Tuesday, 30 July 2013, 5:11 pm
Press Release: US State Department

Attack On Diplomatic Residences In Somalia

Press Statement

Jen Psaki
Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC

The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack on the Turkish diplomatic residences in Mogadishu, Somalia. We extend our condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and wish the injured a speedy recovery.

Turkey has played an important role in helping Somalia emerge from two decades of conflict. We stand firmly with the people of Somalia, with our Turkish ally, and all members of the international community who are working for peace and stability in Somalia.

This cowardly act will not shake our commitment to continue working for the brighter, more democratic and prosperous future the people of Somalia deserve.

ENDS

The world makes much ado of people and organizations – and even governments – assisting militant, fringe organizations engaged in nefarious schemes against the larger humanity. These include ter  rorists, pirates, drug dealers, and human traffickers.  Among these the three most sought after, most publicized groups are terrorists, pirates and drug cartels. And the world is right to explore ways to stop organizations of this elk sell human lives cheap down the drain – each in accordance to its own, heinous code of operations.  The world is also right to wage a relentless offensive against these enemies instead of hiding behind defensive measures that invariably show the chinks in the armor through which infiltrators creep in into the system to compromise it or wholly destabilize its effectiveness. Examples abound.

Realigning Policies

On occasion, good intentions open floodgates of disaster, misery and deprivation that is far worse than acts they set out to curb or prevent from happening.  The May decision of the Barclays Bank to close the accounts of some 250 Money Services Businesses (MSBs) serving millions and millions of needy beneficiaries in developing countries presently tops the list of good intentions turning awry. The down turn in the Barclays decision is that it creates untold of, immeasurable agony and deprivation among millions of innocent recipients of remittances  who are punished not on solid grounds but on the dictates of ‘preventive measures’ against perceived crimes that may or may not have happened at all.

The short term gains of decisions such as that of Barclays cannot balance or justify the far-reaching ramifications of residual consequences that will yet prove far more alarming than that which the Bank seeks to cover. For one, millions and millions of people who depended on relatives and friends, and made a honest living on remittances will take up the begging bowl at best joining the hordes of stateless, humiliated masses of international refugees – a state that the world can do without. Secondly, money transfer will disappear from a certifiable transaction to an unaccountable underground labyrinth of channels, driving hard earned cash right into the hands of a ruthless, manipulating underworld.

Far more thoughtlessly, decisions such as that of the Barclays denigrate the usefulness of paper trails in money transfers as it severely punishes the conscientious, law abiding practitioner for negligible oversights – if any, whilst opening limitless opportunities for shady deals and trail-less transactions.

On the other hand, it indirectly scoffs at financial regulations designed to combat money laundering and terrorist financing by exerting unbearable pressure on compliant companies that are not of western origin. The words ‘double standards’ glare out – for better or for worse.

Major MSBs that have been adversely affected by recent events, such as the Somali-origin – Dahabshiil, vigorously comply with international regulations combating terrorist financing, proliferation of weapons and the proceeds of crime. MSBs of this genre should be rewarded for fulfilling FATF expectations such as Recommendation 15 below, and not punished on the pretext of the flimsiest of reasons.  The aspersion implied in the Barclays decision and the dark smudge it leaves on the shining record of blameless MSBs should be immediately retracted, and especially in the light of the decision’s ominous connotations and impact.

Recommendation 15 points out:

Countries should take measures to ensure that natural or legal persons that provide money or value transfer services (MVTS) are licensed or registered, and subject to effective systems for monitoring and ensuring compliance with the relevant measures called for in the FATF Recommendations. Countries should take action to identify natural or legal persons that carry out MVTS without a license or registration, and to apply appropriate sanctions.

Any natural or legal person working as an agent should also be licensed or registered by a competent authority, or the MVTS provider should maintain a current list of its agents accessible by competent authorities in the countries in which the MVTS provider and its agents operate. Countries should take measures to ensure that MVTS providers that use agents include them in their AML/CFT program and monitor them for compliance with this program.

The only consideration that governments, financial regulators, banking institutions, money transfer businesses and individuals should all keep uppermost in mind is to abide by the laws as best as can be implemented giving adequate allowances to cultural and geographical contexts.

Legality of Mobile Money Transfers

The UN estimates that there are around 300 million adults that would have been able to receive remittances from relatives who have currently no access to conventional money services, and have never seen the inside of a bank or another MSB for one reason or another. The system is user friendly, accessible to anybody connected to a telecommunication network, and offers the user innumerable outlets that he or she can send and receive money. It is virtually as easy as topping up mobile accounts.

On the other side of the spectrum, regulators have always had issues with mobile banking. In conventional banking and money transfer systems, financial regulators have levels of reports and documents available to them to inspect giving them the necessary base to influence these institutions’ operations. In mobile banking this is not available.

The eleventh FATF recommendation on record keeping stipulates:

Financial institutions should be required to maintain, for at least five years, all necessary records on transactions, both domestic and international, to enable them to comply swiftly with information requests from the competent authorities. Such records must be sufficient to permit reconstruction of individual transactions (including the amounts and types of currency involved, if any) so as to provide, if necessary, evidence for prosecution of criminal activity. (FATF Recommendations, p.17)

Presently, this recommendation has no apparent effect on mobile money transfers. The recommendation further establishes that all records obtained in a transaction through the customer due diligence (CDD) measures must be available to ‘domestic competent authorities’ at all times.

This makes present-day mobile money remittances marginally legal. If the system remains unchecked and unfettered for such long, mobile money transfers will predictably take the place of conventional money transfer businesses, unfairly edging them off the market. Instead of combating crime, such systems, experts believe, are more likely than any other to replenish dried up terrorist coffers and used up ammunition belts of active terrorist combatants by transferring money right into the cell phones of militants on the move.

Regulators are understandably worried that any amount of money can be sent from any mobile in the outside world to a phone number of a terrorist in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, for instance, with no intermediary, checking systems in place.  No sender has to go to an office to register details of sender and receiver, and no fighter has to leave his ditch to collect money to buy ammunition, assemble bomb parts or forward costs to another commander on the front. Imagine a group of people sending to the mobile phones of 100 militants $2000 each. This is a cool $200 000. A whole city can be captured in certain parts of the world. Trainloads of people can be bombed out of their tracks. A fleet of school buses can be blown off into smithereens with a far less amount of money… A paper trail to trace origins, senders and recipients will be available to no one.

With popular hawala MSBs nothing if this kind can ever happen. They represent the only safe, legitimate access to subsistence, health, education, and investment costs to hundreds of millions of people that western banking institutions can never ever reach even with the full cooperation of local conventional banking facilities.

Regulations miss out

In their haste to come up with iron-tight shields against money laundering and the proceeds of crime, high-street banking institutions, international financial regulations and regulators seem to have missed a few crucial turns. As a result:

1. Anti-money laundering regulations fail to address or understand the operational mechanics of Money Service Business (MSB) that are much older than some ‘countries’.   In many cases, the MSB has all the qualities, the operational strength, the network, the AML/Compliance regimes and hierarchical structure to combat laundered money, terrorism and the proceeds of crime passing through systems as legitimate earnings. And yet, much feted financial regulations such as the FATF recommendations, assume that the UK or the US is a typical, apt model that all nations should strive to emulate. Better still, nothing short of the centuries’ old financial systems said countries have adapted to through the years must  be tolerated in all nations, without exception, automatically –and fully – manifested in,  for instance, countries like Somalia and South Sudan instantly.  Every recommendation begins with ‘countries should..’.
2. Mobile bank service providers are not fully regulated as electronic money issuers or as MSBs. This state leaves them wide open for a variety of abuses on the part of users.
3.  It had not been adequately taken into account that in mobile banking, there is a failure of high profile schemes – in other words total network failure, relaxed security, absence of KYC regulation, relaxed sim card ownership, and the near total absence of due diligence and record-keeping measures which may compromise the security of the money transfer industry as a whole where, in reality, players in sector itself exercise different security regimens and, so, should be viewed each (hawala, mobile transfers, banking institution, etc. ) by merit and level, instead.
4. Regulators and regulations tailored to rigid cultural and geographical confines have not fully comprehended that in some parts of the world, the hawala is the only legal channel to send and/or receive money, thus becoming the only lifeline for millions of people around the globe, and that the legitimate continuation of business is to the interest of all stakeholders. Major money transfer businesses originating from non-western countries apply international anti-money laundering measures as robustly as western hawalas such as the Western Union.

S H Balbal

Nairobi, Kenya

By Buri M. Hamza

Sunday, July 28, 2013

In March 2010 – then a Minister in the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia – I was chosen by the Prime Minister to present to the Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council in New York the Somali Government’s  reaction to the report of the UN Somalia Monitoring Group (SMG), which was released in 2010.

Likewise, in July 2012, I was a member of the Somali delegation that was dispatched to New York to present a rebuttal to the Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council on the report of Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG), released in 2012. Matt Bryden was then the Coordinator of the SEMG. His successor, Jarat Chopra, was a member of Bryden’s team. And prior to his nomination as the new Coordinator for the SEMG, he was an advisor for the Somalia and Eritrea Country Programmes of the World Bank.

In New York, in 2010 and 2012, during our meetings with the Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council, our initial reaction to the allegations of the SEMG reports included, inter alia, the following:

1.     The 2010 and 2012 reports were disclosed prematurely to the media and recklessly released to the different Somali internet websites prior to their presentation to the UN Security Council and to the Somali authorities. This had undermined the overall credibility and integrity of the process. This deliberate act by the SEMG  had been designed to create havoc and deviate the attention of the Somali people from the challenges of the Political Roadmap for ending transition. The idea was to jeopardize the progress that the Somali Transitional Federal Institutions were making and impede the noble tasks of the Somali Traditional Elders related to the adoption of the constitution and the selection of the new Federal Parliament of Somalia.

2.     The release of the 2012 SEMG report had occured only a few weeks before the end of the transition and when the Political Roadmap was in its final conclusion. The intention was obvious: to disrupt the process and discredit the progress made in the Somali constitution-making process, in the selection process of the members of the new Somali Federal Parliament, and the election of the leadership for post-transition Somalia. Our contention was that the release of the report at that juncture was politically motivated. The objective of the SEMG report was to support the country to make further headway in its peace and stability. However, the accusations depicted in the report had unequivocally aimed to derail the Political Roadmap and impede the completion of the transition.

3.     The Somali Armed Forces, alongside AMISOM,  were engaged in earnest and critical efforts to bring about security in the country and eliminate the menaces posed by Al Shabaab and other terrorists associated to Al Qaeda. They had succeeded in liberating many areas that were previously controlled by Al Shabaab. Serious efforts were then being made in those areas to establish civilian administrations, launch major relief operations such as the building of schools, hospitals and other vital infrastructures, and help the IDPs return to their homes to restart their farming and rebuild their lives. We were concerned that the SEMG report would undermine those efforts by failing to give sufficient consideration to the tense and complex environment within which the Transitional Federal Institutions and their leadership were operating.

4.     We were also concerned that the SEMG’s unsubstantiated allegations might have adversely impacted the peace dividends that had arisen following the defeat of Al Shabaab. Our determination to address our social ills in order to improve our security conditions and avert the re-occurrence of violence and the re-emergence of Al Shabaab could have also been seriously affected.

5.     The 2010 report had claimed that there was no real structure to the Transitional Federal Government’s security sector. The reality was that there had been a clear policy and organization supported by strong political will and determined leadership, as well as by effective international technical assistance. The Government had spent a high proportion of its limited resources throughout the transitional period rebuilding the security sector in Somalia and had received praise from many quarters in the country for its efforts.

6.     The 2010 report had also alleged that eighty percent of Transitional Federal Government personnel had defected to the extremists. This misguided and inflammatory claim was completely unsubstantiated and bore no correspondence to reality. It was deliberately designed to cause a reaction that would inevitably impede the significant progress made then by the Transitional Federal Government.

7.     The 2010 report allegation that the extremists had obtained their arms from the Transitional Federal Government’s military forces by seizure and purchase was also exaggerated to such a degree that it had called into question the motives inspiring the UN Somalia Monitoring Group. While there might have been isolated incidents of this nature, there was no such pattern and no basis for this destructively provocative claim.

8.     Allegations against some prominent business people in the 2010 report were refuted by the World Food Programme because the said allegations were based recklessly on unverifiable sources. And following the release of the 2010 Monitoring Group report, the level of humanitarian assistance to Somalia had significantly decreased. And according to a study commissioned and funded by the FAO, over 258,000 people died in southern and central Somalia between October 2010 and April 2012, including 133,000 children under the age of five.

9.     During our meeting with the Sanctions Committee, we had also expressed our concern over the neutrality of Matt Bryden whose political views on “Somaliland” and its ambition to secede are well doucmented. His insistence to tarnish the reputation of the leadership in the Transitional Federal Institutions and target all regions of Somalia with the exception of “Somaliland” is tantamount to his biases and his sheer predilection to the latter’s independence and its secession.

The Transitional Federal Government  had previously established a High Level Independent Commission to investigate allegations made by the Monitoring Group in its report released in 2010.  The Commission’s findings had confirmed that the report was “riddled with ambiguity, irrelevant and prejudicial information, inconsistency and untruth.” The Commission had also observed that the report “failed to provide any tangible or substantive evidence to back the allegations made against the Transitional Federal Government’s officials, Puntland authority, and prominent Somali businessmen. The report lacked credence and had little or no probative value.”  The report released in 2012 was found to be less credible and had also fallen seriously short of any rudimentary standards of evidence.

A quick look into the 2013 SEMG Report, it appears that many of the allegations made are based on unverifiable sources. The methodology employed in  the gathering of information  is not any different from the one pursued by the former Coordinator and his team. It is literally based on hearsay and on bits and pieces collected from sources that are unreliable. The current Federal Government of Somalia has every right to raise questions as to the credibility of the report and the veracity of the information contained.

My Advice to the Federal Government of Somalia

The Federal Government should ask to be given ample time to review and evaluate the content of the report very meticulously. This can be carried out by an Independent Commission, which will independently and promptly review all the claims reflected in the 2013 report and provide appropriate response for them. Members of the Commission should include a balanced selection of independent professionals of high integrity who can render an objective evaluation of the real issues. The government should be committed to undertaking appropriate action against any officials, individuals or organizations found to be engaged in criminal misconduct or other acts discrediting the government and people of Somalia.

The issue relating the alleged illegal export of charcoal from Jubaland and from Barawe in Lower Shabelle should also be investigated by the Commission. The SEMG’s accusation of Kenyan soldiers in the AMISOM of facilitating illegal charcoal exports from the port city of Kismayo is gravely serious and must be given further investigation to determine its truthfulness.

The UN Security Council banned the export of charcoal from Somalia in February 2012.  The reason was to cut off one of the main source of income for Al Shabaab and not necessarily to save the Somali trees and curb deforestation. Had the UN Security Council and the SEMG been more serious about the export of charcoal from Somalia, then they should have also warned the countries that import charcoal. The charcoal importing countries are not only violating the Security Council ban, they are also violating the provisions of the United Nations Multilateral Environmental Conventions, which prohibit the export and import of charcoal.

Moreover, the Federal Government of Somalia should endevaour to dispatch a high-level delegation to New York to meet with the Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council in order to register its objections to the allegations and  respectfully urge the Sanctions Committee to carefully review the findings of the SEMG report and test the reasonableness and accuracy of its findings.

If the Federal Government of Somalia and its different institutions opt to shrug off and silently reject and disregard the report’s findings, the unfounded allegations will certainly undermine the efforts and credibility of the nascent post-transition institutions and have a deleterious impact on the well-being of the people of Somalia.

The Government must officially request the Monitoring Group to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Somalia. Any attempts to micro-manage Somalia will certainly backfire and damage post-transition (re)construction and peace efforts. Notwithstanding, the leadership in the Federal Government of Somalia should reaffirm its determination to cooperate with the UN Security Council and its subordinate organs in a spirit of full transparency and mutual respect.

____________________________________________________________________________

Hon. Buri M. Hamza is an MP in the House of the People of the Federal Republic of Somalia. He can be reached at bhamza@hotmail.com

MOGADISHU (AFP) –  At least one person was killed and several others were wounded Wednesday when a car bomb exploded in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, the latest in a string of attacks, police said.

The blast targeted a car belonging to a member of parliament who was not hurt in the attack.

“The bomb destroyed the car of lawmaker Sheikh Adan Mader but he escaped the attack unharmed,” Somali police official Mohamed Ali said. “One civilian was killed and several others injured.”

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents have carried out a series of bombings, attacks and killings in a bid to overthrow the internationally-backed government.

Abdulahi Elmi, a witness who was nearby when the car exploded, said he had seen seven civilians wounded by the blast.

Despite recent infighting inside the Shebab and the loss of a series of towns to a 17,700-strong African Union force, analysts warn the extremist group is far from defeated.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/24/one-killed-several-hurt-by-somalia-car-bomb-police/#ixzz2a4DfjDAT

Source: AFP

AAIB Insurance has become the first insurance broker to receive a licence to trade in Somalia.

The company received its ‘Special Permit And Service Certificate Of Registration As A Business’ from the Somali Ministry of Commerce and Industry in June.

The permit means that AAIB is the only foreign insurance broking company able to place insurance business from within Somalia. AAIB already has a representative on the ground in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

While the licence is a source of pride and competitive advantage to AAIB, its implications go way beyond the commercial interests of one company, said William Wakeham, CEO of AAIB.

“Yes this is good news for AAIB. It means we can steal a march on our rivals,” he said. “But the real significance of this permit, is that it is an important stepping stone in the development and reconstruction of Somalia after 22 years of civil war. This is good for Somalia and good for the companies that want to participate in its growth because for the first time they can get insurance cover for their operations informed by intimate local knowledge -as opposed to generic cover written at arm’s length.”

He explained that East Africa generally and Somalia in particular has become one of the most attractive areas in the world for oil and gas exploration. Late last year Somalia announced that it intends to auction 308 newly delineated blocks of oil rights.

“Without people on the ground, insurance companies find it hard to assess risk accurately. Some risks can’t be covered at all and others carry a higher than necessary premium. Now the long slow task of realising Somalia’s inherent wealth can begin in earnest,” he said.

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Two Spanish aid workers kidnapped almost two years ago in Kenya and then held in Somalia have been freed, their employer Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday.

Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut, 40 and 30 respectively at the time of their kidnapping from the Dadaab refugee complex near the border with Somalia in October 2011, are both “safe and healthy”, MSF said.

“Both are safe and healthy and keen to join their loved ones as soon as possible,” the medical charity said, without disclosing when they were released or how.

MSF said it would give no further details before a press conference scheduled in Madrid on Friday.

“Once again, MSF strongly condemns this attack on humanitarian workers who were in Dadaab offering lifesaving medical assistance to thousands of refugees,” the charity said.

Serra and Thiebaut, both logisticians, were seized by armed men in the Ifo camp in Dadaab, where they were working on the construction of a hospital, and immediately driven across the border.

Kenyan police said they had been taken by members of Somalia’s Islamist Shebab group, but no group has actually claimed the kidnapping.

MSF, which at the time of the kidnapping had 49 foreign and 343 local staff in Dadaab, reduced its activity there to a minimum.

The world’s largest refugee complex, Dadaab is home to some 450,000 refugees, the vast majority of whom have fled drought and war in Somalia.

The abduction of the Spaniards followed the kidnapping of a French woman and a British woman from the Kenyan coast near the Somali border.

Briton Judith Tebbutt, in her late fifties, was seized from a remote Kenyan resort on September 11, 2011 by armed men who killed her husband David. She was released in March 2012 after being held for more than six months, reportedly after her son paid a ransom.

Marie Dedieu, 66 and partially paralysed, was seized from her beachfront home in the Lamu archipelago on October 1, 2011.

She was reported dead later the same month, with French officials saying the death was probably due to her having been deprived of essential medication by her kidnappers.

Just days after the two Spaniards were seized Kenya rolled tanks and troops across the border to fight the Shebab.

MSF immediately distanced itself from that operation.

On October 25, 2011 two aid workers with Danish Refugee Council were seized by armed men in Galkayo in north-central Somalia. They were freed in a raid by US commandos in January 2012.

The Kenyan troops were officially integrated into the African Union force in Somalia Amisom in early June 2012.

Kenya is aiming to establish a buffer zone on the Somali side of the Kenya-Somalia border, notably in order to protect its lucrative tourism industry, a pillar of the economy.

In January Shebab fighters killed a French hostage, an intelligence agent known under the pseudonym Denis Allex, held since 2009, during a botched rescue attempt by French forces.

A colleague of Allex, kidnapped at the same time, managed to escape in August 2009.

A Briton and a Kenyan employed by an Indian subcontractor of a UN agency and who were seized in southern Somalia in 2008 are feared dead.

An American national kidnapped in January 2012 is still being held.

Thirty-nine seamen of various nationalities from the Naham 3, a fishing vessel captured in March 2012 and from two other boats, are still being held in Somalia.

The fate of a further 15 seamen whose vessel the Albedo sank, is unknown.

Source:AFP

Nairobi, July 18, 2013–Two Somali journalists were wounded, one critically, when they came under fire on Wednesday while covering the aftermath of a landmine explosion in the southern port city of Kismayo, according to news reports and local journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an immediate and thorough investigation.

Armed men shot at Mascud Abdulahi, correspondent for Dalsan Radio, and Mohamed Farah, correspondent for Goobjoog Radio, at 11:30 a.m., according to local journalists and news reports. The National Union of Somali Journalists blamed the government-affiliated militia Raskomboni for the shooting, according to Agence France-Presse. Armed militias, along with African Union troops, patrol Kismayo, where several clan-based rival militias are vying for control of the town, according to news reports.

Mascud was wounded in the back and the stomach, and Mohamed was hurt on the shoulder, the news reports said. Dalsan Radio Director Hassan Ali Gesey told CPJthat Mohamed had left the hospital after being treated for his wounds, but that Mascud remained in critical condition and was to be evacuated either to Mogadishu or Nairobi, in neighboring Kenya, for surgery.

“Reporting in Kismayo is extremely challenging with rival factions attacking the city and now even the press,” said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes. “The Somali government must investigate this attack, including the possibility that its military allies may have been responsible.”

Unidentified gunmen shot at Mustagbal Radio and Royal TV journalist Abdulkadir Abdirisak in May, according to news reports. Abdulkadir recovered from the attack, but the perpetrators were never apprehended.

• For more data and analysis,      visit CPJ’s Somalia page here.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has dropped significantly for the first time since 2006 due to preventive measures deployed by the foreign warships to thwart such attacks, a global maritime body said.

The report by International Chamber Commerce (ICC) International Maritime Bureau (IMB)’s global piracy report attributes the fall in piracy to actions by the international navies as well as preventive measures by merchant vessels including deployment of privately contracted armed security personnel off the coast of Somalia.

“The navies continue to play a vital role in ensuring this threat is kept under control,” IMB Director Pottengal Mukundan.

According to the report, as at June 30, Somali pirates were holding 57 crew members for ransom on four vessels. They were also holding 11 kidnapped crew members on land in unknown conditions and locations.

The report says four of these crew have been held since April 2010 and seven since September 2010. In East Africa’s Gulf of Aden and Somalia, eight piracy incidents including two hijackings were recorded in the first six months of 2013, with 34 seafarers taken hostage.

“Two vessels hijacked were recovered by naval action before the pirates could take them to Somalia. Only the navies can take such remedial action after a hijack,” said Mukundan.

He said denying the pirates any success is essential to a sustained solution in the piracy which has seen the rise in insurance premiums and cost of goods across the region.

The Horn of Africa has itself also suffered considerably from the impact of piracy. Increased trade costs are estimated two years ago to cost the country 6 million U.S. dollars annually.

This figure does not take into account that Somalia cannot develop and expand its maritime trade and fisheries as long as pirates are allowed to operate in its waters.

Demanding millions of dollars in ransom for captured ships and their crews, Somali pirates had late 2011 intensified operations not just off their own coastline, but further afield in the Red Sea – particularly during the monsoon season in the wider Indian Ocean.

Tankers carrying Middle East oil through the Suez Canal must pass first through the Gulf of Aden. According to maritime officials, about 4 percent of the world’s daily oil supply is shipped through the gulf.

Before the capture of key port city of Kismayo by Kenyan soldiers late 2012, the Horn of Africa nation’s coastline was considered one of the world’s most dangerous stretches of water because of piracy.

“Pirates are known to operate in these waters. Despite the temporary protection provided by the southwest monsoon in some parts of the Arabian Sea, the threats remain and vessels are advised to be vigilant and comply with the industry’s Best Management Practices as they transit this area,” Mukundan said.

He said the threat is still present and Somali pirates usually attack ships in the northern Somali coast in the Gulf of Aden and southern Red Sea in the Bab El Mandeb TSS.

“All vessels transiting the area are advised to take additional precaution measures and maintain strict 24 hours visual and radar anti-piracy watch using all available means,” Mukundan said.

He called on watch keeping crews to lookout for small suspicious boats converging to won vessel.

“Early sightings/detention and accurate assessment will allow Master to increase speed and take evasive maneuvers to escape from the pirates and at the same time request for assistance from various authorities/agencies including the IMB,” he said.

The Somali pirates have also extended their attacks to vessels close to the coast of Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen and Oman.

In the Gulf of Guinea, in addition to a rise in piracy and armed robbery, 31 incidents so far this year, including four hijackings — IMB reports a surge in kidnappings at sea and a winder range of ship types being targeted.

“This is a new cause of concern in a region already known for attacks against vessels in the oil industry and theft of gas oil from tankers,” says the report.

In April, the report says nine crew members were kidnapped from two container vessels, one of which was 170 nautical miles from the coast.

According to the report, pirates have used mother ships, some of which were smaller off-shore supply vessels hijacked by pirates to conduct the attacks and notes that there continues to be significant under-reporting in attacks — a phenomenon highlighted by the IMB year on year.

“There has been a worrying trend in the kidnapping of crew from vessels well outside the territorial limits of coastal states in the Gulf of Guinea,” Mukundan said.

He said armed pirates in the Gulf of Guinea took 56 sailors hostage and were responsible for all 30 crew kidnappings reported so far in 2013.

He said one person was reported killed and at least another five injured. The report says attacks off Nigeria accounted for 22 of the region’s 31 incidents and 28 off the crew kidnappings.

The attacks are being carried out by increasingly well- coordinated Somali gangs armed with automatic weapons and rocket- propelled grenades, maritime officials said.

The Horn of Africa nation has been without a functioning government since 1991, and remains one of the world’s most violent and lawless countries.

Combined Task Force 150, a naval alliance dominated by the United States and based in the Gulf of Aden nation of Djibouti, is patrolling an area within the Gulf of Aden to help protect ships from pirates Worldwide, the maritime watchdog recorded 138 piracy incidents in the first six months of 2013 compared with 177 incidents for the corresponding period in 2012.

The report says seven hijackings have been recorded this year compared with 20 in the half of 2012. The number of sailors taken hostage also fell dramatically to 127 in 2013 from 334 in the same period in 2012.

Source– BERNAMA-NNN-AGENCIES

Western commercial oil exploration in disputed areas of Somalia and discrepancies over which authorities can issue licenses to companies could spark further conflict in the African nation, U.N. monitors warned in a confidential report.

In the U.N. Monitoring Group’s latest annual report to the Security Council’s sanctions committee on Somalia and Eritrea, the experts said the Somali constitution gives considerable autonomy to regional governments to enter commercial oil deals.

But a petroleum law that has not yet been adopted by the country’s parliament but is being invoked by federal officials in the capital Mogadishu says that the central government can distribute natural resources.

“These inconsistencies, unless resolved, may lead to increased political conflict between federal and regional governments that risk exacerbating clan divisions and therefore threaten peace and security,” the experts group said in an annex to its annual report, which was seen by Reuters.

The overthrow of a dictator in 1991 plunged Somalia into two decades of violent turmoil, first at the hands of clan warlords and then Islamist militants, while two semi-autonomous regions – Puntland and Somaliland – have cropped up in northern Somalia.

Around a dozen companies, including many multinational oil and gas majors, had licenses to explore Somalia before 1991, but since then Somaliland and Puntland and other regional authorities have granted their own licenses for the same blocks.

In some cases Somaliland and Puntland have awarded licenses for blocks that overlap. The experts said one such case involves Norwegian oil firm DNO and Canadian-listed Africa Oil Corp.

“Potentially, it means that exploration operations in these blocks, conducted by both DNO and Africa Oil under the protection of regional security forces, its allied militia or private forces, could generate new conflict between Somaliland and Puntland,” the report said.

“It is alarming that regional security forces and armed groups may clash to protect and further Western-based oil companies interests,” it said.

“In this case, the involvement of a Norwegian company on one side and of a Swedish-owned/Canada-based company on the other, is even more disturbing, considering the long-standing implication of Norway and Sweden in promoting peace and dialogue in Somalia,” the experts said.

Bjorn Dale, DNO’s acting president/managing director and general counsel, said he was not familiar with the U.N. experts’ recent report but said that the company would never engage in activities that threatened peace in Somaliland.

Africa Oil was not immediately available for comment.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

Somalia is struggling to rebuild after decades of conflict and a U.N.-backed African Union peacekeeping force is trying to drive out al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebel group al Shabaab. Piracy off the Somali coast is also a problem.

The U.N. experts also expressed concern about a clash between a longstanding bid by Norway to urge Somalia to implement an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off its coast with commercial interests by a Norwegian oil company.

Under the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea, an EEZ would allow Somalia 12 nautical miles of territorial control with claim to sovereign rights to explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources that exist within 200 nautical miles.

The U.N. convention then requires Somalia to negotiate a maritime boundary with Kenya, which the U.N. experts said could lead to several disputed oil exploration blocks being deemed to be in Kenyan waters.

The U.N. report said late last year that Kenya had suspended Statoil’s license for block L26 because the Norwegian company did not want to spend money on exploration while there was the legal uncertainty over the maritime border with Somalia.

A Kenyan government official told the U.N. experts that Statoil had expressed an interest to develop the area should a boundary be agreed with Somalia and the L26 block was deemed to be in Kenyan waters.

“Efforts by Norway to lobby Somali officials to adopt the EEZ now coincide with current Norwegian interest in the fate of L26 as well as with Norwegian involvement in the application of a Special Financing Facility donor fund of $30 million which has been allocated under the management of (Somali government) officials with a track record of corruption,” the report said.

The experts suggested that Norway’s development assistance to Somalia could be used “as a cover for its commercial interests there,” a claim it said Norwegian International Development Minister Heikki Eidsvoll Holmas has denied.

Norway’s U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Source: Reuters