Somalia: not piracy catch all thread

[davidbfpo]

I have merged the recent thread 'Omar Hammami's Plight Amongst al-Shabaab & al-Qaeda's Game of Thrones' into this thread. they are now posts 130 & 131.

[davidbfpo]

A few weeks ago a BBC travel programme visited a prison in Somaliland.

Hat tip to CWOT for id'ing this report by an American journalist, Eli Lake, visiting a very different prison for pirates and non-pirates like Al-Shabaab:http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...est-front.html

[Markus]

Originally Posted by BronwenM

I just started working with UN/AU Information Operations in Mog (with intermittent time in Nairobi)

What a cool job.

[davidbfpo]

The UK has established a small military presence in Somalia, the British Ministry of Defence has confirmed. A team of 10 military advisers is based at the headquarters of the African Union force in the capital, Mogadishu. They do not have a combat role; their job is to help the AU with planning, communications and medical support.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19001644

A curious development. After all there has been an EU civilian training team in Uganda for sometime and in Kenya there has a long established Anglo-Kenyan military link. So why does AMISOM need this team now?

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to Clint Watts (CWOT) for identifying a Canadian newspaper report 'Star Exclusive: Documents found on body of Al Qaeda’s African leader detail chilling plans for kidnapping, attacks':http://www.thestar.com/news/world/ar...apping-attacks

Worth reading in full IMHO. Interesting to see the focus on Israeli / Jewish targets and in the UK.

Clint has a short commentary:http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=720

An interesting contrast in the reporting of Mo Farah's Olympic success, born in Somalia and moved to the UK when he was eight years old. Who calls himself British and a Londoner. Who will be the hero for Somali youth in the UK? Mo Farah or Al-Shabaab?

[davidbfpo]

Alas no details on this relatively long-range mission, one can speculate how the troops moved so far:

Somali and African Union troops seized the port of Marka, Somalia, on Monday from the Shabab ......African Union officials said its fighters met little resistance in the battle for Marka, which is about 68 miles south of Mogadishu.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/wo...he-shabab.html

[davidbfpo]

A short and very interesting commentary, which ends with:

For more than a year, al-Shabaab has been fine-tuning its military strategy. The consensus among its leaders was to morph into a guerrilla movement and abandon traditional warfare by withdrawing into ‘Somalia’s Tora Bora’ – the mountainous region in Sanaag in the northeast, and into Ras Kamboni – a vast area of inaccessible jungles in Lower Jubba, near the border with Kenya. Both locations have been extremist hideouts for two decades.

Yet it’s al-Shabaab’s political strategy that’s likely to be more effective than its military one. The group now plans to rebrand itself as the alternative to the new Somalia government, should the latter becomes yet another playground for rapacious men.

Notwithstanding their brutal justice system, al-Shabaab has a track record of delivering three fundamental things that successive Somali governments have utterly failed to achieve: basic security, stemming corruption and a non-sectarian governing structure.

Unlike the new Somali government, which has a four-year term to achieve something, al-Shabaab is neither bound by term limits nor by a legal framework. Its faceless leaders are prepared to stay in the periphery until the new government commits suicide.

Link:http://africanarguments.org/2012/09/...by-abdi-aynte/

[AdamG]

Kenyan fighter jets bomb Somali city
Aircraft target airport in southern city of Kismayo, where Kenya says al-Shabab is operating its last major base.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa...174849981.html

[davidbfpo]

From the BBC:

Uganda will withdraw its forces from UN-backed international missions, Security Minister Muruli Mukasa says, escalating a long-running row....The UN infuriated Kampala when it published an experts' report accusing Uganda of arming Congolese rebels....The remarks from the security minister echo a statement made in the Ugandan parliament on Thursday by Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20187369

Other operations in the Central African Republic - the hunt for Kony & the LRA and the Democratic Republic of Congo will be affected.

Note Uganda was recently elected to the UNSC, with an overwhelming vote, so may have some clout in NYC.

One wonders how the EU & USA, the biggest known supporters of AMISOM, will react. What is more important the hell-hole of Somalia or eastern DRC? Time for some delicate diplomacy and more US$ to Uganda.

[davidbfpo]

Aidan Hartley has been in Somalia recently to make a documentary. He has written two short articles in 'The Spectator', the first starts with:

I return to Mogadishu to find it’s calm – only a few assassinations, hit-and-run attacks, IEDs or suicide bombs — and at last most Somalis seem ready for peace. I’ve covered events here for 21 years and love imagining an end to war in this delightful city. I also know that it’s during times of calm, when you drop your guard — forgetting that there’s one rule for Somalis and another for foreigners — you end up dead.

He then writes about the risk of being kidnapped and preparations.

Link:http://www.spectator.co.uk/life/wild.../wild-life-44/

The next article uses a returning Somali restaurant owner's tale. Within are a few surprises:

If Somalia could rid itself of extremists and warlords, it could have a bright future. The outside world often assumes that there’s a constant famine here; that all Somalis must be starving. And yes, countless thousands have died of hunger, but that was due to war, not drought or a harsh environment.

The truth is that Somalia has wonderful food in abundance. It has some of the best surviving tuna fisheries in the world, thanks to the pirates, who have protected these waters. Its river lands are fertile and the markets are piled with fruit and vegetables — all organic thanks to the isolation of Somalia for a generation. The meat — ah, the meat! There are more camels in Somalia than any other nation worldwide.

Link:http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/...g-for-freedom/

The documentary is The Master Chef of Mogadishu’ which was broadcast on Unreported World, Channel 4. I don't know if this podcast will work outside the UK:http://www.channel4.com/programmes/u...012/episode-12

[davidbfpo]

Since African Union forces surrounded Kismayo, we have kept a database detailing every publicly-reported attack known or suspected of being carried out by the group and its sympathizers. This database runs from September 30, 2012, through December 5, 2012, covering a total of 68 attacks. In this article, we map the early part of Shabaab’s attempted post-Kismayo insurgency by providing a visualization of this data.

Link:http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawam...o-attacks.html

[bourbon]

French SOF lost 2 men Saturday in the failed rescue of a DGSE officer being held by al-Shabab, 110 km south of Mogadishu.

[davidbfpo]

The kidnapped DGSE agent was:

..hostage Denis Allex, kidnapped in Somalia in July 2009...

From:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20996963

IIRC he was one of two agents kidnapped, the other escaped after a few months.

There were two photos shown on the BBC News, only one on their website; they showed a very different man. Sadly I think his chances of survival now are slim.

[davidbfpo]

An optimistic article, indeed rather odd as it claims:

Yet in 2012, Somalis held their first democratic elections in decades..

For once the comments are worth skimming through.

I looked quickly, we have not missed this democratic election, it was a parliament meeting, it's members nominated by the clans.

Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...d-8449310.html

[davidbfpo]

An article in West Point's CTC's periodical 'Sentinel' on the vagaries of warfare in a clan dominated society:

To others, this seems like a barely organized chaos, the unpredictability of Somali political behavior. Somalis may seem like they have very limited or tentative buy-in to agreements, and are unreliable and selfish. In fact, leaders, particularly local leaders who are directly responsible to kin and communities, tend to be pragmatic to the extreme.

Link:http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/rethin...ncy-in-somalia

[davidbfpo]

The UK is to co-host a conference on Somalia again, so this article comes as no surprise and our PM, David Cameron, referred to Somalia as an example of development and security being entwined. Ah, but does anyone seriously believe:

The Somalian government payroll currently includes 8,500 soldiers and 6,000 police in Mogadishu, the capital. Most are hastily drafted members of militias whose ultimate loyalty is to clans or warlord leaders.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ty-forces.html

I don't and way-back there was a post about those trained in Uganda, by an EU mission, promptly defected to a militia or Al-Shabaab upon their return.