Mogadishu, Somalia – Kenyan security forces continued to battle their way through an upscale Nairobi mall on Tuesday that al-Shabab gunmen seized four days ago.
Officials say at least 62 people have been killed in the attack on the Westgate shopping centre, and more than 170 wounded. The figures are expected to rise once the siege finally ends and the mall is secured.
The mall attack is the most significant strike in Kenya since al-Qaeda bombed the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1998, killing more than 200 people. Somalia-based al-Shabab – established in 2006 after Ethiopian troops invaded that country – has claimed responsibility for the brazen assault.
The Islamist group has lost ground in recent years to Somali government soldiers and African Union peacekeepers. Linked to al-Qaeda, al-Shabab enforces a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, in all areas under its control.
Attacks by the group within Kenya’s borders were unheard of before October 2011, when Kenyan troops established their presence in Somalia.
Of the five countries contributing troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) – Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Uganda – al-Shabab’s animosity appears directed most towards neighbouring Kenya.
“Al-Shabab have lost more territory to Kenyan troops than to any other AMISOM troops-contributing country,” said Abdullahi Boru, a Nairobi-based Horn of Africa security analyst.
After months of indirectly arming and training local militias inside Somalia to fight the Islamist group, Kenya decided to send its troops into Somalia on October 2011.
What followed for al-Shabab was the continuous loss of much of its prized territory. Until then, the group had controlled most towns along the Kenya-Somalia border.
“Kenya is our historic enemy. Kenya is the enemy of the Somali people and Somalia,” Sheikh Abulaziz Abu Muscab, spokesman for al-Shabab’s military operations wing, told Al Jazeera.
Some of the areas al-Shabab lost during the Kenyan campaign were lucrative farming and fishing regions. With the loss of such territory came a strain on the group’s finances.
Response to Kismayu’s loss?
Last September, after a year of fighting al-Shabab in Somalia, Kenyan forces succeeded in pushing the group out of the key port city of Kismayu.
Before they were driven out, al-Shabab had controlled Somalia’s third-biggest city for more than four years. It was the group’s main base of operations and its loss was a big hit.
“Al-Shabab has lost Kismayu port, which was their lifeline. They are in survival mode,” said Hussein Arab Isse, Somalia’s former deputy prime minister and defence minister.
“Shopping malls are easy targets and Westgate is the biggest mall in Kenya. It is possible they targeted the mall as a response to the loss of Kismayu,” he added.
Even before they went into Somalia, Kenya openly backed militia leader Sheikh Ahmed Madobe in his bid to oust al-Shabab from the Jubba region of Somalia.
Madobe was a senior al-Shabab figure before he fell out with the group and took up arms against his former brothers-in-arms.
Once al-Shabab was vanquished, the Kenya government backed Madobe as its chosen leader for the taken over areas. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow for the Islamist fighters, seeing their former ally rewarded for turning his back on them.
“Worst possible choice of leader. Backing Ahmed Madobe only gave al-Shabab more reasons to fight the Kenyans,” said Boru.
Kenya is also the only country in AMISOM – a combined force of more than 17,000 soldiers – to have deployed its air force and navy against the Islamist militia, a move al-Shabab says resulted in civilian deaths.
“They bombed our civilians in refugee camps. They bombed innocent Somalis in Gedo. Ask them why they continue killing our people first,” said Abu Muscab, when Al Jazeera asked about the civilian carnage in the Westgate mall attack.
Bringing the fight to Kenya
In 2011, after suffering a spate of kidnappings of foreigners on Kenyan soil, Kenya’s then-internal security minister George Saitoti accused the Islamist group of being behind the abductions.
In 2012, Aboud Rogo, a Muslim cleric and a vocal supporter of the Islamist group, was killed in Mombasa in a drive-by shooting. Rogo was on a UN and US sanctions list for allegedly recruiting fighters and obtaining funds for al-Shabab.
Nine months later, another cleric Ahmed Khalid – a close friend of Rogo and a staunch supporter of al-Shabab – was killed in a police shootout, according to Kenyan authorities.
“It is widely thought they were killed for their support for al-Shabab. Many people think those killings were extrajudicial killings,” said the security analyst Boru.
After the killings, al-Shabab’s stance against Kenya became even more hardline.
“We don’t believe Kenya is a good neighbour. We don’t trust them. They are the enemy,” said the spokesman Abu Muscab.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta – whose nephew was killed in the mall attack – has said his government will not be dissuaded by the assault.
“I want to be very clear and categorical: We shall not relent on the war on terror. We will continue that fight,” Kenyatta said.
Al-Shabab, meanwhile, has called on Kenya to withdraw its troops from Somalia, or face more attacks on Kenyan soil.
Hussein, who was Somalia’s defence minister at the height of al-Shabab’s rule in south and central Somalia, said he thinks a resolution will not be achieved through military force alone.
“To find a solution to al-Shabab, there needs to a negotiation,” Hussein said.
Achieving security in the Horn of Africa is also up to the Somali people themselves, he added.
“Somalis are the only ones who can find a solution to this problem, and it won’t be just from the military.”
Turkey’s humanitarian interests in Somalia over the past years are not enough to explain why Turkey has become one of the main actors in the country.
In the past few years, Turkey has begun to show interest in the crisis in Somalia. It can even be said that Ankara gained a degree of expertise on the subject during its 2009-2010 temporary membership in the UN Security Council. While President Erdogan’s 2011 Somalia visit drew the attention of many countries to Somalia’s humanitarian tragedy, many great powers and interested parties have also turned their gazes to Turkey’s policies in the Horn of Africa. Undoubtedly, on many platforms Turkey is now a part of the Somalian equation. There are many strategic, political and security challenges that will likely accompany this dynamic.
Security difficulties
The security problem is arguably Somalia’s foremost challenge. The worry now is that the political efforts expended so far have been unfruitful. After the collapse of the state, warlords came onto the scene, followed by a juridical institution called the Islamic Courts. The Islamic Courts decided to start negotiating after Ethiopia’s military intervention into the country in 2006. However, the Islamist Youth Movement, Haraketal-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (al-Shabaab), resisted the negotiations, as well as any other political solution under the observation of the United Nations or the African Union. From this date onwards, al-Shabaab became the greatest security threat. At the end of 2011, when al-Shabaab was defeated by Kenya, with support from the African Union and Somali central government soldiers, strategic front moved away from the southern Kismayo port.
These tense conditions have exposed Turkey to a number of security problems. The most recent example of these problems was the August attack on the Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu. In April, a Turkish aid convoy was the target of a similar attack. Moreover, in October of 2012, an attack was organized on an official from the Turkish Cooperation and Development Organization, Mustafa Hashim Polat.
Al-Shabaab claimed credit for the embassy attack, which it justified by referencing the military agreement signed between Ankara and the Somalian government in April of 2012. The movement saw this agreement as supporting the war being waged against it. Despite the organization’s explanation, Somalia’s ambassador to Turkey, Muhammed Mursel Shaikh Abdul Rahman, declared in a statement to the Anatolian Agency, “al-Shabaab’s explanation regarding the attacks on the Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu are not sufficient,” and this statement of ambassador seems to thicken the shadow over the incident..
Problems stemming from the military agreement
An examination of the text of the agreement reveals problems liable to result from the military training Turkey plans to give to Somalia. For example, the election process in the Somali army may be overshadowed by soldiers’ tribal allegiances. That is to say, it is difficult to determine whether or not the loyalties of all soldiers comply with the Somalian government. According to a report by the United Nations, some soldiers have even engaged in activities directly against the government. This demonstrates that the election process within the army as well as training programs must be treated with the utmost care. The most important points here are that national elections are conducted in a manner that includes all of Somalia’s different regions, that a consciousness which prioritizes the nation over the tribe is cultivated, and that through the training process the army is persuaded to strive to reconstruct the state and state institutions. In other words, they shouldn’t settle to just have certain combat operations supported.
On the other hand, there are items within the agreement’s text that touch on domestic and foreign sensitivities. For example, the article of the agreement mentions “national guard and coastguard training,” “participating in joint exercises,” “making ports calls and docking,” and “support for peace, humanitarian aid, and the struggle against piracy.” Despite all of these items being important to the Somali government, their implementation will inherently trigger big problems. For many years the Somali government has not been in control of its own territorial waters and ports. During the international campaign against piracy, the subject of halting illegally trawling foreign — especially European — vessels was not raised. Moreover, reports submitted to the UN on this subject were manipulated. As for Turkey, the country has supported the Somali fishing industry by procuring fishing vessels. However, the fishermen are complaining about the boats capsizing and their fishing being obstructed by foreign ships. Turkey’s role will be against those with interests exploiting Somalia’s marine resources.
Besides this, Kenya has a border dispute with Somalia originating from changes made in international maritime law. Before this, if Kenya had pressured the Somalian government to have their sea boundaries redrawn, such an agreement would have been rejected in the Somalian Parliament. Somalia’s Kismayo port, which Kenya had expended great effort to bring under its own control, is one of Somalia’s most strategic ports. In this respect, the “making port calls and docking” clause of the Turkey-Somalia military agreement brings Ankara up against Nairobi on the axis of strategic interests. Kenya has helped establish a local authority in the south of Somalia in order to obstruct the Somali central government’s influence on the region. Thanks to this, Nairobi is able to intensify its dominance of the region and justify its actions through the federal constitution.
The Kismayo port’s importance is not only due to Kenya’s concerns with its borders and trade benefits. The region is host to a great amount of oil and natural gas exploration is also a subject of consideration. Moreover, the islands across from the port are in quite a consequential position in terms of Kenya and its allies’ military strategy.
The Berire Port in the Republic of Somaliland is of utmost importance to landlocked Ethiopia. This region is also rather significant for the UK and China: China, the government of Somaliland, and Ethiopia have signed an agreement to construct a road from Ethiopia to the sea. In the course of its oil exploration activities in Somaliland, China is also investing in Ethiopia’s oil fields and wants to transport that oil through Somaliland. Moreover, regarding the continuing crisis between Sudan and South Sudan over oil transportation to the Port of Sudan on the Red Sea, China is amongst the supporters of the project to extend an oil pipeline from southern Sudan, over Ethiopia and to Somaliland. Turkey also has oil investments in the Somaliland region.
All this data points to the fact that the humanitarian dimension of Turkey’s interest in Somalia is not enough to explain why Turkey has become one of the chief actors in the country. Turkey mustn’t deny the existence of certain redlines in the region. Additionally, countries with deeply-rooted influences in Somalia have recently begun spreading their strategies over East Africa. The fact that Turkey has not yet begun such an initiative prevents it from turning its traction in Somalia into a strategic gain.
NAIROBI, (IRIN) – Millions of people in Somalia rely on money sent from friends and relatives living abroad to meet the expenses of day-to-day living. These remittance flows are thought to be two or even three times greater than the amount spent on humanitarian aid.
But recent months have seen a flurry of warnings that remittances flows from the UK will be drastically curtailed because of what some regard as the overzealous application of regulations by one UK bank.
On 16 September 2013, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a group of east African states, entered the fray, saying in a communiqué that “an essential lifeline” for “families and communities who are already in poverty” could be cut off as a result.
This briefing analyzes the current anxiety and looks ahead to how a sustainable system of remittances can be put in place.
How important are remittances to Somalia?
Extremely. Estimates of their annual value range from US$1 billion to $2 billion. The US is the largest source country, while an estimated $160 million is sent from the UK every year. In some parts of Somalia, 40 percent of the population receives regular remittances, with 80 percent of them spending the money on basic services.
Few countries in the world are more reliant on remittances than Somalia. More than two decades of civil conflict have left the country’s formal economy and banking sector in ruins. Remittances have replaced this sector, not only boosting the meager incomes of families but also allowing the private sector to do business and, increasingly, providing aid agencies with a more efficient way of responding to drought and famine.
The vast majority of the money is sent via money transfer companies, according to recent research, which also indicated that many recipient households depend on a single relative abroad for such assistance. “If the viability of the transfer system were to break down in an area where the single sender of support is located, effectively preventing them from being able to provide support, the effect on many of the households would be severe. Basic food security would be threatened,” said a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
So what’s the problem?
A growing perception of risk. Because it is impossible to know what remitted money will be used for, or even, given the lack of national identity documents in most of Somalia, exactly who will receive it, authorities fighting terrorism and money laundering are wary of the remittance system. This is especially true in the context of Somalia, where an insurgency with links to al-Qaeda is active, and where effective state regulatory bodies have yet to be set up.
7.5 million: population of Somalia
600,000: Somalis who live outside Somalia
$1.3 billion: estimated amount remitted annually to Somalia
2-3: factor by which remittances exceed foreign aid
2.3 million: Somalis at risk of not meeting minimum food needs in 2013
$215 million: amount remitted annually from the United States
$160 million: amount remitted annually from the United Kingdom
40 percent: portion of households in Somalia receiving regular remittances
80 percent: of such households who spend remittances on basic social services The latest manifestation of this perception of risk is a decision by Barclays bank to close the accounts of more than 100 remitters, or money transfer organizations (MTOs), four of which have dealings with Somalia, at the end of September 2013.
Similar moves have recently been taken by a number of banks in the US.
Why are the accounts being closed?
Without pointing any figures at its individual clients, Barclays explained that “some money service businesses don’t have the necessary checks in place to spot criminal activity with the degree of confidence required by the regulatory environment under which Barclays operates.”
The bank said it had reviewed its clients on a “case-by-case basis.” It added: “We remain happy to serve companies who, in our opinion, have sufficiently strong anti-financial crime controls and who meet our amended eligibility criteria.”
The UK Financial Conduct Authority, in its annual report on anti-money laundering, published in July, said that the Money Service Business (MSB) as a whole is “at particularly high risk of abuse by those seeking to launder money or finance terrorism, and some MSBs have been seen to be complicit in these activities.” They classified MSB as an indirect risk.
The Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, in its report to the UN Security Council on 12 July, pointed to specific cases of remittance services being used to fund terrorist groups. At the end of 2012, “money was collected amongst supporters of Al-Shabab within the Somali business community in Qatar and send via… a [major] money remittance company to Mogadishu.”
The report also cites three other instances at the end of 2012 where money was transferred from Somali business communities in the diaspora to support terrorism activities, and claims that approximately $100,000 was transferred for these four operations.
Many players in the Somali remittance sector, including large, regulated firms, use the ‘hawala’ system, where trust within a closed network, rather than legal contracts or paperwork, underpins transactions. It is a system that has facilitated international trade for centuries, but one that worries regulators and entities fighting money laundering and terrorism. (For more on this, see Capitalizing on Trust, a report published in 2012 by the Center on Counterterrorism Cooperation).
According Ishmael Ahmed, CEO of online money transfer company WorldRemit, the business model used by MTOs in the UK is “inherently flawed.”
It is “one that depends on independent agents – often small corner shops in areas with large migrant communities – to acquire customers, conduct customer due diligence and collect cash,” Ahmed wrote in an online op-ed.
“In this business model, money transfer businesses rely on these shop owners – for whom money transfer is a side business – for their core compliance functions, in relationship arrangements that pre-date new stringent anti-money laundering regulations,” he added.
What has been the reaction to Barclays’ move?
It has generated widespread calls – from African governments, aid agencies, Somali civil society, a leading think tank and some MTOs – for the bank to reconsider.
“If remittance channels close, one of the most effective tools available to the international community in responding to future crises will be lost.” – Kevin Watkins, ODI The IGAD communiqué, issued on the margins of a major Somalia conference in Brussels, said Barclays’ decision “will threaten the fragile economic and humanitarian progress made in Somalia, with potentially catastrophic implications for security and prosperity across the Horn of Africa as a whole.”
In an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron in July, scores of Somali civil society organizations warned of “dire consequences” and “immediate and severe humanitarian implications.”
Kevin Watkins, the head of the Overseas Development Institute, said in a letter to Barclays: “If remittance channels close, one of the most effective tools available to the international community in responding to future crises will be lost.”
He added: “Desperately poor and vulnerable people will lose a vital source of finance. The international community’s efforts to support recovery and respond to humanitarian emergencies will be compromised.”
Thirteen international aid agencies have appealed to Barclays to delay the account closures by at least 12 months.
“These decisions [to close accounts] are commercial but are not made in a moral vacuum,” said Ed Pomfret, acting Somalia director of Oxfam, adding that “preconceived ideas about risk in Somalia are false”. He pointed to recent research about humanitarian cash transfers as evidence of this.
“Even though it may seem unprofitable, the impact is too great for banks to avoid [the] moral responsibility of continuing to providing these services in the short term,” he added.
“The imminent closure of the Barclays accounts will severely and significantly restrict the flow of remittances to Somalia,” Abdi Abdullahi, the chairman of the UK-based Somali Money Service Association (SOMSA), told IRIN.
One of the biggest players in the Somalia remittance business, Dahabshiil, is “happy to do whatever US or UK governments require us to do,” according to CEO Abdirashid Duale.
Campaigners and industry associations have expressed concerns that if regulated corridors were to close, the money would continue to flow, but via poorly monitored channels, thereby, counter-productively, making it easier to launder money or fund prohibited organizations linked to terrorism
Do all UK remittances rely on Barclays accounts?
No. SOMSA says its 16 member organizations constitute “most” of the MTOs in the UK. Four of them have been banking with Barclays, which has asked them to take their business elsewhere. Barclays says at least one of these four has found another bank. SOMSA says none has. (Campaigners worry that other banks might follow Barclays lead, creating a “domino effect.”)
“Barclays isn’t the last bank in this space, and there are multiple other UK remitters who claim to send money to Somalia currently banking with other banks” – Barclays statement “Clearly Barclays isn’t the last bank in this space, and there are multiple other UK remitters who claim to send money to Somalia currently banking with other banks,” Barclays told IRIN in an email.
Of the 12 SOMSA members who do not bank with Barclays, some, according to Abdullahi, are small enough – small payment institutions (SPI) handling less than three million euros a month – to operate under a different regulatory system, one that does not require lodging clients’ money in the SPIs’ own bank account.
According to Capitalizing on Trust, many remitting organizations take the form of “charity and family networks”, where a single community leader serves as an informal agent. Such networks have “little exposure to formal institutions and regulatory oversight.” However, such monies tend to be bundled and passed on through MTOs in the source countries.
World Bank data shows that global remittances to developing countries have enjoyed robust annual growth over recent years – a time when banks were closing remitters’ accounts in the US – and are expected to grow by an average of 8.8 percent between 2013 and 2015.
This growth is attributable in part to the changing nature of the remittance sector and the entry into the market of new kinds of players, such as mobile money transfer services.
Photo: Mohamed Amin Jibril/IRIN
Millions of Somalis use remittances to buy basic necessities
What should happen next?
Dahabshiil’s Abdirashid Duale argues that it is in the interest of regulators to intervene and find a solution to transfer money. If remittances go down, it is likely that the UK will have to put in more aid to Somalia. And humanitarian agencies, which use money transfer companies to get funds to Somalia, do not have many other options to transfer funds.
The UK government is looking into ways to allow money to flow legally and safely. In the medium-to-longer term, the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency is leading cross-government efforts to develop ‘safer corridors’ for remittances to high risk jurisdictions, bringing together regulators, law enforcement bodies, academics and industry.
According to Laura Hammond, the lead researcher in the FAO report and head of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, “There is increasingly talk about trying to increase compliance and transparency at the receiving end, involving Somali government structures but also having an independent body verify compliance.”
Producing biometric identity documents across Somalia, which would only cost a few million dollars, would also help to satisfy concerns about remittances not reaching their designated recipients.
Industry analysts expect the use of cashless systems such as mobile or online transfers, to increase. They are already in wide use in Somaliland, where operator Telesom boasts more than 275,000 monthly users of its mobile money services.
“The online money transfer model addresses the perennial problems associated with the agent model,” wrote WorldRemit’s Ahmed, whose company provides this kind of transfer.
“As there is no longer an intermediary between the [MTO] and the customer, the [MTO] becomes responsible for customer due diligence. Most importantly, this model eliminates the anonymity and lack of audit trail associated with cash transfers.”
Digital currency schemes, such as Bitcoin, and e-payment cards could also be used as a means to transfer money without requiring formal banking infrastructure. But it would require a regulatory environment that both promotes the initiative and is able to monitor for criminal activities resulting from the transactions.
Large international firms such as Western Union and MoneyGram may come into the country to fill the void – although they cost almost twice as much as the current money transfer services. Currently, there is only one Western Union branch in Somalia, located in Hargeisa.
Key facts about the militant group from Somalia that attacked a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Here are 10 things to know about al-Shabab, the Somali Islamic extremist group that has claimed responsibility for the attack on Kenya’s premier shopping mall that killed dozens of civilians.
WHAT IS AL-SHABAB?
Al-Shabab is an extremist Islamic terrorist force that grew out of the anarchy that crippled Somalia after warlords ousted a longtime dictator in 1991. Its name means “The Youth” in Arabic, and it was a splinter youth wing of a weak Islamic Courts Union government created in 2006 to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in the East African nation. Al-Shabab is estimated to have several thousand fighters, including a few hundred foreign fighters. Some of the insurgents’ foreign fighters are from the Middle East with experience in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Others are young, raw recruits from Somali communities in the United States and Europe. U.S. officials have expressed fears that extremists fleeing Afghanistan and Pakistan could seek refuge in Somalia.
WHERE IS AL-SHABAB?
Al-Shabab won control of almost all of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, in 2006, and held large swathes of central and southern Somalia until a United Nations-backed force from the African Union, including soldiers from neighboring Kenya and Uganda, pushed the extremists out of the city in 2011 and out of the vital port of Kismayo in 2012. The rebels still control many rural areas in Somalia where it imposes strict Shariah law, including stoning to death women accused of adultery and amputating the hands of accused thieves. In addition, it has staged deadly suicide- bomb attacks on Mogadishu and Kismayo.
HOW MANY FIGHTERS DOES IT HAVE?
No one knows for sure, but al-Shabab is believed to command thousands of fighters including hundreds of foreigners.
WHY ARE THEY ATTACKING KENYA?
Al-Shabab has warned for two years that it will attack Kenya in retaliation for the country’s leading role in sending troops to Somalia in 2011 and effectively reducing the extremist group’s power in Somalia. Al-Shabab also claimed responsibility for the July 2010 suicide bombings in Kampala, Uganda, that killed more than 70 people watching a World Cup final soccer match at a restaurant popular among foreigners. Ugandan troops also are fighting in the African force in Somalia.
The group has staged ongoing major attacks within Somalia for years.
AL-QAIDA LINKS?
Al-Shabab and al-Qaida in February 2012 announced their alliance, with al-Shabab leader Mukhtar Abu Zubair pledging allegiance to the global terror movement. Al-Qaida’s 2002 attacks on an Israeli-owned Kenyan resort in Mombasa and an attempted attack on a plane carrying Israeli tourists are believed to have been planned by an al-Qaida cell in Somalia. U.S. officials believe some of the al-Qaida terrorists who bombed the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 were given refuge in Somalia.
WHERE DOES AL-SHABAB’S MONEY COME FROM?
Before African troops moved in, al-Shabab was making a steady income from duties and fees levied at ports and airports as well as extorting taxes on domestic produce and demanding “jihadi” contributions. A United Nations report estimated al-Shabab’s income in 2011 at between $70 million and $100 million. It has lost most of that revenue since it was forced out of Mogadishu and Kismayo. Al-Shabab’s only ally in Africa is Eritrea — which backs it to counter its enemy Ethiopia, which also has troops in Somalia. Eritrea denies charges that it helps arm al-Shabab.
FRACTURED GROUP?
Al-Shabab is believed to have fractured over its alliance with al-Qaida, which caused a rift that has grown between core Shabab fighters who believe their struggle should focus on Somalia, and growing tensions with foreign fighters who want to plot a regional terrorist strategy. Analysts think the attack on Nairobi’s Westgate mall could indicate the extremists are winning that internal struggle. Further divisions are believed to have been caused by the group’s decision to ban foreign-aid organizations from operating in the country and providing food to save millions of victims of conflict-induced famine. That decision was announced in 2011, when the U.N. said Somalia had the world’s highest child-mortality rate.
U.S. ROLE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AL-SHABAB?
The United States backed the first African intervention against al-Shabab, supporting Ethiopian troops that invaded in 2006. Washington has given millions of dollars to support the U.N.-backed African force fighting al-Shabab, which it designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2008. The intervention from Ethiopia, a longtime enemy of Somalia, is considered to have radicalized al-Shabab and perhaps pushed it into the arms of al-Qaida, according to the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
WHAT INSPIRES THEM?
Al-Shabab is inspired by the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi version of Islam though most Somalis belong to the more moderate Sufi strain. While they initially won popularity with Somalis by promising security and stability after years of lawlessness and violence, al-Shabab’s destruction of Sufi shrines has cost them much support among locals.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR SOMALIA?
Somalia’s first elected government in more than two decades won power a year ago and, together with the African Union force, has the opportunity to create “a window of opportunity to fundamentally change Somalia’s trajectory,” according to the U.S. State Department. Business is growing and even foreign oil companies are negotiating concessions at the most hopeful moment in decades for that failed state.
A Somalia-based terrorist group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack at a Kenyan mall on Saturday that left at least 39 shoppers dead and scores more injured.
In a series of tweets and email messages to news organizations, the hard-line Islamist group al-Shabab said it sent men armed with AK-47s and grenades into Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall as “retribution” for Kenya’s efforts to help the Somalian government defeat it.
“HSM has on numerous occasions warned the #Kenyan government that failure to remove its forces from Somalia would have severe consequences,” said one tweet on al-Shabab’s official Twitter account, HSM Press Office, which refers to its full name, Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen
According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, al-Shabab — “the Youth” in Arabic” — was formed in 2006 in Somalia, and soon became a major threat to the weak transitional Somali government. It was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2008 and in 2012 formally allied itself with al Qaeda.
Al-Shabab’s immediate goal is to topple the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is supported by the African Union and Western nations, and impose Islamic Shariah law on the impoverished nation in northern Africa. But neighboring nations fear that it could have a destabilizing effect throughout the region if it were to succeed, and, led by Kenya, intervened in 2011 to halt a series of military advances by the rebels.
The U.S. has asserted that the alliance of al-Shabab and al Qaeda poses a serious threat to Western interests and has increasingly concentrated its counter-terrorism operations on al-Shabab and other groups operating in Yemen and elsewhere in North Africa.
In addition to recruiting Muslims from within Africa, al-Shabab has had success luring young Muslim men from the West to join its cause, including a number of Americans.
Among the highest-profile recruits from the West was the so-called jihadi rapper Omar Hammami, an American from Alabama reportedly killed in Somalia earlier this month after a falling out with al-Shabab’s senior leader.
In May, four men in Minnesota also were imprisoned for enlisting 20 American men to travel to Somalia to fight for the terrorist group. A man from Ohio was similarly convicted in 2012 of raising money to send people from the U.S. to Somalia to aid the group in addition to sending money to Somalia for one of the recruits to buy a weapon.
Al-Shabab controlled many southern and central territories of Somalia but withdrew from Kismayo — the last of the areas it reigned — in 2012. Still, factions of the group continue to attack non-Muslims in Somalia and neighboring countries, specifically targeting governments and peacekeepers.
YET another in a long line of international conferences on Somalia concluded on September 16th with a “new deal” for the world’s most failed state. Aid pledges, both old and new, were repackaged with some admirable language about a “Somali-led” process and unveiled in Brussels. It was the fifth such gathering in two years. The Somali jihadist group, the Shabab, hit uncomfortably close to the truth when its spokesman dismissed the gathering as “Belgian waffle”.
On the same day an arguably more important meeting between the British government, Somali money-transfer firms and banks which plan to close the accounts of the remitters was cancelled. Barclays, which dominates the remittance business in Europe, intends to follow the lead of American banks which have closed the accounts of Somali money-transfer businesses, citing concerns over money laundering and their potential to fund terrorist groups in the Horn of Africa. The Somali money-transfer operators, who send cash back to Somalia from the diaspora, need bank accounts in Europe and the United States in order to do business in their host countries. Should Barclays go ahead with the closures it is unlikely another bank would step in.
The London summit had been meant to find a compromise ahead of Barclays’ September 30th deadline for closing the remittance agencies’ accounts. For their part, the remitters have offered to undergo rigorous auditing and agree new industry standards for transparency. They argue that the future of Somalia’s hawala network—the money-transfer system that developed in place of the country’s collapsed banking system—is at stake.
The limp response to the threat to Somalia’s remittance lifeline from the governments who are at the same time pledging aid has left many observers confused. “No aid can be as great and effective as this instrument,” says Abdi Aynte of the Heritage Institute, a think-tank based in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. “If Barclays pulls the trigger, it will certainly have a deleterious impact on hundreds of thousands of people across Somalia.” More than 750,000 Somalis currently reside and work in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Gulf states. The money they send home is equivalent to $1.3 billion a year, according to a recent study by Adeso, an African development charity. The new deal promised in Brussels is worth $1.8 billion split over three years.
There is also the issue of where this money goes. While Somali money transfers reach nearly half the population, the bulk of foreign aid goes to the federal government whose remit does not stretch beyond Mogadishu and a handful of other urban centres. Neither the northern breakaway territory of Somaliland nor the semi-autonomous region of Puntland recognises the government of the federal president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (pictured on the left with Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission), which the latter refers to as the “Mogadishu government”. Meanwhile the president has been forced to concede control of the southern port city of Kismayo to a former warlord, backed by neighbouring Kenya. Much of the rest of south and central Somalia is under the sway of the Shabab.
Given this fragmented picture many Somalis are more interested in preserving their old lifeline of remittances than in new deals agreed at foreign talking shops.
Remarks With Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud
SECRETARY KERRY: Good morning, everybody. It’s my privilege to welcome to Washington and to the State Department His Excellency, the President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Actually, I’m welcoming him back to Washington, and we have met previously and I’m very pleased to be able to welcome him here.
The United States, obviously, has been engaged in helping Somalia fight back against tribal terror and the challenges to the cohesion of the state of Somalia. And the President and his allies have really done an amazing job of fighting back and building a state structure. There’s work yet to be done in Puntland and Somaliland, and we encourage you to continue the work of reaching out, of reconciliation and rebuilding the democracy, and I know he’s committed to that.
Also, I want to thank the President for his rapid support of the Joint Statement on Syria. We appreciate that kind of global recognition of what is at stake in Syria.
And finally, I’d just say that Somalia is working hard now to create its own ability to defend itself, to defend the state. We will continue to work. There is a United Nations mission there. We are committed to both – to the independent ability of the state of Somalia as well as the United Nations mission to help it in this transition. And we’re very happy to welcome the President here to talk today about issues of mutual interest.
Thank you, Mr. President.
President Mahmoud saidit was a pleasure and privilege to be here again this year in the State Department and the United States. And we – as the Secretary said rightly we’re working very hard together to establish the national institutions in all areas, particularly in security, where we are working very hard with the UNOSOM forces, and our national army is now taking shape and building up, of course, with the support of the United States Government that has always been with us. And this is a time we came here to share the ideas, the way forward we have, and particularly, the Vision 2016, where we want Somalia to go into the poll stations and make a voting for the first time in 40 years – more than 40 years, even.
And as you rightly said, we have been engaging with different stakeholders in Somalia. The federal government has the leadership, the parliament, all visiting different corners of Somalia to consult on this event. And the product of that consultation was the recent compact document signed in Brussels of the 16th of this month. I, myself, and the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House, the parliamentarians, key ministers have been traveling all over Somalia. Although the situation in traveling locally is very difficult, but even then, you have to sit with the people, listen them, share with them the plans that we are intending, and asking them the type of Somalia they want to see in the future.
So based on that, we have signed agreements with Puntland State, and recently agreement with the Jubba regional administrations. And of course, we also did the same with Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a in the central region. So it takes some time. We have our own differences, but we are in a better shape than ever before now. We’re shaping for the first time a united and federal Somalia. The constitution is progressing and the federal system is working very hard. This federal government is working on all its capability to establish the federal unities in an orderly manner and with – in accordance and compliance with the federal constitution.
So there’s a huge progress that is going on in Somalia, and again, we are very much grateful with the support we received from the United States Government through bilateral and through multilateral. Thank you very much.
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Abdusalam Omer has been replaced as Somalia’s central bank governor after seven months in the job, he said on Thursday, once again strongly denying graft allegations made by United Nations monitors.
The allegations in a U.N. report linking him to irregularities regarding millions of dollars withdrawn from the bank have also been formally rejected by the Somali government.
The U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea said in July that Mogadishu’s central bank had become a “slush fund” for political leaders and that Omer had played a central role in irregularities surrounding unaccountable disbursements.
Omer, who has labeled the allegations malicious, said he was informed by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on September 13 that changes would be made at the bank. He submitted a letter of resignation the same day, he said.
Somalia has been struggling to rebuild its institutions and battered finances after two decades of conflict and chaos. Better management of public finances is seen by donors as vital to secure a recovery, debt relief and budget support.
Speaking in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Omer told Reuters by phone he was given no reason for the decision.
But he said it “is a possibility” that the government decided to remove him as a result of the report, even though an international probe commissioned by Mogadishu had dismissed its findings.
“My thinking is this: that if you play by the rules and you assemble a team, both diaspora and local people, and try to reform a dormant and important institution called the central bank, I guess you have no place in Somalia,” Omer said.
He said he would return to Somalia next week to conduct a handover.
A Somali financial source and Somali media said Omer’s replacement was Yussur Abrar. One Somali report said Abrar, who has worked in commercial banking abroad, was the country’s first woman governor of the central bank.
Officials could not immediately confirm the new appointment.
In Omer’s letter of resignation, obtained by Reuters, the former governor listed his achievements, such as producing the bank’s first balance sheet for 22 years.
In the letter, he said he was resigning with “regret and disappointment” and had told staff to ensure a smooth handover.
The Mogadishu government had commissioned FTI Consulting and a U.S. law firm to investigate the U.N. monitoring report findings. FTI’s chairman for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region is British peer and former minister Mark Malloch-Brown, once a deputy secretary general of the United Nations.
Somalia’s recovery is being hampered by an ongoing Islamist insurgency, deep-seated clan loyalties that continue to govern the way politics and business is conducted and vested interests of powerful politicians.
More than 1,500 new cases of female genital mutilation have been revealed by a single London maternity unit and staff admit that other cases could have ‘slipped through the net.’
St George’s hospital in Tooting has treated nearly 200 women a year since it started keeping records on the violent practice.
While most of the 1,546 victims treated in the hospital’s specialist unit were born in Somalia, disturbing statistics show that at least 11 were born in the UK, where genital mutilation has been a crime since 1985.
Rudimentary tools are often used to perform the operations, like these found in Kenya (pictured left). The procedure is often performed on young girls like nine-year-old Fay Mohammed (pictured right).
Others were from Nigeria or Eritrea where the practice is common among some Muslim communities.
Campaigners described the statistics as ‘horrifying’ while staff at the hospital said it shows the tribal practice remains relatively common.
Karen Lewis, a midwife at St George’s, warned that some staff were fearful of getting involved because they saw the backstreet operations as a cultural issue, rather than abuse.
She said: ‘The women we see have often faced years of pain and suffer flashbacks and other psychological problems. Some of them are also terrified of childbirth because of what’s happened to them in the past.’
‘Some of them also don’t realise that FGM is wrong and are quite horrified when we tell them.
‘So we need to do much more to raise awareness and have a big educational campaign to stop it happening to more girls in the future.’
One nurse at St George’s hospital said that some staff view FGM as a cultural issue rather than abuse
Battersea MP Jane Ellison, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on female genital mutilation, said: ‘Many of these women are suffering the chronic health problems associated with FGM.
‘Yet again we are shown that there is a big problem to which our health and other public services must respond.’
Despite the high number of cases – 80 so far this year – nobody has yet been prosecuted for the practice.
The Crown Prosecution Service says it is studying five case files passed on by the Metropolitan Police.
Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has said it is only a matter of time before somebody is prosecuted but efforts are being hampered by victim’s unwillingness to come forward.
FGM – PAINFUL, BARBARIC AND SOMETIMES DEADLY
Female genital mutilation, or FGM, is a common practice among some Muslim communities across the middle of Africa, including Somalia, Eritrea, North Sudan and central Mali.
It is also present in Muslim communities in Indonesia, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
The operation involves cutting or removing female sexual tissue. It can also involve stitching using silk thread or catgut.
The process is supposed to cleanse the woman of sexual impurity and victims can spend up to 40 days bound from the waist down while healing.
The operation is usually performed on children or young girls before entering adolescence, though ages vary from community to community.
Given that most surgeries are performed by untrained women, commonly Aunts of the girls or village matrons, risks include infection, pain, sterility, and death due to blood loss.
Due to the nature of the wounds, problems can occur later during childbirth.
While the practice has been illegal in the UK since 1985, there have so far been no prosecutions due in part to victim’s reluctance to come forward, and also because some women do not recognise it as a crime.
The practice is also specifically outlawed in Belgium, Sweden and some US states.
In Africa several nations, including Somalia, have made declarations against the practice though across the continent legislation is patchy and difficult to enforce.
Government pledges to improve its peoples’ lives in return for $2.4bn in aid, but critics remain sceptical.
Hargeisa, Somaliland – In Brussels, it was hailed as a “New Deal” for Somalia. That after more than two decades of killing and chaos, the Horn of Africa country now has a government and enough international backing to start delivering peace and economic growth for its people.
The agreement on Monday between rich donors and Somalia’s one-year-old government in Mogadishu involves plans for general elections by 2016, a new constitution and security gains, in return for international funding pledges estimated at about $2.4bn.
But back in Somalia, the Euro-gathering was not seen as incentive enough for people to throw their lot in with a government in Mogadishu that depends upon foreign soldiers, and has yet to stamp its authority across much of the fragmented nation.
“The government in Mogadishu is not a full government because it doesn’t control the country. It’s still a baby,” said Mohamed Jamal Emil, a 21-year-old living in a camp outside Hargeisa, the main city of the self-governing northern region of Somaliland.
“Here in Somaliland, we don’t want to join Somalia. People die there every day; militiamen kill people endlessly. When the former Somali government controlled the country, many Somalilanders were murdered. It was a long time ago, but we remember.”
Similar concerns are echoed further south in Garowe, the main city of Puntland, a northeastern breakaway region that is within the federal structure but exercises substantial autonomy, and cut ties with Mogadishu in a row last month.
“We need to see somebody serving Somali people without corruption and regardless of clan and colour. Then the people will feel the trust and return,” Kasim Abdulkhadir Elmi, a teacher at a college in Garowe, told Al Jazeera.
“The last three presidents have only managed to hold Mogadishu. They need to get international actors out, hold Mogadishu and hold southern Somalia. Then, with good administration, they can come to Puntland and ask us to join with them.”
Trust the government?
Opinion is divided over whether Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is based in the capital Mogadishu, can capitalise on military gains against Islamists to restore nationwide security, promote growth and bring breakaway regions back into the fold.
Optimists point to the decline in piracy off Somalia’s lawless coast, which fell by 93 percent the past two years. Mogadishu is a fast-changing city, with an influx of Somalis returning from overseas to open shops and businesses in its bullet-ridden buildings.
Mohamud, who celebrated one year in office earlier this month, described a unique chance to “remove any threat of a return to anarchy and conflict”.
Nicholas Kay, the UN’s special envoy to Somalia, said the government is “on the brink of achieving great things” and ending the chaos that has blighted Somalia since dictator Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.
But others remain sceptical about progress. They point to secessionists, corruption, rights abuses, a deadly polio outbreak, and relentless attacks by al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda linked militants who seek to oust the government.
A bomb blast this month in the Village restaurant in Mogadishu, a popular haunt of government workers and journalists, claimed 15 lives and marked the latest al-Shabab raid to prove that the group still threatens the capital two years after it was kicked out.
The hard-line Islamists described the meeting as a “Belgian waffle” on Twitter. They predict that the “billions promised will most likely be unpaid, the paltry sum given to the apostates” – its term for the Somali government – “will be lost in corruption”.
Al-Shabab regrouping
A recent UN report estimates that al-Shabab is still about 5,000 strong and is the “principal threat to peace and security” despite being forced from Mogadishu, the southern port of Kismayo, and other key towns by 17,700 African Union (AU) troops and cash-strapped national forces.
The Heritage Institute, a Mogadishu-based think-tank, warned that only 15 percent of funding in the EU-backed deal would bolster security in a country where African Union troops are “spread thin” and al-Shabab is regrouping.
“They are emphasising providing services and economic performance,”said deputy director Abdirashid Hashi.”These are good things. But security, reconciliation and stitching the country back together should come first.”
In a study for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the analyst Matt Bryden said an influx of aid workers, returnees and investors has created an “artificial, almost surreal bubble of optimism” in Mogadishu that was not replicated elsewhere.
The campaign group Amnesty International has criticised “large-scale human rights abuses” when camp-dwellers were evicted in Mogadishu this year. Doctors Without Borders, an aid group, pulled out of Somalia in August because of a “barrage of attacks”, including kidnappings and killings.
Mogadishu has struggled to wield influence over Somaliland and Puntland for years. Last month, the southern region of Jubaland brokered a two-year transition deal, in which it will be run by Ahmad Muhammad Islam, a regional strongman known by the nickname “Madobe”.
Health scare
The World Health Organization describes a polio outbreak that has infected 179 people in the region this year. Many Somalis fear cash transfers from overseas relatives will dry up when Barclays closes accounts for Somali transfer brokers later this month.
Corruption remains a key issue for donors. In July, UN monitors said Mogadishu’s central bank was a “slush fund” for politicians and accused the governor of irregularities. The government denies this and accused the report authors of launching “obsessive and unrelenting” attacks on its credibility.
“Somalia doesn’t have public financial management systems in place, so the findings of the UN report are not surprising,” said Michele Cervone d’Urso, the EU’s envoy to Somalia. “But that’s not a reason not to engage. We need to be cautious. We need to help them develop more robust financial systems.”
Back in Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland, the view of Mogadishu is less rosy. The city, which is home to pizzerias and spas and recently hosted festivals for literature and home-grown crafts, is worlds apart from the battle-scarred cities further south.
“Maybe there is one person in Somaliland who would want to rejoin with Somalia,” said Hoden Omer, who provides legal help to rape victims. “Almost everybody else would say no.”
