Negotiating an End to Somalia’s War with al Shabaab
In August 2011, after three years of fighting, forces backing the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) took control of the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Although this was a welcome development, it was a short-term tactical gain. The strategy that the government and international community are now employing to stabilize Somalia neglects reconciliation with the rebels [...]
The Common struggle between Somalis and Eritreans
This statement was given at the Mercorios Haile Memoriol conference, in honour of the late Eritrean national leader, held on 30-31-5-2011 at the centre of Initiative for Change. The theme discussed was “The Eritrean Political Parties and Civil Society Organisations”. First of all I would like to congratulate you on the occasion of the twentieth [...]
Analysis: Somali power struggle could intensify as PM Farmaajo quits
Mogadishu (Alshahid) – The 19 June resignation of Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed could prompt an intensified power struggle within the country’s transitional government and negatively affect the ongoing offensive against insurgents in the capital, Mogadishu, observers say. Mohamed, better known as `Farmaajo’, told the press in Mogadishu he was stepping down “in the [...]
Life in war-torn Mogadishu slowly gets better
Mogadishu (Alshahid) -The buzz is there, many planes fly in as others zoom out. It is one of the busiest airports in this part of the world. African Express fly in here many times a day from Nairobi, other planes fly in from the Middle East, but it’s only up to late afternoon. After that, [...]
Inside the mind of Al-Qaeda’s new leader
(Alshahid) -He is wanted by the FBI with a $25 million bounty on his head; was even sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court. Now, he has been picked to lead al-Qaeda, the international terrorism group whose leader Osama Bin Laden was recently killed in Pakistan. This is the heavily bearded Ayman Al-Zawahiri, [...]
Somalia: The hidden cost of piracy
Mogadishu (Alshahid) – The growth of piracy off the coast of Somalia from an occasional nuisance to shipping into a multi-million-dollar criminal enterprise has another, often deliberately overlooked cost: the worsening violence meted out to thousands of captured crew members. “There definitely has been a change, and we don’t know why,” Pottengal Mukundan, Director of [...]
At last, the transition government in Somalia seems to have woken up
Nairobi (Alshahid)-While I am strongly opposed to murdering extremists that control much of the country and make no secret of their allegiance to the late Osama bin Laden’s Terror Inc., I never saw the feeble transitional government as a viable alternative. The members of the executive and the rump legislature operate only in a small [...]
Somalia: Mogadishu’s “lost generation”
Mogadishu (Alshahid) – – Most Somalis, especially in the capital, Mogadishu, have always lived amid war and joblessness. More than half the country’s population was born after the 1991 ouster of Mohammed Siad Barre that sparked the country’s slide into anarchy. “This is a group of people who have never known anything other than conflict [...]
Osama death should turn world attention to Somalia
To paraphrase a religious anecdote, has Osama died so that Somali can live? Or is his death the death of Somalia? While many celebrate the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan May 2011 by US Special Forces, Somalia and the entire Greater Horn of Africa gazed eye ball to eye ball [...]
NATO has Massacred Religious Leaders in Libya
Tripoli (Alshahid) -On Saturday morning, May 14th, in a press conference broadcast on a Libyan satellite t.v. channel, government spokesperson Moussa Ibrahim presented strong evidence that a massacre of Libyan religious leaders by NATO was carried out in the oil port of Brega. The press conference was attended by Libyan religious leaders, mainly Muslim [...]