Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Africa Horn

Southwest State Forces Kill 2 Shaboobniks, Capture 12

2024-05-10

[ShabelleMedia] In a series of successful operations against the al-Shabaab

... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa...
terrorist group, the Southwest state forces of Somalia have achieved notable victories, capturing 12 al-Shabaab members and eliminating key figures within the organization.

These operations mark a significant step forward in the ongoing counterinsurgency efforts in Somalia. According to Somali state media, a government operation conducted in Somalia’s Bay region on May 5, 2024, resulted in the elimination of two al-Shabaab fighters, identified as Abdullahi Aliyow and Najib Abdisalan.

These individuals were responsible for tax collection for the group, a critical source of funding for their activities. This operation demonstrates the government’s commitment to dismantling the financial infrastructure of al-Shabaab, a crucial aspect of weakening the group’s operational capabilities.

In a separate operation carried out in villages located outside the Baydhabo town, the Southwest state’s spy agency unveiled several al-Shabaab operatives. These individuals were part of a larger network involved in terrorist activities, including planned liquidations, direct assaults, nighttime bombings, and extortion.

Twelve individuals were detained in this operation, highlighting the effectiveness of intelligence-led operations in combating terrorism.

These successes come amid ongoing efforts by the Somali government and its international partners to combat al-Shabaab. The Somali National Army, African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) troops, and local militia have been working together to push back against the krazed killer group. These efforts have resulted in the recapture of key strategic towns and the elimination of a significant number of al-Shabaab fighters.

The second phase of operations against al-Shabaab, which kicked off in southwest and Jubaland states, has seen the participation of soldiers from neighboring Kenya, Djibouti, and Æthiopia, in addition to Somali forces.

Garowe adds:

Somalia's spy agency; the National Intelligence Security Agency (NISA) has paraded 12 suspected Al-Shabaab militants as the fight against the group garnered momentum across the Horn of Africa nation, which is battling with instability.

The suspected militants were rounded by security forces in Baidoa, the regional administrative capital of Southwest state, following intensive search mounted by local troops. Southwest is a major terror hotbed in Somalia.

According to NISA, the 12 individuals were arrested following a coordinated crackdown by national security forces in Baidoa city and its surroundings were extorting money from members of the public in the region.

The suspects, NISA added, will be charged in the military court in line with traditions set by security operatives in Somalia. Besides extortion, they are accused of killing members of the public along with endangering the lives of security teams.

Security and intelligence officers from the southern state of Somalia are continuing with operations in the region to ensure security is maintained. The second phase of operations against Al-Shabaab is set to be launched in Southwest and Jubaland states.

For the last two years, security teams have intensified operations against Al-Shabaab in central regions, killing at least 3,000 Al-Shabaab militants. In the process, hundreds of Al-Shabaab militants have also surrendered to security teams.

The second phase of operations was delayed due to logistical challenges but the government announced possible resumption in the coming months. The Somali National Army is expected to assume security responsibilities from foreign troops by the end of this year.

Already, about 5,000 African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) soldiers have left the country. By June this year, 5,000 more are set to leave as the African Union gears towards implementation of the Somali Transition Plan.

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Africa Horn

Leading Shebab figure dies in Somalia

2015-05-29

[AlAhram] A leading figure in the Somali-based Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab movement has died in Somalia, the Islamic myrmidon group said Thursday.

In a death announcement and obituary carried by jihadist media, the Shabaab said Sheikh Hassan Abdulahi Turki, known as Hassan Turki, died on Wednesday evening in the Middle Juba region south of the capital Mogadishu. Turki was in his 70s and suffered from poor health.

"Sheikh Hassan Abdulahi Turki died last night in Hargeysa Yarey township. We pray to God to give him his mercy and accept his long-term good deeds," Shabaab front man Ali Mohamud Rage said in an audio message.

Rage said Turki "was one of Somalia's greatest scholars" who had met "Al-Qaeda leaders, led by the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones...
, twice in Afghanistan and another time in Sudan" and had fought against US soldiers in Mogadishu in 1993, the year 18 US soldiers were killed in the so-called Black Hawk Down incident during an ill-fated intervention.

The Æthiopian-born former soldier was a veteran Islamist who played a series of leading roles in Somalia's civil war.

Turki was a founding member of Al-Itihaad Al-Islami in the early 1990s alongside Hassan Dahir Aweys, often regarded as the godfather of Islamic militancy in Somalia. Together they also formed a successor group called Hizbul Islam.

Turki played a key role in the Islamic Courts Union, which briefly controlled Somalia in 2006, and helped establish the Shabaab which emerged in the wake of the US-backed Æthiopian invasion that ended its rule.

In 2004 the US put Turki on its list of global Al-Qaeda leaders after accusing him of involvement in the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania six years earlier. In 2008 he survived a US air strike targeting him and other myrmidon leaders in southern Somalia.

In recent years Turki's influence and importance waned as old age and ill-health took their toll.

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Africa Horn

Somalia: Banadir governor threatens independent Media outlets; accuses politicians

2012-04-11

(Sh.M.Network)- The governor of Banadir region forSomalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Mohamud Ahmed Nur (Tarsan), has sent a verbal threats to the independently owned Media outlets based inMogadishufor their reporting of the reality on the ground.

The governor says: "The local Media stations inMogadishuhave exaggerated critics by so called Somali politicians who oppose politically and strategically the administration of Banadir region for TFG."

He threatened to take strict measures against the self-governing privately owned Media stations based in Mogadishu soon after accusing of taking part the insecurity in the capital. The Politicians denied these accusations.

On the other hand, Somalis in Kenya and Britannia countries confirmed to Shabelle Media that Mr. Tarsan, the current governor of Banadir region for Somali government has burned the national flag of Ethiopia during a demonstration held in front of Ethiopian embassy in UK after Addis Ababa sent troops in Somalia to help TFG led by the dear departed Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.

Politicians say the governor has also burnt Somalis national flag at Gudha village inLower Jubbaregion while he was with Hassan Turki, a former Union of Islamic courts leader and now Al-shabab member.

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Africa Horn

Shabaab chiefs could be probed by ICC

2011-11-01

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Kenya and Somalia want the International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
(ICC) to investigate the leaders of A

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Africa Horn

Kenyan army in for 'mother of all battles'

2011-10-18

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Kenyan forces are likely to see action in a major battle in the Somali town of Afmadow, 620 kilometres south of Mogadishu, in the coming days.

Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) soldiers, together with allied combatants from Ras Kamboni Brigade and units of the Kenyan military, were on Monday said to be headed there.

Residents of Tabto and Qoqani towns in Lower Juba region confirmed that the bulk of the hapless Somali government forces in alliance with combatants loyal to Ras Kamboni Brigade, clan-based moderate Islamists, are gradually moving towards Afmadow, the district headquarters under a

l-Shabaab
... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader...
control.

Al-Shabaab has mobilised hundreds of fighters, confiscated vehicles to transport them to the town, promising to make the Kenya army, which it dismissively described as not-combat-tested "to feel the pain of bullets".

Some of the Islamists are experienced fighters trained by international terrorists. Being a lightly armed guerrilla force, it has in the past attacked and melted away. It remains to be seen whether it will choose to confront head-on a conventional army with tanks and air cover.

"The Kenyan troops supported by tanks and other military vehicles have taken up positions near Qoqani," an elder in a nearby village, Mr Saleban Mohamed, said.

"I saw around 32 trucks and tanks, with hundreds of troops," he added.

"The Kenyan soldiers are heavily armed and they have started digging trenches near Qoqani," another witness, Mr Abdulahi Sayid Adam, said

Withdraw troops

Al-Shabaab front man Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage threatened to launch terror attacks in Kenyan cities if Nairobi does not withdraw its troops.

"Kenya has peace, its cities have tall buildings and business is booming there, while Somalia is in chaos. If your government ignores our calls to stop its aggression on Somali soil, we will strike at the heart of your interests," he said in an address intended for the Kenyan population.

Hassan Turki, a senior southern al-Shabaab leader, said his men would force the Kenyan troops "to test the pain of the bullets." (READ: Al-Shabaab warns Kenyan soldiers)

Al-Shabaab fighters were on Monday said to be boosting defences and sending "hundreds" of fighters towards Kenyan and TFG positions.

"I saw around 50 trucks and pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns, with hundreds of fighters heading towards the Kenyan border," Mr Abdi Jumale, a resident in the al-Shabaab-held port of Kismayu told AFP by telephone.

Al-Shabaab commanders confiscated at least a 100 trucks late on Sunday from the Lower Shabelle region, outside the capital Mogadishu, to transport fighters to the battle zones, witnesses said.

"Many trucks were taken from civilians to transport fighters, they are heading towards the Juba region," a resident of al-Shabaab-held Afgoye district near Mogadishu told AFP, asking not to be named for security reasons.

"They have collected all weapons near Afgoye, and gathered hundreds of young fighters," another said.

The assault came after Internal Security Minister George Saitoti vowed to attack al-Shabaab "wherever they will be".

In the past five weeks, a British woman and a French woman have been kidnapped from beach resorts in two separate incidents, dealing a major blow to the tourism industry.

On Thursday, two Spanish aid workers were seized by gunnies from Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest with more than 450,000 mainly Somali refugees.

Under growing pressure

Kenya has been under growing pressure to take action and attempt to restore confidence that it could safely host tourists and one of the world's largest aid communities.

The troop movements have heightened tension in the area with villagers and pastoralists in the affected district fearing battles between the coalition forces and the fighters of al-Shabaab.

Other sources confirm that war planes, presumed to be from Kenya have occasionally been flying over the military positions.

Despite the wide confirmation that Kenyan troops have crossed the border on Sunday, Somali officials continue denying any such intervention.

A Kenya Army helicopter crashed on take-off from Liboi Town inside Kenya, killing five soldiers.

They were lifting off from the area where they had returned after operations inside Somalia when the incident happened, according to a Department of Defence statement.

Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee summoned Prof Saitoti and Defence minister Yusuf Haji for a closed-door briefing.

Outside the committee room, Prof Saitoti repeated the reason for Kenya's engagement in Somalia.

In Kismayu, the main base for al-Shabaab and their al-Qaeda allies, rebels began heading to Afmadow.

"All al-Shabaab's fighters and their armed vehicles in Kismayu have taken the road towards Afmadow," Ismail Aden, a Kismayu resident told Rooters.

"Al-Shabaab have left only 10 fighters here... people are afraid here, they do not know what will happen," he said. Kismayu is about 120km south of Afmadow.

A Somali military commander told Rooters his soldiers were also advancing on the town of Afmadow, which is near a now deserted al-Shabaab base hit by air strikes on Sunday.

Another Kismayu resident said the snuffies had urged residents to defend the port town.

Logistics support

Somali government front man Abdurahman Omar Osman alias Engineer Yarisow, reiterated that Kenya only helps Somali forces through training and logistical support.

"People may be confusing Somali troops trained in Kenya that are crossing to the other side with Kenyan soldiers," Mr Yarisow said.

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Africa Horn

Al Shabaab warns Kenyan soldiers

2011-10-17

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Somalia's Al-Qaeda linked Shabaab rebels on Sunday warned Kenyan soldiers, as they crossed the frontier to attack Death Eater strongholds, that they would feel the "pain of bullets."

"Kenya violated the territorial rights of Somalia by entering our holy land, but I assure you that they will return disappointed, God willing," said Sheikh Hassan Turki, a senior Shabaab leader.

"Mujahideen fighters will force them to test the pain of the bullets."

Kenyan government front man Alfred Mutua said on Sunday that its troops had entered southern Somalia to fight the Shabaab, who it says are responsible for attacks on its territory, including the recent kidnapping four foreigners.

In response, the Shabaab called on Somalis to rally and attack the Kenyan troops.

"I call on all Somalis to stand united against this blood-thirsty enemy that has crossed into our territories and the apostate Somali forces of Evil helping them," Turki added.

Kenya's assault comes a day after its Internal Security Minister George Saitoti branded the bad turban Shabaab rebels "the enemy" and vowed to attack them "wherever they will be".

Link

Africa Horn

Islamist rebels face off in southern Somali port

2009-09-24

Rival Islamist insurgents are squaring up for a fight over southern Somalia's strategic port of Kismayu after hardline al Shabaab rebels unilaterally named a new administration to run the area.

Animosity has been growing between al Shabaab, which the United States says is al Qaeda's proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state, and another rebel militia, Hizbul Islam. Both groups want to control Kismayu, which is a lucrative source of taxes and other income for their fighters, and until this week they controlled the port in an uneasy alliance. Then on Wednesday, al Shabaab named its own local governing council, excluding all their Hizbul Islam rivals.

Residents say both sides are rushing in reinforcements in anticipation of battle, and on Thursday a senior Hizbul Islam leader said they would not recognise the new authority. "The men who call themselves al Shabaab have formed an administration with disregard to the other mujahideen," Sheikh Hassan Turki, Hizbul's deputy leader and the commander of southern Somalia's Ras Kamboni militant group, told reporters. "No one should claim total control of the city. There should be mediation before there is bloodshed ... they broke a promise about forming the town's administration and should fear Allah."

Leaflets denouncing al Shabaab, widely thought to have been printed by the Kamboni group, have been circulating in Kismayu in recent weeks, locals say, raising fears of a confrontation.

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Africa Horn

Stoning victim 'begged for mercy'

2008-11-04

A young woman recently stoned to death in Somalia first pleaded for her life, a witness has told the BBC.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me," she said, according to the man who wanted to remain anonymous. A few minutes later, more than 50 men threw stones.

Human rights group Amnesty International says the victim was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped.

Initial reports had said she was a 23-year-old woman who had confessed to adultery before a Sharia court.

The witness says she was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck then pelted with stones until she died in front of more than 1,000 people.

Cameras were banned from the public stoning, but print and radio journalists who were allowed to attend estimated that the woman, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was 23 years old.

However, Amnesty said it had learned she was 13, and that her father had said she was raped by three men.

When the family tried to report the rape, the girl was accused of adultery and detained, Amnesty said.

Convicting a girl of 13 for adultery would be illegal under Islamic law.

A human rights activist in the town told the BBC on condition of anonymity that he had received death threats from the Islamic militia, who accuse him of spreading false information about the incident.

He denies having anything to with Amnesty's report.

Court authorities have said the woman came to them admitting her guilt.

She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply, they said.

But a witness who spoke to the BBC's Today programme said she had been crying and had to be forced into a hole before the stoning, reported to have taken place in a football stadium.

"More than 1,000 people arrived there," he said.

"After two hours, the Islamic administration in Kismayo brought the lady to the place and when she came out she said: 'What do you want from me?'"

"They said: 'We will do what Allah has instructed us'. She said: 'I'm not going, I'm not going. Don't kill me, don't kill me.'

"A few minutes later more than 50 men tried to stone her."

The witness said people crowding round to see the execution said it was "awful".

"People were saying this was not good for Sharia law, this was not good for human rights, this was not good for anything."

But no-one tried to stop the Islamist officials, who were armed, the witness said. He said one boy was shot in the confusion.

According to Amnesty International, nurses were sent to check during the stoning whether the victim was still alive. They removed her from the ground and declared that she was, before she was replaced so the stoning could continue.

The port of Kismayo was seized in August by a coalition of forces loyal to rebel leader Hassan Turki, and al-Shabab, the country's main radical Islamist insurgent organisation.

Mr Turki is on the US list of "financers of terrorism".

It was the first reported execution by stoning in the southern port city since Islamist insurgents captured it.

The BBC had a reporter in the area, but he was shot dead in Kismayo in June.

Link

Africa Horn

Woman stoned to death for adultery after Somali court ruling

2008-10-28

MOGADISHU (AFP) Thousands of people gathered Monday to witness 50 Somali men stone a woman to death after an Islamic court in the southern port of Kismayo found her guilty of adultery, witnesses said. Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, who had been found guilty of extra-marital intercourse was buried in the ground up to her neck while the men pelted her head with rocks.

"Our sister Aisha asked the Islamic Sharia court in Kismayo to be charged and punished for the crime she committed," local Islamist leader Sheikh Hayakallah told the crowd. "She admitted in front of the court to engaging in adulterous sexual intercourse," he added.

"She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply."

Who moved her mouth for her when she 'said' this?

The execution was carried in one of the city's main squares.

The port of Kismayo was seized in August by a coalition of forces loyal to rebel leader Hassan Turki, and the Shebab, the country's main radical Islamist insurgent organisation. The new administration formed there began implementing a strict form of Sharia (Islamic law). "This afternoon we are telling the people of Kismayo that we are practising a punishment that is rare in this region and was carried out in Kismayo for the first time," Sheikh Hayakallah said.

Cameras were banned from the public stoning but print and radio journalists were allowed to attend.

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Africa Horn

Al-Qaeda target 'may be alive'

2007-02-06

There is as yet no confirmation of the deaths of targeted al-Qaeda suspects who may have been killed in recent fighting in Somalia, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in an interview published in the Financial Times on Monday. Meles told the business daily that though bloodied papers had been found belonging to Aden Hashi Ayro, a militant suspected by the United States of protecting leaders of an east African al-Qaeda cell that bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, reported sightings of him suggest he is alive.

The Prime Minister also said that Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Hassan Turki, two leaders of the Islamic Courts Union - a hard-line Islamist party that implemented Sharia law in the parts of Somalia it controlled - were "alive and moving in and out of Kenya on the border.

We do not have definite information on a number of the key al-Qaeda targets. There are reports that one or two of them might have died but we have no confirmation, Meles was quoted as saying by the FT. Meles said that the United States was assisting with DNA testing on suspects killed in the fighting. He also dismissed talk of an escalating Islamist insurgency, saying: If the TFG (the UN-backed Transitional Federal Government) manages to pull off the plans it has for national reconciliation... then the remnants of the Islamic Courts and international jihadists will be politically marginalised.

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Good morning...

2006-10-25

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Africa Horn

Counterterrorism Blog : The Islamic Courts Union Readies a Final Push Into Baidoa

2006-10-25

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

My most recent article for The Weekly Standard (co-authored with Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail) details the alarming rise of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia. On June 5, the ICU won control of Mogadishu, and it has steadily made strategic gains throughout the country since then. The transitional federal government (TFG) is now hunkered down in the south-central Somali city of Baidoa. The situation in Baidoa has been precarious for some time, as the ICU has demonstrated its capacity to take the city. There are now signs that the ICU may be beginning its final push into Baidoa to crush the transitional government.

Members of the ICU have indicated that this final push is coming. Today the number two leader of the ICU, Hassan Turki, announced the group's intention to chase the transitional government from Baidoa. SomaliNet News reports that Turki promised to bring all of Somalia under the ICU's rule, and that he declared war on the semiautonomous regions of Somaliland and Puntland, which have been resistant to the ICU's rule. Adnkronos International reports that unnamed members of the ICU leadership told the pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that an attack on Baidoa is now planned.

Although the presence of Ethiopian troops protecting Baidoa may have previously deterred the ICU's advance, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys (the head of the ICU's shura council) has now declared war on them: "We have been asking the Ethiopians to leave our country for a long time. This is the end of that request. We are now telling them that from now on, their graves will be littered everywhere in Somalia. . . . We will now start fighting. I am calling on all Somalis wherever they are to start jihad against the invaders and those who support them."

My sources in military intelligence also believe that the ICU's final drive toward Baidoa is coming. This is an important situation to follow. If the ICU is set on taking Baidoa, they will in all likelihood not be stopped. There are, however, two critical questions when their final push comes. The first is whether the ICU ends up triggering a war with Ethiopia in the process: there are reportedly around thirty Ethiopian armored vehicles in the vicinity Baidoa, as well as Ethiopian roadblocks designed to protect the city. The second question is whether critical TFG leaders are captured or killed by the ICU, or whether they are able to escape to Ethiopia or another friendly country. It is clearly preferable that TFG leaders escape alive to serve as a thorn in the ICU's side. In fact, the Ethiopian armored vehicles may be stationed around Baidoa not to serve a defensive purpose, but rather to whisk away the TFG leadership when the attack comes.

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