At least 18 people have been killed in gunbattles in the disputed southern Somalian port city of Kismayu, residents have said.

Hundreds were fleeing the clashes on Saturday, the first since several former warlords staked rival claims on the lucrative port and fertile hinterlands in May.

Gunmen from the Ras Kamboni armed group of Ahmed Madobe, recently self-appointed “president” of the southern Jubaland region, battled against forces loyal to Iftin Hassan Basto, another leader claiming to be president.

“Fighting started when soldiers from Ras Kamboni attacked and tried to arrest me,” Basto said.

“But my men fought back and defended me.”

Several rival factions claim ownership of Kismayo, a former stronghold of the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab, where Kenyan troops in an African Union force are now based.

Kismayu residents counted at least 13 bodies, nearly all armed men, in the sandy streets of two neighbourhoods which witnessed the brunt of Saturday’s fighting. Five people were killed a day earlier when the clashes first broke out.

“The Ras Kamboni militia now controls this part of the city,” said Bile Nur, a resident of Kismayu’s Calanleey district.

Residents bury dead

“Residents are burying the dead of the militia driven out while Ras Kamboni are burying theirs.”

Residents hid indoors earlier as fighters riding in machine gun-mounted pick-up trucks battled for territorial control.

Businesses remained shut and the streets of Somalia’s second biggest city were empty of civilians as mortar blasts rang out.

Kismayu was controlled by al-Shabab until last September when the armed groups fled an offensive by Kenyan troops supported by Ras Kamboni, an armed group loyal to a former governor of Kismayu, Ahmed Madobe.

A local assembly last month declared Madobe president of the southern Jubaland region, handing him back control of Kismayu.

But Somalia’s central government, which does not view Madobe favourably, said his appointment was unconstitutional.

Within days three other men had pronounced themselves president, including Barre Hirale, a pro-Mogadishu former defence minister.

Fighting broke out when Madobe’s fighters stopped another of the claimants from visiting a hotel were Somalia’s defence minister and other officials were meeting.

Regional capitals and Western donors were nervous of any reversal of security gains made in Somalia by African Union peacekeepers in the fight against the al Qaeda-linked fighters, seen as a threat to stability in east Africa and beyond.

Mogadishu has said there is no going back to civil war, but government-led talks on Kismayu were being stymied by the divisive clan politics that dog Somalia.

Many residents weary of years of turmoil hold little hope for a negotiated end.

 Source: Al Jezeera

A Somali cultural centre has been burnt to the ground amid fears it was targeted in retaliation for the Woolwich murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.

Counter-terror police launched an investigation into the blaze after the letters EDL – apparently referencing the English Defence League – were found scrawled on the wrecked building in Muswell Hill, north London.

The blaze came as a war memorial which was attacked by vandals in central London last week was defaced again, this time with the words “Lee Rigby’s killers should hang”. Scotland Yard said they were treating the fire as suspicious following the graffiti discovery.

The fire, which broke out shortly after 3am, ravaged the home of the Somali Bravanese Welfare Association – also known as the Al-Rahma Islamic Centre – described as a place for learning, cultural activities and prayer. People who attended the cultural centre spoke of their devastation and called the blaze an “appalling attack” on a peaceful community.

Lul Abukar, 31, whose cousin Abu Bakar Ali runs the Somali Bravanese Welfare Association, said the centre was largely attended by children and functioned as a place of learning and prayer. “It might have been attacked because of what happened with Woolwich, a kind of retaliation,” she added. “It is a shock for everyone but I guess you have to stay strong. We wouldn’t want this to bring the community down.”

Scotland Yard said specialist investigation teams, led by the Met’s counter-terrorism command, would conduct a “vigorous and thorough” investigation into the blaze which caused the building to partially collapse and saw one woman treated for shock at the scene. Officers will now examine any potential connection between the fire and the graffiti. Police have refused to be drawn on whether they are linking the blaze to a backlash against Drummer Rigby’s death, which sparked outrage last month.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said Muslims were now living in fear of a “wave of attacks”. Massoud Shadjareh, chair of IHRC, said: “Muslims feel scared right now and it is completely understandable. Muslims have been physically attacked, mosques burnt down, cemeteries vandalised and social media is full of anti-Muslim hatred and violent threats towards Muslims. More needs to be done to protect the Muslim community.”

Fiyaz Mughal, of Faith Matters, a group which monitors anti-Muslim hatred, added: “Bearing in mind this is close to Woolwich, bearing in mind that it houses Islamic activities, bearing in mind that they have found alleged EDL graffiti, there’s a strong likelihood that this could be an anti-Muslim incident. It is very concerning when we know that, online, there is a huge amount of anti-Muslim hate. When it moves into the physical world, it is extremely concerning.”

The latest graffiti attack was covered up this afternoon by an RAF Benevolent Fund banner. Beneath it were the words: “Lee Rigby’s killers should hang.” The memorial – and the Animals in War Memorial on Park Lane – were previously daubed with graffiti on May 27. It is thought ”Islam” was written on each of them.

Kevin Carroll, of the EDL, said: “The EDL do not approve of any religious buildings being attacked.” Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “If this is confirmed as arson there must be robust action to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

 Source: Press Association

CPJ to launch 2013 Exile Report

New York, June 5, 2013– More than fifty journalists from 21 different countries fled their homes in the past year, with many never practicing their profession again. A new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, marking World Refugee Day, spotlights the violence, imprisonment, and threats of death which have forced journalists into exile from some of the world’s most repressive nations. In the past 12 months, journalists in Somalia, Syria, and Iran, among other countries, have been driven from their homes.

WHAT: Journalists in Exile 2013, a CPJ special report

WHEN: June 19, 2013,12:01 a.m. EDT / 04:01 a.m. GMT

WHERE: www.cpj.org

Advance copies of the report are available upon request and interviews may be arranged prior to launch date. The report will be published in Arabic, English, Farsi, French, and Spanish.

###

CPJ is an independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.

Media contact:

Magnus Ag

Advocacy and Communications Associate

Tel. +1.212.300.9007

E-mail: mag@cpj.org

Link: http://cpj.org/2013/06/violence-and-threats-drive-out-journalists.php

Somalia’s president says he “wants answers” from South Africa after the brutal murder of a Somali man in Port Elizabeth, Al Jazeera has learned.

The Somali man, 25-year-old Abdi Nasir Mahmoud Good, was stoned to death on May 30 by a mob. The violence was captured on a mobile phone and shared on the internet.

Sheik Mohammed, Somalia’s president, called on his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma to “act immediately” to arrest those responsible.

Kamal Gutale, chief of staff in the Somali presidency, told Al Jazeera on Monday: “The president has asked Mr Zuma and his foreign minister to look into the matter and investigate the brutal killing and violence.”

The murder is the latest in a number of attacks on Somali immigrants in South Africa. Police are investigating the death but no one has been arrested yet.

Graphic footage

The Somali presidency said the issue was raised on the sidelines of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Tokyo on Sunday, after the Somali community was hit by a series of attacks in South Africa the past week.

The graphic footage shows the bare-chested Good lying in the middle of a street while a mob pelts him with rocks and boulders as pedestrians and vehicles pass by.

Local media said Good was attacked while trying to protect his shop from looters. He was also stabbed in the violence.

The Somali community in South Africa, which numbers a few hundred thousand, reacted with outrage.

The Somali Association of South Africa (SASA) told Al Jazeera that at least five other Somalis have been injured and about 40 shops have been looted in the four provinces across the country.

Government inaction

“At the time, President Zuma was not aware of the incident and expressed surprise,” Gutale said.

The South African president promised to look into the matter, he said.

But SASA said the South African government has repeatedly failed to act on this and previous attacks on foreigners.

“This is not the first time; this is happening over and over again. The South African government is not taking action, the community is angry and every time this happens, nothing is ever done,” said SASA spokesman Ismaeel Abdi Adan.

The South African presidency was unavailable to comment.

The African Centre for Migration and Society at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, said in a report released in 2012 that Somali-run businesses suffered disproportionately from crime, including attacks by competing South African traders.

The South African government has repeatedly claimed that the violence were acts of criminality and not xenophobic in nature.

In 2008, more than 50 foreign African nationals were killed in a spate of violence against foreign nationals across the country.

Source: Aljazeera

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Islamic extremist rebels are fighting a campaign in Somalia to administer a polio vaccine, charging that it contains the virus that causes AIDS or could make children sterile, a battle of words that is frustrating health workers.

Al-Shabab, the rebels linked to al-Qaida, have discouraged many parents from getting their children inoculated against polio, a disease that is an incipient problem in this Horn of Africa nation long plagued by armed conflict and disease, according to health workers who spoke to The Associated Press.

The al-Shabab extremists have been pushed out of virtually all of Somalia’s cities and face continued military pressure from African Union and government troops. Health workers are gaining access to more children to give the life-saving polio vaccine. But some mothers and fathers are refusing the inoculation, apparently heeding the advice of the Islamic militants who warn that the vaccination exercise is part of a foreign conspiracy to kill or weakenSomali children.

Vaccination workers who walked door to door in the capital, Mogadishu, were turned away by some parents who often didn’t state why they objected to the vaccination. One man told the workers to leave immediately because they were carrying “toxic things.”

Al-Shabab militants are spreading rumors against the polio vaccine in communities where they still have some influence, alleging the vaccine can make girls barren and that it is manufactured in Christian countries, said a senior United Nations health worker in Somalia, who insisted on anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak about the vaccination program.

Al-Shabab did not respond to questions about the allegations that they are spreading rumors against the vaccination campaign.

“Al-Shabab are paranoid about potential infiltration by spy agencies disguised as humanitarian workers. That’s probably a principal reason for discouraging vaccination,” said Abdi Aynte, the director of the Somali-based think-tank Heritage Institute for Policy Studies.

Somali government officials say the numbers of parents who reject the immunization campaign are far fewer than those embracing it, but health workers don’t want to leave any unvaccinated. They warn that it is important for every child to get the polio vaccine in order to eradicate in Somalia the disease that causes limb paralysis and can be fatal.

“It’s a big challenge,” said Safiyo Mohamed, a vaccination worker in Mogadishu. She said in rejecting the vaccine some families had brought up the case in Libya where foreign health workers —including five Bulgarian nurses —faced charges of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV in 1990s.

The polio vaccine, which is administered orally, is recommended for children aged 10 and under, but some parents are questioning why a 10-year-old needs protection against polio, said Biyod Yasin, a vaccination worker at Mogadishu’s Hamarweyne Mother Child Centre.

At a world vaccine summit in Abu Dhabi last month, global health leaders and philanthropists presented a six-year, $5.5 billion plan that they hope will eradicate all types of polio disease.

The World Health Organization says Somalia is experiencing an outbreak of polio. WHO reported earlier this month that a 4-year-old Somali girl near the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya and two of her contacts tested positive for polio, the first confirmed cases in Kenya since July 2011. Four polio cases have been confirmed in Somalia so far this year, including two in Mogadishu. A vaccination campaign targeting 440,000 children began here on May 14, and a second round of the campaign that started Tuesday aim to vaccinate 644,000 children under the age of 10.

Health workers say they vaccinate hundreds each week despite the resistance. That the health workers can move around at all is a stunning turnaround in Somalia, which when al-Shabab radicals ran most of the country refused western medical care and food aid to desperate Somalis. The extremists imposed a strict form of Muslim Shariah law and carried out public whippings and beheadings.

With many regions of Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, under the rule of the moderate Muslim government and enjoying relative peace for the first time in 20 years, health care workers are expanding vaccination programs throughout the country. Health workers can now reach 40 percent of south-central Somalia, where the influence of the hardline Islamic insurgents is highest. Three years ago, health workers could access only 15 to 20 percent of that territory.

The years of conflict in Somalia has resulted in the country having child and maternal mortality rates that are among the highest in the world. One in every five Somali children dies before their fifth birthday, according to WHO, often for reasons including parental illiteracy and negligence.

“I don’t want any of my children injected with that thing which I don’t know what it is made of,” said Nurto Hussein, a mother of seven who lives in Mogadishu. “They make the children sick instead of curing them. I put my trust in Allah.”

 Source: AP

Nairobi, May 31 2013—Authorities in the Jubbaland region of Somalia must apprehend the gunmen who attacked freelance journalist Abdulkadir Abdirisak in the southern port town of Kismayo on Wednesday evening, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

“If the Jubbaland administration claims to be a legitimate authority, then it must act like one and ensure the perpetrators of this crime are arrested,” CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes said. “For too long Somali journalists, from the capital to Kismayo, have faced retribution from attackers who commit their crimes with total impunity.”

Abdulkadir, a freelance journalist who works for Mustaqbal Radio and London-based Royal TV, was walking home around 6 p.m. when two or three unidentified gunmen fired at him repeatedly, according to local journalists and news reports citing witness accounts.

The nature and extent of his injuries were not immediate clear. Accounts varied as to whether Abdulkadir was struck once or multiple times. Local journalists said Abdulkadir was admitted to Kismayo Hospital.

“Really I was shocked to hear he was attacked,” Royal TV producer Asad Abukar said. “We are told he is recovering, but we are still trying to investigate the reason why this happened.” Abdulkadir handled general assignments and did some economic reporting that focused on the charcoal trade, according to local journalists.

Intermittent attacks on the press have been reported in Kismayo, 500 kilometers south of the capital, even though Al-Shabaab insurgents were ousted by Kenyan and allied Somali forces last year.

Local journalists told CPJ that Kismayo-based reporters are compelled to self-censor to avoid problems with the local administration or with the rival clan militias that vie for control of the region. On January 21, the Raskamboni militia ordered local journalists not to report any news without its consent, according to the Jubbaland Independent Journalists Association and news reports.

 Contact:

Sue Valentine
Africa Program Coordinator
svalentine@cpj.org
+27 82.376.0960

Mohamed Keita
Africa Advocacy Coordinator
Tel. +1.212.465.1004 ext. 117
Email: mkeita@cpj.org

Tom Rhodes
East Africa Consultant
Email: trhodes@cpj.org

By Peter MARTELL – NAIROBI -After decades of war, Somalia is taking small steps toward recovery, but breakaway regions, rival clans and the competing interests of neighbouring nations are threatening its fragile progress, analysts warn.

In the past two years, African Union troops have wrested town after town from Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents, hauling down their black Islamist banners and raising Somalia’s flag.

But asserting the authority of the central government — which until recently controlled just a few blocks of the capital Mogadishu — is a far harder task.

“In Somalia today there is only one federal government that is wholly owned by the Somali people, widely represented by all Somalis, all regions,” Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told reporters this week.

But others disagree, including powerful militia forces backed by foreign armies.

The worst flashpoint is the far southern region dubbed “Jubaland” bordering Kenya and Ethiopia.

Both nations have troops there after invading in late 2011, while this month several rival warlords declared themselves “president”, sparking anger in Mogadishu.

But the effective self-appointment of former Islamist chief Ahmed Madobe, one of the most powerful of the “presidents” due to Kenyan backing, risks opening a rift between Nairobi and Mogadishu.

“The effort to create a Jubaland state within Somalia will test the limits of federalism in that country, and threatens to touch off clan warfare not only within Somalia but also in its neighbours,” the International Crisis Group warned in a recent report.

Jubaland, which includes the key port city of Kismayo, has a lucrative charcoal industry, fertile farmland as well as potential off-shore oil and gas deposits.

Addis Ababa, long term experts in playing off powerful factions, is wary of Madobe, who hails from the same Ogadeni clan as rebels fighting inside Ethiopia.

Infighting benefits Islamist insurgents

However, Mogadishu’s government — selected last year by clan elders in a UN-backed process and the first to be recognised internationally in more than two decades — is full of confidence.

“Any one group within Somalia that just gets together sits there and says, we are ‘XYZ’, has no legitimacy and has no recognition at local level and at international level,” said Mohamud.

But international recognition counts for little within Somalia, and central rule is controversial.

The last to claim control was Siad Barre, toppled in 1991 after a rule marked by repression of opposition and a bloody civil war against Somaliland.

Years of anarchy meant Somalis reverted to age-old systems of autonomy and traditional semi-nomadic camel herding.

Somalia split into regions, from fiercely independent Somaliland along the Gulf of Aden, to Puntland in the northeast, which recognises a federal government but says that has no role in its internal affairs.

Analysts warn of tough political times ahead.

While AU troops backing Mogadishu have enjoyed territorial success, Roland Marchal, an analyst with French research institute CNRS, notes the fighting force lacks a “political strategy to go with the military strategy”.

Kenya’s army, which invaded in 2011 alongside Madobe’s allied troops, faces a particularly sticky predicament.

In 2012, its cash-strapped military joined the AU force — funded by the UN and European Union — leaving its soldiers backing a warlord opposing the central government it is mandated to support.

Mogadishu lawmakers have submitted a motion demanding Kenya leave Somalia, while Mohamud said Kenyan troops “misbehaved” when a top level government delegation went to Kismayo and “did not treat the committee well”.

Ambitions by central government have highlighted internal divisions within regions.

Tensions in Jubaland have raised concern in Puntland, which swiftly welcomed Madobe’s election by calling on other regions “to establish states in a similar consultative and open process”.

Puntland has been keen to stake out power boundaries, with its oil agency chief Issa Farah warning Mogadishu it alone is the “competent authority” to manage the region’s oil exploration.

Mogadishu’s inability to “exercise its authority over the Kismayo process is undermining its influence in the remaining regions of Somalia and the emerging arrangements towards federalism,” warned Andrews Atta-Asamoah of the Pretoria-based Institute of Security Studies (ISS) in a recent paper.

At present, the only thing all appear to agree on is that the rivalry benefits the Shebab, still in control of swathes of countryside.

East African heads of state last week urged Somalia hold a “reconciliation conference”, warning infighting could “threaten peace and stability”.

Yet many also eye the economic, strategic and political profits of the region.

Kenya wants a security buffer zone to protect its valuable tourism industry, a proposed major port and hopes of offshore oil and gas finds.

It also hopes stability would let it send back the half a million Somali refugees it hosts.

Landlocked Ethiopia has long played a powerful role in Somalia, with Kismayo offering another possible route to the sea.

Yet Mogadishu remains upbeat, mindful its position today was unthinkable a few years ago.

“Somalia is fragmented, it’s divided into regions, clans, groups,” Mohamud said. “The current Somali government is busy with rebuilding and organising to have one Somalia.”

 By Peter MARTELL

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A suspected U.S. reconnaissance drone crashed on Tuesday in southern Somalia, where African forces are fighting Islamist al Shabaab insurgents, the rebels and the provincial governor said.

Lower Shabelle region governor Abdikadir Mohamed Nur said that al Shabaab militants had shot at the aircraft over the town of Bulamareer for several hours before it crashed.

“Finally they hit it and the drone crashed,” Nur told Reuters.

The insurgents confirmed that a drone had crashed but did not say if they had downed it.

“A U.S. drone has just crashed near one of the towns under the administration of the Mujahideen in the Lower Shabelle region,” al Shabaab said on a social media account.

Although the United States does not report its activities in Somalia, drones have been used in recent years to kill Somali and foreign al Shabaab fighters.

Western nations are worried that Somalia will sink back into chaos and provide a launchpad for Islamist militancy despite a fragile recovery after two decades of war.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon was seeking to send drones to Kenya as part of a $40 million-plus military aid package to help four African countries fighting al Qaeda and al Shabaab militants

Bulamareer residents said al Shabaab fighters had kept them away from the crash site.

“Al Shabaab fighters surrounded the scene. We are not allowed to go near it,” resident Aden Farah told Reuters.

Al Shabaab, which is affiliated with al Qaeda, said in January 2011 that a missile launched from a drone had killed Bilal el Berjawi, a Lebanese al Shabaab fighter who held a British passport.

Another missile killed four foreign militants south of the Somali capital Mogadishu in February 2012.

Al Shabaab were driven out of Mogadishu in late 2011 and are struggling to hold on to territory elsewhere in the face of attacks by Kenyan, Ethiopian and African Union forces trying to prevent Islamist militancy spreading out from Somalia.

Source:Reuters