhan una aragta inaanay shuqul ku lahayn, ayaa haddana warbaahinta madax banaan gaar ahaan wergeysyada iyo saxaafadda internetka gaar ahaan shabakadda Somaliland.Org waxay xaqiijiyeen todobaadkii hore in Bashiir Raage oo ka tirsanaa hogaamiye kooxeedyadii laga adkaaday ee isku bahaystay wixii la odhanaayey la dagaalanka argagixisadu uu ku sugna Hargeysa todobaadyadii ina dhaafay, iyadoo saxaafaddu imaatinkiisaasi u aanaysay laba arrimood waa midda koobaad eh shaki looga qabay in saraakiil maraykan ahi ay Hargeysa kula kulmayeen hargeysana la isku waydaarsanaayey taageerada dhaqaale ee maraykanku nimankaasi siinaayey iyo midda kale eh Bashiir raage oo xaas u degenyahay Hargeysa, xukuumadda mar ay saxaafaddu isku dayday inay wax ka weydiiyo waa ka gaabsatay imaatinka Bashiir raage magaalada Hargeysa, balse dhinaca Kale ayaa Madaxweyne Rayaale wuxuu ugu baaqay labadii dhinac ee hadda dagaalka ku kala adkaaday wakhtigii magaalada muqdisho uu dagaalku ka socday inay xabbadda joojiyaan, isla markaana wuxuu muujiyey inuu aad uga xunyahay isagoo ku hadlaayey magaca shacabka Somaliland, dhinaca kale ayaan la saadaalin Karin wadaada ku sugan Somaliland iyo maxaakimtani islaamka wadaadada xukuma xidhiidhka ka dhexeeya ama ka dhexayn kara iyo saamaynta uu ku yeelan karo Somaliland, gunta iyo gebo gebada ayaa shacabka reer Somaliland waxay u arkaan daah furanka wajiga cusub ee muqdisho ka bilaabmay mid saamayntiisa iyo saymihiisaba yeelan kara.
MOHAMED ABDI HASSAN (DIRIDHABA)
Posted on Tuesday 6th June at 14:00:43 Bannaanbixii ugu weynaa oo beesha Muddulood ku taageertay go’aano ay Waxgaradkeedu ku gaareen xarun diimeedka Mowlaca Sheekh Muxuyaddiin
Isu soo bax aan hore loo arag in muddo ah ayay isugu soo baxeen shacabka ku dhaqan magaalada Muqdisho, kuwaasoo shucuurtooda ku muujinayay sida ay u taageersan go’aanada Waxgaradka beesha Muddulood ku gaareen xarun diimeedka Mowlaca Sheekh Muxyaddiin Celi ee magaalada Muqdisho, iyadoo dadweyne kumanaan kor u dhaafay ay isaga kala yimaadeen dhammaan xaafadaha magaalada Muqdisho.
Bannaanbaxan ayaa dadweynihii ka soo qeyb galay isugu soo urureen garoonka K/cagta Stadium Konis, iyadoo saakay laga dareemayay dadweynihii halkaasi isugu yimid rabitaankooda ku wajahan difaaca degaanada beesha Muddulood, iyo sidii looga shaqeyn lahaa nabadgelyada guud ee degaanadeeda, waxaana halkaasi khudbado ka jeediyay hoggaamiyeyaal, siyaasiyiin, Abwaano, Waxgarad iyo xubno caan ka ah dalka una dhashay beesha Muddulood.
Waxaa furitaanka khudbada mas’uuliyiinta beesha Muddulood ee bannaanbaxaasi ka soo qeyb galay ka hadlay Guddoomiyaha ururka USC/SSA/SRRC C/qaadir Cabdi Xasan Beebe oo ugu horeyntii u mahad celiyay mas’uuliyiintii dadweynihii ka soo qeyb galay bannaanbaxa ay ku muujinayaan dareenkooda iyo dhibaatooyinka ka soo food saaray maalmahan beesha dhexdeeda Muddulood dhexdeeda iyo waliba dagaalada laga hurinayo degaanadeeda.
Siyaasi lagu magacaabo Ciise Axmed Dalabey (Ciise Dheere) oo ka mid ahaa mas’uuliyiintii halkaasi ka hadashay ayaa isagu jeediyay khudbadii ugu xamaasada badneyd, isagoo shacabka beesha Muddulood ku booriyay in qoys kasta uu u diyaar garoobo isla markaana iibsado Hub si uu u difaacdo dhulkiisa, oo uu sheegay in kooxihii W/Muqdisho Manifesto ugu yeeri jiray ay hadana maanta ku tilmaameen inay gaalo yihiin.
“Dadka Xamar degan yaa Muddulood ka cilmi badan, Raadiyeyaasha Muqdisho Mashaa’iqda Qur’aanka ka akhrisa yaa waaye ma H/Gidiraa mise waa Muddulood” ayuu yiri siyaasiga Ciise Dheere oo sheegay in kuwa gabbaadka ka dhiganaya diinta Islaamka, hase yeeshee aanay daacad ka ahayn waxa ay sheegayaan oo ujeedadooda rasmiga ahi tahay dhul ballaarsi, “Shaqsiyaadka hormuudka ka ah ee gadaal ka maamulaya waan garaneynaa, mana ka yeeleyno ka yeeleyno C/qaasim, Indhacadde, Xasan Daahir iyo jufada ka tirsan beesha H/Gidir inay degaanadeena maanta ku tilmaamaan dhul Gaalo, haddii ay ka waantoobi waayaanna waxaan diyaar u nahay inaan iska difaacno” ayuu yiri siyaasiga Ciise Maxamed Dalabey (Ciise Dheere).
Sidoo kale waxaa halkaasi ka hadlay Dr. Xuseen Sh. Axmed Kadare oo faahfaahin dheeraad ah ka bixiyay ka siiyay ka qeyb galayaashii bannaanbaxa, isagoo sheegay in Waxgaradka beesha Muddulood ay go’aan ku gaareen sidii ay dib ugu soo celin lahaayeen hannaanka Ku dhaqanka Shareecada Islaamka, oo uu sheegay in beeshii ugu horeysay ee hirgelisa hannaanka Maxkamadaha Islaamiga ah ay tahay beesha Muddulood, isla markaana shacabka Soomaaliyeed gaar ahaan reer Muqdisho ku ammaaneen howlihii ay shacabka G/Banaadir u heysay.
Siyaasiyiintii iyo shaqsiyaadkii halkaasi ka hadlay waxaa kale oo ka mid ahaa: Guddoomiye ku xigeenka dhinaca nabadgelyada G/Banaadir Maxamed Cusmaan Cali (Dhagaxtuur), Caaqil Maxamuud Cali Jimcaale (Koogaar), Muuse Suudi Yalaxow, Ganacsade Bashiir Raage Shiiraar, Nabadoon C/llaahi Rooble Shadoor iyo Abwaano ay ka mid yihiin: Cabdulle Gedanaar, Muuse Jeega Cadde (MMJ), Abwaan Carabow Maxamed Axmed iyo kuwo kale, iyagoo dhammaantood si weyn uga hadlay dhibaatooyinka kala duwan beeshaasi ka soo wajahay dagaalada sida gaarka ah looga abaabulayo degaanadeeda.
Posted on Tuesday 6th June at 13:41:00 Islamic Fighters Push Toward Next Warlord Stronghold
Islamic fighters in Somalia are pressing toward the city of Jowhar after taking control of the capital, Mogadishu, on Monday.
Witnesses say the fighters are stationed about 20 kilometers south of Jowhar and awaiting orders to attack.
The city is a stronghold of the secular warlord coalition that fought the Islamists in Mogadishu.
Supporters of both sides held rallies in the capital today. Several hundred attended a rally where Islamic leaders vowed to bring Somalia under sharia (Islamic) law. More than 1,000 took part in a protest against the Islamists led by members of the Abgal clan.
Leaders of the warlord alliance insisted the battle for Mogadishu is not over, saying their forces will move to regain lost territory.
Mogadishu's Islamic Courts Union declared victory over the warlords on Monday, after their fighters pushed the warlords out of several local strongholds.
More than 350 people have been killed over four months of fighting in the capital.
A U.S. State Department spokesman says Washington is concerned that Somalia could become a haven for terrorists if the Islamic militias maintain control of Mogadishu.
The warlord alliance has accused the Islamic militias of having ties to al-Qaida.
But, Somali political leaders say the United States is backing the warlords, a charge U.S. officials will not confirm or deny.
The Islamic courts say they can bring order to Somalia, which has not had an effective central government for more than 15 years.
Posted on Tuesday 6th June at 19:43:19 Somalia's Islamic Leaders Deny a Link to Terror
Since Somalia's Islamic leaders took control of the capital Mogadishu Monday after months of heavy fighting with warlords, the Bush administration has made no secret of its worry that Somalia could become a new version of Afghanistan under the Taliban. "We don't want to see Somalia turn into a safe haven for foreign terrorists," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We do have very real concerns about that."
But the country's Islamic leaders have written a letter to the United Nations, the Arab League, the African Union, the European Union and the U.S. State Department, as well as to various European and African embassies, that aims to allay those fears. In the four page letter obtained by TIME, signed by Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed, Chairman of the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu, the city's new bosses say they want to end the chaos and bloodshed in Somalia's capital, help rebuild the country and "establish a friendly relationship with the international community that is based on mutual respect and interest."
"We categorically deny and reject any accusation that we are harboring any terrorists or supporters of terrorism in the areas where the courts operate," the letter says. "We share no objectives, goals or methods with groups that sponsor or support terrorism. We have no foreign elements in our courts, and we are simply here because of the need of the community we serve."
The Islamic Courts' appeal for cooperation comes at a time of fundamental change in Somalia's capital, which like most of the rest of the country has had no functioning government for 15 years. During that time, southern Somalia has been ruled by warlords, who have carved the Horn of Africa nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms. The warlords fought U.S. peacekeepers sent to secure United Nations' aid deliveries during a terrible drought in the early 1990s, but some are now believed to be backed by the U.S. Those warlords have now fled the capital, or are holed up and surrounded by Islamic militias.
Over the past two decades, the influence of Islamic clerics in Somalia has grown steadily. Like the warlords, they use their own militias and freelance hired guns to enforce their rule. But many residents of Mogadishu have applauded the Islamic groups for cracking down on crime, dismantling the hundreds of roadblocks around the capital and running schools and health clinics when no one else would. They began providing social services in the early 1990s, and by 1998 a loose collection of Islamic courts had been established and was running parts of Mogadishu. When TIME interviewed Sheikh Hussan Sheikh Mohammed Adde, then head of the Islamic Courts Union, in May 1999 he said that Somalia's Islamic movement saw its influence growing in stages. The first phase was to clear Mogadishu of "gangsters and warlords"; then the Islamic groups would open the airport and ports. "After that we take the next step," he said. "We don't want to fail so we are going slowly, slowly."
The Islamic Courts were close to taking on the warlords when 9/11 put their campaign on hold. After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamists laid low, for fear of being the next target in the war on terror. Rumors began circulating that the warlords had won backing from the U.S.
In the past few months, as the fighting between the Islamists and warlords has grown, Islamic leaders, members of Somalia's transitional government and Somalia watchers such as the International Crisis Group's John Prendergast have claimed that the U.S. is paying the warlords. The US has not confirmed or denied the reports. (See the May 17 Washington Post story on U.S. ties to the warlords.)
In his letter, Sheikh Sherif argues that the warlords have duped the U.S. government for its own gain. "The present conflict has been fueled by the wrong information given to the U.S. Government by these warlords," he writes. "Their expertise is to terrorize people and they were able to use it and terrorize the American government by misinforming them about the presence of terrorists in Somalia."
Despite U.S. concerns, there are real differences between Somalia and Afghanistan under the Taliban. While Somalis are Muslim, many are secular in outlook and would fight against the strict imposition of shari'a law. The coalition of groups who forced the warlords out of Mogadishu is also far from homogenous — and may fall apart now that the common enemy is banished. Privately some U.S. State Department officials focused on Somalia have questioned whether there is any link between Mogadishu's Islamic leaders and Al Qaeda.
Still, the parallels to the Taliban are obvious. Both groups swept to power under the banner of religion. Both promised to end the anarchy and bloodshed of the regimes they ousted. And both argue that Islam is the answer to their societies' problems. At a rally of hundreds of people in Mogadishu Tuesday, Sheikh Sherif said that the Islamic struggle in Somalia would continue "until we get the Islamic state."
So it is possible that Somalia's Islamic leaders may try to impose a hardline-style Islam on Mogadishu. Because the city has been off limits to most reporters and diplomats, it is difficult to tell what plans Mogadishu's new mayors have for the capital or the country beyond. In the letter Sheikh Sherif dismisses concerns that they "intend to establish an anti-U.S. and Western government in Somalia. This is not true. Such an agenda is against our objectives and goals since this would contradict our wish for there to be a peaceful Somalia."
Posted on Tuesday 6th June at 19:36:05 Drought Emergency To Last Until December
NAIROBI, 5 June (IRIN) - The prevailing rainy season will offer little solace to communities in southern Somalia who have lost everything to the prolonged regional drought, according to a food-security agency.
"Very high levels of asset loss and financial indebtedness ensure that the effects of the crisis will continue into the next season, and full recovery could take several years," said the United Nations Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSAU) on Friday. Rainfall has also been insufficient thus far in several central and northern regions, meaning that acute food and livelihood crisis would persist there as well, FSAU reported.
"There are large areas in Gedo, Bakol, and Hiran that will have a below normal [rainy] season; as well as parts of Bay, Lower Shabelle, the Jubas, Galgadud, Toghdeer, Sool, Sanaag, and Bari. The overall cereal crop harvest is projected to be below normal this season due to poor rains in some key cropping areas, outbreaks of army worm, localized flooding, and insufficient agricultural inputs," the agency said.
FSAU called for continued humanitarian relief in the south until the next 'deyr' (October-December) rainy season and increased attention to livelihood support, in the form of livestock programmes, cash assistance and agricultural rehabilitation in the south and parts of central and northern regions.
The organisation also said greater attention should be paid to the underlying causes of food insecurity in Somalia, including environmental degradation, the economic drain caused by the consumption of 'khat' (a local plant with narcotic properties) and insecurity. Ongoing factional fighting in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, was also disrupting market supplies throughout southern Somalia, driving commodity prices up by 20 percent to 30 percent amid fears that that the conflict could spread.
"The resilience of the Somali people is truly admirable, but consecutive shocks combined with prolonged lack of investment in basic development continue to knock their wellbeing lower and lower," said Nicholas Haan, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation chief technical advisor to the FSAU. "At what point will the Somali people decide and be able to turn this tragic downward spiral around?"
Posted on Monday 5th June at 18:57:28 Somalia Sacks Four Warlord Ministers Over Violence
NAIROBI, June 5 (Reuters) - Somalia has sacked four warlords who hold posts in the interim government over their involvement in the capital's worst violence in a decade, a government spokesman said on Monday.
Some 350 people have died in the fighting since February.
"The four ministers were fired last night because they broke the interim charter and ceasefire agreements by shelling civilians, causing so many deaths," Abdirahman Dinari, transitional government spokesman, told Reuters.
A member of the Somali Islamic militia checks his weapon after they seized El Irfid area after clashes with a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords June 3, 2006. At least eight militiamen were killed and a dozen others wounded near Somalia's capital Mogadishu, residents said. Picture taken on June 3, 2006.
Posted on Monday 5th June at 18:17:43 Mogadishu Islamic Leaders Claim Victory Over Rivals
NAIROBI, 5 June (IRIN) - Islamic leaders in Mogadishu claimed victory over a group of rival secular politicians on Monday, saying they would strive to restore security in the capital, where bloody clashes between the two sides have claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands of people.
"The Joint Islamic Courts do not want continuation of hostilities and will ensure peace and security following the change attained by the victory of the people with the support of Allah [God]," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chairman of Mogadishu's Islamic group, said in a message broadcast over several radio stations in the city. "We are not against any group and will engage the rest of the world in a way that takes into account the interest of our country."
Militia loyal to the Islamic courts have been fighting against the secular faction leaders, who came together under the umbrella Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, since February. More than 300 people are believed to have died in the violence, and some 1,500 others have been wounded.
Late on Sunday, in the south-central town of Baidoa, where Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is based, Prime Minister Ali Muhammed Gedi announced the sacking from the cabinet of Muhammad Qanyare Afrah, Muse Sudi Yalahow, Omar Finnish and Botan Elmi Isse for being members of the anti-terror alliance and engaging in violence. A group of fighters loyal to Qanyare, who held the post of national security minister, and Isse, who held the rehabilitation portfolio, were reported to have fled to the town of Jowhar, south of Mogadishu, after losing their strongholds in the capital to the Islamic court forces, residents in the town said.
Somalia has had no effective government since the collapse of the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre in 1991 and the ensuing civil war, in which various factions and warlords fought for power. The regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development - made up of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia - sponsored two years of talks between the various Somali clans and factions, culminating in the establishment of the TFG in October 2004.
Posted on Monday 5th June at 18:15:22 As Fighting And Drought Rage On In Somalia
5 June 2006 – Although the Somali capital of Mogadishu is torn by some of the worst fighting in a decade with 300 people dead, 1,500 injured and 17,000 displaced, and though conflict and drought are wracking the south of the country, the United Nations faces a huge shortfall in the $326 million dollars it is seeking to cover urgent humanitarian needs there.
“The recent indiscriminate shelling in Mogadishu and spreading fighting in the environs of the capital have resulted in enormous human suffering,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said in his latest statement on the country, which has been torn by factional fighting since the collapse of President Muhammad Siad Barre’s regime 15 years ago.
“At a time when people most need medical care and surgical attention, the occupation of Keysaney hospital by armed fighters constitutes a gross violation of international humanitarian law,” he added.
Six months into 2006, the UN’s $326-million appeal for the East African country has garnered only $135 million. While needs for food are 60 per cent covered, all other needs identified in the appeal have less than 25 per cent of the funds required.
The situation of displaced people, mainly fleeing fighting in the south of the country, is an increasing humanitarian disaster, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
Due to the intensity of recent fighting, an increasing number of civilians have been unable to reach medical facilities. The recent upsurge in hostilities comes at a time when southern Somalia is experiencing a humanitarian emergency due to drought, the statement added.
“The Transitional Federal Government, and all warring factions, need to do more to ensure safe humanitarian access and protection of civilians at all times, including those in Mogadishu,” Mr. Egeland said.
The Transitional Government, originally formed in Kenya in an effort to bring peace and stability to the tortured country, does not sit in Mogadishu but in the town of Baidoa.
Currently Mogadishu is the only capital in the world where the UN does not have access for international humanitarian staff, due to insecurity and despite an estimated 250,000 internally displaced living in the city. The aid community is especially concerned over the delay in the polio and measles immunization campaigns.
Posted on Monday 5th June at 18:13:36 Waxa aan la dhimanayaa sirtii dawlada lagamana yaabo in cidi iga hesho) Wasiirkii hore ee wasaarada arrimaha gudaha oo xilwareejintii maanta ka hadlay
Jun 05 2006 Xaflad Xilwareejin ah oo xilkii kula kala wareegayeen xilka Wasiirkii hore ee wasaarada arrimaha gudaha Ismaaciil aadan cismaan iyo ku simaha wasiirka arrimaha gudaha Aadan mire waqaf ahna wasiiru dawlaha arrimaha gudaha ayaa maanta lagu qabtay hoolka shirarka ee wasaarada arrimaha gudaha ee somaliland.
Xafladaasi xilwareejinta ah oo ahayd mid si heer sare ah loo soo agaasimay ayaa waxaa kasoo qaybgalay Salaadiin, xubno ka socday sedexda xisbi qaran agaasimayaasha waayaha ee wasaarada arrimaha gudaha qaar ka mid ah gudoomiyayaasha gobalada iyo marti sharaf kale .
Waxa xafladaasi maanta ugu hreyn ka hadlay agaasimaha guud ee wasaarada arrimaha gudaha Axmad aadan waxaanu ka waramay hawlaha uqabsoomay wasaarada arrimaha gudaha waqtiyadii inasoo dhaafay iyo ilaa maalinkaa maanta iyo hawlaha ay mujtamaca wakiilka uga tahay wasaaradu,
intaasi ka bacdi waxaa halkaasi hadal dheer ka jeediyay wasiirkii hore ee arrimaha gudaha somaliland Mudane Ismaaciil aadan cismaan (ismaaciil yare) waxaanu ugu horeyn umahadnaqay Madaxweynaha jamhuuriyada somaliland mudane daahir rayaale kaahin isagoo tibaaxay in madaxweynuhu ahaa cidii umagacawday xilkani wasiirnimo si wanaagsana ay uwada shaqeynayeen mudadii uu xilka hayey waxaanu cadeeyay in ay qorneyd in uu xilka maalin wareejiyo qof walabaana mar la magacaabo lana bedelo markuu waqtigu ka dhanyahay wasiirku isagoo hadalkiisa sii wata waxa uu tilmaamay in aanu ka caajisi doonin in uu mansab wasiirnimo ku hamiyo mustaqbalka waxaanu carabaabay inj si wanaagsan ay uwada shaqeynayeen shaqaalaha iyo masuuliyiinta wasaarada arrimaha gudaha oo uu mahad weyn usoo jeediyay waxaanu sheegay wasiirku in wixii hadda ka danbeeya aanu ka caajisi doonin sidii hawlaha qaranka uu utoosin lahaa oo uu sheegay in uu ku qasbanyahay.
Sidoo kale wuxuu wasiiirkii hore ee ismaaciil aadan cismaan uu mahad ujeediyay golaha wasiirada somaliland oo uu ku sheegay in ay ahaayeen asxaabtiisii sida wacan ula shaqeynaysay waxa kaloo uu mahad ujeediyay golaha wakiilada somaliland golaha guurtida badhasaabada gobalada iyo dhamaan cidii kala shaqeynaysay hawlaha qaranka .
Mar uu ka hadlayey marka uu xilka wareejiyo ka bacdi waxaa uu carabaabay in Sirta dawlada aanu cidna ubandhigi doonin ilaa iyo maalinka uu ka tago ifka ee uu dhimanayo isagoo tibaaxay in uu la dhiman doono Siraha uu hayo.
Waxaa intaa ka bacdi halkaasi hadal ka jeediyay Wasiirka ku meel gaadhka ah ee arrimaha gudaha ahna wasiiru dawlaha arrimaha gudaha somaliland Aadan mire waqaf waxaanu sheegay in aanu ku cusbayn hawlaha wasiirnimo ee haatan loo igmaday kana soo shaqeynayey in badan waxaanu sheegay in intii awoodiisa ah uu shaqada halkiisa kasii wadi doono hawlaha wasaarada arrimaha gudaha oo ah ayuu yidhi wasaarad hawlaheegu aanay yarayn.
Wariye Mohamed mussa inji
Hargeisa
Somaliland
Posted on Monday 5th June at 14:46:04 Hay'adaha Q.M oo looga digay in ay isticmaalaan garooonka Jowhar
Mogadishu 05 June. 06 Saraakiil ka tirsan UN ka ayaa lagu wargaliyay in aysan ka soo dagin garoonka diyaaradaha ee magaalada Jowhar, oo meel aan ka fogeyn ay isku horfadhiyaan maleeshiyooyinka Maxaakiimta islaamiga iyo kuwa maamulka gobolka Sh/dhexe ee Max'ed Dheere oo xubin ka ah isbaheysiga la dagaalanka argagixisada.
Saraakiil ka tirsan hay'adaha Q.M oo ku sugan magaalada Nairobi oo xiriir la soo sameeyay shabakada warbaahinta Shabelle ayaa waxa ay sheegeen in Midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga ay ku wargaliyeen in aaneey isticmaali karin garoonka diyaaradaha ee magaalada Jowhar ilaa amar dambe.
Sarkaalkaasi oo ka gaabsaday magaciisa ayuusan faahfaahin ka bixin sababaha keenay arinkaasi.
Arintaan ayaa ku soo beegmatay maalin ka dib markii midowga maxaakiimta ay la wareegeen gacan ku heynta degmada Balcad iyo Qalimow oo ku dhow degmada Jowhar, iyadoo Gudoomiyaha gobolka Sh/dhexe Max'ed Dheere uu safaro ugu maqan yahay magaalada Adis ababa ee dalka Ethiopia oo xiriir hoose ay leeyihiin.
Dhowaan ayay aheyd markii shaqaalaha hay'adaha Q.M ay isaga baxeen magaalada Jowhar, ka dib markii xiisado dagaal ay ka soo if baxeen gobolka Sh/dhexe oo maanta xaaladiisa ay dagan tahay.
Posted on Monday 5th June at 14:40:51 Maxkamado lagaga dhawaaqay degmooyinka Deyniile iyo Balcad
Mogadishu 05 June. 06 Maxkamadaha islaamiga ee magaalada Muqdisho ayaa maanta la wareegay hubkii iyo tiknikadii uu laa Max’ed Qanyare, iyadoo maantana xauntii deyniile uu ka daganaa Max’ed Qanyare Afrax looga dhawaaqay Maxkamada islaami ah, waxaana goobta lagu wareejinayay gaadiidka tiknikada ku sugnaa xubno ay isku heyb yihiin Maxamed Qanyare Afrax, iyadoo arintaan ay ku soo beegmeyso xilli Max’ed Qanyare Afrax uu ku sugan yahay degmada Jowhar ee gobolka Sh/dhexe.
Maxkamada islaamiga ee lagaga dhawaaqay degmada Deyniile ayaa waxaa taliya Ciidan looga dhigay Nin lagu magacaabo C./laahi Macalin Cali Naxar (Abu Quteyba) .oo ka mid ah midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga, ayna isku heyb yihiin Max’ed Qanyare Afrax.
Hubkii uu lahaa Max’ed Qanyare Afrxa ayaa waxaa la wareegay Maxkamadda halkaasi lagaga dhawaaqay, iyadoo goobtaasi ay ku sugnaayeen Odayaal, waxgarad iyo shacbi fara badan oo ka soo jeeda degmada Deyniile.
Midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga ee magaalada Muqdisho ayaa la wareegay gacan ku heynta caasimadda Somalia 90%, iyadoo awoodii hogaamiyeyaashii ku bahoobay Isbaheysiga ay sii wiiqmeyso.
Dhinaca kale Maxkamad islaami ah ayaa maanta lagaga dhawaaqay degmada Balcad ee gobolka Sh/dhexe, iyadoo degmadaasi ay shalay la wareegeen gacan ku heynteeda midowga Maxaakiimta islaamiga ee magaalada Muqdisho.
Maxkamadaan lagaga dhawaaqay degmada Balcad ayaa waxaa Gudoomiye looga dhigay Sheekh Cali Max'uud (Sheekh Cali Shuuri), iyadoo maxkamadaasi ay sugu doonto amniga degmadaaasi iyo deegaanada hoos-yimaada.
Posted on Monday 5th June at 14:36:02 Bloody Somali Clashes Kill 5
Mogadishu - At least five people were killed and nine wounded in new fighting between Islamist militia and a United States-backed warlord alliance outside the Somali capital on Saturday.
The fierce fighting, which ended a brief lull in hostilities, broke out in the village of El Arfid, about 20km north of Mogadishu, where the two sides have been battling for control of a key road, said witnesses.
The factions pounded each other with heavy machine gun fire and grenades for a third straight day on the city's northern outskirts, where the Islamists are trying take a warlord-held position to cut a supply route.
Abdi Yusuf, who witnessed the fighting, said five gunmen were killed and nine people, including two civilians, were wounded.
The latest deaths bring the death toll from clashes in El Arfid and the nearby town of Balad to 19 over the past 72 hours.
At least 11 people were killed in Balad on Friday, and three in El Arfid on Thursday, when the sides began fighting over the road to Jowhar, which is controlled by an alliance member.
At least 332 killed in three months
Islamist fighters have been making steady gains in recent days.
They said they had seized some territory from the alliance but the warlords denied it.
Saturday's fatalities brought the death toll from the latest round of fighting between the two sides - that began in Mogadishu proper last week - to at least 94.
At least 332 people have been killed and more than 1 500 wounded, many of them civilians, in three months of battles for control of Mogadishu.
It is the deadliest violence since the country collapsed into anarchy in 1991.
The clashes pit the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) against militia loyal to the capital's 11 Islamic courts.
Posted on Sunday 4th June at 8:59:29 Somalis Protest At US 'Backing'
Thousands of supporters of militia groups which want Islamic courts in Somalia have held an anti-US protest in the capital, Mogadishu.
After Friday prayers, the protesters chanted anti-American slogans and cheered when clerics accused Washington of financing a genocide in Somalia.
Militia loyal to an alliance of secular warlords have been battling Islamist rivals in the city since February.
At least 11 people are reported to have died in the latest clashes.
Civilians have been the main causalities in the violence, with about 300 killed by stray bullets and mortar fire this year.
Somalia has had no effective government since the overthrow of President Siad Barre in 1991 but this year's clashes have been the worst in the capital for more than a decade.
A truce agreement between the two rival militias was broken last week.
Are you in Mogadishu? Send us your experiences
The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says the demonstrators were surrounded by some 200 armed Islamist militias during the two-hour rally.
The protesters carried placards accusing the US of backing the warlords called the Anti-Terrorism Alliance.
"Down with the unbelievers and down with the dollar receivers," read one.
Chairman of the Islamic courts Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed addressed the rally accusing the US government of being an enemy of Islam and behind what he described as "an invasion against Somali clerics".
He said the courts would not stop struggling against the alliance of warlords until they are fully defeated.
"Allah Akbar (God is great)!" the crowd cheered in response to the speech.
'Terrorism'
The latest fighting started on Thursday and is taking place about 30km north of the capital, AFP news agency reports.
During earlier fighting in the city, the Islamist militia have gradually been gaining the upper hand, our correspondent says.
The violence began earlier this year when a group of warlords, who had divided Mogadishu into fiefdoms, united to form the Anti-Terrorism Alliance to tackle a growing Islamist force.
The US merely says it will support those trying to stop "terrorists" setting up in Somalia but stresses its commitment to the country's transitional government, which functions from Baidoa, 250km (155 miles) north-west of the capital.
The Anti-Terrorism Alliance includes eight warlords, four of whom are ministers in the current government.
Posted on Saturday 3rd June at 9:00:58 Somalia Hospital Capture A 'Gross Violation' -UN
UNITED NATIONS, June 2 (Reuters) - The U.N. chief of humanitarian affairs denounced on Friday the seizure of a Somali hospital by anti-Islamic militiamen as a gross violation of international humanitarian law.
"At a time when people most need medical care and surgical attention, the occupation of Keysaney hospital by armed fighters constitutes a gross violation of international humanitarian law," Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement.
Gun battles between rival militias have broken out anew in Mogadishu in recent days following a period of relative calm in clashes between Islamic warlords and secular bands widely believed to be supported by the United States.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the Keysaney hospital it funds was commandeered earlier this week by some of the Somali militiamen who say they have joined forces to fight terrorism.
It is the sole hospital in northern Mogadishu treating civilians and wounded fighters.
Many Somalis see the fighting as a proxy war between militant Islamists and the United States.
People took to the streets in the tens of thousands in Mogadishu on Friday to condemn the United States for supporting warlords. Washington has not commented except to say that it welcomes support in its declared war on terrorism.
Somali officials say the United States is funding the warlord coalition in return for attacks on Islamists it thinks are allied with or sheltering al Qaeda suspects.
In the last few weeks alone, Egeland said, Mogadishu has seen some of the worst fighting in a decade with 300 people dead, 1,500 injured and 17,000 displaced.
"The recent indiscriminate shelling in Mogadishu and spreading fighting in the environs of the capital have resulted in enormous human suffering," Egeland said.
In Geneva earlier on Friday, Dennis McNamara, a special U.N. adviser on displacement, warned that Somalia faces a humanitarian disaster unless the militias end their fighting.
McNamara, just back from a 10-day mission to Somalia, urged Western countries to invest in restoring stability in the lawless country rather than arming militias.
"This is a potential disaster area, at least from the humanitarian perspective, if it is not contained in the near future," he said.
Posted on Saturday 3rd June at 8:57:36 Defeated Mogadishu Militia Crosses Into Bay Province Border
(SomaliNet) Militia loyal to the minister of disarmament and rehabilitation of militias Botan Isse Alin with six of battle wagons surrendered to RRA (Rahanwein Resistance Army) in Bur-hakaba district of Bay region in southwest Somalia on Saturday four days after they were defeated in clashes in northeast Mogadishu in which Islamic courts captured key positions from anti terror alliance. Reliable sources confirmed Somalinet.
Local officials in Bur-hakaba said militia of Botan Isse who is member of anti terror alliance has reached the town and gave up to the officials. They were about dozens militiamen with six vehicles known as ‘Technicals’
Reports say the militia was heading to Baidoa town, temporarily capital of the transitional federal government to join the government. RRA militia is reported have to gone to Burhabka to escort the militia of anti terror alliance.
Sources close to government officials say the arrival of militia in Bay region came after Botan Isse Alin made telephone contacts with top government officials and complied with the call of the Prime Minister Gedi to rejoin his cabinet in Baidoa.
Mr. Botan Isse whose the last whereabouts was Jowhar is said himself to be heading to Baidoa and backed out of the alliance.
Botan Isse who is member of the alliance for restoration peace and counter terrorism (ARPCT) is reported have acknowledged that he had lose in the latest battles with Islamic courts’ union in the capital and then decided to leave for Biadoa, where the TFG is based after it shifted from Jowhar, a town controlled by Mohamed Dhere and some 90km of the capital.
Posted on Saturday 3rd June at 8:56:07 Militia Fighters Want Revenge
Mogadishu - Fresh gun battles between Somali militias killed 16 people on Friday, and triggered vows of revenge from fighters who lost territory.
Witnesses said militia had fought overnight in a remote village 15km north of Mogadishu.
A member of the anti-terrorism warlord coalition, Ibrahim Moallim, said: "At least 16 have died from both sides and several others wounded.
"I saw one of our dead militia."
Sources said the fighting had subsided by noon on Friday but the acrimony from the clashes sparked fears of more violence.
About 350 people have been killed in three bouts of heavy fighting since the start of the year.
The clashes are between fighters allied to Islamic courts and a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords many believe is backed by the United States.
Moallim Hashi Mohamed, who is allied with the Islamic court militias and whose fighters clashed with rivals backed by warlord Muse Sudi Yalahow, vowed to retaliate and reclaim properties and the areas he had lost.
Hashi said: "Muse Sudi's militia attacked my station without any reason. We will revenge as soon as possible."
The fighting is fuelled by commercial and political motives. Many Somalis see the clashes as a proxy war between Islamists and the US.
The US government has long viewed Somalia - without a central government since the 1991 ousting of former ruler Mohamed Siad Barre - as a haven for terrorists.
Posted on Friday 2nd June at 8:54:22 Humanitarian Emergency Will Continue In Southern Somalia
Although the Gu rainy season is not yet complete, the Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia (FAO/FSAU), together with FEWS NET Somalia, predicts that conditions of Humanitarian Emergency in Southern Somalia will continue from July through December 2006. Several Central and Northern Regions continue to face stressed conditions and will be in an Acute Food and Livelihood Crisis. Comprehensive field assessments will be conducted later this month and to determine levels of severity for specific areas, and generate new estimates of populations in crisis. However, it is evident at this stage that urgent humanitarian needs will continue.
Fortunately the direst prediction that famine conditions were possible from last January to June has not come true. This is due to the deep social support systems of Somali people, the absence of an outbreak of widespread conflict, and humanitarian relief operations providing food, cash, water, health care, veterinary, and other basic services. Malnutrition rates throughout southern Somalia, already very high, have increased further to over 20% Global Acute Malnutrition in many areas (see May FSAU Nutrition Update for more details). As well, very high levels of asset loss (cattle deaths of 50% are reported in Gedo Region) and fi nancial indebtedness ensure that the affects of the crisis will continue into the next season, and full recovery could take several years.
The current Gu long rainy season is almost complete, with patchy results. While initially abnormally heavy, there are large areas in Gedo, Bakol, and Hiran that will have a below normal season; as well as parts of Bay, Lower Shabelle, the Jubas, Galgadud, Toghdeer, Sool, Sanaag, and Bari.
The overall cereal crop harvest is projected to be below normal this season due to poor rains in some key cropping areas, outbreaks of army worm, localized flooding, and insuffi cient agricultural inputs. This could lead to the third consecutive year of below normal cereal production, which means that families do not have previous cereal stocks to rely on.
While rangeland and livestock body conditions are improving in many areas of the South, there will be minimal cattle calving until the next Deyr rainy season (October-December) due to emaciated body conditions and abortions during the past several months, leading to less milk availability for consumption and sale. Camels, however, are generally in good condition and have had normal calving rates. A recent report by ICRC indicates that it could take several years for pastoralists to recover their herds following losses during the past six months.
Food access and supply will continue to be very stressed through December. Market prices of cereals are at their highest levels in over six years in many areas. The supply of imported food continues to be disrupted by conflict in Mogadishu and piracy. Recent deliveries of food assistance were also constrained by poor road access due to heavy rainfalls and floods.
The presence and intensity of conflict will be a key factor that will determine the severity of the humanitarian situation. If the current outbreak of conflict in Mogadishu (which has already led to several hundred deaths and thousands of displaced persons) is not resolved quickly, in addition to wreaking havoc within Mogadishu, it will continue to disrupt market supplies throughout Southern Somalia. Already commodity prices are up by 20-30% due to this disruption, and many fear that the conflict could spread to other areas of the South. Existing internally displaced persons (IDPs) in particular have suffered from the Mogadishu conflict, and as such contingency for large numbers of new displaced people and protection programmes is necessary.
Due to the sustained high levels of malnutrition, high levels of asset loss, and predicted below normal cereal harvest, there is a need for continued humanitarian relief in many areas of the South until the next Deyr rainy season. Concurrently, there needs to be increased attention to providing livelihood support for recovery in the form of livestock programmes, cash assistance, and agricultural rehabilitation in the South, and parts of Central and Northern Regions. It is equally critical for all stakeholders to use this crisis as an opportunity to address underlying causes such as environmental degradation, the economic drain of Khat consumption, and on-going civil insecurity.
“The resilience of the Somali people is truly admirable, but consecutive shocks combined with prolonged lack of investment in basic development continue to knock their well-being lower and lower”, says Nicholas Haan, UN FAO Chief Technical Advisor to the FSAU. “At what point will the Somali people decide and be able to turn this tragic downward spiral around?”
FSAU is implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and funded by the European Commission and USAID. This statement is released with the endorsement of FSAU’s and FEWS NET’s technical partners including WFP, SCF-UK, UNICEF, CARE, and OCHA.
Posted on Friday 2nd June at 8:53:10 Sixteen Killed In Renewed Somalia Militia Battle
MOGADISHU, June 2 (Reuters) - Fresh gun battles between Somali militias killed 16 people and triggered vows of revenge on Friday from fighters who lost territory in the latest clashes between strict Islamists and secular warlords.
Militia fought overnight in remote village 15 km (9 miles) north of Mogadishu, witnesses said.
"At least 16 have died from both sides and several others were wounded," Ibrahim Moallim, a member of a so-called anti-terrorism warlord coalition, told Reuters.
"I saw one of our dead militia."
Sources said the fighting had subsided by noon on Friday. But residents said three people were killed in a blast after a motorcycle passed a road in Bondere district of north Mogadishu.
"It's not clear whether it was a bomb or a mine," said Abdi Osman, a resident who spoke to family members in Bondere.
"Three people were killed instantly, among them a woman and children. Body parts were scattered all over the place."
Some 350 people have been killed in three bouts of heavy fighting since the start of the year between fighters allied to Islamic courts and a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords many believe are backed by the United States.
Moallim Hashi Mohamed, who is allied with the Islamic court militias and whose fighters clashed overnight with rivals backed by warlord Muse Sudi Yalahow, vowed to retaliate and reclaim properties and the areas he had lost.
"Muse Sudi's militia attacked my station without any reason," Hashi told Reuters in Mogadishu. "We will revenge as soon as possible."
Moallim was an ally of the warlords but shifted his support to the Islamic courts. "He was attacked because he supports the Islamic courts," Ali Nur, another coalition militia said.
Although also fuelled by commercial and political motives, such fights in and around Mogadishu are seen by many Somalis as a proxy war between Islamists and the United States.
The U.S. government has long viewed Somalia, without a central government since the 1991 ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre as a haven for terrorists.
By Mohamed Ali Bile
Posted on Friday 2nd June at 8:51:57 Back
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