Mogadishu (AFP) – Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab said Saturday British and Turkish special forces staged a nighttime sea and air attack on one of its bases, but Britain denied any involvement.

Leaders of the Islamist insurgents in the southern Somali port of Barawe said commandos rappelled from a helicopter and tried to storm a house belonging to a senior Shebab commander, but the assault failed.

The assault comes two weeks after Shebab gunmen attacked Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall, massacring 67 people in a four-day siege. Six Britons were among the dead.

“The enemy of Allah tried to surprise the mujahedeen commanders with a night attack using a military helicopter, but they were taught a lesson and they have failed,” Mohamed Abu Suleiman, the Shebab commander in the small seaside town, told AFP.

“Our mujahedeen fighters inside the house fought back and the cowards ran away,” Suleiman added.

Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab later blamed the raid on “Britons and Turks”.

He said commandos had also stormed the beach by boat.

“Where the foreigners had been, afterwards we saw lots of blood, so maybe we wounded some,” he added.

Britain denied the claim it was involved.

“There is no British involvement,” a spokeswoman for Britain’s Ministry of Defence told AFP when asked to comment on the raid.

She would not give any further details.

Witnesses reported heavy gunfire as the helicopter hovered overhead.

“I woke to the sound of the helicopter above the neighbourhood, then a few minutes later, there was fighting, gunfire broke out for about 10-15 minutes,” said a local resident who asked not to be named.

“We don’t know what exactly happened, but it was an organised attack targeting the house where some Al-Shebab commanders were.”

Barawe lies some 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu, and is one of the few ports left in Shebab hands, although they still control large parts of rural southern Somalia.

Photographs released by the Shebab earlier this year showed dozens of their fighters armed with heavy machine guns in Barawe.

Residents of Barawe said Shebab gunmen were heavily deployed on the streets of the port on Saturday.

“People are being stopped from getting close to the scene of the attack, heavily armed Shebab soldiers have cordoned off the area,” said Mohamed Nune, a resident.

Multiple nations operate special forces in the wider Horn of Africa region, and have carried out similar missions in the past.

In January, elite French forces staged an overnight operation involving some 50 troops and at least five helicopters in southern Somalia in a failed bid to rescue a captured intelligence officer held by Shebab forces.

Last year, US Navy SEALs flying at least six military helicopters swooped into northern Somalia to rescue two aid workers held by pirates.

US drones are reported to regularly fly over Somalia, carrying out occasional missile strikes.

Since their attack in Kenya last month, the Shebab have threatened “rivers of blood” will flow if Kenya does not pull its troops out of Somalia.

Shebab chief Ahmed Abdi Godane said the Westgate mall carnage was retaliation for Kenya’s military intervention in Somalia.

Meanwhile security camera footage of the Shebab gunmen in the Nairobi mall attack has been released, showing four young men wandering apparently nonchalantly around the supermarket and a storeroom, in a break from the killing which included the execution of children.

Source: AFP

Italien Flüchtlingsdrama Lampedusa

The sinking of a migrant boat off the Italian coast on Thursday (03.10.2013) left at least 111 people confirmed dead, but the death toll could rise to 300, officials said. Most of the refugees, who departed by boat from Libya, come from the East African countries of Eritrea and Somalia.

Distress and helplessness prevail on the small island of Lampedusa. The number of people who have been killed by this latest shipwreck is dismayingly high, among them pregnant women and children. But particularly shocking is the fact that the disaster could have been predicted.

Ferrucio Pastore, the director of the International and European Forum for Migration Research, based in Turin, Italy, is not surprised that thousands of Africans attempt such a journey every year. Pastore told DW: “Unfortunately it is the same old story. The numbers drop during times when the cooperation between the refugees’ countries of origin and destination is more effective, then climb again – for obvious reasons: because of the instability and conflicts in these countries.”

Again and again, boats laden with refugees attempt the journey from North Africa. According to UNCHR, around 8,400 people reached Italy and Malta in this way in the first half of 2013 alone. Those who died on the way to Europe have yet to be counted.

Foreseeable disaster

Many of the refugees who were on the boat which sank near Lampedusa on Thursday had come from Eritrea and Somalia. Abba Musse, a Catholic priest and director of the NGO Agency Abesha in Rome, explained that “since 1994, Somalia has been completely out of control, constantly at war.”

And the dictatorship in Eritrea, explains Mussa, is seen by many as the North Korea of Africa. “There is no freedom there in any form – no press freedom, no religious freedom and no right to assemble. These people are looking for a new life, for freedom, for a second chance,” he says.

Organizations, like Amnesty International, accuse the Eritrean government of arbitrary arrests of political opponents and other systematic human rights violations.

While, in Eritrea, a brutal dictatorship forces his countrymen to attempt dangerous escapes, says Mussa, in Somalia, it is the high degree of insecurity. After years of civil war, Somalia elected a president in 2012, but the islamist al-Shabab militia spreads terror across large parts of the country. “The result of this long war is social and economic problems,” he says. “Many people have no work and no basis for survival.”

 Before these refugees begin their journey across the Mediterranean, many of them end up in Libya. Soem of these people are

persecuted and discrimated against due to their skin color or Christian faith, notes Mussa. For that reason, he continues, they don’t want to stay there.

Usually, when the refugees arrive in Libya they are already broke, according to Michael Hippler, from the German Catholic Misereor aid group, so they first have to earn money to pay the traffickers. “Because the locals are aware of their plight, many of these people are exploited,” he says.

To prevent the waves of refugees in the first place, many in Europe repeatedly call for helping these people at the sournce in their home countries. But, in the case of Eritrea and Somalia this well-intentioned idea is not realistic, explains Hippler.

The government in Mogadishu is not strong enough to defend its sovereignty without international help, and the international African Union forces deployed there are not accepted by the locals. The political circumstances in Eritrea are also difficult to influence from the outside, Hippler says, adding that foreign aid from Germany and elsewhere often flows to countries like Kenya or Ethiopia because the partners and conditions are more predictable.

Legal immigration vs. human trafficking

 As the refugee problem begins in the countries of origin, Musse is particularly keen to emphasise the need for the African Union to take a stronger stand in solving the crises in the Horn of Africa. This is something that the Organization of native Eritreans is supporting. They also offer legal advice for refugees who have already arrived in Europe.

But because aid in these countries is so difficult to organize, Hippler has called on Germany and Europe to rethink their immigration laws. He argues that keeping refugees out of Europe is hindering development on the Horn of Africa. “The money transfers from migrants in Canada, the US and Europe are currently the largest source of income for countries like Somalia,” he stresses.

The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, argued on Thursday for a stronger commitment to stop smugglers who bring refugees to Europe. But, for refugee activist Musse, this is missing the point.

“If European countries really want to fight these smugglers,” he argues, “they have only one option: They have to open the doors to asylum seekers to allow them to immigrate legally. For ten years, European policy has been shutting doors. But when they close the doors on refugees, the smugglers open a window.”

 As the refugee problem begins in the countries of origin, Musse is particularly keen to emphasise the need for the African Union to take a stronger stand in solving the crises in the Horn of Africa. This is something that the Organization of native Eritreans is supporting. They also offer legal advice for refugees who have already arrived in Europe.

But because aid in these countries is so difficult to organize, Hippler has called on Germany and Europe to rethink their immigration laws. He argues that keeping refugees out of Europe is hindering development on the Horn of Africa. “The money transfers from migrants in Canada, the US and Europe are currently the largest source of income for countries like Somalia,” he stresses.

The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, argued on Thursday for a stronger commitment to stop smugglers who bring refugees to Europe. But, for refugee activist Musse, this is missing the point.

“If European countries really want to fight these smugglers,” he argues, “they have only one option: They have to open the doors to asylum seekers to allow them to immigrate legally. For ten years, European policy has been shutting doors. But when they close the doors on refugees, the smugglers open a window.”

Source: DW

By Abdi Guled And Jason Straziuso

MOGADISHU,Somalia – Foreign military forces carried out a pre-dawn strike Saturday against foreign fighters in the same southern Somalia village where U.S. Navy SEALS four years ago killed a most-wanted al-Qaida operative, officials said.

The strike was carried out in the town of Barawe in the hours before morning prayers against what one official said were “high-profile” targets. The strike comes exactly two weeks after al-Shabab militants attacked Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, a four-day terrorist assault that killed at least 67 people in neighbouring Kenya.

The leader of al-Shabab, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, also known as Ahmed Godane, claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was in retaliation for Kenya’s military deployment inside Somalia.

A resident of Barawe — a seaside town 240 kilometres (150 miles) south of Mogadishu — said by telephone that heavy gunfire woke up residents before dawn prayers. An al-Shabab fighter who gave his name as Abu Mohamed said “foreign” soldiers attacked a house, prompting militants to rush to the scene to capture a foreign soldier. Mohamed said that effort was not successful.

The foreign troops attacked a two-story house close to the beach in Barawe, battling their way inside, said Mohamed, who said he had visited the scene of the attack. Foreign fighters resided in the house, Mohamed said. Al-Shabab has a formal alliance with al-Qaida, and hundreds of foreign fighters from the U.S., Britain and Middle Eastern countries are known to fight alongside Somali members of al-Shabab.

A Somalia intelligence official said the targets of the raid were “high-profile” foreigners in the house. The intelligence official also said the strike was carried out by a foreign military. Somalia’s nascent army does not have the ability to carry out a stealth night-time strike. A second intelligence official also confirmed the attack. Both insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Foreign militaries — often the U.S. but not always — have carried out several strikes inside Somalia in recent years against al-Shabab or al-Qaida leaders, as well as criminal kidnappers.

A Western intelligence official said it appeared likely that either U.S. or French forces carried out the attack. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Another resident of Barawe, who gave his name as Mohamed Bile, said militants in Barawe closed down the town in the hours after the assault, and that all traffic and movements have been restricted. Militants were carrying out house-to-house searches, likely to find evidence that a spy had given intelligence to a foreign power used to launch the attack, he said.

“We woke up to find al-Shabab fighters had sealed off the area and their hospital is also inaccessible,” Bile told The Associated Press by phone. “The town is in a tense mood.”

In September 2009 a daylight commando raid carried out by Navy SEALs in Barawe killed six people, including Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one of the most-wanted al-Qaida operatives in the region and an alleged plotter in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 250 people.

Military raids carried out by troops on the ground carry the risk of a troops being killed or captured, but they also allow the forces to collect bodies or other material as evidence. Missile strikes from sea of unmanned drones carry less risk to troops but increase the chances of accidental civilian deaths.

Source: The Associated Press

Refugees come to the US from around the world escaping war and persecution. They come trusting that the US government will protect and help them. But right now, that government has a closed sign on its door. And those who run agencies that help refugees don’t know what this shutdown means for them or the refugees.

When new refugees arrive in the United States, they come to a place like the Somali Development Center in Jamaica Plain, a neighbourhood of Boston. The organization serves about 500 refugees and immigrants a year who are from the Horn of Africa.

“We are doing a lot of work for a very vulnerable population that does not get a lot of help and support,” said Abdiraham Yusuf, the group’s executive director.

“We help them get a job, help them get affordable housing, get the kids in the right schools, teach people English and acculturation issues.”

Yusuf gets money to do much of this from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which receives its funding from the federal government.  So I asked Yusuf if the federal government shutdown affects his office. And he says I’m not the only one inquiring.

“A lot of people are asking me: ‘What’s going to happen? Is this office going to close?’ And it creates uncertainty for people.”

Yusuf reassures his clients that he doesn’t expect much of an impact on operations, that is, if the shutdown only lasts a few days.

“But who knows? The whole idea and the tension… I don’t know,” he said.

I called the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants, the agency that sends Yusuf his checks, to try and get some clarification. The chief of staff there suggested that I contact a federal administrator at the Office of Refugee Resettlement in Washington, DC.

So I sent an e-mail and got an immediate response. It said: “I am out of the office on furlough and I am not able to read or respond to your message.”

This situation has left a lot of refugee resettlement agencies across the nation feeling confused.

“I think the impacts are kind of rippling out a little bit and we’re learning a little bit more literally, it feels like, as each hour passes,” said Christina Bruce-Bennion, director of the Agency for New Americans in Boise, Idaho.

Her organization works mostly with Iraqi, Congolese, and Somali refugees.

Bruce-Bennion relies on a mix of funding sources and grants.  But one of her key grants has now been suspended because of the shutdown.

“I know there are several meetings going on in New York and DC today as they try and figure out what all the different pieces are that are being impacted,” she said.

“We did have actually an arrival come last night, so as we move through the usual things of applying for social security cards and other public benefits, I guess we’ll be seeing a little bit more [impacts]. We’re hearing anecdotally that, for example, social security applications, and food stamp benefits and Medicaid and things are being impacted around the country. We just haven’t seen it here yet.”

What she has seen is the impact of the so-called sequestration, automatic spending cuts to government-funded programs that took effect in January. Bruce-Bennion said some of her grants have been cut by as much as 20 percent.

In Boston, Abdiraham Yusuf has also seen his budget cut dramatically by the sequestration. He said it’s harder to pay the rent, the electric bill, and his small part-time staff. To Yusuf, the latest government shutdown reflects “a sad state of affairs” in Washington.

“It is possible that next year we might not be here, it is very possible, after 17 years of trying to build an institution that helps newcomers acculturate into the larger American society,” said Yusuf

Source:PRI The world

By Richard Lough

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Islamist rebels in Somalia can plot attacks like the Kenyan mall massacre because Somali government forces and allied African troops lack the soldiers and firepower needed to crush the insurgents for good, a senior Somali official said on Thursday.

Abdirahman Omar Osman, an adviser and spokesman to the Somali presidency, said al Shabaab rebels occupied swathes of remote countryside beyond the reach of Somalia’s ill-equipped army and an over-stretched African Union peacekeeping force.

From their rural hideouts, the group’s commanders were able to mastermind deadly assaults inside Somalia’s borders and beyond, Osman said. Al Shabaab says it was behind the Westgate mall attack in Nairobi on September 21, when gunmen sprayed people with bullets and hurled grenades, killing at least 67.

A failure to equip the military offensive against al Shabaab in Somalia with helicopter gunships and heavy weaponry was hampering efforts to build upon the security gains won over the past two years, Osman said.

“It gives al Shabaab leeway to plan such attacks as we’re not pressing forward,” Osman told Reuters. “They’re sitting there, comfortable, planning attacks and their strategy.”

The United Nations estimates the group numbers about 5,000 militants. The mall raid bore out fears that although al Shabaab was weakened the group would still seek to use Somalia as a launch pad for strikes against its east African neighbors.

In a sign of Kenya’s frustration at the festering instability in Somalia in the wake of the Westgate assault, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday told Somalia’s leaders to “put their house in order.”

Kenyan troops are among the AU’s 17,700-strong AMISOM force fighting al Shabaab, Somalia’s most powerful militia which emerged from the ruins of an Islamist administration routed by Ethiopian forces in late 2006.

“FINISH THE JOB”

Osman told Reuters the fight against al Shabaab was a global problem. Somalia, he said, did not have a single military helicopter to use in the battle against al Shabaab, while its forces lacked ammunition and large caliber weapons.

Although an arms embargo on Somalia has been partially lifted, Osman said the cash-strapped government could not afford to buy weapons and ammunition.

“Why they are not supporting us to finish the job is something we cannot understand,” the spokesman said.

Somalia’s allies are, though, wary of arming a military that is more a collection of rival militia’s than a cohesive fighting force and dogged by corruption. Government ammunition has frequently ended up on the black market and in some attacks in Mogadishu, suicide bombers have worn official military fatigues.

Osman said the national army was now better trained and more disciplined.

“Trust has to start somewhere. We cannot move forward with this,” he said. In a sign, however, that trust remains in short supply, an embargo on heavy arms remains in place.

Last week, Uganda’s military chief, General Katumba Wamala, said the AMISOM needed more soldiers if it was to extend territorial gains against al Shabaab. Uganda is the biggest contributor to AMISOM.

A further 2,000-7,000 troops were required, he said. That would place an extra burden on the main financiers of AMISOM’s operations, including the European Union and Washington.

“For me, the bill of 5,000 soldiers is nil compared with the benefits of a secure and stable Somalia,” Osman said.

Source: Reuters

By Rachel Louise

Barclays PLC gave a last-minute reprieve to Dahabshil a firm that sends remittances to Somalia after the bank’s decision to close the firm’s account drew opposition.

The bank said Monday that it will allow Dahabshil, the largest U.K.-to-Somalia money transfer firm, to keep its account with Barclays open through Oct. 16. The account was slated to be closed Monday, but Dahabshil has sought an injunction to keep the account open.

“Barclays has given Dahabshil a short extension during which time we hope it can finalize alternative banking services,” the bank said in a statement.

But Dahabshil said its new banking arrangements are not yet solid. The firm has found “one potential alternative provider, but they cannot process cash remittances, which is the vast bulk of our business,” a spokeswoman said.

A hearing on Dahabshiil’s request for an injunction is scheduled for Oct. 15, a spokeswoman for the money-transfer firm said. “Barclays’ decision has massive consequences both for Dahabshiil’s business and for individuals seeking to transfer money to Somalia and elsewhere,” she said.

“We believe this case is baseless,” Barclays said

The closure is part of a broader strategy to pare back bank accounts held by money services business, or MSBs, in the wake of regulatory concerns. Other banks have made similar decisions in recent years.

Barclays moved earlier this year to close the accounts of about 250 MSBs that didn’t have certain controls in place to spot criminal activity, including accounts belonging to Dahabshil and three other firms that send remittances to Somalia, the bank has said. The bank hasn’t publicly specified exactly what those standards are. Two of these three other firms had their accounts closed Monday, while one account was closed earlier this year, the bank said.

But the move to close the accounts with tied to Somalia was criticized by politicians and others. Somalia’s president said earlier this month that international banks risked destabilizing Somalia’s fragile recovery by closing the accounts of money transfer companies and should stay further plans to do so. A petition on Change.org asking Barclays to reconsider its decision has gained more than 100,000 signatures.

“It is well recognized in the industry as well as by regulators and law enforcement agencies that some money service businesses (including some money remitters) don’t have the necessary checks in place to spot criminal activity with the degree of confidence required by Barclays’ regulatory environment,” Barclays said in a response to the petition.

Write to Rachel Louise Ensign at rachel.ensign@wsj.com

Source:Wall Street Journal

Kilimanjaro Capital (“Kilimanjaro” or “the Company”) (GXG:KCAP), the ethical investment company with acquisitions in the African mining and Oil & Gas sectors, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a farmout agreement (“the Agreement”) with the Australian-Somali company Amsas to obtain a 5% non working interest in the Somalia Amsas-Coriole-Afgoye (“ACA”) Block with an opportunity to earn an additional 5% each in additional three Somali blocks.

The ACA Block is located on the coast of Somalia just south of the capital of Mogadishu and was formerly known as the “Government Block.” Amsas obtained 49% of the block in 2008 from the Somali Transitional Federal Government (“TFG”). The ACA Block is a 4700-square kilometer coastal parcel directly onshore opposite the offshore Block M-7 once held by a Shell unit before the Somali civil war started in 1991. Amsas estimates expect the block to contain 1 billion BOE, while optimistic estimates anticipate 5 billion BOE.

The block has a history of promising exploration. Test bores drilled in the 1960s by Sinclair Oil were followed by Somali Government drilling in 1985. A mere 40 kilometers south of Mogadishu, about 200 billion cubic feet of gas was discovered before the civil war stopped all activity in 1991.

Since 2008, Amsas and its partner Tembo Petroleum which has a 10% interest in the ACA, have had to deal with incursions by Al Shabaab, currently considered to be the most brutal terrorist gang operating in Africa and which has claimed responsibility for the Nairobi Westgate Mall atrocities.

Kilimanjaro’s role is to utilize its unique structure to obtain the financing necessary for the ACA Block to begin exploration on the ground leading to a test well. According to Kilimanjaro CEO Zulfikar Rashid the ACA Agreement plays to Kilimanjaro’s strengths in African frontier markets: “We are pleased to be working with a Somali owned company and in particular it’s CEO Dr. Ali Abdullahi. This is African economic self-determination in progress which will ultimately benefit the people of Somalia by providing an economic base and jobs. Only through economic development that benefits the people of Somalia will we defeat extremism and terrorism.”

Amsas also possesses the right of first refusal, obtained from the Somalia Federal Government, for another three unclaimed blocks of its choice within the borders of pre 1991 Somalia. The choice would include blocks once allocated by the Somali Democratic Republic to Eni, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Pecten and Amoco and potentially overrides claims by relative newcomers such as Africa Oil, Ophir, Asante, Maruader and Range Resources granted licenses by regional administrations such as Puntland and Somaliland.

Kilimanjaro anticipates supporting Amsas’ bids for other blocks legally and financially and using both conventional and alternative means of financing to accomplish these goals. Kilimanjaro was advised in the Agreement by Ashmit Patel of the international law firm Brimstone & Company which helped structure Kilimanjaro’s existing relationships with other African states seeking self-determination. Brimstone’s managing attorney and adjunct professor of international law, Dr. Jonathan Levy, also views the Amsas Agreement as consistent with Kilimanjaro’s stated purpose to empower African economic self-determination: “Kilimanjaro has a real chance here to strike a blow against global terrorism (Al Shabaab) and recruitment by bringing in the funds and expertise to build a stable resource and local employment base in Somalia. Amsas and Kilimanjaro unlike other players in Somalia’s oil sector want to keep capital at work in Africa benefitting the inhabitants.”

Dr. Ali Abdullahi will join the Kilimanjaro Advisory Panel of Experts. Dr. Abdullahi is a candidate for the Presidency of the Puntland state and a former presidential candidate for the Somalia TFG. Dr. Ali has extensive experience in mining and hydrocarbons. His political platform supports local economic and political self-determination throughout Somalia as building blocks to restore stability and progress. He was one of the founders of the autonomous Puntland State and is committed to social, political, and economic progress in his homeland.

For additional information see Kilimanjaro’s website at www.kilimanjarocapital.ca.

Contact:

Lionsgate Communications
Jonathan Charles / Jessica Johnson
+44 (0) 20 3697 1209
info@lionsgatecomms.com

Somalia spoils , Issue 1349

SOMALIA’s shark-infested waters have grown even more dangerous recently, with a new set of predators from the City of London and the UK Conservative party circling our war-ravaged country’s offshore oil reserves.

A United Nations panel of experts warned in July that competition for Somalia’s oil could spark clan fighting and empower corrupt warlords who caused the disintegration of the country 22 years ago. Britain, which has positioned itself to play a key role in “stabilising” our country, still awash with pirates and Islamic jihadists, backed the panel’s findings at the UN security council – but that seems unlikely to stop the London-led feeding frenzy.

Indeed, Baron Michael Howard of Lympne QC, former Tory leader, is among a number of great whites laying claim to our untapped oil.

Shiny beads and fancy cloth
Howard established a new company, Soma Oil and Gas Exploration, in April. In May, Africa minister Mark Simmonds hosted an event in London in which the Somali president and Lord Howard’s people took part. By August, with no other assets or interests anywhere in the world, Soma had been awarded rights to up to 12 oil blocks in Somalia in exchange for conducting seismic surveys – the technical equivalent in today’s world of the shiny beads and fancy cloth that Europeans once traded for Africa’s land. Somalis and foreign diplomats wonder what kind of bait was used to secure such a generous catch.

Milord has told industry gazette African Energy that Soma is a British-registered company and that he is a shareholder. But 77.5 percent of it is actually held by a British Virgin Islands-registered company owned by Basil Shiblaq, Soma’s executive director. Shiblaq, in his late 60s, has a long and colourful business pedigree that has attracted interest from regulatory agencies and police forces across four continents since he agreed to pay a fine imposed by the New York Stock Exchange in 1981 for alleged commodity trading abuses.

Corruption allegations
Against this promising background of corporate transparency and good governance, who better to explain what great news Soma is for Somalia than a former deputy secretary-general of the UN, Mark Malloch Brown? Now a Labour peer and chairman at financial service and public relations behemoth FTI Consulting, he has deployed his company’s minnows to handle Soma’s PR.

FTI Consulting has also been brought in to discredit corruption allegations brought by the UN panel against our central bank governor, who is alleged to have been “key to… irregularities” surrounding $12m missing from the ledgers. The company helped publish a rebuttal to the UN findings, on behalf of the Somali government.

FTI presents itself as a bona fide forensic accountant that is merely challenging the methodology of UN investigators it claims are too dumb to analyse financial records. However, the company appears also to be acting in partnership with a US law firm, Shulman Rogers, which is under contract with Somalia’s government to recover financial assets including gold reserves sitting in foreign banks and been rendered inaccessible during the civil war.

Greedy old has-beens
Bank executives say they feel nervous about giving back millions of dollars in sovereign assets to a Somali central bank exposed by the UN as corrupt, but if FTI can cook up findings to trash the UN panel, Shulman’s will be well placed to pull off the asset recovery. And how absurd to suggest that making pronouncements on the state of health of public financial management in Somalia, while also being involved in an asset recovery scheme, might constitute a conflict of interest!

After all the fuss about Africa’s generosity to Tony Blair since he left office, how refreshing to see the continent showing such similar kindness to equally washed-up but greedy old has-beens from across your political divide.

Shebab, the Al Qaeda linked group although weakened by infighting and loss of territory in Somalia is still a threat and it remains to be seen whether they are still a Somali insurgent group or have become more of a terrorist group

Nairobi: The massacre at a Kenyan shopping mall by Somalia’s Shebab insurgents has shown the still potent threat of the al-Qaeda-linked group even as fighters struggle at home, analysts say. The attack, which follows bloody strikes by Shebab suicide commandos earlier this year, including against

 An United Nations base in the Somali capital Mogadishu, comes in spite of the group losing a string of key towns in Somalia to African Union troops and bitter infighting.

Dramatic attacks such as Saturday’s brutal siege in Nairobi’s Westgate shopping centre can be seen as an attempt to bolster their struggling reputation and loss of territory at home, experts say.

“Paradoxically, a weakened Shebab is a greater threat outside Somalia than a stronger Shebab,” wrote Ken Menkhaus, professor at Davidson College in the US state of North Carolina, in an article following the attack.

He noted that he had previously argued that “were the group to weaken and fragment, it would be more likely to consider high-risk terrorism abroad.”

Shebab chief Ahmed Godane, who the US have offered $7 million for, is seeking to strengthen his authoritarian control following bloody purges of former comrades after they complained to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri about his command.

“The group has been going through its own internal struggles over its leadership and direction,” said J. Peter Pham, who heads the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

“The question now is whether, having marginalised rivals and turned Shebab into more of a terrorist group and less of a Somali insurgency, Godane will transform it into a more regional threat.”

Before Westgate, the group’s last large scale attack outside Somalia was its 2010 bombing of the Ugandan capital Kampala, in which at least 76 died.

In recent years, the extremist group has instead struggled inside Somalia, tied down battling regional armies such as Ethiopia and Kenya, as well as the African Union force (AMISOM).

Shebab fighters fled fixed positions in the capital Mogadishu, and have since lost almost all its towns to AMISOM forces.

“The Westgate attack is the latest sign of the group’s weakness. It was a desperate, high-risk gamble by Shebab to reverse its prospects,” Menkhaus argued.

The major attack on Nairobi comes almost two years after Kenya rolled troops and tanks across the border to fight the Islamists on their home ground in southern Somalia, seizing the Shebab’s former bastion port of Kismayo.

Since then the Shebab have multiplied their warnings of revenge attacks on Kenyan soil, but until now were on a relatively small scale, at least in the capital.

“The group is just now recovering its elan from the loss of territorial dominance it formerly enjoyed before the AMISOM and Kenyan-led offensives of 2011 and 2012,” Pham added.

Still, Shebab fighters control swathes of rural southern Somalia, while UN Monitoring Group reports in July estimated the Shebab are still some 5,000 strong, and remain the “principal threat to peace and security in Somalia”.

Their threat, as the well-planned attack in Nairobi showed, should not be underestimated.

In June, the Shebab showed their strength with a brazen daylight attack on a fortified United Nations compound in Mogadishu, with a seven-man suicide commando blasting into the complex and starting a gun battle to the death.

The coordinated attack on the UN killed 11, tactics already tried in April when they attacked a Mogadishu court house.

Stig Jarle Hansen, a Norwegian academic and author of Al-Shebab in Somalia, warns that Saturday’s attack — as well as the UN and courthouse attacks in Mogadishu – bore similarities to the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

“By making the attack so visible it will hit Kenya where it hurts the most by hitting the tourism sector. I think it very likely that this was calculated. Travel warnings might be issued by western countries as well,” said.

“Kenya managed to survive the financial crisis quite well but this will hit them.”

 Source: Al Jezeera