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Africa Horn
Al-Shabaab raid repelled as lawmakers survive grenade attack in Somalia
2021-10-08
[Garowe] The Somali National Army [SNA] repelled an al-Shabaab
...... the personification of Somali state failure...
 attack, in yet another dramatic moment that showcases the ability of the federal army, which has been undergoing rebuilding for the last decade after years of downfall.

State media reported that the federal army stationed in Janale town in Lower Shabelle killed three al-Shabaab Lions of Islam within the region after they attempted to run over a camp, following brief fire exchanges.

The incident also left a number of al-Shabaab Lions of Islam nursing their injuries as quite a number also got apprehended by the state army. The incident took place on Tuesday night according to the state media.

"Somali National Army stationed in Janale town of Lower Shabelle region killed 3 Alshabab fighters and maimed several others after forces of Evil had attempted to attack the army base on Tuesday night," state media reported.

Janale town, a former al-Shabaab base, was liberated in 2020 following an operation carried jointly by the Somali National Army and the 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...
 Mission Forces [AMISOM] which is responsible for security and peace in Somalia.

The town has since been under the Somali troops which are also in charge of several villages within the town. It's in Janale that al-Shabaab for a long time used to extort taxes from the locals with impunity and retrogressive antics.

Elsewhere, two regional members of parliament were maimed Tuesday night in a grenade attack in Jowhar, town, the regional administrative capital of Hirshabelle, as elections for the remaining two senators concluded.

The two politicians-Abdirahman Idow and Mohammed Dheere were maimed after a hand grenade was reportedly hurled at the house of Jowhar mayor where the politicians were in.

The attack is the second one in about a month. Three regional MPs were maimed last month after a similar grenade attack at an administrator’s residence. The bad boy group al-Shabaab grabbed credit for the attack but did not give immediate reasons why it targeted the politicians.
Related:
Janale: 2021-10-05 Somali military kills seven Al-Shabaab fighters in southern region
Janale: 2021-03-30 Somali army kills over 10 Al-Shabab militants in southern region
Janale: 2021-02-20 Somalia: At Least 20 Al-Shabaab Members Killed in Army Ops - SNA Chief
Related:
Lower Shabelle: 2021-10-05 Somali military kills seven Al-Shabaab fighters in southern region
Lower Shabelle: 2021-09-24 Al-Shabaab attack KDF base in Somalia as bomb blast kill two in port city
Lower Shabelle: 2021-09-20 At least five people injured as Al-Shabaab bombs Bulo Burte airstrip in Somalia
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Africa Horn
Insecurity rages in Islamist abandoned areas
2006-12-28
Mogadishu 27, Dec.06 ( Sh.M.Network) Insecurity problems have escalated in Baledweyn and Abbudwaq, the main towns of Hiran and Galagadud provinces, central Somalia.
Already pining for the good old days of law and order with the Islamists.
A group of militias in Abudwaq has raged insecurity problems, setting up checkpoints in the town. Witnesses said the militias have opened gunfire indiscriminately at town, endangering the lives of ordinary people in the town.

The ICU fighters have fled run away ran like rabbits abandoned Abudwaq after they feared attacks from the Ethiopian troops that now took control of all Middle Shabelle and central provinces in the country, reportedly heading for the capital, Mogadishu.

Residents in Baledweyn say that they are mugged at the nights by groups of robbers armed with AK 47 rifles and pistols.

Residents in Jawhar have welcomed the arrival of government militias, witnesses reported. Early in the morning, people were fleeing their homes to the capital Mogadishu in fear of the escalating war.

Shabelle reporter in Jawhar Nor Bukhari said many people in the town were rejoicing the return of Mohammed Dheere, a former warlord who controlled Jawhar before Islamist fighters evicted him. People who owned small cinemas and those who traded in Khad, a narcotic stimulant leaf, shouted they were finally pleased to reopen their business to earn their daily bread.
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Africa Horn
Mogadishu expected to fall without a fight
2006-12-28
Somali and Ethiopian troops drove Islamic fighters out of the last major town before Mogadishu on Wednesday, and the government predicted the capital and stronghold of the radical Islamists would fall without a fight. Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said no assault was planned on Mogadishu because the forces of the Council of Islamic Courts were crumbling so fast. “Islamic courts militias are already on the run and we hope that Mogadishu will fall to our hands without firing a shot,” he said.

The Islamic Courts movement had grown steadily in power for six months, until the dramatic entry into the war by Ethiopian troops last week.
That was after the Islamic courts, in a move of sheer brilliance, declared jihad on Aethiopia.
Since then, fortunes have changed dramatically with the Islamists in full retreat.
"Whuddya mean, 'they took us seriously'?"
On Wednesday, thousands of Ethiopian and Somali government troops were seen in tanks heading toward Balad, only about 30 kilometres away from Mogadishu, said Nadifo Ali Tifow, a resident in Qalimow village, along the same road. Former warlord Mohammed Dheere, who controlled the town of Jowhar before it was captured by the Council of Islamic Courts in June, led the Somali government troops back in, said resident Abshir Ali Gabre.
It's probably be a good idea for a series of unfortunate accidents to befall the "warlords," who've been revealed as being much better at being lords than at making war.
“We will attack Mogadishu tomorrow from two directions,” Mr. Dheere told the crowd, before the government denied that would happen.
Doesn't sound like he's on the planning committee. If Somalia's lucky, there's already a toaster sitting on the shelf over his bath tub.
Fighting could be heard at a military camp south of Jowhar and in the village of Lego. An Islamic official said his troops were simply entering a new phase in their battle. “Our snakes of defence were let loose, now they are ready to bite the enemy everywhere in Somalia,” said Sheik Mohamoud Ibrahim Suley. He did not elaborate, but some Islamic leaders have threatened a guerrilla war including suicide bombings in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.
They do that sort of thing much better than they fight battles or govern.
Hundreds of people had fled Jowhar, anticipating major fighting, but others seemed resigned to it after suffering from drought and flooding over the last two years. “We do not know where to escape, we are already suffering from floods, hunger and disease,” Abdale Haji Ali said from Jowhar. “We are awaiting death.”

In Geneva, the UN refugee agency said it was preparing for the possible arrival of thousands of Somalis fleeing the fighting in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia. Staff, trucks and emergency relief items for up to 50,000 people are being readied, UNHCR said.

Ethiopia sent fighter jets streaking deep into militia-held areas Sunday to help Somalia's U.N.-recognized government push back the Islamic militias. Ethiopia bombed the country's two main airports and helped government forces capture several villages.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Tuesday that Ethiopian forces may soon wrap up their offensive against the Islamic militias that until recent days controlled most of the southern part of the country. Mr. Zenawi said he aims to severely damage the courts' military capabilities and allow both sides to return to peace talks on an even footing. He has said he would not send his troops into Mogadishu, which the Islamic movement has held since June.

A State Department spokesman in Washington signalled support Tuesday for Ethiopian military operations against Somalia, noting that Ethiopia has had “genuine security concerns” stemming from the rise of Islamist forces in its eastern neighbour.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the African Union Commission has called a meeting Wednesday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of the 53-nation AU, the Arab League, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a seven-nation East African group, to try to end the fighting and resume dialogue between Somalia's warring parties.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday took no immediate action on a draft presidential statement circulated by Qatar calling for a cease-fire and withdrawal of foreign forces, specifying Ethiopian troops. The United States and several other nations objected to singling out Ethiopia and the call for a truce, saying talks and a political agreement are needed for stability before foreign forces can leave. The council agreed to continue discussions Wednesday.

Somalia was largely under the control of warlords until this past summer, when the Islamic militia movement pushed them aside. One critical issue is whether the central government can win the support of Somalis. Many resent Ethiopia's intervention because the countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years.
They keep saying that. The Somalis don't seem any more enamored of the Islamists than they were of the warlords. Either way, their lot in life seems to involve a lot of natural disasters followed by starvation.
Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the region.
That would depend on the region taking the conflict seriously, which it doesn't appear to do.
Islamic courts leaders have repeatedly said they want to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.
That way they can all live lives defined by natural disasters and starvation. And the Islamic courts can rule - not govern - even more poor souls whose lives were previously relatively stable and even free.
Any effort by the Somali government or Ethiopia to take the capital risks a disaster similar to the U.S. intervention in Somalia in 1992. That UN-sponsored mission ended in 1993, after Somali militiamen shot down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. Eighteen American servicemen were killed in the crash and vicious street fighting that preceded and followed, made famous in the book and movie Black Hawk Down.
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Africa Horn
Ethiopian, Somali Troops Regain Jowhar
2006-12-27
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Attacking at dawn, Ethiopian and Somali government troops on Wednesday drove Islamic fighters out of the last major town on their road to the Islamic-held capital.

A former warlord who ruled the town of Jowhar before it was captured by the Council of Islamic Courts in June led the Somali government troops as they drove into the city, a resident said. "Ethiopian troops and Mohammed Dheere have entered the city," said Abshir Ali Gabre.

Hundreds of people fled Jowhar, anticipating major fighting, but others seemed resigned to it after suffering from drought and flooding over the last two years. "We do not know where to escape, we are already suffering from floods, hunger and disease," Abdale Haji Ali said from Jowhar. "We are awaiting death."

Ethiopia sent fighter jets streaking deep into militia-held areas Sunday to help Somalia's U.N.-recognized government push back the Islamic militias. Ethiopia bombed the country's two main airports and helped government forces capture several villages.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Tuesday that Ethiopian forces may soon wrap up their offensive against the Islamic militias that until recent days controlled most of southern part of the country.

The Islamic fighters, meanwhile, threatened a "new phase" in the war - a chilling pronouncement from a movement that has threatened a guerrilla war that would include suicide bombings in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.
Chilling is good in the Southern Hemisphere in December. Thanks.
Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, pushing the country into anarchy.

Two years ago, the United Nations helped set up a central government for the arid, impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa. But until the past week, it had little influence outside of its seat in the city of Baidoa, about 140 northwest of Mogadishu.

The country was largely under the control of warlords until this past summer, when the Islamic militia movement pushed them aside.

One critical issue is whether the central government can win the support of Somalis. Many resent Ethiopia's intervention because the countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years.
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Africa Horn
Islamic Fighters Seize Jowhar
2006-06-14
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Islamic fighters on Wednesday drove secular militiamen out of a strategic town in southern Somalia following a brief firefight and the fleeing of militia leaders in the middle of the night, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties, but residents were fleeing for fear of unrest in the town of Jowhar, about 55 miles from the capital of Mogadishu, which the Islamic fighters seized from the secular militiamen last week.

The Islamic Courts Union had been building up troops around Jowhar in recent days to finish off their rivals, the warlord-led Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism. The town had been the alliance's last remaining stronghold in southern Somalia.
On to Puntland?
Clan elders in Jowhar had urged the warlords to leave the town in order to avoid a confrontation, two Somali officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Witnesses told The Associated Press that the warlords did not want to be disarmed by the Islamic fighters and fought their way out of the town.

Just before morning prayers at dawn Wednesday, witnesses also reported skirmishes between some Islamic fighters and secular militiamen about 10 miles outside Jowhar. There were no casualties reported and the fighting stopped soon after. One alliance warlord, Issa Ahmed, said he was still in Jowhar - his hometown - and he would defend it if anybody attacked.
Issa's got nowhere to go.
The warlords who fled late Tuesday included two former members of Somalia's transitional government, Mohamed Qanyare Afrah and Botan Isse Allen, the officials said. They were loyal to Mohammed Dheere, the alliance's main leader who was reportedly hiding in Ethiopia trying to raise support for his forces.

Mohamed Jama, a militiaman loyal to Qanyare, confirmed to The Associated Press that Qanyare and Allen had left Jowhar at night with some technicals pickups mounted with machine-guns and scores of militiamen. He said they were now in the town of El Bur, 200 miles northeast of Mogadishu.
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Africa: Horn
Somalia abuzz with sightings of al-Qaeda leader
2004-05-04
Cyberspace is the only sure place to find the man the United States says is Al Qaeda’s top Africa bomber, a master of concealment still at large despite a five-year-old manhunt. The baby-faced features of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed peer mockingly from the FBI Most Wanted website, which offers $25 million for help in hunting the Afghanistan-trained militant. The elusive Comoran-born Fazul, aged about 30, also masterminded an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya in November 2002 that killed 15 people, US officials say. Failure to apprehend the slender militant has strained nerves along Africa’s eastern seaboard, where terror-related US travel warnings have hit once lucrative tourism income.

The trail grows warmest in Somalia, the chaotic country where Fazul, an accomplished linguist and computer expert with at least 18 aliases, is believed to have been hiding for most of the past 12 months. In many ways the ruined country is a logical choice: After 13 years of militia anarchy it has no government or police and is too dangerous for Western investigators to visit often. But it has drawbacks for the Comoran too: It is a gossipy society where a stranger’s presence is quickly noted. In the most violent region, the south, it is not hard to find people who say they have seen Fazul. While the FBI reward might inspire unwelcome creativity in informants’ reports, sightings of Fazul or his associates have sometimes proven very reliable.

In March 2003 a suspected associate of Fazul, Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, a Yemeni, was captured in Mogadishu with the help of warlord Mohammed Dheere and is now in US custody. Hopes rose of a usable lead to Fazul, but he slipped away. In late 2003, some militia bosses and ordinary residents reported Fazul audaciously moving around Mogadishu with a team of bodyguards recruited from a variety of Somali clans. “We get a look at him two or three times a week,” one of Mogadishu’s top warlords told Reuters in January 2004. “He is guarded by a dozen or so bodyguards.”

This year, militia sources say, Fazul has sought sanctuary among the mixed-race, minority communities that live in villages dotted along the coast between Mogadishu and the Kenya border. His Comoran looks blend in well with the coast’s Benadir and Bajuni people of mixed Somali, Arab, Persian, Portuguese and Malay ancestry. Some of these settlements - ancient communities a world apart from Somalia’s major inland nomadic clans - speak a dialect of Swahili, one of Fazul’s five languages. Reliable or not, that account fits with Fazul’s known method of “hiding in plain sight”: Adopting the guise of an itinerant Islamic preacher, he settled in a very similar isolated Kenyan coastal village, Siyu, in 2002, evading detection for months. “We hear this man is wanted. Well, I can tell you he stayed here without a problem,” Aliyow Haji, an elder in Gendershe village south of Mogadishu, told Reuters in early April.

Local residents said that every morning during a recent visit Fazul exercised on a beach near Gendershe before an outbreak of factional fighting prompted his team to leave for the Hamar Jajab district of south Mogadishu. In a report by a militia on his movements from February to mid-April, Fazul visited southern Kismayo port, the villages of Kudha, Madhomo, Darusalam and the inland town of Dinsor, where he apparently traded precious stones. “Some of those coastal communities are extremely remote, to the extent that he could hide but he couldn’t do much. For Fazul it would be the equivalent of putting yourself under house arrest,” said US Somali watcher Ken Menkhaus.

Somalia’s political and militia leaders, themselves collectively responsible for 13 years of bloodshed among their own people, are hardly the most credible of informants. But the sightings by ordinary people beg the question: If Fazul is so visible, why does no one apprehend him? The answer comes in two parts, Somalia watchers say. US policy is that arrests of guerrilla suspects in east Africa should be made by the “host nation” in order to build a cooperative relationship with Washington and, in Somalia’s case, perhaps also to avoid mishaps in a violent country where US military intervention has a sorry record of failure. That puts the responsibility squarely on Somalia’s de facto government - the warlords. But they are reluctant to act. The militia bosses recall that Dheere became unpopular among many factions in Mogadishu because of Hemed’s arrest, which was seen as an anti-Islamic favour to imperialist Washington. Secondly, capturing Fazul could mean killing his bodyguards, which will involve clan blood feuds, and perhaps also complicate ties with hardline Islamist elements. Just to catch a suspected militant - a matter of no importance to ordinary Somalis simply struggling to survive - the risks just are not worth it. “We will let him be... It will cause us a headache if we intervene,” the Mogadishu warlord said.

Brigadier General Mastin Robeson, commander of a US task force based in Djibouti, told Reuters he did not know where Fazul was, adding that it was difficult to work discreetly on the ground with friendly forces. “There are a number of people who have been allegedly sighted but when we investigate those with host nations, frequently those are not true,” he said. ”At this point we do not have him pinpointed,” he said of Fazul. “It’s difficult to get anybody who can ’blend in’ to the countryside, particularly if what you’re trying to do is get host nations to take the lead.”
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Africa: East
Mogadishu Warlords Help Americans Hunt for Terrorists
2003-11-05
Sounds like we’ve gotten rid of that "can’t work with scumbags" notion. EFL:
In lawless Mogadishu, where U.S. officials fear al-Qaida members are plotting their next attack, the word is out: catch a terrorist, collect rewards as high as $5 million. At least four al-Qaida terrorist suspects are in Somalia, Kenyan officials and U.N. experts say, and Americans are trying to capture them in a country without an effective central government for more than a decade, officials and gunmen told The Associated Press. So far, those efforts are known to have netted at least one al-Qaida suspect - Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, who’s accused of playing a role in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa - but rumors abound of gunmen kidnapping Arabs and turning them over to U.S. agents. A Somali warlord, Mohammed Dheere, coordinated the capture of Hemed at the behest of U.S. officials, gunmen familiar with the Hemed operation told AP, speaking privately for fear of reprisals. Most Somalis believe Dheere was generously rewarded. Kenya’s national security minister, Chris Murungaru, claimed credit for Hemed’s capture and said he was turned over to U.S. authorities, who have refused to comment.

But the gunmen said U.S. agents regularly visit Dheere at his Mogadishu home and an AP reporter saw two of the alleged agents, dressed in regular clothing, moving through Mogadishu using a team of bodyguards belonging to Bashir Rageh, a wealthy businessman closely associated with Dheere. After Hemed’s capture, Dheere questioned Hemed’s friends for hours, asking about other suspected terrorists. When shown photos from the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists Web site, Hemed’s friends said Dheere used the same photos when he questioned them. They said they didn’t recognize any of the men in the photos. One of the most-wanted al-Qaida suspects, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, is thought to be hiding in Somalia, a senior Kenyan security official told AP on Wednesday. Somalia, a semiarid country, offers an attractive location for covert operations, but the country is nothing like Afghanistan, where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s Islamic militants were welcomed and worked unhindered, establishing large training camps. Somalia’s clan-based society is deeply Islamic, but the vast majority of Somalis follow Sufism, which is vehemently opposed to al-Qaida’s militant, politically infused interpretation of Islam.
The Sunnis and the Shiites both hate the Sufi’s.
As a result, the warlords who run the country, drawing support and gunmen from their clans, are decidedly secular in their politics.
"It’s nothing personal, Abdulla. Just business."
While German reconnaissance planes and German and U.S. warships patrol the coastline, U.S. officials have tried to get a presence on the ground by capitalizing on the warlords’ lack of religious zeal and need for cash.
Money talks, and we have the money.
And while most Somalis reject Islamic extremism, there are militants in Somalia. Al-Ittihad al-Islami, listed by the United States as a terrorist group linked to al-Qaida, does openly operate as a religious organization, though its members publicly renounce violence.
Yeah, I know. R.O.P.
Abdiqasim Hassan Salad, who led a failed transitional government and is attempting to form a new one, said small numbers of terrorists may be in Somalia. "That doesn’t mean that Somalia can’t become a terrorist playground," he said. "We need the help of the United States of America."
"No checks. Cash or gold bars, please."
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