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The Security Council on Friday adopted a resolution to renew the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) for another year, till Aug. 31, 2021. Resolution 2540, which was adopted unanimously by the 15-member council, requests the UNSOM to maintain and strengthen its presence in all of the federal member states of Somalia, subject to UN security requirements and as the security situation allows. It expresses the Security Council’s deep appreciation for the UNSOM’s support for the Federal Government of Somalia, in particular with regard to the development of inclusive politics and preparations for the elections in 2021; the constitutional review process, mediation, prevention and resolution of conflicts; the development of a federated police and justice system; strengthening the rule of law and security sector reform; and coordinating capacity-building support on anti-corruption issues. It urges the Somali authorities to create a conducive political and securi...

Jubbaland regional forces this morning fought fighters from the Al-Shabaab militant group in Barsanguni, Lower Jubba Region. The fighting erupted after the Shabaab launched a heavy attack against a military base in the area which hosts Jubbaland forces. There are conflicting reports on the casualties and outcome of the battle. Al-Shabaab said its fighters took control of the base and the village. The Jubbaland administration has not yet commented. According to reports disseminated by Shabaab propaganda websites, the militants seized significant military supplies left behind by the Jubbaland troops, who reportedly abandoned the base after the attack. There have been no independent sources verifying the claims by Al-Shabaab.

Journalist Mohamed Deq Abdikarim (Serjito) was last night released from a prison in Baidoa where he had been detained since Wednesday. His arrest was linked with an interview critical of the South West State’s ministry of women. “Those who arrested me came to the prison and released me. They were ashamed,” Serjito said in comments made after his release. “I was not hurt in anyway, except that my freedom was taken from me,” he added. It is believed that the South State presidency intervened in the journalist’s case and ordered his immediate release.

Somalia is ranked tenth among the countries in the world for the number of child marriages. There is no law prescribing a minimum age for marriage in Somalia. But a new bill would allow child marriage to adults. It triggers much criticism and anger among those who fight for the improvement of the living conditions of children. In Mogadishu, in a refugee camp where families flee famine and Shebab jihadists live, photographer Feisal Omar met several young girls who were married, got pregnant, abused… while they were minors.

Somali opposition leader Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame on Tuesday held talks with the president of Galmudug regional state, Ahmed Abdi Kariye aka Qoor Qoor, during which they discussed the situation in Galmudug and Somalia in general, as well as the outcomes of the Dusamareb conferences. “My delegation and I today held a lengthy meeting with the president of Galmudug state, His Excellency Ahmed Abdi Kariye. We focused our discussions in the meeting on the situation in Galmudug, Somalia and the successes made in the Dhusamareb conferences,” Warsame said in a tweet. “We agreed with the president on the important role played by Galmudug on the political transition process, peace and state building in Somalia. I once again thank the president for the warm welcome he accorded me and my delegation,” he added. The prominent opposition politician had welcomed the outcome of Dusamareb 3 Conference in principle but proposed some amendments to the agreement, saying it as incomplete sinc...

A Somali court on Monday sentenced four government officials to jail for having a hand in the theft of public funds meant for Covid-19 emergency response. The Banadir Regional Court, which covers crimes committed in Mogadishu and surrounding locations, found the four guilty following a case that drew public scrutiny in the use of the funds. The case arose in April, just a month after Somalia reported its first case of Covid-19. At that time, the Ministry of Health revealed that a number of officials were under investigation for diverting public money. Court documents released on Monday did not indicate how much each of them stole but the Ministry of Health said in April that between $42,000 and $45,000 had been spent in unclear circumstances. A written verdict read by the chief judge of the regions stated that the court found the officials guilty of committing corrupt acts and sentenced them to different terms as well as imposed varying fines.

Somali National Army (SNA) on Sunday killed three al-Shabab militants during an operation on the outskirts of the capital city Mogadishu, a military officer confirmed on Monday. Isma’il Abdi Malik Malin, SNA’s 16th Unit commander told reporters that the army conducted an operation along the road linking Mogadishu to Jowhar town, inflicting casualties on the militants. “The army shot dead three al-Shabab fighters who were planting landmines at the roadside after they attempted to resist the forces,” Malin said. He added the army also removed land mines which the militants placed on the road and the army will maintain the operations until they secure the area. The latest operation came barely three days after Somali security forces killed 10 al-Shabab militants in another operation on the outskirts of Bosaso town in the northern region of Bari. The government forces backed by African Union Mission in Somalia flushed al-Shabab militants out of Mogadishu in August 2011, ...

Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed along with three state leaders and the mayor of Mogadishu have reached an agreement on the country's election model after days of talks in the central town of Dhusamareb.  The election will be based on constituency caucuses, according to a communique issued after the summit in Dhusamareb, the administrative capital of Galmadug state. Each caucus will consist of 301 delegates who will vote for a seat in parliament and the election will be presided over by a national independent electoral commission and a party system will be applied. Puntland autonomous region and Jubaland state leaders did not attend the latest talks on the election as the country remains mired in political turmoil since Somalia’s parliament ousted former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayre in July. "Tonight in Dhusamareb, I have reached an agreement on elections with federal member states and the Banadir region which I hope will lead the country to a fai...

Authorities in Somalia say a U.S. drone strike on Thursday killed a high-ranking member of the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab, hours before the country's leaders agreed on a plan for upcoming elections in which national security will be a major issue. "U.S. Forces supporting Somali National Army (SNA) terminated a high-ranking member of the terrorist group [al-Shabab],” a Somali government statement issued Friday said. The strike occurred near the southwestern Somali town of Kurtunwarey. It targeted al-Shabab while the group was preparing to launch an attack against Somali government forces, the statement released by government-run Radio Mogadishu said. An unnamed senior member of the group’s local bomb-making and IED explosives unit was killed in the strike. U.S. forces in Africa also have confirmed the strike. "In support of the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. forces use a range of effective and appropriate methods to assist in the protec...

Somalia's political leaders have finally agreed on a poll model that involves electoral caucuses.   As part of the agreement, each Caucus of 303 delegates will elect an MP who will get a seat in parliament. Each federal state will have at least three caucuses which will elect MPs for the Lower House. These MPs will in turn elect a President.  The delegates will be nominated jointly by national and federal state electoral bodies. The deal arose from nearly two months of uncertainty. It also means that Somalia will not have direct elections as earlier though. The deal still has to be approved by the Lower House (House of the People) of Parliament. Leaders from Hirshabelle (Mohamed Abdi Waare), Galmudug (Ahmed Abdi Karie) and South West (Abdiaziz Hassan Laftagareen) signed the document alongside Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo.  The Mayor of Benadir region which covers Mogadishu metropolis...

Two soldiers in the southwestern Somali town of Baidoa were executed by firing squad Tuesday after the men confessed to raping an 11-year-old boy, authorities said. Liban Hassan Amin, 29, and Farhan Abdulkadir Abdi, 23, were accused of raping the boy on July 11. The men, who had been held at a detention center, were executed after approval by the region’s 14-member security council. Mohamed Hussein Hassan, the regional justice minister, said authorities had obtained evidence of the rape as well as confessions by the men. An official reported that Amin had been accused of rape last year but was released for lack of evidence. Also in Baidoa, a soldier faces execution after he was convicted by a military court for the armed rape of a 30-year-old woman in January. Adan Abdirahman Bayle, 22, who is married and has two small children, served on the town’s police force.

The Somali government and the UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Wednesday called for protection of aid workers providing life-saving assistance in Somalia. “On the occasion of World Humanitarian Day, the Federal Government of Somalia and the United Nations in Somalia are calling for the protection of aid workers who provide life-saving assistance to vulnerable children, women and men in the country. These workers are #RealLifeHeroes,” the UN office in Somalia said in a statement. The operating environment in Somalia is particularly challenging for humanitarian workers due to widespread insecurity and poor infrastructure which hampers the delivery of assistance to people in need, according to the UN. “Access constraints surged during the first half of 2020, with 141 incidents reported against humanitarian operations by the end of July, compared to 151 in all of 2019. Eleven humanitarian workers were killed, 11 wounded and 23 kidnapped, including se...

The warden of the central prison in Somalia’s capital has been suspended following a recent riot at the facility in which 19 people were killed, an official said Monday. Abdiqani Mohamed Qalaf, spokesman for the police force in charge of prisons, told reporters the force suspended Brig. General Aden Hussein Kulmiye, the warden of the prison, and appointed a temporary successor to take his place. No reason has been given for the suspension. However, it comes amid an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deadly prison riot, which occurred on August 10. The violence started when an inmate grabbed an officer’s gun and went on a shooting spree. In the chaos, other inmates, including some sentenced on terrorism charges, recovered guns from fallen guards. The dead included 15 prison inmates and four guards, officials said. The prison holds some members al-Shabab, Somalia’s homegrown Islamic extremist rebel group that is allied to al-Qaida. It was the first ...

At least 10 people are reported to have been killed at the Elite Hotel in the Lido beach area, plus an unknown number of militants. The attackers detonated a car bomb outside the hotel on Sunday before storming it and seizing hostages. The recently built hotel is owned by an MP and is popular with officials. Witnesses said that the initial blast was heard across Mogadishu and there was chaos as people fled the area. Security forces sealed off the hotel and exchanged fire with the gunmen inside. Four hours later, government spokesman Ismael Mukhtaar Omar tweeted that the siege was over and all the gunmen had been killed. It was not immediately clear how many militants had taken part in the attack. Among the dead are reported to be a senior official from the information ministry and another official from the defence ministry. Dozens more people were reported to be wounded.

An outcry is rising in Somalia as parliament considers a bill that would allow child marriage once a girl's sexual organs mature and would allow forced marriage as long as the family gives their consent. The bill is a dramatic reworking of years of efforts by civil society to bring forward a proposed law to give more protections to women in one of the world's most conservative countries. The new Sexual Intercourse Related Crimes Bill "would represent a major setback in the fight against sexual violence in Somalia and across the globe" and should be withdrawn immediately, the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, said in a statement yesterday. The bill also weakens protections for victims of sexual violence, she said. Already more than 45 per cent of young women in Somalia were married or "in union" before age 18, according to a United Nations analysis in 2014-15. Somalia in 2013 agreed with the...

The Somali National Army [SNA] has killed senior Alshabab militant group leader on Sunday in an operation in Lower Shabelle. According to Somali military chief, general Odawa Yussuf Rageh the military managed to take over Awdhegle, Mubarak and Darussalam villages and killed the Al-Shabab official identified as Osman Gaab who ruled the villages. "The soldiers have killed a number of fighters including commander administering the villages," he said. He also added army said it will intensify military operations to ensure they flush out all al-Shabab remnants in the areas which are still under their control. On Friday the military killed 17 Alshabab militants and dozen others were wounded after they clashed in Daynunay village outskirts of Baidoa in Bay region, southern Somalia. The government forces backed by African Mission in Somalia chased al-Shabab militants from the capital Mogadishu in August 2011, but the militants still control swathes of rural areas ...

A gunfight between Somali security forces and terrorist group al-Shabab erupted inside the main prison in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Monday, police and witnesses said. "There is an exchange of gunfire inside the prison, militants from the terrorist group are fighting with the special forces," a police officer who declined to be named reports.

On the same day the Qatari leadership sought to show its humanitarian side by sending medical aid to Lebanon in wake of the Beirut blast, Fox News reported on the Gulf state’s involvement in financing Hezbollah. The party, in turn, appears responsible for the blast, in what Fox News described as a “sprawling terror finance scheme.” Doha has not only provided Hezbollah with funds to buy weapons, but its ambassador to the European Union sought to bribe a private security contractor to “hush up the role of Qatar’s regime in supplying money and weapons” to the party. Fox News revealed that two Qatari charities furnished cash to Hezbollah in Beirut “under the guise of food and medicine.” Qatar’s role in providing funds to a party - that is designated as terrorist in many countries across the globe – and then feigning political interest by providing medical aid after a national catastrophe - which was caused by the practices of the very party itself - demonstrates the ideol...

Qatar allegedly financed “weapons deliveries” to Hezbollah as early as 2017, according to a new dossier seen by American news site Fox News. A private security contractor who penetrated Qatar’s weapons procurement business told Fox News that a member of the Qatari royal family allegedly authorized the delivery of military hardware to Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2017. Qatar’s ambassador to Belgium and NATO, Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Sulaiman Al-Khulaifi, sought to pay the private security contractor over $890,000 to hush up the role of Qatar’s regime in supplying money and weapons to the Hezbollah, the Fox News report said. The Lebanese group Hezbollah - listed as a terrorist group by the US, UK, EU and Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia - is an Iranian proxy Shia militia. It was established by the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Lebanon in 1982 and remains dependent on Iranian finance and support. The private security contractor – who is referred to as Ja...

The state of Qatar allegedly financed weapons deliveries to the global terrorist groups Hezbollah  endangering the nearly 10,000 U.S. troops stations in the emirate. The Gulf state’s Al Udeid military base is host to a forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command and to U.S. Air Force squadrons. A private security contractor, Jason G., penetrated Qatar’s weapons procurement business as part of an apparent sting operation. He told Fox News on Tuesday that a “member of the royal family” allegedly authorized the delivery of military hardware to the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist entity Hezbollah in  Lebanon . The Lebanese Hezbollah organization is an Iranian proxy Shia militia, established by the Teheran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Lebanon in 1982. It remains dependent on Iranian finance and support. It is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Lebanon. Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Sulaiman al-Khulaifi,...

Hawa Abdi Dhiblawe, a renowned Somali doctor and human rights activist, died on Wednesday in the capital Mogadishu after a short illness. She was 73. Amina Abdi, her daughter, confirmed the news of her death to reporters. In a statement, Somalia's Information Ministry said: "She was a Somali mother who established a free hospital for vulnerable Somali women and children outside Mogadishu." Dr. Ahmed Hassan, who has known her for many years, told Anadolu Agency by phone she came up with the idea of establishing free medical camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). "What she has done was heroic and she be will remembered fondly forever in Somalia's history," he added. People also took to social media to recall her services for the nation. "She was a doctor who donated her backyard to treat IDP mothers & children in Mogadishu's outskirts," Mohamed Abdi, a Twitter user said. Dhiblawe was also nominated for the Nobel ...

International flights have resumed in Somalia on Monday after a four and a half-month break. The federal government, led by the Caretaker Prime Minister Mahadi Mohamed Guled alias Khadar, issued a statement on Thursday permitting resumption of international travel that was banned in mid-March this year as part of measures to fight the spread of Covid-19. Somalia had resumed the domestic flights on July 5. The Somali government has also ordered the reopening of schools and universities, effective August 15. All education centres were closed in March.   In relation to international flights, the Immigration and Naturalisation Directorate issued a statement Sunday indicating that all immigration services will restart at all entry points. The directorate insisted that travellers are required to possess health certificates indicating that they have tested negative in the past 72 hours.

At least three people were killed and four others injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up near a busy restaurant in Mogadishu's Hamarjajab district, medical officials and witnesses said on Monday. "We have carried three bodies and four injured people to the hospitals," Abdikadir Abdirrahman, director of Aamin Ambulance reported Police sources reported that security forces managed to stop the suicide bomber by firing at him before reaching his target. Government spokesman Ismael Mukhtar Omar, however, said two people were killed and another one was injured when a suicide bomber wearing a suicide vest blew himself up at the entrance of the busy Lul Yamani restaurant. "The attacker wanted to blow up himself inside the restaurant, but one of its restaurant security staff grabbed him and stopped him at the gate before blowing up," Omar said. Witnesses said they heard a huge blast near Mogadishu seaport. "As I was travelling near the road I...

In response to a Somali court sentencing Goobjoog Media Group Deputy Director Abdiaziz Ahmed Gurbiye to six months in prison on false news charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement: “This conviction, in a case that should never have been entertained by the courts, is not only an injustice against one journalist but a deep betrayal of the entire Somali media community,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Abdiaziz Ahmed Gurbiye should be released immediately, and the government should make good on its pledge to reform the county’s penal code to ensure that journalists are not prosecuted for their work.” Abdiaziz was originally detained from April 14 to 18 in connection with a Facebook post in which he criticized the government’s COVID-19 response, according to  CPJ reporting  at the time and  a statement  by the Somali Journalists Syndicate, a local press group. Today, the Banadir Regional court in ...