Somalia: Hello? Pirates?

Medesh 30 Nov, 2008

'Mummy, can I phone the pirates?'
One of the biggest frustrations facing journalists is being unable to get through to people on the phone. But as Mary Harper discovered, contacting the Somali pirates on the Sirius Star turned out to be child's play.
It was a cold, dark, wet and miserable Sunday afternoon. I was in my car, driving my 12-year-old daughter and her friend back from a birthday party. I was tired and fed up from being in the car.
"Mummy, mummy," trilled a voice from the back. "I want to phone the pirates."
My daughter had heard me repeatedly trying to get through to the Somali pirates on board the Sirius Star.
They usually picked up the phone but put it down again when I said I was from the BBC. My obsession with getting through to them had reached the point that I had even saved their number on my mobile phone.
"Mummy, mummy, please can I phone the pirates for you?"
"No."
"Pleeeeez."
By this time, with rain battering my windscreen and cars jamming the road, I was at the end of my tether.
"OK", I said, tossing the phone into the back of the car.
"They are under P for pirates."
Giggling with pirates
"Hello. Please can I talk to the pirates," said my daughter in her obviously childish voice.
I could hear someone replying and a bizarre conversation ensued which eventually ended when my daughter collapsed in giggles.
This was a breakthrough. Dialogue had been established.
The next day, I went to the crowded office in Bush House in London where the BBC Somali Service is based. I told them the story.
"Let's try now," said producer Said Musa, who, dare I say it, looks a bit like a pirate himself. He has a wild look about him with flashing eyes and a swashbuckling saunter.
He dialled the number. A pirate answered. "I'm sorry," he barked in Somali, "the boss pirate is sleeping. He was very busy last night keeping watch for possible attackers, night time, you know, is the busiest time for us. Call back in two hours."
Calm hostage
A pirate, who called himself Daybad, spoke in Somali, calmly and confidently. He said Somalis were left with no choice but to take to the high seas.
"We've had no government for 18 years. We have no life. Our last resource is the sea, and foreign trawlers are plundering our fish."
The pirate said the crew was being treated well.
"They can move from place to place. They can sleep in their own beds, they even have their own keys. The only thing they're missing is their freedom to leave the ship."
Suddenly I heard a voice speaking English.
"Hello. This is the captain of the Sirius Star speaking."
The captain, a Polish man called Marek Nishky, sounded surprisingly composed for a hostage.
He said he had no reason to complain, everybody was OK, and the pirates had allowed the crew to speak to their families.
As my questions became more challenging, he became more nervous. I could almost see the pirates standing around him. He said we would have to finish our conversation, and politely thanked me for my concern.
The phone line went dead. But we had it, recordings of the pirate and the captain, and the interviews were broadcast all over the BBC.
Gun law
The Somali Service at Bush House is behind most of the stories you hear about Somalia on the BBC.
It consists of a tiny group of people, far away from home, from a country torn to shreds after nearly two decades without a functioning central government.
That means no proper hospitals, no schools and no safety. The gun means everything in Somalia.
One member of the team showed me photos of the concrete bench outside his house where his mother used to sit to make tea. It was splattered with blood.
The house had been hit by a shell the day after his family left for the relative safety of the north. Neighbours had been killed.
Who knows whether the property was targeted because of its BBC connection.
Despite their concerns about what may be happening back at home, the people in the Somali Service are the most hilarious, irreverent bunch of people in the building.
They smoke like chimneys, and laugh uproariously at the most unsuitable jokes.
They tease me mercilessly. I was worth dozens of camels when I first arrived at the BBC as a fresh-faced young woman, they say, while now I may only be worth one or two camels, or maybe just a half.
The Somali Service enjoyed a real scoop with our interviews.
But who knows if it would have happened if my daughter had not persisted and pressed P for Pirates?
Story from BBC NEWS:

Ethiopian ship hijacking foiled

Medeshi

Ethiopian ship hijacking foiled

By Groum Abate

Source: Capital
Built by Fincantieri-Cantieri Navali Italiani, in Venice, Andinet, one of the nine ships operated by Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL) came under attack by the notorious Somali pirates.

Photo: ESL Ethiopian Ship Shebelle
Ambachew Abreha, Managing Director of ESL, told Capital that the attack occurred on Monday, November 17, 2008, but the ship managed to safely cruise away from the hijackers.Andinet has reverted back to its initial point of departure, the Port of Djibouti, after the hijacking attempt.
Ambachew said that the attempt was diverted by the ship’s security despite claims by the German navy that stated it rescued Andinet from pirates.
German navy officials said Tuesday its frigate, Karlsruhe, had foiled attacks by heavily armed bandits on two ships. On Monday, Andinet radioed for help, saying it was under attack from two small motorboats in the Gulf of Aden. The Karlsruhe, which was 20km away, dispatched a Sea Lynx helicopter and the two motorboats “left at high speed,” a navy statement said.
The managing director on his part said the German navy was near the incident but has not intercepted the hijackers, adding that it is confidential how the ship managed to foil the attack.
Earlier in the week, the Saudi supertanker, Sirius Star, carrying 100 million dollars worth of oil, was hijacked and anchored off a notorious Somali pirate port. The biggest act of piracy yet by the marauding Somali bandits has stunned the international community.The super-tanker with its crew of 25, 19 from The Philippines, two from Britain, two from Poland, one Croatian and one Saudi, and loaded to capacity with two million barrels of oil, was seized on Saturday, November 15, 2008.

ESL Netsanet Ethiopian Ship
The Sirius Star, the size of three football pitches and three times the weight of a US aircraft carrier, is the largest ship ever seized by pirates and the hijacking was the farthest out to sea that Somali bandits have struck.
Four ships from Britain, Greece, Italy and Turkey form a NATO patrol in the waters, with two protecting United Nations (UN) food aid convoys to the strife-torn Horn of Africa country.NATO’s operation ends in mid-December when a bigger European Union (EU) mission is set to take over but NATO is considering “complementary” action to the EU mission.The International Maritime Bureau has reported that 90 vessels have been attacked since January. Of those, 38 were hijacked while pirates still hold 16 vessels with more than 250 crew as hostages.
Ethiopian Shipping Lines SC was founded in 1964 and started operation in 1966 with three newly built ships with a capital of 50,000 birr subsequently raised to 3,750,000 birr.

U.S. appears to be losing its secret war in Somalia

By Paul Salopek
Chicago Tribune
Medeshi
U.S. appears to be losing its secret war in Somalia
BERBERA, Somalia — To glimpse America's secret war in Africa, you must bang with a rock on the iron gate of the prison in this remote port in northern Somalia. A sleepy guard will yank open a rusty deadbolt. Then, you ask to speak to an inmate named Mohamed Ali Isse.
Isse, 36, is a convicted murderer and jihadist. He is known among his fellow prisoners, with grudging awe, as "The Man with the American Thing in His Leg."
That "thing" is a stainless-steel surgical pin screwed into his bullet-shattered femur, courtesy, he says, of the U.S. Navy. How it got there — or more to the point, how Isse ended up in this crumbling, stonewalled hellhole at the uttermost end of the Earth — is a story that the U.S. government probably would prefer to remain untold.
That's because Isse and his fancy surgery scars offer what little tangible evidence exists of a bare-knuckled war that has been waged silently, over the past five years, with the sole aim of preventing anarchic Somalia from becoming the world's next Afghanistan.
"Your government gets away with a lot here," said the prison warden, Hassan Mohamed Ibrahim, striding about his antique facility with a pistol tucked in the back of his pants. "In Iraq, the world is watching. In Afghanistan, the world is watching. In Somalia, nobody is watching."
It is a standoff war in which the Pentagon lobs million-dollar cruise missiles into a famine-haunted African wasteland the size of Texas, hoping to kill lone terror suspects who might be dozing in candlelit huts.
It is a covert war in which the CIA has recruited gangs of unsavory warlords to hunt down and kidnap Islamic militants and — according to Isse and civil rights activists — secretly imprison them offshore, aboard U.S. warships.
Mostly, though, it is a policy time bomb that will be inherited by the incoming Obama administration: a little-known front in the global war on terrorism that the U.S. appears to be losing, if it hasn't already been lost.
"Somalia is one of the great unrecognized U.S. policy failures since 9/11," said Ken Menkhaus, a leading Somalia scholar at Davidson College in North Carolina. "By any rational metric, what we've ended up with there today is the opposite of what we wanted."
What the Bush administration wanted, when it tacitly backed Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in late 2006, was clear enough: to help a close African ally in the war on terror crush the Islamic Courts Union. The Taliban-like movement emerged from the ashes of more than 15 years of anarchy and lawlessness in Africa's most infamous failed state, Somalia.
At first, the invasion seemed an easy victory. By early 2007, the Courts had been routed, a pro-Western transitional government installed, and hundreds of Islamic militants in Somalia either captured or killed.
But over the past 18 months, Somalia's Islamists — now more radical than ever — have regrouped and roared back.
On a single day last month, they flexed their muscles by killing nearly 30 people in a spate of bloody car-bomb attacks that recalled the darkest days of Iraq. And their brutal militia, the Shabab, or "Youth," today controls much of the destitute nation, a shattered but strategic country that overlooks the vital oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden.
Even worse, Shabab's fighters have moved to within miles of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, threatening to topple the weak interim government supported by the U.S. and Ethiopia.
Meanwhile, in the midst of a killing drought, more than 700,000 city dwellers have been driven out of bullet-scarred Mogadishu by the recent clashes between the Islamist rebels and the interim government.
Somalia's hapless capital has long been considered the Dodge City of Africa — a seaside metropolis sundered by clan fighting ever since the nation's central government collapsed in 1991. That feral reputation was cemented in 1993, when chanting mobs dragged the bodies of U.S. Army Rangers through the streets in a disastrous U.N. peacekeeping mission chronicled in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."
The airport — the city's frail lifeline to the world — is regularly closed by insurgent mortar attacks despite a small and jittery contingent of African Union peacekeepers.
Foreign workers who once toiled quietly for years in Somalia have been evacuated. A U.S. missile strike in May killed the Shabab commander, Aden Hashi Ayro, enraging Islamist militants who have since vowed to kidnap and kill any outsider found in the country.
Today most of Somalia is closed to the world.
It wasn't supposed to turn out this way when the U.S. provided intelligence to the invading Ethiopians two years ago.
The homegrown Islamic radicals who controlled most of central and southern Somalia in mid-2006 certainly were no angels. They shuttered Mogadishu's cinemas, demanded that Somali men grow beards and, according to the U.S. State Department, provided refuge to some 30 local and international jihadists associated with al-Qaida.
But the Islamic Courts Union's turbaned militiamen had actually defeated Somalia's hated warlords. And their enforcement of Islamic religious laws, while unpopular among many Somalis, made Mogadishu safe to walk in for the first time in a generation.
When the Islamic movement again strengthened, Isse, the terrorist jailed in Berbera, was a pharmacy owner from the isolated town of Buro in Somaliland, a parched northern enclave that declared independence from Somalia in the early 1990s.
Radicalized by U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is serving a life sentence for organizing the killings of four foreign aid workers in late 2003 and early 2004. Two of his victims were elderly British teachers.
Sources say Isse was snatched in 2004 by the U.S. after fleeing to the safe house of a notorious Islamist militant in Mogadishu.
The job was done by Mohamed Afrah Qanyare, a warlord in a business suit, who said four years ago his militia helped form the kernel of a CIA-created mercenary force called the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in Somalia.
The unit cobbled together some of the world's most violent, wily and unreliable clan militias — including gangs that had attacked U.S. forces in the early 1990s — to confront a rising tide of Islamic militancy in Somalia's anarchic capital.
Isse was wounded in the raid, according to Qanyare, now a member of Somalia's weak transitional government who divides his days between lawless Mogadishu and luxury hotels in Nairobi. Matt Bryden, one of the world's leading scholars of the Somali insurgency who has access to intelligence regarding it, confirmed the account. They say Isse was then loaded aboard a U.S. military helicopter summoned by satellite phone and was flown, bleeding, to an offshore U.S. vessel.
Navy doctors spliced a steel rod into Isse's bullet-shattered leg, according to defense lawyer Bashir Hussein Abdi. Every day for about a month afterward, Isse's court depositions assert, plainclothes U.S. agents grilled the bedridden Somali at sea about al-Qaida's presence. The CIA never has publicly acknowledged its operations in Somalia. Agency spokesman George Little declined to comment on Isse's case.
In June, the British civil-rights group Reprieve contended that as many as 17 U.S. warships may have doubled as floating prisons since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Calling such claims "misleading," the Pentagon has insisted that U.S. ships have served only as transit stops for terror suspects being shuttled to permanent detention camps such as the one in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
In a terse statement, Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet that patrols the Gulf of Aden, said only that the Navy was "not able to confirm dates" of Isse's imprisonment.
For reasons that remain unclear, he was later flown to Camp Lemonier, a U.S. military base in the African state of Djibouti, Somali intelligence sources say, and from there to a clandestine prison in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Isse and his lawyer allege he was detained there for six weeks and tortured by Ethiopian military intelligence with electric shocks.
Security officials in neighboring Somaliland confirmed that they collected Isse from the Ethiopian police at a dusty border crossing in late 2004. "The Man with the American Thing in His Leg" was interrogated again. After a local trial, he was locked in the ancient Berbera prison.
The CIA's anti-terror mercenaries in Mogadishu may have kidnapped a dozen or more wanted Islamists for the Americans, intelligence experts say. But their excesses ended up swelling the ranks of their enemy, the Islamic Courts Union militias.
"It was a stupid idea," said Bryden, the security analyst. "It actually strengthened the hand of the Islamists and helped trigger the crisis we're in today."
Somalia's 2 million-strong diaspora is of greatest concern. Angry young men, foreign passports in hand, could be lured back to the reopened Shabab training camps, where instructors occasionally use photocopied portraits of Bush as rifle targets.
Some envision no Somalia at all.
With about $8 billion in humanitarian aid fire-hosed into the smoking ruins of Somalia since the early 1990s — the U.S. will donate roughly $200 million this year alone — a growing chorus of policymakers is advocating that the failed state be allowed to fail, to break up into autonomous zones or fiefdoms, such as Isse's home of Somaliland.
But there is another possible future for Somalia. In Bosaso, a port 300 miles east of Isse's cell, thousands of people swarm through the town's scruffy waterfront seeking passage across the Gulf of Aden to the Middle East. Dressed in rags, they sleep by the hundreds in dirt alleys and empty lots. Stranded women and girls are forced into prostitution.
"You can see why we still need America's help," said Abdinur Jama, the coast-guard commander for Puntland, the semiautonomous state encompassing Bosaso.
A military think tank at West Point studying Somalia concluded last year that, in some respects, failed states were admirable places to combat al-Qaida, because the absence of local sovereignty permitted "relatively unrestricted Western counterterrorism efforts."

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Somalia: British guards flee hijacked tanker

Medeshi
Somalia: British guards flee hijacked tanker
Nov 29 2008 WalesOnline
Two British security guards jumped overboard as Somali pirates seized control of a chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden.
The two guards and their Irish colleague were picked up by a NATO helicopter gunship, which arrived too late to prevent yesterday’s hijacking.
Both France and Germany, which have ships in the area as part of an international anti-piracy coalition, sent the aircraft after receiving a distress call just after dawn, French military spokesman Cmdr Christophe Prazuck said.
But in the 15 minutes it took to get to the site, the pirates had already boarded and had taken the crew of 25 Indians and two Bangladeshis hostage.
The three guards who leapt overboard were safe aboard a French warship, he said.
Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions, which employs the three guards who leapt off the Biscaglia, said on its website that it was formed in July 2008 and all its staff are ex-Royal Marines. They do not carry weapons.
Germany and France have ships in the area as part of a Nato fleet which, along with warships from Denmark, India, Malaysia, Russia and the US, have started patrolling the vast maritime corridor.
They escort some merchant ships and respond to distress calls in the fight against increasingly brazen pirate attacks off Somalia’s coast, a major international shipping lane through which about 20 tankers sail daily. Yesterday’s was the 97th ship hijacking this year.
One of the hijacked ships, the Malta-flagged cargo ship Centauri, was released on Thursday with all 25 Filipino crew unharmed after more than two months in the hands of pirates, Greece announced.
The ship hijacked yesterday, the Liberian-flagged MV Biscaglia, is operated out of Singapore, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting centre in Malaysia.
Hugh Martin, manager of Hart Security, said 20 speedboats filled with pirates launched a simultaneous attack on two slow-moving companion vessels off the south coast of Yemen on Thursday. Hart staff on board both ships were armed, but managed to use evasive manoeuvres and non-lethal methods to prevent the pirates from boarding during the four-hour attack.
Yesterday Russia’s United Nations ambassador Vitaly Churkin said it was possible the UN might pass a new resolution with more aggressive rules of engagement.
The US Navy says it is impossible to patrol all 2.5 million square miles of dangerous waters. It has called on ship owners to hire private security contractors to protect vulnerable vessels, leading to a boom in business some contractors fear will encourage unlicensed or inexperienced companies to cash in.
Many companies prefer non-lethal methods of deterring pirates, including evasive manoeuvres, electrifying handrails and the use of sonic weapons that can blast a wave of painful sound up to half a mile away.
Cyrus Mody, head of the International Maritime Bureau, said the onus should be on international navies and not individual ship owners to ensure their vessels’ protection.
He said the governments whose navies patrolled the Gulf of Aden must strengthen their rules of engagement and put a legal framework in place to try suspected pirates.
“You don’t have to blow them out of the water, just confiscate the weapons and the ship,” he said.
Navies needed to patrol more aggressively, boarding and searching suspected “mother ships” from which pirates launched their small fast attack boats, Mr Mody said. He said navies were reluctant to search or detain suspected pirates because their legal standing was unclear.
Somalia, an impoverished Horn of Africa nation, has not had a functioning government since 1991 and it cannot police its long coastline.

Djibouti Delegation meets with Somaliland government

Medeshi Nov. 30, 2008
Djibouti Delegation meets with Somaliland government
HARGEISA, Somaliland -A delegation from Djibouti has promised to give extra consideration towards recognizing Somaliland as a nation state.
Mr. Hashi Abdilahi, special advisor to President Ismail Omar Guelleh, said: "After the terrorist attacks in Somaliland, we will think of what we can do about unstable Somalia, which we have spent time and energy on dealing with for so long, but is still suffering without a stable and committed government."
The advisor, who was part of the delegation that spent two days in Hargeisa, added: "We will definitely work closely with Somaliland no matter what other Somalis will feel, but I am not going to say things in advance; you Somalilanders must wait, bearing in mind that we,Djibouti, are considering the case for independence." The delegation was led by the finance minister of Djibouti Minister, Ali Farah Asowe. He gave an exclusive interview with the SSI and mentioned that the main aim of their trip was to discuss areas of mutual interest to both nations and a proposal for a branch of the third largest French private bank in Hargeisa, scheduled for January 2009.
He also briefly talked about how the high prices of food and oil affected their preparations for next year's budget. He said: "It slowed down the usual thinking of the preparations, but we have all the funds from the IMF, the World Bank, the AU, the EU, and so on. I think Somaliland, which is not getting such assistance, and also had the disaster of the terror attacks, should be a role model to the Djibouti government and its people who lost their will towards doing things for themselves and instead wait for international community's assistance." The Somaliland minister of finance, Mr.Hussein Ali Duale, who organized the visit, said: "We are part of Africa, specifically the horn of Africa, and we welcome all our neighbours."
A Somaliland delegation will go to Djibouti on December 7th to open trade offices in both countries and further discuss the opening of bank branches in Somaliland.
The President of Somaliland Dahir Rayaale Kahin held talks on the last day of the delegation's visit and thanked them for offering their support to Somaliland during the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on October 29th. The Sub-Saharan Informer

Ethiopia to Withdraw Troops From Somalia by Year End

Medeshi Nov 27, 2008

Ethiopia to Withdraw Troops From Somalia by Year End

By Peter Heinlein

Ethiopia has announced its intention to withdraw its troops from neighboring Somalia by the end of this year. But as correspondent Peter Heinlein reports from Addis Ababa, Ethiopian officials have assured the African Union their forces will remain on alert at the border to support the remaining AU peacekeepers if necessary.
Ethiopia has sent a letter to the United Nations and the African Union saying it will withdraw its forces from positions inside Somalia by the end of December. African and western diplomats confirmed to VOA the letter was delivered several days ago.
The pullout would come two years after Ethiopian troops invaded their lawless Horn of Africa neighbor to drive out Islamists who had imposed Sharia law on a large part of the country.
Since then, the Ethiopian contingent of between 10,000 and 15,000 troops has been the prime force propping up Somalia's fragile transitional government. They operate alongside a 3,400 strong AU peacekeeping unit known as AMISOM, made up of Ugandan and Burundian soldiers.
The letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping announcing the intent to withdraw was sent after Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin publicly warned Somalia's feuding president and prime minister to patch up their differences or be left alone to fight among themselves.
Many African diplomats have openly expressed fears that an Ethiopian pullout could lead to an immediate collapse of the TFG, as the Somali government is known. But AU Commission Chairman Ping told reporters Wednesday he has received assurances from Ethiopia that they will not completely abandon Somalia, and will remain on the border, poised to return if conditions deteriorate.
"In spite of withdrawal of the Ethiopians, they will remain committed, just in the other side of the border, and they will intervene, and the African troops will remain there. The AMISOM will remain there and we'll continue to ask strengthening of AMISOM by asking new troops and also financial assistance," he said.
Ping said he is preparing for a number of possible scenarios to protect Somalia and the remaining peacekeepers when Ethiopia pulls out. But he expressed hope the Ethiopians could be persuaded to postpone their withdrawal if Somalia's leaders settle their internal dispute.
"This depends on the behavior of the Transitional Government of Somalia," Ping said. We hope they will understand they are there to help the country to help them and they should stop quarreling… So we hope that this will be the case and then we can continue this operation in Somalia."
Ping said negotiations are on to attract more African troops to bolster the AU force so it could shoulder the entire peacekeeping burden once Ethiopia withdraws. Kenya has already said it will soon dispatch a battalion to Somalia. Ping said he is also urging the U.N. Security Council to provide help, in view of the surge of piracy that threatens vital shipping lanes of the Somali coast.
"We already have a request to the Security Council. [There is] a need for them to come as quick as possible, because the disorder we are seeing on the ocean with piracy is an extension on the sea of the disorder that is going on on the mainland," he said.
African diplomats Thursday expressed hope that the current crisis could force governments in the region and the international community to take a fresh look at ways to prevent a turn for the worse in Somalia. The country has been without a functioning government for 18 years.
A combination of lawlessness and civil war has created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. The United Nations estimates 3.2 million people, about 40 percent of the population, are in need of emergency assistance.
While asking for anonymity, one senior diplomat from a country considering a troop contribution to AMISOM told VOA, "Ethiopia can't leave now. It's just too dangerous."

War on Mumbai

Medeshi Nov 27, 2008
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday the attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 100 people were well planned and probably had "external linkages."
REUTERS/Graphic


Victims of Wednesday's shootings lie in the premises of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus or Victoria Terminus railway station in Mumbai, November 26, 2008.
REUTERS/The Times of India

Indian army soldiers patrol a street in Mumbai November 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Arko Datta

A suspected gunman in the premises of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, or Victoria Terminus railway station, in Mumbai, November 26, 2008.
REUTERS/The Times of India

Firemen try to douse a fire at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai November 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Arko Datta

An employee (C) of the Taj Hotel (seen in the background) comforts foreign guests in Mumbai November 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Arko Datta

Smoke and fire billows out of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, November 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Jayanta Shaw

Pigeons fly near the burning Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai November 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe

Smoke and fire billows out of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, November 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Peter Keep

By Charlotte Cooper
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian commandos fought to regain control of India's commercial capital, Mumbai, on Thursday after a highly-coordinated attack by armed militants that the prime minister blamed on a "terrorist" group outside the country.
Police said 119 people were killed and 315 were wounded when a small army of gunmen -- at least some of whom arrived by sea -- fanned out across Mumbai to attack sites popular with tourists and businessmen, including two luxury hotels.
Commandos were fighting room-to-room battles in the two hotels to rescue people trapped by the militants, police said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed militant groups based in India's neighbors, usually meaning Pakistan, raising fears of renewed tension between the nuclear-armed rivals.
"It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country," he said in a televised address. "We will take the strongest possible measures to ensure that there is no repetition of such terrorist acts."
Around two dozen militants in their early 20s, armed with automatic rifles and grenades and carrying backpacks full of ammunition, had fanned out across Mumbai to attack sites across the city, which also included a Jewish center.
At least some of them had come ashore in what police said was a rubber dinghy.
They commandeered a vehicle and sprayed passersby with bullets, fired indiscriminately in a train station, hospitals and a popular tourist cafe. They also attacked two of the city's poshest hotels packed with tourists and business executives.
"The situation is still not under control and we are trying to flush out any more terrorists hiding inside the two hotels," said Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra state which is home to Mumbai.
The death toll was only an estimate in an attack which brought the biggest chaos to the city since serial bombings in 1993 killed 260 people and injured hundreds.
India blamed crime syndicates in the "Bollywood" underworld for that attack and saw it as revenge for death of Muslims in Hindu-Muslim violence which followed the destruction of a Muslim mosque in the north of the country. It said the perpetrators had later found refuge in Pakistan.
Pakistan condemned the latest attacks on Mumbai and promised full cooperation.
OPERATIONS CONTINUE
J K. Dutt, head of the National Security Guards, told the NDTV news channel that operations were continuing at the hotels.
At the Trident-Oberoi "we have been able to engage two terrorists," he said. "At the Taj, one terrorist has been engaged. He has been injured, and we should be able to mop up the operation fairly quickly."
At least 10 Israeli nationals were also trapped in buildings or held hostage, an Israeli embassy official in New Delhi said.
Flames billowed from an upper floor of the Trident-Oberoi where 20 to 30 people were thought to have been taken hostage and more than 100 others were trapped in their rooms.
Earlier, explosions rattled the nearby Taj Hotel as the troops flushed out the last of the militants there. Fire and smoke plumed from an open window.
Dipak Dutta told NDTV news after being rescued that he had been told by troops escorting him through the corridors not to look down at any of the bodies.
"A lot of chef trainees were massacred in the kitchen."
At least six foreigners, including one Australian, a Briton, an Italian and a Japanese national were killed.
A militant holed up at a Jewish center phoned an Indian television channel to offer talks with the government for the hostages' release. He complained of abuses in Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars.
"Ask the government to talk to us and we will release the hostages," the man, identified by the India TV channel as Imran, said, speaking in Urdu in what sounded like a Kashmiri accent.
"Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims. Are you aware how many of them have been killed in Kashmir this week?"
WALKING THROUGH BLOOD
Australian actress Brooke Satchwell, who starred in the Neighbours television soap opera, said she narrowly escaped the gunmen by hiding in a hotel bathroom cupboard.
"There was people getting shot in the corridor. There was someone dead outside the bathroom," the shaken actress told Australian television. "The next thing I knew I was running down the stairs and there were a couple of dead bodies across the stairs. It was chaos."
"We threw ourselves down under the reception counter," Esperanza Aguirre, head of Madrid's regional government, said.
"I took off my shoes and we left being pushed along by the hotel staff," she said. "I didn't see any terrorists or injured people. I just saw the blood I had to walk through barefoot."
Singh said New Delhi would "take up strongly" the use of neighbors' territory to launch attacks on India.
"The well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of terror by choosing high-profile targets."
The use of heavily armed "fedayeen" or suicide attackers bears the hallmarks of Pakistan-based militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed, blamed for a 2001 attack on India's parliament.
Both groups made their name fighting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir, and were closely linked in the past to the Pakistani military's Inter Services Intelligence agency, the ISI.
Lashkar-e-Taiba denied any role in the attacks, and said it had no links with any Indian group. Instead, the little-known Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility.
"Release all the mujahideens, and Muslims living in India should not be troubled," said a militant inside the Oberoi, speaking to Indian television by telephone.
The attacks were expected to spook investors in one of Asia's largest and fastest-growing economies.
Authorities closed stock, bond and foreign exchange markets, and the central bank said it would continue auctions to keep cash flowing through interbank lending markets, which seized up after the global financial crisis.
The attackers appeared to target British, Americans and Israelis as they sought hostages in the hotels and elsewhere.
Police said they had shot seven gunmen and arrested nine suspects. They said 12 policemen were killed, including Hemant Karkare, the chief of the police anti-terrorist squad in Mumbai.
(Reporting by New Delhi and Mumbai bureaux; Writing by Myra MacDonald; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Saudi Arabia and Somali Pirates, the fight between friends

Medeshi Nov 27, 2008

Saudi Arabia and Somali Pirates, the fight between friends

Many readers will wonder the relation between Saudi Arabia and Somali Pirates, and how can they be friends. The answer is very simple; it needs close examination of Saudi relations with Somali warlords and Transitional Government of Somalia (TGS).
The history of Somali pirates goes back to 1998, after TGS President Abdullah Yusuf established the tribe-based semi-autonomous and illegitimate region of "Puntland", where human-trafficking, piracy and illegal weapons trade is most lucrative business. "Puntland" administration signed illegal contracts with Mafia to dump nuclear toxic wastes in the Somalia water.
Human-traffickers force the migrants into the sea of Gulf of Aden, only after crossing into Yemen water. The migrants pay between $50 and $100 per head to be smuggled into Yemen. Reuters says the human-traffickers carry large number of migrants in small wooden boat intended to carry lighter cargo.
Starting from 1998 until today, the illegitimate administration of "Puntland" violates international rules including human rights violation. The human-traffickers freely sail off Bossasso Port, main hub of "Puntland", with full support from the authorities because high-ranking officials of "Puntland" take loin´s share in the trafficking money. International community raised concern over the illegal activities in "Puntland".
The human-traffickers upgraded to pirates with support of "Puntland" administration and TGS President Abdullah Yusuf. Xasan Abshir, current candidate for "Puntland" President Post, is well-known spokesman for pirates who hijacked the French Ship.
The piracy business is easy money; the pirates enter the sea and hijack freely, and receive millions of dollars as ransom money. This is how the piracy in Somalia works; there is no authority to arrest them instead they get support from "Puntland" administration. Somali authorities show crocodile tear over the hijacking due to international pressure but the business remains booming.
At the end of the day, they receive $40 million in less than a month. This is dream come true because the ransom money is much more than National Budget.
TGS President Yusuf appointed sensitive and important posts in TGS government to his follow tribesmen from "Puntland", in order to keep the piracy business running and show mercy to outside world. Yusuf´s henchmen committed human rights abuses in Mogadishu including rape, indiscriminate killing and displacement.
UK Channel 4, reported story under title "Warlord, Next Door Step" and unveiled many undercover stories including the killing of the innocent in Mogadishu. The world remains silent over such organized crimes.
Saudi Arabia poured millions of dollars into the hands TGS and "Puntland" officials including Yusuf, like $32 million one shot payment in 2007. Saudi Arabia builds the muscles of these criminals, and financially encourages them to expand their illegal operations. Such support led Yusuf and his henchmen to upgrade the human-traffickers to pirates. Saudi Arabia cannot guarantee how these millions will be used.
Saudi Arabia failed to pressure the TGS to stop the genocide and displacement in Mogadishu as per international human rights reports, instead continue supporting the TGS financially and diplomatically until today without investigating the truth in Mogadishu. Today, Ethiopia discovered the true face of Yusuf and planning to drop him and henchmen out.
The current hijacked Saudi oil tanker by Somali pirates is fire-back to Saudi Arabia. News agencies reported that tanker is laden with large quantity of crude oil worth millions of dollars. Arab proverb says, "Who brings lion into his home, looses his children to the wild." Today, Saudi Arabia is loosing business to the monsters it created in Somalia.
There is high possibility of TGS and "Puntland" involvement in the hijack to get more money from Saudi Arabia, but this time by force. Now, it is time for Saudi Arabia to understand the criminals inside Somalia.
Even, Saudi Arabia helped "Puntland" administration in signing Oil Exploration Contracts with Arab Countries including Dubai based Asian companies.
Saudi Arabia and Arab countries, believe that united Somalia can only secure their interests in the horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden, but it is wrong ideology. The free people of Somaliland can fill up the vacuum left by failed "Puntland" and Southern Somalia. Because Somaliland is fully capable to chase out the pirates and clear the sea from the illegal activities like piracy and human-trafficking.
The World including Arab leaders should open their eyes widely to understand the reality in Somalia, and understand that unity comes with acceptance of all concerned parties. Today, Somaliland established entire democratic state infrastructure and nothing exists in Somalia. So the question is, should the world deal and support gang of criminals like TGS or democratically elected government like Somaliland.
By Abdulaziz Al-Mutairi

Grenades kill five in Somalia's seat of parliament

Medeshi

Grenades kill five in Somalia's seat of parliament
Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:33am EST
By Mohamed Ahmed
BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) - At least five people were killed and 17 injured Thursday when assailants tossed grenades into a busy market in the town where Somalia's parliament sits, witnesses said.
Islamist fighters have waged a nearly two-year campaign against Somalia's interim administration after government forces backed by Ethiopian troops ousted them from the capital.
Islamists now hold most of south Somalia while the weak, Western-backed government controls just Mogadishu and Baidoa, the seat of parliament.
"At least three civilians died and 17 others were wounded after unidentified men hurled two hand grenades at Baidoa market," Hussein Mohamed, a witness, told Reuters.
A doctor at a hospital in Baidoa said two of the injured people taken there had later died.
The violence has killed 10,000 civilians since early 2007, created more than a million internal refugees, and left more than three million Somalis in need of food aid.
Authorities in the northern enclave of Somaliland on Thursday blamed a hardline group of Islamists known as al Shabaab for simultaneous suicide attacks that killed at least 30 people at the end of October.
Al Shabaab, which is on Washington's list of foreign terrorist groups, has refused to join a coalition government and launches regular attacks on the capital from nearby strongholds.
TACKLE PIRACY ON LAND
Nearly two decades of chaos in the Horn of Africa country has created a breeding ground for kidnappings, banditry and rampant piracy in the busy shipping lanes off Somalia.
The chairman of the African Union, Jean Ping, said on Thursday efforts to resolve piracy would be futile unless a solution for the chaos onshore was found.
"Everybody in the world is mobilizing forces to fight piracy on the high seas, but the piracy in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean is an extension of the disorder inside Somalia," Ping said.
"It would not bring any result without tackling the root cause of the piracy which is the conflict inside Somalia."
In the latest kidnapping, two journalists from Britain and Spain were seized in the north-eastern Puntland region, along with two Somali men accompanying them.
An international media watchdog said it was worried about their safety.
"This abduction is a reminder that banditry, piracy and politically-motivated crime pose a constant threat to foreigners -- journalists and humanitarian workers -- who go to Somalia," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Thursday.
In another kidnapping this month, Somali gunmen crossed over into neighboring Kenya and snatched two Italian nuns.
A Kenyan official told Reuters Thursday that talks for their release were ongoing and no ransom demand had been made.
(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa, Noor Ali in Garissa, Kenya; Writing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura; Editing by David Clarke)
(Email: nairobi.newsroom@reuters.com,

Somaliland Blames Oct Suicide Attacks On Shebab Group

Medeshi
Somaliland Blames Oct Suicide Attacks On Shebab Group
Thursday November 27th, 2008
(Updates with Shebab leaders named)
HARGEYSA, Somalia (AFP)--Multiple suicide attacks that killed 20 victims in Somaliland last month were masterminded by the Somalian Islamist group Shebab, according to the findings of an inquiry released Thursday.
"The terrorist attacks in Hargeysa were masterminded by Shebab radical leaders," Abdullahi Ismail Ali, the northern breakaway state's interior minister, told reporters as he unveiled the report by the government.
Six bombers were also killed in the three simultaneous car bombings on October 29 in Somaliland's capital Hargeysa.
The Shebab are an armed Islamist organization which was initially the military and youth branch of the Islamic Courts Union that briefly controlled most of Somalia in 2006 before being ousted by Ethiopian troops.
While the ICU's political leadership fled into exile, the Shebab reverted to guerrilla warfare. They have since achieved major military gains and now control much of the country.
"The Shebab planned and funded the attacks and sent agents to carry out the attacks," added Ali. "Six of the suicide bombers were killed in the three locations attacked. Five are from neighboring lawless Somalia and one from Somaliland."
The bombs targeted the local office of the U.N. Development Program, Ethiopia's representation in Somaliland and the presidential palace.
Twin suicide car bombings simultaneously targeted the offices of an anti-terrorism agency in two different locations in Bosasso, the economic capital of the neighboring breakaway state of Puntland.
The interior minister named some of the Shebab movement's top figures, including top spokesman Mukhtar Robow (also known as Abu Mansur) and overall leader Ahmed Abdi Godane (also known as Abu Zubayr).
"Senior leadership members Ahmed Abdi Godane and Mukhtar Robow were in charge of the operation but the Hargeysa attacks were conducted by Abdulfatah Abdullahi Gutale," Ali said. He added Gutale, who was not among the bombers, may have a U.S. green card and has lived in the U.S. in the Minneapolis area. The minister named Gutale's lieutenant as Nur Sheikh Mohamud. The minister also said 13 people suspected of taking part in the attacks are currently detained in Somaliland.

The Ogaden and the Ethiopian Government

Medeshi Nov 27, 2008

The Ogaden and the Ethiopian Government
Collective Punishment
(Full report : Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia’s Somali Region.”
Collective Punishment

Summary
Tens of thousands of ethnic Somali civilians living in eastern Ethiopia's Somali RegionalState are experiencing serious abuses and a looming humanitarian crisis in the context of a little-known conflict between the Ethiopian government and an Ethiopian Somali rebel movement. The situation is critical. Since mid-2007, thousands of people have fled, seeking refuge in neighboring Somalia and Kenya from widespread Ethiopian military attacks on civilians and villages that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
For those who remain in the war-affected area, continuing abuses by both rebels and Ethiopian troops pose a direct threat to their survival and create a pervasive culture of fear. The Ethiopian military campaign of forced relocations and destruction of villages reduced in early 2008 compared to its peak in mid-2007, but other abuses-including arbitrary detentions, torture, and mistreatment in detention-are continuing. These are combining with severe restrictions on movement and commercial trade, minimal access to independent relief assistance, a worsening drought, and rising food prices to create a highly vulnerable population at risk of humanitarian disaster.
Although the conflict has been simmering for years with intermittent allegations of abuses, it took on dramatic new momentum after the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese-run oil installation in Somali Region in April 2007, killing more than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian civilians. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, responded by launching a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in the five zones of Somali Region primarily affected by the conflict: Fiiq, Korahe, Gode, Wardheer, and Dhagahbur. In these zones the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) have deliberately and repeatedly attacked civilian populations in an effort to root out the insurgency.
Ethiopian troops have forcibly displaced entire rural communities, ordering villagers to leave their homes within a few days or witness their houses being burnt down and their possessions destroyed-and risk death. Over the past year, Human Rights Watch has documented the execution of more than 150 individuals, many of them in demonstration killings, with Ethiopian soldiers singling out relatives of suspected ONLF members, or making apparently arbitrary judgments that individuals complaining to soldiers or resisting their orders are ONLF supporters. These executions have sometimes involved strangulation, after which their bodies are left lying in the open as a warning, for villagers to bury. The information confirmed by Human Rights Watch is only a glimpse of what is taking place-real figures are likely to be higher.
Mass detentions without any judicial oversight are routine. Hundreds-and possibly thousands-of individuals have been arrested and held in military barracks, sometimes multiple times, where they have been tortured, raped, and assaulted. Confiscation of livestock (the main asset among the largely pastoralist population), restrictions on access to water, food, and other essential commodities, and obstruction of commercial traffic and humanitarian assistance have been used as weapons in an economic war aimed at cutting off ONLF supplies and collectively punishing communities that are suspected of supporting the rebels.
These crimes are being committed with total impunity, on the thinnest of pretexts. They are generating a perception in the area that simply being an ethnic Somali-and particularly a member of the Ogaadeeni clan which constitutes the backbone of the ONLF-is enough to render a person suspect in the eyes of the national government. As one young man told Human Rights Watch, "Anyone with a bowl of water is suspected of supplying the ONLF."
Ethiopian military personnel who ordered or participated in attacks on civilians should be held responsible for war crimes. Senior military and civilian officials who knew or should have known of such crimes but took no action may be criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility. The widespread and apparently systematic nature of the attacks on villages throughout Somali Region is strong evidence that the killings, torture, rape, and forced displacement are also crimes against humanity for which the Ethiopian government bears ultimate responsibility.
The ONLF has also been responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war). These include the summary execution of dozens of Chinese and Ethiopian civilians in the context of its April 2007 attack on the oil installation, the ONLF practice of killing suspected government collaborators, and the indiscriminate mining of roads used by government convoys. Those who ordered or carried out such acts are responsible for war crimes. Many civilians feel trapped with no refuge from ONLF pressure or the abuses by Ethiopian troops.
The Ethiopian government has repeatedly dismissed or minimized concerns about the human rights and humanitarian situation in Somali Region. It often claims, particularly to the international audience, that insecurity in the region is the work of Eritrean-backed "terrorists" seeking to destabilize Ethiopia. There is no question that the political dynamics in Somali Region intertwine with regional dynamics and are influenced by the continuing hostility between Eritrea and Ethiopia as well as events in neighboring Somalia. The application of terrorist rhetoric to the internal conflict with the ONLF, however, appears designed mainly to attract support from the United States as part of the "war on terror." It does not justify violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
The government faces complex challenges in Somali Region. The ONLF, which claims to be seeking self-determination for the region, represents only a segment of the divided Ethiopian Somali community. There are legitimate fears that the escalating conflict across the border in Somalia could spill into Ethiopia. The authorities face difficult questions on how to best establish the rule of law in a remote, poverty-stricken region largely inhabited by pastoralists who have little knowledge of or confidence in state institutions that have long neglected them. Instead of addressing these challenges in good faith with efforts to build institutions and accountability to support the rule of law and reduce the appeal of armed groups, the government has implemented violent repression, echoing the response to the region of previous Ethiopian administrations.
The Ethiopian government's reaction to reports of abuses in 2007 has been to deny the allegations, disparage the sources, and actively restrict or control access to the region by journalists, human rights groups, and aid organizations (including by expelling the International Committee of the Red Cross in July 2007).
Due to increasing alarm over humanitarian conditions, particularly malnutrition rates among children, the UN and some nongovernmental organizations were permitted to expand humanitarian programs in parts of the region in late 2007, a small positive step. However these operations have been limited to certain geographic areas, are vulnerable to constant government threats and harassment, are sometimes unable to operate with sufficient independence from government control, and have no protection mandate or capacity to respond to the attacks on civilians which remain the biggest priority for many affected communities.
The Ethiopian government's politicized manipulation of humanitarian operations, particularly food distribution, plus the continued restrictions on commercial traffic and trade are creating a situation that-in combination with the drought produced by failed rains-could quickly slip into catastrophe. The Ethiopian government should take urgent action to ensure that the needs of vulnerable civilians in Somali Region are prioritized, including in emergency appeals. Yet due to government obstruction and restrictions on access to conflict-affected zones, humanitarian agencies cannot even conduct the independent nutritional assessments needed to fully assess the scale and formulate a proper response to the potential crisis.
The international response to the situation ranges from insipid to disingenuous. Western governments, including the US, UK, and European Union, which cumulatively provide almost US$2 billion of aid to Ethiopia every year and rely on the Ethiopian government as a key ally in a volatile region, have sent a number of delegations to the region but have refrained from even mild public concern, much less criticism. The US government, which is a staunch Ethiopian ally-particularly in counter-terrorism efforts-and has probably the greatest leverage of any of the donor governments, has minimized and possibly actively ignored internal concerns and reporting on the situation.
Instead of maintaining the complicity of silence, donor governments should start using their leverage to insist on three sets of immediate actions in Somali Region. Full recommendations are given below.
First, both the Ethiopian government and the ONLF should support full, unhindered and immediate access to the region for independent aid organizations, the media, and human rights groups, and the government should lift restrictions on commercial trade and civilian and livestock movement, including across the border with Somaliland. Implementing this recommendation would have an immediate positive effect on civilian access to water and grazing for their livestock, food, and local markets and could mitigate the impending food crisis. Humanitarian organizations should also have immediate, unimpeded access to conduct independent nutritional surveys in all affected areas and properly monitor food distribution to ensure it is not diverted.
Second, the Ethiopian government should immediately issue clear public orders to the armed forces and all other security agencies in Somali Region to cease abuses of civilians, including the military's forced relocations, extrajudicial executions, mass detentions, and mistreatment of detainees. The ONLF should also cease killings of civilians, including government officials, desist from the indiscriminate use of mines along key roads in Somali Region and publicly commit to abide by international humanitarian law.
Third, Ethiopian authorities should establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the allegations of abuses by all parties to the conflict and begin short and long-term efforts to ensure accountability for abuses by government security forces in Somali Region and elsewhere, including judicial and security sector reforms.
Rapid implementation of these recommendations could help to avert catastrophe in Somali Region. If the abuses continue, denied by the Ethiopian government and ignored by international donors, the outcome is all too clear: yet another cycle of human rights devastation, famine, and impoverishment in a region which already knows these trends all too well, and thousandsof new victims, embittered by the repeated denial of their rights as human beings and Ethiopians.

Journalists kidnapped in Somalia

Medeshi 26 Nov, 2008
Journalists kidnapped in Somalia
A British and Spanish journalist in Somalia have been kidnapped from the north-eastern Puntland region, local authorities say.
Government officials said the pair were taken from their hotel in the port city of Bossasso.
The BBC's Ahmed Ali says the journalists were in Bossasso to cover the story of piracy hijackings off Puntland's coast.
He says the foreigners were abducted by gunmen along with two local reporters.
"The two foreigners are British and Spanish," Abdulkebir Musa, Puntland's assistant minister for seaports, told news agency AFP.
The office of Puntland's president confirmed this information to the BBC.
Somalia has been wracked by civil conflict since 1991 and Islamist insurgents control of much of the country which has no functioning government.
Two other foreign journalists, who were abducted near the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in August, have still not been released.
Pirate attacks against fishing boats, cargo ships and yachts off Somalia's coast have surged this year.
Foreigners, who can be exchanged for large ransoms, are frequent targets.
Story from BBC NEWS:

Somaliland Navy: The Only Way to stop Somali Piracy

Medesh Nov 26, 2008

Somaliland Navy: The Only Way to stop Somali Piracy

Piracy is most lucrative business in many parts of Somalia including "Puntland" and Central Regions. Piracy attracted many jobless and poor Somalis, because piracy is very big and easy money. Millions of dollars were paid to the Somali pirates from "Puntland", which is much more than national budget.
In general, Somali Pirates focus on lawless areas of Somali water including busy shipping lanes near the "Puntland" and Indian Ocean including Gulf of Aden, where dozens of boats and ships been hijacked this year. According to the International Maritime Bureau, 69 ships have been attacked off Somalia since January; 27 were hijacked and 11 are still being held for ransom including recent Saudi Oil Tanker with ransom money of 25 billion dollars.
Somali pirates are holding more than 200 crew members of different hijacked ships and boats. USA and EU have agreed to joint anti-piracy operations off the Indian Ocean and Somali Water amid growing demands for action against the violent Somali pirates. The question is, how do you think Somali piracy should be tackled?
Majority of the pirates off "Puntland" Coast are former Police Officers turned Pirates, after "Puntland" administration failed to pay handsome salaries. Also, the high-ranking officials of both "Puntland" and Transitional Government of Somalia (TGS) in Mogadishu take loin´s share in the ransom money. "Puntland" President Adde Moose and TGS President Abdullah Yusuf are major players and architect of piracy business in Somalia. Yusuf served as "Puntland" leader at the beginning of piracy.
In other hand, Republic of Somaliland established well-trained Navy to protect its water from the piracy. Berbera Marine College is famous producer of highly-qualified Navy Officers, who follow International Maritime Bureau standards and regulations including those against piracy. Moreover, Somaliland formed Military, Police, Jails Authority, and carried out elections. Somaliland achieved all these accomplishments by its own.
Somaliland Navy has technology and military capabilities to eliminate the piracies and to blow up their bases inside Somalia including "Puntland". But unfortunately, the international community is wasting their precious time searching the solution of the piracy at the wrong place. The Solution is recognizing Somaliland, than Somaliland will establish as regional economic power and caretaker of world interest in the region. Somaliland has elected president and parliament, and furthermore, there is biometric voter registration taking place. This is the first time in African history.
Berbera Marine College is functioning almost in last five years with more than 100 Officers graduating from the college each year. Somaliland Government established the colleges after the need of Navy arise in the region, due to illegal fishing and human trafficking.
Today, neither human trafficking nor piracy persists within Somaliland water after the creation of Somaliland Navy Forces. Somaliland Navy Forces cooperate with International counterparts stationed in nearby Djibouti in tackling the pirates, and even Somaliland arrested many pirates, who later claimed to be "Puntland" former Police Officers.
The International community should support Somaliland diplomatically in order to end the piracy and violence inside Somalia, because Somaliland has all possible mechanisms to fight terrorists and pirates inside Somalia. Somaliland will play active role in war on terror and fight against piracy, in which Somaliland will be leading factor.
Somaliland is registering citizens using biometric technology. The national budget increased 27% in 2008 compare to 2007. All these progress was result of Somaliland´s commitment towards developing country and people. Also, Somaliland is managing steady increase in revenue and which is leading the rise in the national domestic production
In 1991 Somaliland reclaimed its lost independence from Somalia, and ever since it's peaceful and without piracy. Why? Because of there is real functioning institutions and elected government unlike Somalia with no central government and warlords are committing crimes against humanity. AU and IGAD isolated Somaliland enough, and it is time that AU and IGAD accept the reality inside Somaliland.
Illegal Activities in Somali Water:
Somalia remained without central government for decades, leading the country to be an example of failed state and center of lawlessness, which attracted many criminals and terrorists to use as hidey-hole.
Al-Qaeda fugitives from Iraq and Afghanistan settled in southern Somalia and formed religious fundamentalist groups like Al-Itahad Al-Islamiya and Al-Shabab armed groups. Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden visited Somalia in mid 1996 along with number of his children. Large number of Arab and Somali fighters in Afghanistan against the Russian occupation entered Somalia after collapse of Somali government 1991.
These terrorists created terror network across the region, and carried out bombing of US Embassies in Nairobi and Darussalam, in addition to recent suicide bombing in Hargiesa, Capital of Somaliland. These groups conducted explosives training to their colleagues. Many intelligence sources believe that Al-Qaeda used Somalia as center of carrying out operations against neighboring countries.
Furthermore, Mafia signed off many business deals to dump toxic nuclear waste in the Somali water, from Italia, German and many European Countries. In 1992, a contract to secure the dumping of toxic waste was made by Swiss and Italian shipping firms a chair Partners and Progresso, with Nur Elmi Osman, a former official appointed to the government of Ali Mahdi Mohamed, one of many militia leaders involved in the ousting of Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalia's former president.
UNEP Executive Director, told Al-Jazeera TV Channel, that he unveiled firms was set up as fictitious companies by larger industrial firms to dispose of hazardous waste. These companies with Mafia signed contracts with firms, using Somali Warlords in Mogadishu. Even Somali fishermen reported large containers at the Mogadishu coast washed out by the Tsunami.
"At the time, it felt like we were dealing with the Mafia, or some sort of organized crime group, possibly working with these industrial firms," he said.
The International Community organized 14 Peace Conferences between the fighting Somali groups to settle their difference but all failed, which means these groups are not willing to live in peace. Hence, the International Community, AU and IGAD should review their policy towards Somaliland and not consider the old version of respecting the unity of Somalia: Somaliland is free and constructive nation and should be accepted by the regional and international communities. By Abdulaziz Al-Mutairi

The Second American Revolution

Medeshi Nov 26, 2008

The Second American Revolution

Alemayehu G. Mariam

Best Hope of Earth
In the first American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson declared to a “candid world” that “when in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” That revolution was against King George III.
In the Second American Revolution, Barack Obama surveyed the devastation wreaked upon American society and America’s role in the world in the last eight years and declared that in the course of global human events it becomes necessary for America to reunite with the “opinions of mankind”, re-establish its position of global leadership and remain the “best hope of Earth.” Of course, that was not Barack’s original idea; it was an idea put to him by people around the world:
On a trip to the Middle East, I met Israelis and Palestinians who told me that peace remains a distant hope without the promise of American leadership. At a camp along the border of Chad and Darfur, refugees begged for America to step in and help stop the genocide that has taken their mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. And along the crowded streets of Kenya, I met throngs of children who asked if they'd ever get the chance to visit that magical place called America. I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth. We just have to show the world why this is so. This President may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open. And it's time to fill that role once more.

The Second American Revolution is against the calamitous legacy of President George W.

The Second American Revolution: Saving the Best Hope of Earth

It is the Second American Revolution, and it’s being televised. It is a Movement of the American People (The MAP). But Barack calls it “change”. He talked about “changing America” at every campaign stop. After his Iowa primary victory, he told South Carolinians that “our time for change has come.” In his final victory speech he said, “It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America… But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you. This is your victory.”
For the faint of heart, perhaps the word “change” would do. But if one carefully considers the totality of Barack’s message and campaign strategy, it is plain to discern that he is really talking about a Second American Revolution in the form of a new MAP. As Barack said, in charge of the new MAP are ordinary Americans who had long felt marginalized, disenfranchised and victimized by years of deception, corruption and the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration. Bush and his arrogant “neoconservative” con men plunged America into a disastrous war in Iraq on bogus justifications. Bush made sure the proverbial image of the “ugly American” was seared into the consciences of people around the world with the ghastly photographs of torture victims in Abu Ghraib prison, and zombied terrorism suspects caged in Gitmo detention camp for years without due process of law. Bush made it possible for Wall Street sharks to squander billions of dollars in investments of the American people, and swiftly rewarded these brazen crooks with a taxpayer bailout. (They were not unlike the defendant who killed his parents and then asked the court for mercy because he was an orphan.)
Bush and his cronies stoked up the “culture wars” polarizing American society on the “hot-button” issues of abortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, affirmative action, the death penalty, privacy, sexual orientation, censorship and so on. When these issues waned, they toiled to create an Amerika that was divided by race, ethnicity, social class and political affiliation under the wicked GOP (Republican Party) political tactician and Ubermeister Karl Rove. When all failed, they scrambled to invent a Palin-esque “real America” where Americans who hold “patriotic values” can hide in the “pro-America areas of this great nation”. For eight years under George Bush, America struggled to be a polity without policy, and Americans put up with an administration bereft of governance. America sleepwalked for eight years without a national policy on health care, energy, immigration, the environment, the economy or foreign policy. To add insult to injury, George Bush thought he had gotten away with it all. This past May, he sighed contentedly: "I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."Healing these and other virtual atrocities committed on the American body politics could not be achieved by mere “change” or “reform”. “Change” suggests making alterations, modifications and substitutions. The damage done to America over the past eight years is so total and devastating, only a Second American Revolution with a MAP can repair America from within and without and make her whole once again. Much to the surprise of George W., there will soon be a really “smart person in the Oval office to figure it out.” The Man with the Plan, with the MAP to lead the Revolution from the Oval Office is Barack Obama. Like any revolution, it is not going to be easy. Barack understands the revolution will be long and hard fought, and formidable challenges lie ahead. That is why he said, “The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there.”
America is Back, on Track, with Barack Who is Sharp as a Tack!
But what is Barack promising the American people in the Second Revolution, in the MAP? His promise is that it will take some time to repair the damage done by Bush’s unrestrained unilateralism and militarism, but in time America can regain its global leadership acting in concert with its allies in the spirit of multilateralism and collective action. He is saying that the damage done to the American body politics by racial, ethnic and class divisions will take time to heal, but they will be healed as Americans of all backgrounds come together in the spirit of E Pluribus Unum (out of many one) and deal with the enormous challenges facing them. He is promising the American people that the damage done to the American psyche by those who use religion as a weapon of mass spiritual warfare and deception in the culture wars; the violence done to party politics by creating red and blue states; the ideological cleavage that separates liberals and conservatives; the sexism and racism that puts asunder Americans by gender, race and ethnicity will be overcome, but it will take time. He is saying that millions of Americans have now opened their minds, their eyes, and hearts, and keenly understand that they share the same destiny; and though they may have come to America in different ships from all corners of the world, they are now in the same boat. Barack is promising that the American people united can never be defeated. That’s right. America is back, on track, with Barack who is sharp as a tack!
America Will No Longer Be a Welfare Department for Dictators
There is an important postscript to the Second American Revolution. It is no longer going to be business as usual in Washington, D.C. Barack did not mince his words when he slammed the creepy lobbyists and influence peddlers who shuffle stealthily in the halls of government. He said lobbyists, “will not run my White House. You [the people] will help me run my White House, when I'm president. I don't take money from lobbyists. I don't take money from PACs. They have not funded my campaign. I don’t take money from federal registered lobbyists, because I want to answer to you when I’m in the White House. I don’t want to answer to all these fat-cat lobbyists!” Such sublime words, beauteous poetry to our ears as we continue our grassroots advocacy to get H.R. 2003 before President Obama for his signature. (Oh! Pity for those poor “fat-cat lobbyists” at D.L. A. Piper! Excommunicated from the White House, the U.S. Congress and the State Department! How the tables have turned!) Now is the time for the people — for us — to help Barack “run the white House”, and the Democrats run Congress; and give a helping hand to whomever Barack appoints to lead the State Department.

Months ago, we cautioned the panhandling tin-pot dictators of the world begging alms from the American taxpayer[1]:

Watch out, petty dictators! A fierce wind of change is blowing across America. A new sheriff is coming to town. His name is Barack Obama. He does not carry a six-shooter. But he carries a law book. And he’s laying down the law for all the tin-pot dictators of the world: Y’all better shape up, or Barack’s Posse will be right on your tail. That goes for the outlaw Meles Zenawi and his gang of murderers and bank robbers, too… Tin-pot dictators and thugs, listen carefully. Read the writing on the wall. Barack will stand against you as long as you keep slaughtering your people, jail your innocent citizens by the hundreds of thousands and starve the rest by the millions. Barack will turn you back when you come to America’s doorsteps panhandling for military aid so that you can declare war on your people, and destroy your neighbors. Barack will not listen to your BS about democracy while you mercilessly crush legitimate democratic opposition, destroy press freedoms, disregard the rule of law and flout international law. Barack will not be scammed by your foolish threats of imaginary terrorists just so you can trap America in a regional war. No brownie points for offering to fight a needless destructive war in the name of America.
Well, there ain’t no doubt about it. Barack is in the saddle now, law book and lasso in hand. Right-wing haters and tin-pot dictators: GAME OVER!

Toxic scandal in Somalia

Medeshi 26 Nov , 2008

Toxic scandal in Somalia gave birth to new piracy
The escapades of Somali pirates made headlines last week. But the media has ignored the injustice behind the phenomenon, writes Simon Assaf
When the Asian tsunami of Christmas 2005 washed ashore on the east coast of Africa, it uncovered a great scandal.
Tonnes of radioactive waste and toxic chemicals drifted onto the beaches after the giant wave dislodged them from the sea bed off Somalia.
Tens of thousands of Somalis fell ill after coming into contact with this cocktail. They complained to the United Nations (UN), which began an investigation.
“There are reports from villagers of a wide range of medical problems such as mouth bleeds, abdominal haemorrhages, unusual skin disorders and breathing difficulties,” the UN noted.
Some 300 people are believed to have died from the poisonous chemicals.
Many European, US and Asian shipping firms – notably Switzerland’s Achair Partners and Italy’s Progresso – signed dumping deals in the early 1990s with Somalia’s politicians and militia leaders.
This meant they could use the coast as a toxic dumping ground. This practice became widespread as the country descended into civil war.
Nick Nuttall of the UN Environment Programme said, “European companies found it was very cheap to get rid of the waste.
“It cost as little as £1.70 a tonne, whereas waste disposal costs in Europe was something like £670 a tonne.
“And the waste is of many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it.”
But despite the evidence uncovered by the tsunami, an investigation into the practice of toxic dumping was dropped. There was no compensation and no clean up.
In 2006 Somali fishermen complained to the UN that foreign fishing fleets were using the breakdown of the state to plunder their fish stocks. These foreign fleets often recruited Somali militias to intimidate local fishermen.
Despite repeated requests, the UN refused to act. Meanwhile the warships of global powers that patrol the strategically important Gulf of Aden did not sink or seize any vessels dumping toxic chemicals off the coast.
So angry Somalis, whose waters were being poisoned and whose livelihoods were threatened, took matters into their own hands. Fishermen began to arm themselves and attempted to act as unofficial coastguards.
They began to seize ships in late 2005. These were released after a ransom was paid. Among them were cargo vessels, luxury cruise liners and tuna fishing boats.
Januna Ali Jama, a Somali pirate leader, explained that their actions were motivated by attempts to stop the toxic dumping.
He said that the £5.4 million ransom they demanded for the return of a Ukrainian ship would go towards cleaning up the mess.
Ali Jama said the pirates were “reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years.
“The Somali coastline has been destroyed. We believe this money is nothing compared to the devastation that we have seen on the seas.”
But the nature of this piracy soon began to change. Members of the Somali government, who were part of the then Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), started to get involved.
They transformed the piracy operation into a multi-million dollar industry that funded their lavish lifestyles.
The TFG was ousted during a popular rebellion in July 2006 led by the Union of Islamic Courts. Later that year the US backed Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia to drive the Islamic Courts out.
This provoked an insurgency labelled by some as the “third front” of the “war on terror”.
The US became embarrassed when it emerged that its allies in the TFG were deeply involved in piracy. As concerns grew for the safety of ships heading towards the Suez Canal, global powers began to take notice.
Indian and US warships began to sink Somali fishing boats if they sailed too close to cargo vessels or trawlers. These warships transformed Somalia’s coastal waters into a “free fire zone”. When a giant Saudi oil tanker was seized, these powers declared all-out war on the pirates.
British foreign minister David Miliband recently boasted that Britain would be taking the lead in cracking down on the pirates.
The Royal Navy will take command of a European fleet of warships as part of “Operation Atalanta”, he said.
The target will be the Somalis – not the vessels dumping waste or the illegal foreign fishing fleets.
As global powers dispatch their warships to the Somali coast, the problems that caused this outbreak of piracy remain unresolved.
European, US and Asian ships will continue to dump hazardous waste and plunder coastal fishing stocks – leading to continuing misery for Somalis.

Former Ottawa gas station operator rules home state of Somali pirates

Medeshi Nov 26, 2008

Former Ottawa gas station operator rules home state of Somali pirates

Many of Somalia's pirates are based in a region called Puntland, whose president is a former Ottawa resident presiding over a government accused of turning a blind eye to the pirates' hijacking of foreign vessels.
CBC News
Many of the pirates hijacking vessels in the region are based in an autonomous region called Puntland, beyond the control of what passes for a central government in Somalia.
The president of Puntland for the past three years has been Mohamud Muse Hersi, a former Ottawa gas station operator.
Hersi emigrated to Canada in the 1980s, bought a gas station and raised a family, but his clan connections to Somalia remained strong. When the elders of Puntland were looking for a new president in 2005, they chose Hersi.
There are about a dozen hijacked ships anchored off the Puntland coast at the moment, waiting as the pirates and shipowners haggle over ransom money.
Hersi's critics accuse him and his ministers of taking bribes from the pirates to look the other way.
Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress, says he lacks evidence of such corruption but adds: "It would be inconceivable for all this piracy to be going on on the coast of Puntland without at least the knowledge, if not the collusion, of the Puntland government."
Hersi vigorously denies the charge. As proof, he points to two successful counterattacks against the pirates mounted by Puntland's coast guard.
Roger Middleton, an analyst at the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs, says the two hijackings Hersi's government interfered with involved cargos of direct economic interest to the regime.
"In one case, the cement that was in the ship belonged to one of the ministers in the government, so there was clearly a reason why they wanted to get involved," he told CBC News.
If the Puntland government really wanted to stop the pirates, it would, Middleton says. But piracy has become the region's most profitable industry. Middleton estimates the pirates will net about $50 million US this year while the Puntland government's annual budget is just $20 million US.
Formally, Hersi is president of the Puntland State of Somalia, carved out of the collapsed country in 1998. It claims about a third of the national territory and calls itself "part of an anticipated Federal State of Somalia."
Hussen of the Canadian Somali Congress says Puntland has been sliding toward the abyss under Hersi's rule.
"I don't think it's reached the stage of anarchy yet, but it's on the verge of that," he told CBC News.
In a briefing paper on piracy published last month, Middleton made these points:
- Piracy off the Somali coast has more than doubled in 2008, with more than 60 ships attacked so far.
- Pirates are regularly demanding and getting million-dollar ransom payments and are becoming more aggressive and assertive.
- Money from ransom is helping to pay for the war in Somalia, and the high level of piracy is making aid deliveries to the drought-stricken country more difficult and costly.
- The danger and cost of piracy, including soaring insurance premiums, may force ships to avoid the Suez Canal route and sail around Africa, raising transportation costs and hence the price of oil and manufactured goods shipped to Europe and North America.
- Piracy could cause a major environmental disaster if a tanker is sunk, run aground or set afire - and the pirates' ever more powerful weaponry makes this increasingly likely.

Somalia Govt to Share Power With Some Opposition

Medeshi 26 Nov, 2008

Somalia Govt to Share Power With Some Opposition
UN announces power-sharing deal between Somali government and faction of the opposition
By MOHAMED OLAD
The Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia
Somalia's weak transitional government has agreed to share power with a faction of the country's opposition, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The agreement was unlikely to change the political chaos in Somalia, however, as the extremist group at the center of a deadly insurgency did not participate.
The power-sharing deal calls for doubling the number of parliament seats to 550, with 200 going to the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia — a relatively moderate group that split from the Shabab extremist group.
The U.S. State Department considers al-Shabab, or "The Youth," a terrorist organization.
No timeline was set for implementing the deal, which also extends parliament's term two years beyond its original end date of August 2009.
"We are happy with what we have achieved so far," Abdirahman Warsame, chief negotiator for the opposition alliance, told The Associated Press by telephone from the U.N.-backed talks in Djibouti. "What we are waiting for now is the election of the leadership that would haul the country out of its current chaos."
Calls to government negotiators were not immediately returned.
Somalia has had no effective government for two decades, and the U.N.-backed transitional administration has failed to exert any real control. Making matters worse, President Abdullahi Yusuf recently has been feuding openly with the prime minister, with each accusing the other of hampering plans for peace.
Meanwhile, a humanitarian crisis has worsened with high food prices and drought.
African Union peacekeepers have struggled to maintain security, with only 2,600 troops of the mission's approved 8,000 on the ground.
The U.N. Security Council said that, if Somalia can improve security and political reconciliation, it would consider sending U.N. peacekeepers to replace AU forces.
Somalia's transitional government was formed in 2004, but then lost control of the capital, Mogadishu, and most of the south to Islamic militants. In December 2006 it called in troops from neighboring Ethiopia to help retake control. But the insurgency remains a disruptive force and a threat to Yusuf's government.
The U.N. envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said he hopes the new power-sharing deal will lead to "Somali leaders working together, wholeheartedly and committed to the dignity of the Somali people."

Somali pirates: we’re going to fish whatever passes through our sea because we need to eat

Medeshi

Nov 25, 2008

Somali pirates insist that they still wanted $25 million for the hip's release

The leader of Somali pirates holding the Sirius Star denied yesterday that the hijackers had lowered their ransom demand, insisting they still wanted $25 million for the ship’s release.
“We have not changed the amount of the ransom, it remains at exactly $25 million. If we want to change it, it will have to be agreed unanimously with all the people involved,” Mohamed Sayeed told AFP. Earlier reports suggested the ransom demand had been reduced to $15 million.
Sayeed was reached by phone in the coastal village of Haradheere where the Sirius Star was anchored after its capture. He warned against any forceful rescue of the huge tanker carrying around $100 million worth of crude oil.
“We are moving the ship from time to time and from place to place for tactical reasons. It’s like a war game. We are not taking the ship too far,” said Sayeed. “We still have enough people on the ground and on the ship. Nobody can terrorize us. Any attempt to take the ship by force is futile.”
One of the Somali pirates told the BBC they have no intention of harming the 25 crew members. The man, calling himself Daybad, spoke to the BBC’s Somali Service via telephone from the Sirius Star. He said the ship’s crew members were being treated humanely.
“The crew members are fine. We are treating them according to the charter of how you treat prisoners of war. They are allowed to contact their families. They are not prisoners, they can move from place to place, wherever they want to, they can even sleep on their usual beds and they have their own keys. The only thing they are missing is their freedom to leave the ship.”
Daybad said the pirates were fully aware of the consequences of their actions, but the lack of peace in Somalia and the plunder of its waters by foreign fishing trawlers had driven them to piracy. “Our fish were all eradicated so we can’t fish now. So we’re going to fish whatever passes through our sea because we need to eat

Puntland State and Lootah Investment sign strategic agreements worth Dhs170m

Medeshi Nov 24, 2008
Government of Punt Land State of Somalia, Lootah Investment sign strategic agreements worth Dhs170m
Lootah Group, a regional industrial group operating in Middle East and Africa, has signed incorporation agreements with the Punt Land State of Somalia Government, initially worth Dhs170m.
United Arab Emirates: Monday, November 24 - 2008

(The site of the project)
The newly born companies will strive to develop, manage and operate the Bosaso Airport, Seaport and a Free-Trade Zone as well as co-manage state customs. According to the agreement, a set of new companies will be established. The Bosaso Airport Company will have a mission to provide leading airport aero-ground services. It will initialy work to complete the Airport Complex towards international standards including its new 3.4 km runway, taxi and apron areas, main and auxiliary buildings and security perimeters. The Bosaso Seaport Company shall have a mission to provide attractive seaport services by increasing berth depths and maneuvering capabilities, increasing the quayside by 400%, and establishing a prefab concrete block shoulder at sea to protect basin from swell. The Bosaso Free Trade Zone over 500,000 square metres shall improve logistic services and cost/performance to all merchants and traders alike. Integratia Business Group, a subsidiary of Lootah Group has also signed a professional services agreement to co-manage Bosaso Customs for the coming 10 years and introduce best practices that will increase agility to material movement, improve merchant satisfaction and add to state earnings. On the onset, all the current business areas; laws, bylaws, policies, standards, regulatory, work processes, human capacity, financial and technologies, will be developed and set to meet the international standards for safety, security as well as boost of overall effectiveness and effciency. His Excellency, The President of the Punt Land State of Somalia Mohamud Musa Hirsi, welcomed the agreement saying:
'These infrastructure and services initiatives are key to position our state on the fast track for growth. At the home of Africa, Bosaso is situated at the crossroad of business and trade. We should put all our effort to make the Punt Land State of Somalia a safe place for foreign investors, and help grow our economy. These new initiatives will also have a positive impact on the people of Somalia, as new job opportunities arise. We believe that this new partnership with Lootah Investment will help us reach a better future.'Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed Lootah, Chairman of Lootah Investment and Lootah Group, added:
'We are very committed to support the growth vision of his Excellency the President of the Punt Land of Somalia and we are very privileged to partner with the state government. We have carried out many projects across the region and we have the appropriate knowledge to help grow these initiatives to fruition and success.'
Related Information:About Lootah Group: Lootah Group of Companies is a leading business group operating in the Middle East & Africa offering quality and professional products and services across industries including construction, manufacturing, ready mix, poultry and real estate. About Integratia Business Group: This is a subsidiary of Lootah Group that specialises in setting governance as well as performance Management Systems. The group is committed to the success of any projects entered by sharing the cost, risk and returns. For more information, please contact: Mohd.Salim Allawi PR Assistant The Idea Agency P.O. Box 50887 Dubai, UAE Office 503 Al Attar Tower, Sheikh Zayed Road Tel: +971 4 34 34 424 Fax: +971 4 34 34 305
© 1996-2008 by AME Info FZ LLC / Emap Limited. All rights reserved.This story was posted by Siba Sami AmmariMonday, November 24
UAE local time (GMT+4)

Interview– Eng.Abdirahman Saylici, Vice Presidential Candidate

Medeshi Nov 24, 2008

SOMALILAND AMERICAN COUNCIL (SAC)
Interview with Mr. Abdirahman Saylici, Vice Presidential Candidate, Kulmiye Party .

You are cordially invited to participate in this conference call hosted by Somaliland American Council.

The Keynote speaker is Mr. Abdirahman Saylici, Vice Presidential Candidate, Kulmiye
Date and time: Sunday, November 30, at 1 pm ET Time (6pm London time)

Agenda; State of Somaliland, Voter registration, & Upcoming Elections Keynote Speaker; Mr. Abdirahman Saylici, Vice Presidential Candidate, Kulmiye

To participate in this conference call please do the following: 1 - Call the conference bridge number: Dial-in #: (712) 432-1001 2 - Enter conference Attendee Passcode: 440-972-632 then (enter #) 3 - If you want to ask Mr. Abdirahman questions please email questions to: questions@somalilandamerican.com
Somaliland American Council http://www.somalilandamerican.com/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE Contact: contact@somalilandamerican.com

Web site: http://www.somalilandamerican.com/

SOMALILAND CAN PROTECT AGAINST PIRACY IN THE REDSEA

Despite the fact that there are numerous opportunities where Somaliland can protect the interest of the international community better than anyone else, the International Community has acted as an ostrich that buried its head in the sand about the acknowledgment and the recognition of the Republic of Somaliland. Clearly this is another case where Somaliland can protect the interest of the International Community in the redsea waters to eliminate piracy. The map above shows that Somaliland successfully eliminated piracy in its waters, but the area close to Yemen and Puntland state of Somalia are the areas where all the piracy incidents have taken place in 2008. This unacceptable levels of piracy off of the coast of Somalia is presented challenges for the International Community where some nations are completely routing their ships out of the redsea at great cost. It is time that the international Community pays attention to Somaliland to bring normalcy back into the redsea waters. Please look at the following map that shows the incidents of piracy in the redsea: This map is published by Internaitonal Maritime Bureau.
It is an open secrete in Somalia that Puntland state and its people has founded, administer, support, and protect the piracy in the redsea waters. The above map shows that all of the piracy incidents happen in the waters that are closest to the Puntland state of Somalia;The above map that shows lists of piracy incidents in 2008; this map is provided by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) http://www.icc-ccs.org [click the Live Piracy Map]

Piracy a growth industry in Somalia

Medeshi Nov 24 , 2008

Piracy a growth industry in Somalia
ON Friday afternoon, pirates in control of the African Sanderling, a large cargo ship anchored off Somalia, were lazing in the sun waiting for their ransom money when the telephone on the bridge rang.
Muhammad, the man who answered, was rather polite for a pirate from a heavily armed gang that had seized the ship last month. "Plizz, excuse me," he said, sounding more Cap'n Jack Sparrow than bloodthirsty Blackbeard. "Who are you?"
After The Sunday Times explained it was calling to find out what was happening to the hijacked vessel, Muhammad was as helpful as his mangled English allowed.
"The ship, the crew and the captain is OK. No problem. Only problem, money."
Have you demanded a ransom? "Yeah."
How much?
"First, $US8 million ($12.6 million). Then they (the ship owners) make bargain, then reduce, then more bargain, $2 million. Then they reduce it $1.2 million. Last we said we need $2 million."
The ship, a 59,000-tonne bulk carrier, was hijacked on October 15 with its crew of 21 Filipinos. What will the pirates do if they do not get a $US2 million ransom?
"Ah yeah," said Muhammad. "If we miss the money, the ship and the crew will be missing." As in missing, presumed dead.
The price of Somali piracy is rising fast. Yesterday, The Sunday Times also contacted a young pirate aboard the Sirius Star supertanker, which was hijacked eight days ago, 800km out in the ocean off the coast of Kenya. He said his gang was demanding a $US17 million ransom for the ship, which is carrying $US100 million worth of oil.
Another cut-throat with scruples, he said that the two British seamen among the 25 crew being held hostage were unharmed.
"The British are OK and we don't have any problems with them," said Muhammad Dashishle, 24. "All the people we captured with the ship are OK."
The risk of a violent clash remains, however. An Islamic extremist group has threatened to seize the ship and Dashishle said the hijackers would fight any attack. "We have plenty of men to defeat them," he said. "We are not afraid."
As incidents of piracy proliferate and ransom demands soar, politicians and shipping lines around the world are growing more and more alarmed - and trade is being disrupted.
On Friday, Maersk, the shipping company, ordered all its vulnerable vessels heading from the Arabian Gulf to Europe to avoid the Suez canal and follow the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope.
Governments fear that some ransom money may be ending up with Islamic extremists, and terrorists may yet turn hijacked ships into weapons.
Until now, many observers had assumed that pirates picked off vessels at random. Shipping and security experts, however, suspect they are increasingly using spies in ports such as Dubai to alert them to the best targets.
It is also shockingly simple for anyone to track vessels online or to tune into ships' AIS (automatic identification system) beacons. They transmit a ship's exact position, size and cargo.
"It's serious," said Peter Hinchliffe, a director of the International Chamber of Shipping. "If the Sirius Star means pirates can attack deep in the ocean, warship patrols will not be enough. We need maritime patrol aircraft to protect shipping. We may even push to get the US Navy to dedicate an aircraft carrier to the area."
Any large cargo ship cruising at less than 15 knots, especially if low in the water, is easy prey for pirates in speedboats that can reach 20 knots. One of those captured in September was the bulk carrier Great Creation, which was released by pirates only last Wednesday.
"The pirates are just swarming around, even with all the warships," said the carrier's captain, who spoke from his vessel as it was heading away from Somali waters and asked to be identified only as Ganesh.
"They come far out from land in the mother ship and when they see a target they launch speedboats. They threatened us with guns, RPGs. When they reached us, they fired to make us stop."
The Great Creation was held for two months off the Somali coast. The captain and crew were confined to the ship's accommodation block, although were otherwise well treated.
"They kept us inside but we weren't locked up. As long as the owner is negotiating, they were well behaved," said Ganesh. "But if the owners don't co-operate, or if there is some problem with communication or there is a misunderstanding - then the situation could be very different. Otherwise, though, they won't intentionally kill."
As soon as it is clear pirates are going to capture a ship, the crew activates the ship security alert system - in effect, a panic button that transmits a warning to the owner.
"The guys that get on board hold a gun to the master's head and say I am going to kill you unless you do as I say," said Graeme Gibbon-Brooks of Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service. "The threat is always one of violence but it's rarely carried out. You can't ransom a burning hulk or a dead body."
Instead, cat-and-mouse negotiations ensue, often lasting weeks. Several problems are arising with Somali pirates, according to Darren Dickson of Drum-Cussac, a security firm staffed by former special forces personnel: "The talks change over the weeks. Pirates may be fuelled by drink and drugs (many chew khat, a narcotic) and they forget what they agreed." Pirates are also changing the way ransoms are delivered.
"The problem is the pirates don't want the money in a bank in Somalia," said Mr Dickson. "It's hard to access and the warlords get most of it."
So now some demand cash, air-dropped at sea or delivered at an offshore rendezvous.
"It increases the cost and risk," said Mr Dickson. "There have been attacks by other pirates on the way in (to deliver the ransom). Air drop is a bit better; there are firms doing it out of Dubai and Mombasa."
According to Mr Dickson, the pirates generally abide by the rules. They sit on the stern of the ship, "divvying up the cash, then off they go", setting the ship and crew free.
So far the casualties have been mainly attackers rather than merchant crews. In a recent clash, the (British) Royal Navy killed two suspected pirates and captured eight others, who were handed over to Kenyan authorities. Although two seafarers have died in pirate incidents, crews generally emerge physically unscathed.
French investigators who boarded a hijacked yacht in April even reported finding a pirates' "good conduct guide" that forbade sexual assault.
The sheer number of attacks threatens serious disruption to shipping and more violent clashes. Piracy is the only growth industry in Somalia, one of the world's poorest countries. Its unlikely epicentre is the tiny fishing village of Eyl on the northeast coast in a region called Puntland.
Less than a year ago it was mostly a jumble of crumbling, one-storey concrete buildings with tin roofs and wooden shacks on the beach. Bare-chested fishermen in knee-length sarongs used to set out on small wooden boats as their ancestors had for centuries.
Now goats wandering the dirt roads jostle with new four-wheel-drives as piracy brings a sudden influx of wealth - an estimated $45 million this year. The lead pirates have near-celebrity status and are building palatial villas. Some members of Somalia's ramshackle Government, many of whom are natives of Puntland, are said to get payoffs.
"The pirates are making so much money," said one source in Bossaso, the capital of Puntland. "They have taken second wives, they are all building new homes and buying new cars, like the latest Land Cruiser."
They are also acquiring satellite phones and GPS navigation equipment to co-ordinate operations. One expert in neighbouring Kenya claims the pirates have become so sophisticated that they are backed by "investors", who fund the upfront costs of hijackings in return for a share of the ransom.
What can be done to stop the pirates? Ship owners are reluctant to hire armed guards for fear of escalating confrontations. But nine days ago three former British marines posted as private guards on a tanker in the Gulf of Aden demonstrated one weapon that might be useful.
When speedboats containing gunmen approached, the guards, working for a firm called Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions, deployed "magnetic audio devices" that emitted directed soundwaves of high intensity. Even at 600m the noise is unbearable.
The former marines trained the devices on the speedboats, which kept their distance and after 10 minutes turned away to seek another target.
Many shipping and security experts doubt naval force will be a cure. "The long-term answer to this is not more warships," said Mr Gibbon-Brooks. "The area is just so big. The answer is to sort out Somalia, which is a failed state. But that's a five-year job, 10 years probably."
The Sunday Times

Ethiopian troops remain in Somali capital

Medeshi

Ethiopian troops remain in Somali capital

MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) -- Ethiopian troops have not yet begun to withdraw from key positions in the capital of Somalia two days after they were supposed to do so under a peace agreement designed to end years of conflict.
The Ethiopians had agreed to withdraw from some bases by Friday under an agreement signed last month by the Somali transitional government and a rebel faction known as the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia two years ago to expel Islamic forces who had conquered Mogadishu. Under the deal signed October 26, a cease-fire between the transitional government and the ARS went into effect November 5. The Ethiopians were to withdraw from from key positions in the capital on November 21, and leave the country entirely early in 2009.
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has said that Ethiopian troops will withdraw as agreed.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate leader of the rebel ARS, told the local radio station Shabelle Saturday that the Ethiopian troops would pull out on schedule.
Insurgents clashed with Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies Friday, witnesses said, leaving at least 11 fighters dead.
The fighting started when armed insurgent fighters attacked the house of a local commissioner in Mogadishu's Wadajir district, sparking heavy fighting between the government troops guarding the house and the insurgents.
"I saw 11 men wearing red turbans on the heads dead on the ground," local resident Mohamed Haji Ali told CNN by phone from a house near where the clashes took place. Other residents provided a similar death toll.
The commissioner whose house was attacked, Ahmed Da'd, said that his soldiers killed 17 insurgents. He displayed what he said were some of the dead insurgents for the media.
It is not clear what will happen if the Ethiopian troops remain in Mogadishu despite the October 26 peace deal. Under that agreement, government and opposition members will form a 10,000-member joint police force to keep order, along with the African Union peacekeeping mission now in place and a U.N. force to be deployed later. Both sides will work toward establishing a unity government in Somalia, which has been riven by 17 years of strife since the collapse of its last fully functional government.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to install the transitional government in Mogadishu after a decade and a half of near-anarchy. The invasion had the blessing of the United States, which accused the Islamic Courts Union -- which captured Mogadishu earlier that year -- of harboring fugitives from al Qaeda. The Islamists responded with a guerrilla campaign against government and Ethiopian troops.
Efforts to replace the Ethiopians with an African Union-led peacekeeping mission faltered as the violence worsened, and heavy fighting in Mogadishu and other cities drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. The lawlessness also spilled on to the seas off the Horn of Africa, where international vessels are routinely hijacked by suspected Somali pirates who demand large ransoms.

Somali Men Off Twin Cities Streets

Medeshi
The Missing: Somali Men Off Twin Cities Streets, Back in Somalia
Somali community fears young men leaving to fight holy war
Last Edited: Sunday, 23 Nov 2008
MINNEAPOLIS -- Young Somali men are vanishing off the streets of the Twin Cities. More than 20 have left in the last few months, and the community fears they’ve gone back to Somalia to fight in a holy war.
Video: The Missing
They’re known in the Somali community simply at The Missing. More than 20 young Somali men, between the ages of 17 and 22, who have left the Twin Cities in the last few months, without a single word to their families.
The families and community leaders believe the men have gone back to fight in a bloody civil war, in which Al Quiada is a major player.
"They're concerned emotional and in shock,” Omar Jamal, of the Somali Justice Center said. “They're completely grief stricken.
From multiple sources in the Somali community, FOX 9 has learned eight men are believed to have left on August 1, and another ten on November 4.
Flight itineraries discovered by their families show they left Minneapolis to take the winding trip back, through Dubai, Nairobi, Malindi, Kenya, where they’re believed to have snuck in by boat to Somalia.
Then, last week, five families went to the FBI, worries their kids were part of some jihad in Somalia. For their part, the FBI would not confirm or deny whether they have an ongoing investigation.
Shiek Imam Abdighani Ali is on of the few religious leaders who would discuss The Missing. He believes someone is organizing the trips.
“A lot of parents coming to us asking where their kid is going,” Ali said. “We are trying to find out who financed (the trips). They are 17 years old, $1,700 dollars and most of them didn't work."
Some of The Missing are believed to be former gang members, escaping the street violence that’s claimed the life of seven young Somali men this year. Others are in college, and some were said to be deeply religious.
The irony is their families risked everything to escape the violence and religious wars, yet something or someone is luring the young men back.
Some of their families told FOX 9 they are under pressure from law enforcement and religious leaders to not talk about The Missing.
At least one mother has received a phone call from her son. He told her he was in Somalia, but would not tell her what he was doing there.

America's hidden war in Somalia

'NOBODY IS WATCHING'
America's hidden war in Somalia
By Paul Salopek Tribune correspondent
CST, November 24, 2008
BERBERA, Somalia
To glimpse America's secret war in Africa, you must bang with a rock on the iron gate of the prison in this remote port in northern Somalia. A sleepy guard will yank open a rusty deadbolt. Then, you ask to speak to an inmate named Mohamed Ali Isse.
Isse, 36, is a convicted murderer and jihadist. He is known among his fellow prisoners, with grudging awe, as "The Man with the American Thing in His Leg."
That "thing" is a stainless steel surgical pin screwed into his bullet-shattered femur, courtesy, he says, of the U.S. Navy. How it got there — or more to the point, how Isse ended up in this crumbling, stone-walled hellhole at the uttermost end of the Earth—is a story that the U.S. government probably would prefer to remain untold.
That's because Isse and his fancy surgery scars offer what little tangible evidence exists of a bare-knuckled war that has been waged silently, over the past five years, with the sole aim of preventing anarchic Somalia from becoming the world's next Afghanistan.

It is a standoff war in which the Pentagon lobs million-dollar cruise missiles into a famine-haunted African wasteland the size of Texas, hoping to kill lone terror suspects who might be dozing in candlelit huts. (The raids' success or failure is almost impossible to verify.)
It is a covert war in which the CIA has recruited gangs of unsavory warlords to hunt down and kidnap Islamic militants and—according to Isse and civil rights activists—secretly imprison them offshore, aboard U.S. warships.
Mostly, though, it is a policy time bomb that will be inherited by the incoming Obama administration: a little-known front in the global war on terrorism that Washington appears to be losing, if it hasn't already been lost.
"Somalia is one of the great unrecognized U.S. policy failures since 9/11," said Ken Menkhaus, a leading Somalia scholar at Davidson College in North Carolina. "By any rational metric, what we've ended up with there today is the opposite of what we wanted."
What the Bush administration wanted, when it tacitly backed Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in late 2006, was clear enough: to help a close African ally in the war on terror crush the Islamic Courts Union, or ICU. The Taliban-like movement emerged from the ashes of more than 15 years of anarchy and lawlessness in Africa's most infamous failed state, Somalia.
At first, the invasion seemed an easy victory. By early 2007, the ICU had been routed, a pro-Western transitional government installed, and hundreds of Islamic militants in Somalia either captured or killed.
But over the last 18 months, Somalia's Islamists—now more radical than ever—have regrouped and roared back.
On a single day last month, they flexed their muscles by killing nearly 30 people in a spate of bloody car-bomb attacks that recalled the darkest days of Iraq. And their brutal militia, the Shabab or "Youth," today controls much of the destitute nation, a shattered but strategic country that overlooks the vital oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden.
Even worse, in recent days Shabab's fighters have moved to within miles of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, threatening to topple the weak interim government supported by the U.S. and Ethiopia.
At the same time, according to the UN, the explosion of violence is inflaming what probably is the worst humanitarian tragedy in the world.
In the midst of a killing drought, more than 700,000 city dwellers have been driven out of bullet-scarred Mogadishu by the recent clashes between the Islamist rebels and the interim government.
The U.S. role in Somalia's current agonies has not always been clear. But back in the Berbera prison, Isse, who is both a villain and a victim in this immense panorama of suffering, offered a keyhole view that extended all the way back to Washington.
Wrapped in a faded sarong, scowling in the blistering-hot prison yard, the jihadist at first refused to meet foreign visitors—a loathed American in particular. But after some cajoling, he agreed to tell his story through a fellow inmate: a surreal but credible tale of illicit abduction by the CIA, secret helicopter rides and a journey through an African gulag that lifts the curtain, albeit only briefly, on an American invisible war.
"Your government gets away with a lot here," said the warden, Hassan Mohamed Ibrahim, striding about his antique facility with a pistol tucked in the back of his pants. "In Iraq, the world is watching. In Afghanistan, the world is watching. In Somalia, nobody is watching."

From ashes of 'Black Hawk Down'
In truth, merely watching in Mogadishu these days is apt to get you killed.
Somalia's hapless capital has long been considered the Dodge City of Africa—a seaside metropolis sundered by clan fighting ever since the nation's central government collapsed in 1991. That feral reputation was cemented in 1993, when chanting mobs dragged the bodies of U.S. Army Rangers through the streets in a disastrous UN peacekeeping mission chronicled in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."
Yet if Mogadishu was once merely a perilous destination for outsiders, visiting today is suicidal.
For the first time in local memory, the airport—the city's frail lifeline to the world—is regularly closed by insurgent mortar attacks despite a small and jittery contingent of African Union peacekeepers.
Foreign workers who once toiled quietly for years in Somalia have been evacuated. A U.S. missile strike in May killed the Shabab commander, Aden Hashi Ayro, enraging Islamist militants who have since vowed to kidnap and kill any outsider found in the country.
The upshot: Most of Somalia today is closed to the world.
It wasn't supposed to turn out this way when Washington provided intelligence to the invading Ethiopians two years ago.
The homegrown Islamic radicals who controlled most of central and southern Somalia in mid-2006 certainly were no angels. They shuttered Mogadishu's cinemas, demanded that Somali men grow beards and, according to the U.S. State Department, provided refuge to some 30 local and international jihadists associated with Al Qaeda.
But the Islamic Courts Union's turbaned militiamen had actually defeated Somalia's hated warlords. And their enforcement of Islamic religious laws, while unpopular among many Somalis, made Mogadishu safe to walk in for the first time in a generation.
"It's not just that people miss those days," said a Somali humanitarian worker who, for safety reasons, asked to be identified only as Hassan. "They resent the Ethiopians and Americans tearing it all up, using Somalia as their battlefield against global terrorism. It's like the Cold War all over again. Somalis aren't in control."
When the Islamic movement again strengthened, Isse, the terrorist jailed in Berbera, was a pharmacy owner from the isolated town of Buro in Somaliland, a parched northern enclave that declared independence from Somalia in the early 1990s.
Radicalized by U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is serving a life sentence for organizing the killings of four foreign aid workers in late 2003 and early 2004. Two of his victims were elderly British teachers.
A dour, bearded man with bullet scars puckering his neck and leg, Isse still maintains his innocence. Much of Isse's account of his capture and imprisonment was independently corroborated by Western intelligence analysts, Somali security officials and court records in Somaliland, where the wounded jihadist was tried and jailed for murdering the aid workers. Those sources say Isse was snatched by the U.S. after fleeing to the safe house of a notorious Islamist militant in Mogadishu.
How that operation unfolded on a hot June night in 2004 reveals the extent of American clandestine involvement in Somalia's chaotic affairs—and how such anti-terrorism efforts appear to have backfired.

Interrogation aboard ship
"I captured Isse for the Americans," said Mohamed Afrah Qanyare. "The Americans contracted us to do certain things, and we did them. Isse put up resistance so we shot him. But he survived."
A scar-faced warlord in a business suit, Qanyare is a member of Somalia's weak transitional government. Today he divides his days between lawless Mogadishu and luxury hotels in Nairobi.
But four years ago, his militia helped form the kernel of a CIA-created mercenary force called the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in Somalia. The unit cobbled together some of the world's most violent, wily and unreliable clan militias—including gangs that had attacked U.S. forces in the early 1990s—to confront a rising tide of Islamic militancy in Somalia's anarchic capital.
The Somalis on the CIA payroll engaged in a grim tit-for-tat exchange of kidnappings and assassinations with extremists. And Isse was one of their catches.
He was wounded in a CIA-ordered raid on his Mogadishu safe house in June 2004, according to Qanyare and Matt Bryden, one of the world's leading scholars of the Somali insurgency who has access to intelligence regarding it. They say Isse was then loaded aboard a U.S. military helicopter summoned by satellite phone and was flown, bleeding, to an offshore U.S. vessel.
"He saw white people in uniforms working on his body," said Isse's Somali defense lawyer, Bashir Hussein Abdi, describing how Isse was rushed into a ship-board operating room. "He felt the ship moving. He thought he was dreaming."
Navy doctors spliced a steel rod into Isse's bullet-shattered leg, according to Abdi. Every day for about a month afterward, Isse's court depositions assert, plainclothes U.S. agents grilled the bedridden Somali at sea about Al Qaeda's presence.
The CIA never has publicly acknowledged its operations in Somalia. Agency spokesman George Little declined to comment on Isse's case.
For years, human-rights organizations attempted to expose the rumored detention and interrogation of terror suspects aboard U.S. warships to avoid media and legal scrutiny. In June, the British civil rights group Reprieve contended that as many as 17 U.S. warships may have doubled as "floating prisons" since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Calling such claims "misleading," the Pentagon has insisted that U.S. ships have served only as transit stops for terror suspects being shuttled to permanent detention camps such as the one in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But Tribune reporting on Isse indicates strongly that a U.S. warship was used for interrogation at least once off the lawless coast of Somalia.
The U.S. Navy conceded Isse had stayed aboard one of its vessels. In a terse statement, Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet that patrols the Gulf of Aden, said only that the Navy was "not able to confirm dates" of Isse's imprisonment.
For reasons that remain unclear, he was later flown to Camp Lemonier, a U.S. military base in the African state of Djibouti, Somali intelligence sources say, and from there to a clandestine prison in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Isse and his lawyer allege he was detained there for six weeks and tortured by Ethiopian military intelligence with electric shocks.
Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and office of prime minister did not respond to queries about Isse's allegations.
However, security officials in neighboring Somaliland did confirm that they collected Isse from the Ethiopian police at a dusty border crossing in late 2004. "The Man with the American Thing in His Leg" was interrogated again. After a local trial, he was locked in the ancient Berbera prison.
"It doesn't matter if he is guilty or innocent," said Abdi, the defense lawyer. "Countries like Ethiopia and America use terrorism to justify this treatment. This is not justice. It is a crime in itself."
Tales of CIA "snatch and grab" operations against terror suspects abroad aren't new, of course. President George W. Bush finally confirmed two years ago the existence of an international program that "renditioned" terrorism suspects to a network of "black site" prisons in Eastern Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for the CIA's anti-terror mercenaries in Mogadishu, they may have kidnapped a dozen or more wanted Islamists for the Americans, intelligence experts say. But their excesses ended up swelling the ranks of their enemy, the Islamic Courts Union militias.
"It was a stupid idea," said Bryden, the security analyst who has written extensively on Somalia's Islamist insurgency. "It actually strengthened the hand of the Islamists and helped trigger the crisis we're in today."
In the sweltering Berbera prison, Exhibit A in Washington's phantom war in Somalia had finished his afternoon prayers. He clapped his sandals together, then limped off to his cell without a word.

A sinking nation
The future of Somalia and its 8 million people is totally unscripted. This unbearable lack of certainty, of a way forward, accommodates little hope.
Ethiopian and U.S. actions have eroded Somalis' hidebound allegiance to their clans, once a firewall against Al Qaeda's global ideology, says Bryden. Somalia's 2 million-strong diaspora is of greatest concern. Angry young men, foreign passports in hand, could be lured back to the reopened Shabab training camps, where instructors occasionally use photocopied portraits of Bush as rifle targets.
Some envision no Somalia at all.
With about $8 billion in humanitarian aid fire-hosed into the smoking ruins of Somalia since the early 1990s—the U.S. will donate roughly $200 million this year alone—a growing chorus of policymakers is advocating that the failed state be allowed to fail, to break up into autonomous zones or fiefdoms, such as Isse's home of Somaliland.
But there is another possible future for Somalia. To see it, you must go to Bosaso, a port 300 miles east of Isse's cell.
Bosaso is an escape hatch from Somalia. Thousands of people swarm through the town's scruffy waterfront every year, seeking passage across the Gulf of Aden to the Middle East. Dressed in rags, they sleep by the hundreds in dirt alleys and empty lots. Stranded women and girls are forced into prostitution.
"You can see why we still need America's help," said Abdinur Jama, the coast guard commander for Puntland, the semiautonomous state encompassing Bosaso. "We need training and equipment to stop this."
Dapper in camouflage and a Yankees cap, Jama was a rarity in Somalia, an optimist. While Bosaso's teenagers shook their fists at high-flying U.S. jets on routine patrols—"Go to hell!" they chanted—Jama still spoke well of international engagement in Somalia.
On a morning when he offered to take visitors on a coast patrol, it did not seem kind to tell him what a U.S. military think tank at West Point had concluded about Somalia last year: that, in some respects, failed states were admirable places to combat Al Qaeda, because the absence of local sovereignty permitted "relatively unrestricted Western counterterrorism efforts."
After all, Jama's decrepit patrol boat was sinking.
A crew member scrambled to stanch a yard-high geyser of seawater that spurted through the cracked hull. Jama screwed his cap on tighter and peered professionally at land that, despite Washington's best-laid plans, has turned far more desperate than Afghanistan.
"Can you swim?" Jama asked. But it hardly seemed to matter. Back on dry land, in Somalia, an entire country was drowning.

Ahoy there Somalia

Medeshi

Ahoy there Somalia
Nov 19th 2008 NAIROBI From Economist.com
The significance of the latest attacks by Somali pirates
AFP
Get article background
PIRATES do not win every encounter. On the evening of Tuesday November 18th an Indian warship attacked and destroyed a suspected Somali pirate boat in the Gulf of Aden, after the men on board had, reportedly, threatened to blow up the Indian craft. The pirates were said to be armed with guns and rocket-grenade launchers, and some escaped on speed boats. On the same day, however, other pirates in the Gulf of Aden did manage to grab a cargo ship carrying grain to Iran.
The pressure to tackle piracy off Somalia's coast is growing by the day. The threat to merchant shipping in the region is now greater than it has been for decades. The taking of the leviathan 330-metre Saudi-owned Sirius Star in the high seas fully 450 nautical miles (833km) off the Kenyan coast, on Saturday, shows that all tankers heading to or from the Arabian Gulf and all cargo vessels using the Suez Canal are now at risk from pirates, no matter what course they hold to.
Shipping companies face higher insurance premiums, customers could see longer delivery times, less traffic may pass through the Suez Canal. The success of the pirates may also strengthen the hand of radical Islamists in Somalia if gunmen abandon their poorly paid defence of the feeble transitional Somali government in Mogadishu for the promise of adventures and riches at sea.
The geographical range open to the pirates gives them (generally) the upper hand over foreign navies deployed to stop them. So, too, does their ingenious use of fishing boats for satellite cover. Warships can easily intercept captured vessels and, under a United Nations resolution agreed upon earlier this year, chase them back into Somali waters. But it is rare for them to stop the pirates boarding vessels and taking crews hostage in the first place. And by luring warships into Somali waters to watch over captured vessels, the pirates will continue to stretch their operations further south towards the Comoros and the Mozambique Channel–once the hunting grounds of late 17th century English pirates.

There have been at least 83 acknowledged pirate attacks off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden this year, 33 of them successful enough to command a ransom. The amounts of money being paid have rocketed, with pirates demanding and getting $1m in ransom or more. The number of attacks is probably higher than stated, given the desire of some ship owners to pay a ransom quietly, without involving an insurance company.
The Sirius Star is believed now to be anchored somewhere off the coast of Somalia, near the pirate port of Eyl in the northern Puntland region of the country. It joins a dozen or so other vessels. They include the MV Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship captured in September with a cargo of Soviet-era tanks bound for south Sudan, with the connivance of the Kenyan government. Ransom demands for the Faina have dropped from $20m to $8m since it was surrounded by American and Russian warships, but there is still no agreement on its release. The pirates are likely to ask for more than $30m for the release of the Sirius Star.
The tanker is owned by the shipping subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant. It was carrying oil worth over $100m and was bound for America when captured. For the Saudis, its loss is a reminder of a problem that has been festering just across the Red Sea for some time: Somali analysts say that Saudi Arabia has made big promises of aid and assistance to Somalia, but has delivered nothing of value.
For America, the case of the Sirius Star underlines longstanding concerns that piracy off Somalia, still strictly mercenary, might soon attract jihadist operators. Some think that al-Qaeda has already looked into the possibility of blowing up tankers in the narrows off the Comoros. If the jihadists do not organise an attack themselves, the worry is that they might pay the pirates to do it for them.

Somalia, bring justice to its fisheries

Medeshi 22, Nov, 2008
Somalia, bring justice to its fisheries
Washington – In the past few weeks, a failed state that was forgotten for more than a decade once again made the world take notice. While Somalia's weak transitional government fails to assert control on land, a band of highly organized pirates have taken firm control of the country's sea lanes.
The pirates' recent seizure of a Ukrainian ship transporting military hardware and a Saudi oil supertanker has prompted the world to take action, with many countries sending warships to patrol the area around the Somali coast and Gulf of Aden. A longer-term solution may prove simpler and less costly: Forget about freight and focus on fishing.
Beyond the immediate need to temporarily send warships to police the troubled waters, a coalition force tasked with fishery protection should be deployed. It could be done under the auspices of the United Nations, African Union, or a coalition of willing states. This option will address a root cause of the piracy problem, rob the modern-day buccaneers of their legitimacy, and be more acceptable to the region as an enduring part of the solution.
First, this option will address the very problem that originally sparked this rise in piracy. The problem of piracy in Somalia originated about a decade ago because of disgruntled fishermen.
The headless state had no authority to patrol its tuna-rich coastal waters and foreign commercial vessels swooped in to cast their nets. This proved a slap in the face for Somalis, who saw these vessels as illegal and raking in profits at the expense of the local impoverished population. To make matters worse, there were reports that some foreign ships even dumped waste in Somali waters.
That prompted local fishermen to attack foreign fishing vessels and demand compensation. The success of these early raids in the mid-1990s persuaded many young men to hang up their nets in favor of AK-47s. Making the coastal areas lucrative for local fishermen again could encourage pirates to return to legitimate livelihoods.
Second, a fishery protection force will eliminate the pirates' source of legitimacy. The pirates' spokesman, Sugule Ali, told the international press last month that his men executed attacks to prevent illegal fishing and dumping in their waters.
Although this claim may seem thin, it matters to the pirates' public image and sense of legitimacy. If the international community steps in to address their concerns, they will lose the one pretense they continue to stand upon for internal support and credibility.
Third, an international force sent to protect local industry will achieve the same goal as warships but in a more acceptable way. The principal reason piracy thrives along Somalia's coast is that there is no coastal authority to patrol these waters. Armed foreign ships will still serve to fill that vacuum and deter attacks, but with the explicit mission of serving Somalia's people – the very people who have chalked up enough reasons to dislike foreign military interventions and are likely to view the presence of warships as intimidation.
Skeptics could argue that intimidation is just what these lawless bandits need. However, temporary crackdowns have not uprooted the problem yet. The Union of Islamic Courts brutally suppressed piracy during the brief period they controlled the Somali capital in 2006, but the pirates waited them out and resurged stronger than ever.
In response to pressure, the pirates also tend to migrate further down the long Somali coastline to focus operations in areas of the sea that are more difficult to patrol. A fishery protection force, however, could convince pirates that it is here to stay and futile to evade.
Piracy will not be eradicated from the region until Somalia becomes a stable, functioning state with a thriving economy. A robust fishery protection force can keep piracy under control in the meantime while the world shifts its resources to this bigger problem. This creative solution could make Somali waters more secure and give its people much-needed hope for the future.

Bring it on, say Somali supertanker pirates

Medeshi 22 Nov, 2008

Bring it on, say Somali supertanker pirates
SOMALI pirates holding an oil-laden Saudi supertanker say they will fight back if there is any military intervention to free the ship.
"I hope the owner of the tanker is wise enough and won't allow any military option because that would be disastrous for everybody. We are here to defend the tanker if attacked," Abdiyare Moalim said.
Speaking from the coastal village and pirate stronghold of Haradhere, off which the Sirius Star is anchored, he said he was one of the pirates on shore organising militias protecting the area.
Negotiations continue with the owners of the super-tanker, who on Thursday were given 10 days to pay a ransom of $US25 million ($41.06 million).
A local fisherman said reinforcements of at least 10 well-armed men had joined the pirates holding the ship and its 25 crew.
"Early this morning, I saw at least 10 heavily armed pirates heading to the ship. Their boat returned after dropping them off," Hassan Ahmed said.
The member of the pirate group said the gunmen holding the Sirius Star and its $US100 million of crude oil had no intention of destroying the vessel, the largest ever seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia.
"Their intention is clear, I was speaking to them some minutes ago and they told me they are not going to destroy the ship or harm the crew. They are hoping to get what they demanded," he said.
Harardhere is 300km north of lawless Somalia's capital Mogadishu.

Oil tanker hijackers build up defences in Somalia
Somali pirates have built up their defences around a captured Saudi Arabian super-tanker after reportedly demanding a $US25 million ransom.
The Sirius Star, the biggest ship ever hijacked, and its $US100 million cargo of oil was seized on 15 November and taken to Harardhere, 300km north of Somalia's capital Mogadishu.
As foreign navies sent warships to Somalia's dangerous waters and shipping companies sought alternative routes, extra clan militia and other fighters were brought in to Harardhere, residents said on Friday.
Local militia and hardline Shebab fighters have also arrived in what some residents said was a move to position themselves for a share of any ransom paid.
"There are two armed vehicles belonging to al Shebab. They have reached the town of Harardhere but there are no intentions of attacking the ship from here," a Harardhere Islamist official said by phone.
The militiamen want a share from the pirates if the ransom is paid, said Ahmed Abdullahi, a local elder. "They believe this ship is huge and the owner will pay a lot of money."
The pirates on Thursday gave the owners 10 days to pay the ransom.
However the company conducting negotiations on behalf of the tanker's owners has denied the figure of $US25 million has been demanded in ransom, reports the BBC.
The BBC also reports shipping industry experts expect the ransom for the tanker to be much higher.
Speaking from the tanker, a pirate who identified himself as Mohamed Said threatened "disastrous" consequences should Vela International, shipping arm of the Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco, fail to comply.
He did not specify the threatened action but the 330-metre-long tanker is carrying two million barrels of crude oil.

Somali piracy starts affecting fuel pump prices in Uganda
KAMPALA, Nov. 22 -- Piracy off the coast of Somalia is partly to blame for the increasing pump prices in Uganda, a top government official said here on Saturday.
Kamander Bataringaya, minister of state for energy in charge of minerals told reporters that freight charges have gone up due to the increased risk of petroleum tankers being hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
He said the insurance premiums for the tankers have also gone up which has forced dealers to pass the cost pressures on to the consumers.
Pump prices especially in the capital Kampala have been unstable in recent weeks with the highest being 2,850 shillings (1.6 U.S. dollars) for a liter of petrol.
Other factors pushing up the prices include depreciation of the local currency against the dollar, increase in transit truck charges due to the three axle weight limitation introduced in Kenya.
Uganda imports and exports all its products through the Kenyan sea port of Mombasa because it is land locked.
Analysts have warned that prices of basic consumer goods are also expected to increase as shipping operators opt for alternative routes to avoid the pirate-infested waters.
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has been on the increase affecting the shipping route, the world's busiest trade route, linking the Middle East and Asia to Europe and beyond through the Suez Canal.

Piracy off Somalia seen denting Suez Canal traffic

Medeshi
Piracy off Somalia seen denting Suez Canal traffic
By Yusri Mohamed
ISMAILIA, Egypt, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Rampant piracy off Somalia's coast will hit revenues at Egypt's Suez Canal if piracy is not quickly curtailed and shippers continue to shun the strategic waterway, current and former canal officials said. One of the world's biggest shippers has said some of its fleet was avoiding the canal due to piracy fears south of the waterway linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and a major tanker association said many others were also diverting vessels.
"A decline may happen as a result of piracy acts," one Suez Canal official said, asking not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the press. "We are following the situation with sharp interest."
The move by some shippers to avoid the canal follows the spectacular capture by Somali pirates of a Saudi Arabian supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of oil a week ago, the biggest ship hijacking in history.
Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk is routing some of its 50 oil tankers around the Cape of Good Hope instead of through Suez, and Intertanko said many other tanker firms were doing the same.
Norway's Frontline (nyse: FRO - news - people ), which ferries much of the Middle East's oil to world markets, said it was considering a similar step.
Millions of tonnes of crude oil, petroleum products, gas and dry commodities like grains, iron ore and coal, as well as containerised goods from electronic goods to toys are ferried through the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal every month.
Revenues at the canal have already dropped from life highs in August, but officials attribute the slowdown to the global economic crisis and say piracy has not yet affected returns.
The canal made $467.5 million in October, down from $504.5 million in August when a record 1,993 ships used the canal.
NO NOTIFICATIONS OF CANCELLATION
Piracy could also deal a blow to Egyptian efforts to attract more large ships including larger oil tankers through Suez by working to deepen the navigation channel, a project expected to be completed in 2009.
Canal officials have said that once the planned expansion is finished, the waterway will be capable of attracting 64 percent of the global fleet of oil carriers with full loads. Egypt depends on the Suez Canal as a major source of foreign currency.
"The continuation of acts of piracy at the current rate will negatively affect numbers of ships passing through the canal and revenues," said Galal al-Deeb, a former member of the Suez Canal administration,
"Oil tankers passing through the canal will be affected as vessels begin to face hijacking, as will overall goods traffic because oil represents around 17 percent of total goods passing through the Suez Canal," he added.
But officials declined to speculate on how severely the canal's revenues might be affected.
Owners of oil supertankers already often send ships around the Cape of Good Hope because of capacity issues at Suez, where large ships occasionally run aground. The hijacked U.S.-bound Saudi tanker had not passed through the Suez Canal, a route more commonly used by European-bound tankers.
Canal spokesman Mahmoud Abd al-Wahab said that shipping firms had not given the canal word of any cancellations, but that the canal did not normally receive such notification.
"Ship owners have a right to determine whatever route they want to use," he said. "The Suez Canal administration has no forecasts on the numbers or type of ship that may be affected by piracy acts and would decide not to use the Suez Canal."
Cairo-based investment bank EFG-Hermes says the canal may earn a record $6.1 billion this fiscal year, up about 18 percent from the fiscal year that ended in June.
But even before last week's hijack, EFG-Hermes forecast tougher times ahead. The bank said it saw the canal's revenue growth slowing to 10 percent in the 2009/2010 year, with lower European demand presenting a significant downside risk. (Writing by Cynthia Johnston)

Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

Medeshi
Pirate humour rules Wall Street
Andrew Willis,

November 21, 2008
Argggg, Maties! Here's what shell-shocked financiers are laughing at on Wall Street Friday morning in a phony Bloomberg story:
Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup
By Andreas Hippin November 20 (Bloomberg) -- The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.
The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said.
"You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood tooffer the shareholders anything," said Ali.
The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody's and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS's.
Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said: "We need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroupat an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster."
Shandu added, "We don't call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better."
*CITI IN TALKS WITH SOMALI PIRATES FOR POSSIBLE CAPITAL INFUSION
*WILL REQUIRE ALL CITI EMPLOYEES TO WEAR PATCH OVER ONE EYE
*SOMALIAN PIRATES APPLY TO BECOME BANK TO ACCESS TARP
*PAULSON: TARP PIRATE EQUITY IS AN `INVESTMENT,' WILL PAY OFF
*KASHKARI SAYS `SOMALI PIRATES ARE 'FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND' '

*Moody's upgrade Somali Pirates to AAA
*HUD SAYS SOMALI DHOW FORECLOSURE PROGRAM HAD `VERY LOW' PARTICPATION
*SOMALI PIRATES IN DISCUSSION TO ACQUIRE CITIBANK
*FED OFFICIALS: AGGRESSIVE EASING WOULD CUT SOMALI PIRATE RISK
* FED AGREED OCT. 29 TO TAKE `WHATEVER STEPS' NEEDED FOR SOMALI PIRATES

(UN) Recent Political Progress in Somalia Obscured by Deteriorating Security

Medeshi

Recent Political Progress in Somalia Obscured by Deteriorating Security, Humanitarian Conditions, Security Council Hears in Several Briefings [document]
Released : Friday, November 21, 2008 6:38 AM
Nov 21, 2008 (United Nations)

Somalia 's Speaker Says Search for Peace Will Not Be Smooth or Quick; Council Debates Outline for Possible Multinational Force, Follow-On Peacekeeping Operation
Despite the recent political progress in Somalia, conditions on the ground continued to deteriorate and coherent international action was needed to stem instability in the East African country, as well as the piracy off its coast, officials of the United Nations and the African Union told the Security Council this morning.
In addition, according to Raisedon Zenenga, Director of the Africa II Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Secretary-General's proposal for a multinational force meant to relieve the under-manned African Union force in Somalia (AMISOM) and serve as a precursor to a possible United Nations peacekeeping operation had not yet garnered significant pledges of either troops, resources or leadership.
Mr. Zenenga expressed appreciation to the Member States that had committed assets to anti-piracy operations, which were valuable in securing food deliveries for the 3.2 million people of Somalia who were dependent on international assistance. At the same time, he stressed that the piracy and terrorism was only a symptom of the anarchy that reigned in the country.
The approach being used to combat piracy should set an example for a similar coalition with the same level of military capabilities, he said. He appealed for the deployment of the multinational force to stabilize Somalia's capital of Mogadishu and prepare for a peacekeeping operation to consolidate peace in the country.
Haile Menkerios, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, introduced the Secretary-General's report and noted that the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities agreement on 25 October in Djibouti between the Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia had given the peace process renewed impetus.
However, he said, there was tension within the Transitional Federal Government, and hard-line groups continued to expand their operations within south-central Somalia, which exacerbated the difficulties already faced in delivering much-needed humanitarian assistance. The situation in Somalia remained volatile and the Djibouti process must still deliver improvement in security. "We must, therefore, persevere in our common efforts to ensure sustained support to the peace process," he concluded.
Somalia's representative said the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government had clearly demonstrated its commitment to reconciliation with the opposition Alliance and would continue to do so. The greatest challenge to peace and stability in Somalia now was not a lack of political will, but a lack of security. However, the Government had little financial support from the international community to enhance security.
"The search for peace and prosperity in Somalia will not be smooth; nor will full peace be achieved that quickly," he said. He assured members that the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government would overcome the current constitutional crisis by exercising leadership and wisdom. He urged the regional countries, the African Union, as well as the League of Arab States and the United Nations, to actively support the peace process, cautioning that a "wait and see" attitude was not enough.
The Permanent Observer for the African Union called for support to the Secretary-General's proposal for a multinational force and called on the Security Council to take the necessary steps to authorize the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia, as a matter of urgency. The Union was making all possible efforts to strengthen AMISOM as it continued to carry out its work on the ground; its member States were called on to contribute additional troops to reach its authorized capacity of 8,000, from the current level of about 3,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi. Piracy, armed robbery, violence, trafficking, abuse of women and children, despair and the threat of terrorism remained symptoms of the decades-long situation.
Speaking on the response to piracy, Efthimios Mitropoulos, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), expressed great concern, not only about the frequency of attacks, but also by their ferocity. A total of 440 acts of piracy and armed robbery had been recorded since statistics had been compiled. This year alone, 120 attacks had been reported, with 35 ships seized and more than 600 seafarers kidnapped. He called on the Security Council to expand authorizations for a swift, coordinated national and international response, and to urge States to establish an effective legal jurisdiction to bring offenders to justice.
In the debate that followed those presentations, speakers welcomed the political agreements between Somali parties, but expressed deep concern over the deteriorating situation on the ground, particularly by the attacks against United Nations personnel, and the dire humanitarian situation.
Most speakers urged support for AMISOM, but reaction was mixed to the call for contributions to a multinational force in preparation for a United Nations peacekeeping operation. The conditions for such intervention were just not there, the representative of the Russian Federation stressed, though he maintained that planning for all eventualities should be ongoing. To bring about conditions that would allow a peacekeeping force, many speakers urged Somali leaders to advance the necessary political progress.
Appreciation was expressed around the table for the actions taken against piracy, but many speakers added that the scourge was a result of the instability in Somalia and would not end until a solution to the entire situation was found. Some also called for United Nations coordination of the anti-piracy operations.
Speaking in that debate were the representatives of South Africa, France, Italy, Libya, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Panama, China, Belgium, Croatia, United States, United Kingdom and Costa Rica.
The meeting, which began at 10:30 a.m., concluded at 1 p.m.
Background
The Security Council had before it a report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Somalia (document S/2008/709), in which the Secretary-General applauds the commitment of the Somali parties to the Djibouti process and the significant progress made, as reflected in the agreement on the cessation of armed confrontation, signed on 26 October. He also welcomes the readiness of Ethiopia to withdraw its troops in support of that ceasefire. As the Djibouti process remains open to all parties, he urges all Somalis to join the ongoing process and commit unconditionally to peace. The Addis Ababa agreement signed by the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government on 25 August must be implemented quickly to establish a credible and efficient administration in Mogadishu and its region.
The Secretary-General observes that the deterioration of the security situation, particularly in the south-central regions, poses an immense challenge, not only to reconciliation, but also to the delivery of humanitarian aid. He welcomes the parties' commitment to establish a mechanism to facilitate and support the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Deeply concerned at the threats issued by some groups to attack aircraft operating from Mogadishu International Airport, he calls upon armed groups to desist from imposing measures that disrupt air traffic.
Welcoming Council resolutions 1816 (2008) and 1838 (2008) on piracy and armed robbery at sea, the Secretary-General commends the efforts of Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to provide naval escorts for humanitarian vessels, as well as the decision by the European Union to establish a coordination mechanism for those escorts. He welcomes the decisions of the Governments of India and the Russian Federation to cooperate with the Transitional Federal Government to fight piracy and calls upon the international community to also address, in a pragmatic and effective manner, the legal issues relating to persons apprehended while engaged in acts of piracy.
The Secretary-General states that the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) continues commendably to play a stabilization role in Somalia. As the October agreement places specific responsibilities on AMISOM, he calls upon Member States that have pledged troops to deploy their contingents without any further delay. He calls upon the international community to provide financial and logistical support to the Mission.
Concerned that the international community's strategy for addressing the multiple threats to regional stability and international peace and security be coherent, the Secretary-General notes that it is imperative to tie together the ongoing anti-piracy operation, the AMISOM operations and the envisaged multinational force in a coordinated effort that effectively addresses both the consequences and the source of the lawlessness in Somalia. As current conditions are not conducive to a United Nations peacekeeping operation, he appeals to Member States to respond positively to his request and pledge troops, funds and equipment for a multinational force.
Responding to the Council's request to provide a detailed description of a feasible multinational force, he explains that he tasked the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to develop the concept of such a force to support implementation of the Djibouti agreement, taking into account AMISOM's presence. It is proposed that a feasible international stabilization force would be composed of a headquarters and two multinational force brigades, which should operate under a unified command. One of the brigades could be a reinforced AMISOM; if this is not possible, or not supported by the lead nation, then a second multinational force brigade would be required. The core mandate of the international stabilization force would be to provide a first phase of support to the implementation of the Djibouti agreement, helping the parties to establish a secure environment and create conditions for the deployment, at a later stage, of a multidimensional United Nations peacekeeping operation.
Briefings
HAILE MENKERIOS, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, introducing the Secretary-General's report, said that following the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in Djibouti between the Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia on 25 October, the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from locations in Beletweyne and Mogadishu had commenced on 17 November. Hard-line groups, including Al Shabaab, continued to expand their operations within south-central Somalia, which exacerbated the difficulties already faced in delivering much-needed humanitarian assistance.
He said the agreement on political cooperation signed on 25 October had given the peace process renewed impetus. It called for the formation of a broad-based parliament and unity Government bringing the Alliance into the transitional institutions. Various reports indicated the agreement had met with wide support inside Somalia. The Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) had held a special Heads of State and Government meeting on Somalia on 29 October.
Tensions remained between President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, with little prospects for reconciliation. Resolving the stalemate rested with the Transitional Federal parliament. IGAD had urged members of parliament to return from Kenya to Baidoa. The Secretary-General's special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah had met with both leaders on several occasions, calling for restraint and urging reconciliation.
He said the scourge of piracy continued to ravage the waters off the coast of Somalia. It was closely linked to the state of security inside Somalia and the absence of law and order. The Transitional Federal Government had taken steps to coordinate its efforts with the international community to eradicate acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea. Whereas international efforts to reduce the vulnerability of vessels had intensified, recent events had demonstrated the considerable capacity of pirates to hijack vessels and the need to establish appropriate legal mechanisms to hold accountable those responsible.
The United Nations Political Office in Somalia (UNPOS) continued to advance preparations for an international conference on assistance to Somalia to be held in the first quarter of 2009, which would focus on enhancing the implementation of the Djibouti agreement. Three thematic areas were currently being developed for wider consultations with Somali parties and relevant international partners, focusing on political, security and peace support. The situation in Somalia remained volatile and the Djibouti process must still deliver improvement in security. "We must, therefore, persevere in our common efforts to ensure sustained support to the peace process," he said in conclusion.
RAISEDON ZENENGA, Director of the Africa II Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, outlined the actions taken by the Department in response to the Council's 4 September request to consider the possibility of a multinational force and a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia. The possible size, tasks, area of employment and other details of those operations were described in the Secretary-General's report (document S/2008/709). The report also explained the phased deployment of the force, leading to a follow-on United Nations peacekeeping operation, which would be deployed in a manner subjected to progress on the political process and improvements in the security situation on the ground. It was expected that the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) would form part of the multinational force.
He said that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations had also developed a list of Member States and international organizations to lead the operations, or as potential troop financial or equipment contributors for the force. Given the 60-day deadline set by the Council, the Secretary-General requested responses from potential contributors by 4 November, but many had indicated that they would need more time to respond. The few responses received so far had been mixed, with only one Member State expressing explicit support for the force and offering to contribute equipment, airlift capacity or funding. That State had indicated, however, that it was not in a position to provide the lead contingent or troops. Several other countries, out of the 50 approached by the Secretary-General, had said that they were considering the proposal carefully. Such countries continued to receive briefings and answers to their queries.
In those briefings, the Secretary-General reiterated his view that the current conditions in Somalia were not conducive to a peacekeeping operation, he said, maintaining that the Council was aware of the need to ensure that any force deploying in the complex conditions of Somalia had the appropriate military capacities, which would not be available to a typical United Nations peacekeeping force. It was important to draw lessons from the Somalia operations of the 1990s, when a multinational force had succeeded in stabilizing Mogadishu and a United Nations peacekeeping force with lesser capabilities had failed. That said, the multinational force now envisioned was a limited, targeted operation, deployed in Mogadishu only. It would have the goal of supporting critical aspects of the Djibouti agreement and preparing the ground for the deployment of a follow-on United Nations peacekeeping operation.
Regarding the problem of piracy, he expressed appreciation to Member States, which had committed assets to anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. That had been extremely valuable in securing food deliveries for the 3.2 million people of Somalia who were dependent on international assistance. At the same time, he realized that piracy and terrorism from Somalia were only a symptom of the anarchy that reigned in the country. He advocated that the approach being used to combat piracy set an example and he appealed to Member States to form a similar coalition with the same level of military capabilities, and deploy the resulting multinational force to stabilize Mogadishu and prepare for a peacekeeping operation to consolidate peace in the country.
EFTHIMIOS MITROPOULOS, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), said the escalating incidents of piracy in the Somalia waters and the Gulf of Aden was of great concern to his organization. He was particularly concerned, not only by the frequency of attacks, but also by their ferocity. A total of 440 acts of piracy and armed robbery had been recorded since statistics had been compiled. This year alone, 120 attacks had been reported, with 35 ships seized and more than 600 seafarers kidnapped. Two seafarers had already lost their lives.
He said that the attackers followed two patterns. They attacked ships on the high seas, allegedly making use of "mother ships", or they attacked ships and hijacked them in the territorial waters off Somalia. His concerns were threefold: to protect seafarers, fisherman and passengers; to ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid to Somalia on World Food Programme ships; and to preserve the integrity of the shipping lane through the Gulf of Aden.
Because of Somalia's extensive coastline, the need for as many naval vessels and military aircraft for the job was more than obvious, he said. The strategic importance and significance of the Gulf of Aden made it imperative that the shipping lane that served, among other things, more than 12 per cent of the total volume of oil transported by sea, was adequately protected against any acts that might disrupt the flow of traffic there through.
In order to bring the situation under control, he asked the Council to undertake the following: extend the mandate in paragraph 7 of resolution 1816 (2008); call upon States that had the capacity to do so to take active part in the fight against piracy and armed robbery against ships; strengthen and enhance the provisions of resolution 1816 (2008) and 1838 (2008), particularly with respect to having clear rules of engagement; urge States to establish an effective legal jurisdiction to bring alleged offenders to justice.
He said there was a need to act fast and with firm determination to rid the world of the modern scourge. A coordinated and cohesive response, at the international and national levels, was necessary for the safety and well-being of seafarers, for the seamless delivery of humanitarian aid to Somalia, for the protection of the marine environment against casualties that might have a catastrophic impact, and for the shipping industry to continue to serve the seaborne trade and the world economy efficiently and effectively.
ELMI AHMED DUALE ( Somalia) said there had been a number of significant political developments in Somalia. The Government had signed the peace agreement with opposition groups, jointly creating the high-level political and security committees. The cessation of armed confrontation agreement had been signed, which would lead to establishment of joint security forces. The leadership of the Transitional Federal Government had clearly demonstrated its commitment to reconciliation with the opposition Alliance and would continue to do so.
He said the greatest challenges to the peace and stability in Somalia was not a lack of political will but a lack of security. The Transitional Federal Government did not have the capacity to defend and control the entire country. Moreover, it had inadequate or little financial support from the international community to enhance security. An improvement in the security situation, however, would definitely have a positive impact on the humanitarian situation.
Another challenge was the issue of piracy, he said. In that regard, he renewed his Government's request for the help of the Council in securing the international and territorial waters off the coast of Somalia. As the representative of South Africa had said at the adoption of resolution 1838 (2008), piracy was one of the many security challenges and the Council should address that threat to peace and security in Somalia in a comprehensive way.
He said that as the people of Somalia tackled the challenges, they would need sympathetic understanding and support from the international community. "The search for peace and prosperity in Somalia will not be smooth; nor will full peace be achieved that quickly," he warned. He assured members that the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government would overcome the current constitutional crisis by exercising leadership and wisdom. He strongly urged the countries in the region to provide "political space".
The main task in Somalia was helping the Government and opposition groups to implement the Djibouti agreement and to devise institutions which were trusted and legitimate and which commanded the allegiance of the population, he said. He urged the regional countries, the IGAD and the African Union, as well as the League of Arab States and the United Nations, to support the peace process. A "wait and see" attitude was not enough.
LILA RATSIFANDRIHAMANANA, Permanent Observer for the African Union, recounted recent meetings and press releases by her organization expressing concern over the situation in Somalia and welcoming the Djibouti agreement. She stressed the appeal of the African Union Council to the United Nations Security Council to take the necessary steps to authorize the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia as a matter of urgency. The Union was making all possible efforts to strengthen AMISOM as it continued to carry out its work on the ground; its member States were called on to contribute additional troops to reach its authorized capacity of 8,000, from the current level of about 3,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi. An appeal had also been launched to the international community to provide the necessary financial and logistical support to AMISOM.
Welcoming the initiative of the Secretary-General towards the deployment of a multinational force under the Djibouti agreement, she restated the readiness of the African Union to work towards the integration of AMISOM into that force, with the hope that it could help in finalizing the conditions for a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia. She urged Member States and other stakeholders, whether or not they had been contacted by the Secretary-General, to respond positively and generously to his request. She also urged the Council to take a decisive step that could counter the serious challenges on the ground. Piracy, armed robbery, violence, trafficking, abuse of women and children, despair and the threat of terrorism were the symptoms of the decades-long situation.
Statements
DUMISANI S. KUMALO ( South Africa) took note of reports that the situation on the ground in Somalia was deteriorating quickly and commented that none of that was new. It was due to the long conflict in the country, and to some extent, the inaction of the international community. He condemned attacks on humanitarian workers, while welcoming the recent political agreements. The parties in the country had to be supported through confidence-building measures, and all parties must be brought into the political process. It was time for all Somali leaders to work for the people of Somalia. He also expressed concern over what would happen if contributions to the proposed multinational force were not forthcoming, asking what the Council's responsibility would be in that case. The fate of countries could not be left hanging in that way, he maintained.
He said that piracy received much attention, but such problems would not end until the entire situation of Somalia was addressed. He hoped that the Council would expend the same energy on, and attention to, the people of Somalia as it had to the piracy issue.
Noting the important role envisaged for AMISOM in implementing aspects of the Djibouti agreement and the preparatory phases for the deployment of a peacekeeping force, he said the African Union mission would not be able to do that if it continued to be under-resourced. It was important, therefore, for the international community to respond positively to the Union's call for support. The Council should not perpetuate the notion of Somalia as "the forgotten conflict"; it had a legal and, more importantly, a moral obligation to act.
JEAN-MAURICE RIPERT ( France), also speaking on behalf of the European Union, said that in 2007, France had taken the initiative to ensure protection of World Food Programme convoys. The European Council had set up a European Union naval force that would mobilize five to six naval vessels for the protection of vessels of the World Food Programme and others. The Secretary-General had welcomed the operations. Many States had wanted to reply to the Council's request to act. The European Union did not wish to be the only one to act. It had set up an office to coordinate efforts of the international community. The United Nations and the Secretary-General could help to mobilize efforts. However, it would not be feasible to set up real military coordination. He urged the Council to extend the mandate contained in resolution 1816 (2008).
Drawing attention to the link between the fight against piracy and the tragic situation of the people of Somalia, he said the situation was due to war, weakness of State, economy and crime. No anti-piracy operation could replace the action of an international force. A robust multinational force should be authorized by the Council and be deployed to Mogadishu.
ALDO MANTOVANI ( Italy) said the security situation continued to deteriorate. Kidnapping of hostages was of particular concern. He urged all parties to cease violence and to participate in the political process. The slow pace of implementation of the Djibouti agreement was also a matter of concern. He looked forward to the next meeting of the parties on Saturday. It was essential that leaders overcome their differences, as failure to do so would collapse the work of six years. The United Nations had a role to play, among other things, by the extension of financial aid and technical assistance, as well as through support for the establishment of the joint forces, as agreed.
He said a multinational force should either be established within a clear time frame, or other options should be considered. He underscored the need to provide support to AMISOM and to renew the mandate of resolution 1816 (2008) regarding piracy. Through such an extension, the issue of jurisdiction over those who were apprehended could also be addressed.
ATTIA OMAR MUBARAK ( Libya) expressed deep concern over the security and humanitarian situation in Somalia, despite the political progress that had been achieved. He condemned the attacks against the United Nations in the country, which he feared could erase the hopes that had been generated by recent agreements. He called upon the leaders of the country to work towards a functioning Government for all the people of Somalia, and he called on the Secretary-General to assure that all support efforts were well coordinated.
Turning to piracy, he expressed appreciation for the efforts of those countries that had contributed to the swift operations to allow humanitarian aid to continue. Piracy was the result of the instability in Somalia and would end when a comprehensive political settlement was reached. Maintaining that, there was an urgent need to deploy a force on the ground, whatever it was called, and he hoped that recent political agreements could be the basis for that force. There was no doubt that priority should be given to its deployment and to strengthening AMISOM. Unfortunately, the Secretary-General's report did not provide a timeline for those efforts, which raised even more concerns. He asked what the other options were and if conditions were not conducive for a force now. He urged countries in a position to do so to respond favourably to the Secretary-General's appeals for contributions to the force.
BONAVENTURE KOUDOUGOU ( Burkina Faso) condemned attacks in Somalia, particularly those against the United Nations and AMISOM. He welcomed the Djibouti agreement, calling on the parties to comply with it, and for all Somalis to join the process. He called on the international community to support the implementation of the agreement in all possible ways, including through the deployment of a multinational force. He deplored the weak response to the Secretary-General's request for contributions to that force. It was incumbent upon the Council to anticipate coming events and find solutions to that matter.
Piracy, he said, exacerbated the situation in the country, and he welcomed the effort by certain States to combat it. He welcomed the contributions of the International Maritime Organization in that area, but cautioned that the situation would only end with stability in Somalia. He called upon the international community to provide more assistance for AMISOM for that purpose and to act on the Secretary-General's requests for contributions. The credibility of the Organization was at stake.
HASAN KLEIB ( Indonesia) said efforts of leaders to reconcile were taking place against a situation where a military solution was becoming more attractive, due to the successes of opposition armed groups. The people of Somalia must come together and agree on a political framework to achieve peace. Welcoming the cessation of hostilities and the Djibouti agreements, he said the international community could do more to help Somalis to stop violence and humanitarian suffering. Today's resolution would hopefully contribute to the stability of Somalia. There was a hostile environment that made a peacekeeping force impossible. AMISOM remained central and the United Nations and the international community must urgently strengthen their support for the mission.
He said his country condemned and deplored all acts of piracy. Incidents of piracy took place on nearly a daily basis. Piracy also impacted the social and economic lives of the countries concerned. Piracy, however, was the by-product of lawlessness and lack of capacity. The key to combat it lay in the political process.
HOANG CHI TRUNG ( Viet Nam) noted with appreciation the progress made by the Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia in the implementation of the peace process. He hoped the signed agreements would pave the way for dialogue and mobilize the needed international assistance. It was a crucial step towards peace and stability. He remained concerned, however, by the increasing insecurity emanating from the fighting among armed groups, which had resulted in heavy loss of civilian lives.
The number of acts of piracy was alarming, he said, and the deterioration of security and stability in Somalia posed an immense challenge to the delivery of humanitarian aid. Simultaneous actions on both the political and security fronts were imperative. He urged the international community to continue its efforts to develop a common approach and commended the African Union and other regional organizations for their active role in the reconciliation process. The United Nations should extend necessary financial and technical assistance, and he expressed support for an early deployment of a multinational force.
RICARDO ALBERTO ARIAS ( Panama) expressed deep concern over the situation in Somalia. His country had repeatedly called for support to AMISOM, and he regretted the fact that such support had not been forthcoming in the manner requested by the African Union. He reiterated the call to support AMISOM with the required troops and equipment, as it was the only force now seeking to stabilize Somalia.
Regarding piracy, he said that the authorization of the Security Council to combat such crimes should be repeated and strengthened. Actions were now being taken separately by Member States, and some form of United Nations coordination should be considered.
ZHANG YESUI ( China) expressed appreciation for efforts towards reconciliation and political progress in Somalia. He called on all parties in the country to place national interests above all else and to make further progress as quickly as possible. The international community should support that process and encourage stability, he said, urging support for AMISOM. In 2007, China had provided funding to the African Union for that purpose and would consider other requests for support. A United Nations peacekeeping operation should be sent as soon as possible to prevent a worsening of the situation, he said, encouraging the Secretary-General to continue his efforts to get contributions for a multinational force that could precede a peacekeeping mission.
He said that the combat against piracy required coordinated action from the international community. That scourge was a result of the instability in Somalia and would not end until a solution to the overall situation was found.
JAN GRAULS ( Belgium) said he was extremely concerned at the ongoing deterioration of the humanitarian situation, which had a tragic impact on the population. Attacks against humanitarian workers were intolerable. He welcomed progress achieved by the Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia in the political situation; it should be supported by the international community and by all regional and subregional actors. The political progress, however, had not had the expected impact on the security situation. Opening up the Djibouti process to all stakeholders was the only solution.
He said the current security situation did not satisfy requirements for a United Nations peacekeeping operation, which in the current situation only left the option of a strengthened AMISOM. The number of acts of piracy had reached proportions that underlined the need for action by the international community. Belgium was studying the possibility of providing a vessel to the European Union force to be launched next month.
NEVEN JURICA ( Croatia) said that only progress on the political track could provide a solution to the rather bleak picture painted by the Secretary-General's report. He welcomed the agreements signed between the Transitional Government and the Alliance, commended the parties for their commitment to the peace process and called on all others to join the peace process.
The security situation gave little room for optimism, he said. The targeting of United Nations personnel and humanitarian workers was repugnant and should be dealt with severely. The Secretary-General's efforts would lead to a robust multinational force on the ground shortly. Meanwhile, however, AMISOM should be strengthened. All parties in the conflict should be held accountable when it came to respect for humanitarian law, particularly regarding delivery of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian access should remain a priority for the international community. In that regard, he supported the operations against piracy, but stressed that piracy was only a symptom. The country was in desperate need for a holistic approach.
KONSTANTIN DOLGOV ( Russian Federation) expressed hope that the resolution on sanctions adopted this morning would assist stability in Somalia. He welcomed recent political agreements, calling for their implementation and for cooperation between all parties. He backed the efforts of the Transitional Government to improve the situation, but noted that security continued to deteriorate, with attacks on humanitarian workers. He called on all States to cease the flow of arms into Somalia. The Russian Federation had authorized humanitarian aid to try to mitigate the situation.
Regarding piracy, he expressed appreciation for international efforts, noting that Russia was contributing to them and would continue to do so. There was a need to coordinate those efforts and for the criminals involved to be brought to justice. He agreed with all speakers who had noted that such actions alone would not solve the Somali situation, however, and he expressed support for AMISOM, while cautioning that the deployment of a United Nations mission depended on the willingness of Somali parties to implement the peace agreements. Thus far, the necessary conditions were absent, but it was incumbent on the Organization to continue to make preparations for all eventualities. He was carefully following discussions on the issue, and maintained that progress based on the Djibouti agreement could encourage States to contribute to a multinational force.
ROSEMARY DICARLO ( United States) stressed that all action to redress the instability in Somali must be coordinated and coherent, and include action to combat piracy. She was encouraged by recent political agreements, but stressed that the international community must take steps to cement stability in the country. The international community must support AMISOM for that purpose, and plan both for a multinational force or a peacekeeping operation, if contributions to a multinational force were not forthcoming. She emphasized that it was important to plan ahead for all scenarios. She supported the European Union initiative to combat piracy and efforts to improve humanitarian access in the interim.
JOHN SAWERS ( United Kingdom) said the report gave a realistic analysis of a bleak picture on the ground. The situation seemed to have worsened. The political process looked fragile, and that was not being helped by divisions within the Transitional Government. Increased violence suggested a worsening of the security situation. Security at sea was also deteriorating. With one frigate deployed and two other frigates in the area, ready to act, the United Kingdom was playing its part in the fight against piracy. When resolution 1816 (2008) came up for renewal next month, the mandate for naval operations should also be addressed, in order to provide the necessary means to effectively address the piracy problem. Humanitarian access was another pressing challenge, for which he would welcome advice from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
He said a military solution alone to the problems in Somalia was not possible. The Council should send a clear message that the best way forward was full implementation of the Djibouti agreement. The Secretary-General's report recommended first a multinational force to secure the situation on the ground and create conditions for a United Nations peacekeeping operation. He, therefore, encouraged the Secretary-General to continue efforts to identify States that would contribute to such a force. He welcomed the work done by the Peacekeeping Department to prepare for the time when a peacekeeping force was feasible.
JORGE URBINA ( Costa Rica) said the Council must face an important decision in order to define the nature of an intervention in Somalia, and it, therefore, needed more information and analysis. While welcoming the signing of the two agreements, he stressed the importance for other armed groups to join the peace process. The deterioration of the security situation was disturbing. He deplored that United Nations personnel, including local staff, and humanitarian personnel had been the target of armed groups. Progress in the security situation was necessary for the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance. One of the first objectives in Somalia should be to ensure the safety at the airport of Mogadishu.
He was concerned at the increase of armed robbery and kidnapping on the high seas. It was crucial to establish links between AMISOM and international efforts to fight piracy. He asked for more analysis and information on the Secretary-General's proposal for a multinational force and expressed the hope that countries that had the ability to provide personnel and resources would respond positively to the Secretary-General's call.
Copyright United Nations. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).Provider:Comtex News Network / AllAfrica.com English

Turning the heat on the pirates

Medeshi Nov 21, 2008
Turning the heat on the pirates
By Claudia Theophilus
The low risks for pirates and a lack of political will to tackle the problem are fuelling the increasingly frequent and violent attacks facing shipping in the waters off the Somali coastline, a global shipping watchdog has said.
The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has warned that the surge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden - already a situation that is "out of control" - could escalate yet further as more would-be pirates see the viability and profit to be made from the recent spate of attacks. The IMB's worldwide piracy reporting centre, based in Malaysia, has seen a spike in hjiackings off eastern Africa in recent weeks, with at least one vessel seized every few days compared to one or two a month previously.
Noel Choong, head of the Kuala Lumpur-based centre, said it was alarming that despite increased patrols by an international naval force it had documented eight ships seized in the Gulf of Aden in the last two weeks alone.
"It is not a good sign because we're now at the stage where the situation is already out of control," he told Al Jazeera.
'No deterrent'
"It may make a difference in due course if some examples are made to these people of what the consequences will be if they continue with this reprehensible behaviour"
Matthew Oakley, security consultant
Choong said piracy in the region could not be tackled without strong international political will do so and to address the domestic conflicts in eastern Africa which were helping to fuel the problem. "I expect the pirates will increase in numbers because there is no strong deterrent, and they face a low risk with high returns," he said.
Currently, he said, at least 17 ships and some 250 crewmembers are being held hostage by Somali pirates demanding millions of dollars in ransom payments.
Choong said the attacks in the Gulf of Aden were also occurring 800-900 kilometres out at sea, a factor he said showed the pirates were becoming increasingly confident.
"At that range, ships are on their own with no readily available help," he said.
Citing the recent spate of hijackings, including the unprecedented seizure a Saudi-owned supertanker, the Sirius Star, Choong said "the UN and the international community must find ways to stop this menace".
"The situation in the Gulf of Aden is very different than in the Straits of Malacca where the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore – known as the littoral states in the sea piracy business – have set aside large resources to solve the problem," he said.
The straits, like the Gulf of Aden, are a strategic chokepoint on major international shipping lanes.
In 2005 maritime insurer Llloyd's of London labelled the Straits of Malacca the world's top piracy hotspot.
But in the space of just three yearsa a programme of concerted action by regional governments has seen attacks there plummet.
Increased security
Now the Sirius Star incident appears to be drawing much-needed attention to the deteriorating security situation in the waters off Somalia.
This week South Korea said it was considering a deployment from its own navy to join US, French, Russian and Indian warships already operating off the coast of east Africa.
The US has also raised with other UN Security Council members its concerns about potential "terrorist groups" keeping a watch on the piracy issue.
On Wednesday the US defence department said the surge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden was "a real concern" that is being "dealt with at the highest levels".
A day earlier international naval forces patrolling the area scored a rare success when the Indian Navy said it had attacked and sunk a suspected mother ship from which the pirates had been launching raids.
But as yet the attacks show little sign of slowing.
On the same day a Thai-operated fishing boat registered in Kiribati was seized off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden while sailing to the Middle East.
Within a few hours the Delight, a Hong Kong-registered cargo vessel operating out of Iran, was hijacked in the same area with 25 crew members on board.
'Emboldened'
Matthew Oakley, a Singapore-based maritime security consultant, said part of the responsibility lies with shipping companies, who needed to be made more aware of the risks and responsibilities, as well as the "non-lethal countermeasures" that could deter future hijackings.
But speaking to Al Jazeera he said the situation in the Gulf of Aden had reached crisis proportions and that more assertive action may be needed to restore security.
"There is no doubt that there has been a significant increase [in attacks] because the pirates have become even more emboldened … waiting to see whether there is any military response."
"I'm not advocating that you blow people out of the water unless you can be as sure as possible that they are indeed bad guys. But I think it may make a difference in due course if some examples are made to these people of what the consequences will be if they continue with this reprehensible behaviour."

Islamists on trail of Somali pirates

Medeshi

Islamists on trail of Somali pirates
Fri 21 Nov 2008, 14:01 GMT
By Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said.
Separately, police in the capital Mogadishu said they ambushed and shot dead 17 Islamist militants, in the latest illustration of the chaos in the Horn of Africa country that has fuelled a dramatic surge in piracy.

The Sirius Star -- a Saudi vessel with a $100 million oil cargo and 25-man crew from the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Poland and Britain -- is believed anchored offshore near Haradheere, about half-way up Somalia's long coastline.
"Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships," Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, an Islamist spokesman, told Reuters. "Haradheere is under our control and we shall do something about that ship."
Both the U.S. Navy and Dubai-based ship operator Vela International said they could not confirm a media report the hijackers were demanding a $25 million ransom. That would be the biggest demand to date by pirates who prey on boats in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean off Somalia.
Iran's biggest shipping firm said gunmen holding a Hong Kong-flagged ship carrying wheat and 25 crew members had set demands for its release, but it did not reveal what they were.
An upsurge of attacks this year has forced up shipping insurance costs, made some firms go round South Africa instead of via the Suez Canal, brought millions in ransom payments, and prompted an international naval response.
In Mogadishu, police said they laid in wait and shot dead 17 fighters from the militant al Shabaab insurgent group during an attempted attack on a senior official.
The Islamists have been fighting the government and its Ethiopian allies for about two years. They launch near-daily guerrilla strikes in the capital and control most of the south, including a town just nine miles (14 km) from Mogadishu.
SOMALI NATION 'AT STAKE'
Islamist leaders deny allegations they collude with pirates and insist they will stamp down on them if they win power, citing a crackdown when they ruled the south briefly in 2006.
Some analysts, however, say Islamist militants are benefiting from the spoils of piracy and arms shipments facilitated by the sea gangs. Analysts also accuse government figures of collaboration with pirates.
The elder in Haradheere port told Reuters the Islamists arrived wanting to find out immediately about the Sirius Star, which was captured on Saturday about 450 nautical miles off Kenya in the pirates' furthest strike to date.
"The Islamists arrived searching for the pirates and the whereabouts of the Saudi ship," said the elder, who declined to be named. "I saw four cars full of Islamists driving in the town from corner to corner. The Islamists say they will attack the pirates for hijacking a Muslim ship."
In Mogadishu, al Shabaab gunmen drove to the home of the local Madina district chairman early in the morning, but found police officers lying in wait, witnesses said.
"We got information before they left their hideouts and we were able to surround them," said a police spokesman. "Thirteen of the dead bodies lie in the street near the chairman's house."
Residents said the al Shabaab fighters wore black scarves round their heads with Arabic script reading "God is great".
Somalis are traditionally moderate Muslims, and analysts say al Shabaab -- which Washington has listed as a foreign terrorist organisation with close links to al Qaeda -- does not have deep popular support, despite having the upper hand militarily.
Somalia has been without effective central government since the 1991 toppling of a military dictator by warlords.
The capture of the Sirius Star has caused panic around the world, with the rampant piracy threatening to become a further drag on trade at a time of global economic downturn.
Kenya's Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula summoned foreign ambassadors in Nairobi to appeal for their countries to make all efforts to end the menace. "Act now and not tomorrow," he said.
Wetangula also urged Somali government leaders, whose bickering is hampering a U.N.-brokered peace process, to return home to tackle piracy instead of staying in neighbouring Kenya.
Visiting Ethiopia, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was asked about piracy: "Somalia, it's a burden. More than a burden, it's a very heavy preoccupation," he said.
President Abdullahi Yusuf said in Nairobi that Somalis had only themselves to blame for their difficult circumstances.
"No one attacked us and forced us into this condition. It is as a result of our actions that we destroyed our nationhood ... The freedom and the unity of the Somali people is on the edge of falling, Yusuf told reporters.

Somali pirates wallow in cash, leave no bank trail
Fri 21 Nov 2008

By Mark Trevelyan
LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Tens of millions of dollars extorted from ship owners by Somali pirates are immune from interception and seizure because they are pouring into the economy of a nation with no effective government or policing.
International crime gangs normally have to "launder" their proceeds through the financial system to make them appear like legitimate funds, thereby creating a money trail that can make them vulnerable to detection.
But financial experts say this is not the case in Somalia, an archetypal "failed state" which has no strong central authority, no formal banking system, and has known nothing but civil war for nearly two decades.
Pirates who seized the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star and its $100 million oil cargo last weekend in the biggest ship hijack in history have already made tens of millions, in cash, from scores of previous attacks this year.
"They live like monarchs, like kings. They do everything in public, without the need to hide or disguise the source of money," said Hany Aby-El-Fotouh, an Egyptian banker and anti-moneylaundering specialist.
"The money is there, bulk cash. The local government doesn't mind, or doesn't have the authority to object, to control ... All dirty deals are paid in cash," he said, referring to the pirates' purchases of arms, communications gear, speedboats and other equipment.
"There is no need for them to launder the money, because the law enforcement is not there at all, the banking system is not there, so why even think of laundering money?"
RANSOM BOOM
Pirate activity has grown into a small but profitable industry in one of the world's poorest countries.
"Apart from those who take part in the operations, who currently number more than 1,000, there are those who provide services ranging from negotiations with ship owners, procurement of weapons, training of pirates, information gathering, logistics and so on," said Ismail Ahmed, a British expert with 20 years' experience of Somali financial and development issues.
He was sceptical of suggestions that some funds may be laundered via the Gulf, saying the pirates kept their money inside Somalia because they knew it would be intercepted if they moved it outside the country.
"Some invest in land and property in their home towns where they know that they would never be prosecuted," Ahmed said.
"All the towns in the area are booming ... Ransom money 'trickles down' to many people in the towns. This is one of the reasons why local people support it."
Michael Weinstein, a Somalia expert at Purdue University in the U.S. state of Indiana, said the trigger for the escalation of pirate attacks had been the collapse of the local economy in Somalia's Puntland region.
"The administration there is honeycombed with corrupt officials that have links to the pirates," Weinstein said. He said the government had no funds to pay its military, and the economy was beset by hyperinflation because of massive over-printing of Somali shillings. Ahmed said the local economy now runs on dollars, with shillings used only for small change.
Experts said that while the pirates may enjoy tacit support from Somalia's leading Islamist group, al Shabaab, their motive is profit, not terrorism, and there is no evidence that they are linked to al Qaeda.
The U.S. Treasury announced on Thursday new anti-terrorism sanctions against three al Shabaab leaders but did not link the move to the surge in pirate activity.
Al Qaeda, which has conducted at least two major attacks at sea, may however watch the hijack dramas with keen interest.
A militant supporter wrote in a message to Internet forums this week, monitored by the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, that the crisis was drawing Western navies to the seas off East Africa where they would be easy meat for al Qaeda attacks.
"The enemies of al Qaeda ... will swallow the bait and come to the area in which al Qaeda has woven its nets," he wrote. "At that time, al Qaeda will settle scores with America and its allies by striking their ships or sinking them." (Additional reporting by Alistair Lyon; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Pirates set demands for Iran-chartered ship
Fri 21 Nov 2008

TEHRAN, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Somali pirates have set demands for releasing a Hong Kong-flagged ship that was chartered by an Iranian company, the Iranian shipping firm said on Friday, without disclosing what they were.
The Delight, with 25 crew and 36,000 tonnes of wheat, was hijacked off the Yemeni coast this week on its way to Iran from Germany. It was chartered by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), the country's biggest shipping firm.
"We are in contact with the vessel. We could get in contact with the vessel yesterday (Thursday) and all the ship's personnel are in good health and we are discussing the matter with the pirates," the IRISL official told Reuters.
"They put forward their demands .. We are following the case," said the official, who asked not to be identified by name. "They (the pirates) called us ... when they anchored further down the coast (south) from the Eyl area," he added, referring to a former fishing outpost now used by gangs.
Some reports have said a ransom of $25 million has been demanded for a Saudi oil supertanker that has also been hijacked by Somali pirates, but the U.S. Navy and operators of the Saudi vessel have said they cannot confirm the reports.
Another IRISL ship, the bulk carrier Iran Deyanat, was hijacked by pirates on Aug. 21 and released on Oct. 10. The IRISL official declined to comment when asked if a ransom was paid to free that vessel.
IRISL said in October it had told its ships to string barbed wire on their decks and put crew on the alert for pirates when sailing in dangerous waters.
Lloyd's List reported the Delight was a 43,218 deadweight tonne vessel and was heading to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. Mohammad Mehdi Rasekh, an IRISL board member, told an Iranian news agency this week that IRISL would have to discuss any ransom payment with the Hong Kong owners of the ship. (Reporting by Edmund Blair, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Africa's Top Diplomat Blames Somalia's Feuding Politicians for Piracy Surge

Medeshi
Africa's Top Diplomat Blames Somalia's Feuding Politicians for Piracy Surge
By Peter Heinlein Addis Ababa

21 November 2008
Africa's top diplomat is blaming Somalia's feuding politicians for the surge in piracy along the coast of the Horn of Africa, and is calling for swift international intervention. VOA's Peter Heinlein reports from African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.
Jean Ping (File)
African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping is holding urgent talks on the piracy issue with several European diplomats, including visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the European Union presidency. Speaking to VOA, Ping said the surge in activity by Somali pirates is a symptom of the political failure that has brought the country's U.N.-backed transitional government to the brink of collapse.
"Piracy is an extension on the sea of the problem you are facing on the land. Of course we talked about all these problems [like] piracy, which is an important aspect of all the disorder you already have in Somali territory," Ping said.
An African Union statement urges the U.N. Security Council to dispatch a peacekeeping force to assist a beleaguered A.U. force of about 3400 troops trying to maintain order in the lawless country that is home to a raging Islamist insurgency. The statement quotes Ping as saying piracy is a clear indication of the further deterioration of Somalia's political situation, with far reaching consequences for the entire Horn of Africa region.
In a pointed message to Somalia's feuding leaders this week, both the United Nations and the East African regional grouping IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) approved economic sanctions on anyone blocking peace efforts in the Horn of Africa nation. Diplomats say the resolutions are equally aimed at politicians and pirates, both of whom have contributed to the instability that in turn has led to what aid officials call the world worst humanitarian crisis.
The surge in Somali piracy has led the world's largest shipping company, A.P. Moeller-Maersk of Denmark to suspend shipping through the Gulf of Aden. Several countries, including the United States, India and Russia have sent navy ships to the region to try to protect commercial shipping. But officials admit it will be difficult to police the vast oceans where heavily armed pirates operate, using high-powered speedboats.
The pirates have seized eight vessels in the past two weeks, including a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million worth of crude oil.
In one rare instance of countermeasures, an Indian Navy ship Tuesday destroyed a pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden. Such 'mother ships' are used to transport gunmen and speedboats to targets offshore.

The Suez route: Somali Pirates Hitting the Saudis and the Egyptians where it hurts

Medeshi 21 Nov, 2008

The Suez route: Somali Pirates Hitting the Saudis and the Egyptians where it hurts
The Somali pirates have caused too much loss of revenue for the Egyptians as most of the ships sailing through the Suez Canal have diverted to the old and longer route at the Cape of Good Hope. The Saudis have also been losing vital export of oil because of the piracy at the Indian Ocean and the red sea. Both of these countries have been involved in malicious activities against Somalia for the last decades.
Egypt which has been involved or been behind the long wars between Somalia and Ethiopia because of the Nile waters has just realized that the Somali pirates are a greater threat than the disruption of a small portion of the Nile waters. The recent meeting in Cairo in which the Arab states urged the fight against piracy in the Somali waters is a witness to that.
Mean while, the Saudis have exhausted much effort and money to block any exploration of oil by the western Companies in Somalia for the last 4 decades . They have even paid to a certain American oil company the amount of $ 6 million in order not to explore oil in the Nugal basin. This has secretly been disclosed by Al Yamani who has been the oil minister of Saudi Arabia in the seventies and eighties after he left office.
The current situation caused by the Somali pirates is that the Container-shipping company A.P. Moller Maersk AS said it will divert some of its oil tankers around the Cape of Good Hope and transfer some cargo to faster ships amid the rise in piracy in the Gulf of Aden.
The Copenhagen-based company called on the international community to act on the growing piracy problem in the region as other shipping companies indicated they are considering a similar step.
Diverting ships around the southern tip of Africa -- rather than the faster route through the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and Suez Canal into the Mediterranean -- will increase shipping fuel bills and will mean goods take weeks longer to reach their destinations.

Maersk Tankers Chief Executive Soren Skou said that two or three of its oil tankers will be diverted each week. "In addition, the cargoes carried on a continuous basis by three small container ships between ports in the Gulf of Aden area will be transferred to bigger, faster ships," he said.
Slower ships and vessels that sit closer to the waterline are most at risk from pirates.
The company's move comes after pirates over the weekend seized the Saudi-owned Sirius Star oil tanker, the largest ship yet taken and the attack farthest away from Somalia, where many of the pirates are based. The ship's owners are negotiating with the pirates.
Maersk's tanker diversions will increase journey times, raising fuel bills by around 20% to 25%, Mr. Skou said. Tankers going from the Middle East to Europe will take 14 days longer, and to the U.S. eight days longer than usual.
"Somali pirates are in the process of closing down perhaps one of the most important sea trade routes in the world," Mr. Skou said, calling on the international community to solve the growing problem. "This is not something the shipping industry can handle on its own. We need international solutions, enough navy assets, cooperation between fleets," he said.
Several navies have fleets in the region and a pirate vessel was sunk this week by an Indian warship. However, the pirates' capture of the Saudi tanker showed they are becoming bolder and moving further into the vast Indian Ocean, which is proving difficult to police. The commander of U.S. and allied naval forces off the coast of Somalia has urged merchant vessels to sail with armed guards on board and to travel only within lanes now patrolled by warships.
Other shipping companies are warning they may also have to reroute vessels. Tanker owner Frontline Ltd., based in Olso, Thursday said it may also avoid sending ships through the Gulf of Aden.
Maersk said it has safety and security measures in place for its vessels that do enter the Gulf of Aden, and will continue to monitor the situation.
By medeshi editor

Floods displace families in Somalia

Floods displace families in Somalia
NAIROBI, 19 November 2008 (MEDESHI) - At least 8,000 hectares of farmland in southern Somalia's Lower Shabelle region have been destroyed after the Shabelle river burst its banks, displacing thousands of people, officials said.
The flooding occurred around the town of Kurtunwarey, 140km south of Mogadishu.
"In Afgoye Yarey alone, the population of some 1,750 families [about 10,500 people], were affected. Not a single resident is there now," Sidow Hassan Arkey, an elder, told MEDESHI on 19 November.
"We were about to harvest [crops] when the river broke its banks," Arkey added.
He said residents not only lost their crops but also their homes. "We are all in temporary shelters around our village."
Salad Ali Kofi, an elder from Kurtunwarey, the main town in the area, said residents had had poor harvests in the past two years and were expecting this year to be good. "We hoped for a good harvest but now everything is lost and the population needs help."
Abdirashid Haji, country director of Concern Worldwide, told MEDESHI some 15 villages, with an estimated population of 4500 families, or 27,000 people, were affected by the flooding.
Worst affected were Afgoye Yarey, Uran-Urow, Murqmal, Bulo Warabo, Aflow and Dhayni, said Haji, who visited the villages. "All seven villages are inaccessible." The villagers had moved to higher ground, or to unaffected areas, he said.
He said 7,927 hectares of farmland, including 6,313 of standing crops, were destroyed.
The floods also destroyed 15 water wells and 45km of irrigation canals. The rains were still continuing and level of water in the Shabelle was still rising, he said.
Fadumo SiidAli, 30, from Afgoye Yarey, told MEDESHI the villagers in her area had lost everything. "We have nothing, except the stuff they [Concern Worldwide] gave us."
She said she and her three children were living in a temporary shelter, with plastic sheeting.Haji said his agency provided non-food kits to some 1,500 families, including plastic sheeting, blankets, mosquito nets and cooking utensils.
Making matters worse is the lack of proper management of the irrigation system since the collapse of the national government in 1991, he said.
"There has been little de-silting of the riverbed or proper managing of gates on the rivers or adjoining canals," he added. Farmers had also eroded the river bank in an effort to irrigate their fields.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it was assessing the situation with a view to helping the affected population.
"WFP is assessing the situation in terms of the number of villages and people affected by the floods to provide them with necessary assistance," said Abdi Ibrahim Jama, information officer for WFP in Somalia.

Source : IRIN

ETHIOPIA: Thousands displaced by floods in Somali region

ETHIOPIA: Thousands displaced by floods in Somali region
ADDIS ABABA, 18 November 2008 (IRIN) - At least 52,000 people have abandoned their homes in Ethiopia's Somali region after the Wade Shabelle and Genale rivers burst their banks following heavy rains.
"Heavy rains pounded western highlands and six woredas [administrative wards] in the Somali region, causing floods," Ramadan Haji Ahmed, head of the government's disaster prevention department in the region, said.
"The rain lasted six days from 2 November," he told IRIN.

The six woredas were in Gode, Afeder and Liben zones. Ramadan said 36,888 people were displaced and three killed in the worst-affected woreda, Kelafo, in Gode.

"The flood hit 14 kebeles [smallest administrative wards] and 85 villages in Kelafo," Ramadan said. "It washed away crops on 164 hectares."
Crops were also destroyed in West Emi woreda of Afder zone. "The Wabe Shebelle River burst its banks and flooded 17 kebeles in West Emi," Ramadan added. "Thanks to early warnings, the villagers fled to nearby mountains. The flood damaged crops on 3,200 hectares."

At least 10,740 displaced people have been registered in Dolo Odo woreda of Liben zone. "Dolo Odo was flooded after the overflow of Genale river," Ramadan said. "The roads from Dolo Odo to Filtu and Negele are also blocked."
Floods cut off the road linking Degahabur town with Gode zone after the Dirkot River burst its banks.
"We brought 30 vehicles of aid from Dire Dawa central warehouse but we could not continue to Gode due to the damaged road," Ramadan said. "We are now preparing to use another road."
However, he feared the continued heavy rains would hamper relief efforts.
"Meteorology reports show there will not be heavy rain in the next three days," he said. "If there is any heavy rain, the only choice is an airlift."
The Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Bureau in the region has begun dispatching relief food and was preparing to distribute non-food items.
"All affected woredas need emergency relief," Ramadan said. "We have not yet released any appeal, but it will be ready as soon as we get a complete assessment of the situation."In 2007, flooding left 135,000 people displaced across Ethiopia. In August, flash floods in Gambella regional state displaced about 20,000 people.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Environment, (IRIN) Natural Disasters, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

Somalia's pirate kings

Medeshi 19 Nov, 2008

Somalia's pirate kings

DHOWS rest on a white sand beach in front of a few dozen ramshackle homes. A creek cuts inland, traced by a dirt road that runs to a craggy fishing settlement five kilometres away. Until recently Eyl was a remote and rundown Somali fishing outpost of 7000 people. Now, thanks to some spectacular ocean catches, it is a booming mini-town, awash with dollars and heavily armed young men, and boasting a new notoriety: piracy capital of the world.

(Photo: These eight Somali pirates have been handed over to the Kenyan authorities by the British Royal navy , but there are hundreds more enjoying the spoils of their crimes)
At least 12 foreign ships are being held hostage in the waters off Eyl in the Nugal region, 300 nautical miles south of Africa's Horn, including a Ukrainian vessel, the MV Faina, loaded with 33 tanks and ammunition that was hijacked in September.
The captured ships are being closely watched by hundreds of pirates aboard boats equipped with satellite phones and GPS devices. Hundreds more gunmen provide back-up on shore, where they incessantly chew the narcotic leaf qat and dream of sharing in the huge ransoms that can run into millions of dollars.
In a war-ravaged country where life is cheap and hope is rare, each successful hijack brings more young men into the village to seek their fortunes at sea. Somalia has been wracked by war for almost 20 years since its central government collapsed.
"Even secondary school students are stopping their education to go to Eyl because they see how their friends have made a lot of money," Abdulqaadir Muuse Yusuf, deputy fisheries minister for the Puntland region, says.
The entire village now depends on the criminal economy. Hastily built hotels provide basic lodging for the pirates, new restaurants serve meals and send food to the ships, while traders provide fuel for the skiffs flitting between the captured vessels.
The pirate kingpins who commute from the regional capital, Garowe, 160 kilometres west, in new four-wheel-drive vehicles splash their money around. When a ransom is received the gunmen involved in hijacking the particular ship join in the splurge, much to the pleasure of long-time residents.
Jaama Salah, a trader, said that a bunch of qat can sell for $65, compared with $15 in other towns. Asli Faarah, a tea vendor, said: "When the pirates have money I can easily increase my price to $3 for a cup." Somalis in the diaspora — especially in Kenya, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Britain — finance the pirate gangs and keep a large chunk of the ransom money, estimated at more than $US50 million ($A77 million) this year alone. Bosasso is the capital of the lawless enclave of Puntland, which has an annual budget of only $A35 million. But the gangs of gunmen sometimes split hundreds of thousands of dollars between them.
In the region's bigger towns, such as Garowe and Bosasso on the Gulf of Aden coast, a successful hijack is often celebrated with a meal and qat-chewing session at an expensive hotel.
One successful pirate based in Garowe, Abshir Salad, said: "First we look to buy a nice house and car. Then we buy guns and other weapons. The rest of the money we use to relax."
The pirates appear to have little fear of arrest by the weak administration, which many suspect of involvement in the trade. By spreading the money to local officials, chiefs, relatives and friends, the pirates have created strong logistical and intelligence networks, and avoided the clan-based fighting that affects so much of the rest of the country.
An entire industry has grown up around refitting the vessels used by the gangs. When hostages are brought in, they must be fed during their long period in captivity. Some restaurants in Eyl have reportedly been established especially for this purpose. New villas are springing up and the streets are filled with expensive cars, but the pirates have been careful to re-invest some money in faster boats with long-range radios and satellite navigation systems.
This technology has allowed them to extend their operations deep into the Indian Ocean, while once they were only a coastal threat and large vessels could avoid them simply by remaining out to sea.
Eyl is patrolled by numerous militiamen who would threaten any mission to rescue the hostages held in the town. All this takes place in the homeland of Somalia's officially recognised "president", Abdullahi Yusuf.
Holed up in the capital, Mogadishu, where he barely controls a few districts of the city, Yusuf is a national leader in name only.
But the warlord, 73, was president of Puntland between 1998 and 2004. Yusuf comes from the Darod clan, which forms the majority in Puntland. But he is unlikely to have any control over his piratical clansmen. Without their efforts, the enclave's economy would probably collapse.
And though few believe the pirates when they claim to be eco-warriors or marines defending Somali waters from foreign exploitation, their daring and wealth has earned them respect. It has become something of a tradition for successful pirates to take additional wives, marrying them in lavish ceremonies.
Naimo, 21, from Garowe, said she had attended a wedding last month of the sort "I had never seen before".
"It's true that girls are interested in marrying pirates because they have a lot of money. Ordinary men cannot afford weddings like this," she says.
GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH

Naval patrols will not stop attacks, says Somali PM
Hijacked Saudi tanker anchors off Somalia
Indian navy destroys pirate boat as more ships taken
Govt dismisses Somali Islamists attack threat
Three pirates killed as war stepped up
Regional leaders to discuss Somalia
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein said naval patrols would not stop piracy and appealed for more help to tackle criminal networks with links beyond the Horn of Africa nation.
The audacious hijack of a supertanker 450 miles off Kenya on Saturday was the latest in a spate of attacks by Somali pirates which has sparked international alarm and threatens to push up the cost of goods and commodities around the world.
Hussein said piracy should be confronted on land and at sea and it would become clearer in the coming months which organisations outside Somalia were involved in hijackings.
“We are very sorry that this piracy problem is not limited only to Somalia but is affecting the whole region, is affecting the world,” he told Reuters in an interview.
“The warship operations alone will not be sufficient. Since there is a piracy network, it means an operational network which includes the sea, the land and also outside the country sometimes,” he said.
The supertanker was seized despite the deployment of a naval force including Nato and European Union members’ ships to protect one of the world’s busiest shipping areas. US, French and Russian warships are also off Somalia.
“I think this is linked to some other organisations. I don’t think that this is only, purely, Somali piracy,” Hussein said. “Criminal groups, definitely ... it is an assumption. But of course in the coming months, definitely, the picture will be more clear.”
Analysts suspect the Somali pirates are being helped by Yemenis, and possibly Nigerians. They fear the spoils may end up funding international terrorist groups, though there is no hard evidence of this.
Analysts say international efforts should, besides sending warships, focus on financial networks recycling the tens of millions of dollars of ransoms paid this year.
“There’s a financial network that needs to tracked down. There needs to be a multi-agency response,” said Jason Alderwick, a maritime defence analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Hussein said Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government did not have the means to take on the pirates and called for international help to establish a viable coastguard.
Maritime analysts say foreign warships will have a tough time stamping out piracy because the pirates have shown they can strike over a vast expanse of sea. The area hit by hijackings so far is more than a million square miles. Since hijacking the supertanker, Somali pirates have struck twice in the Gulf of Aden, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world linking Europe to Asia and the Middle East.
Diplomats say only a solution on the ground in Somalia will eradicate the problem. Islamists control most of south Somalia, feuding, heavily armed clan militias hold sway in many other areas and the weak, Western-backed TFG is in the capital Mogadishu.

(Reuters)

East African Regional Group Threatens Sanctions on Somalia's Leaders

Medeshi Nov 19, 2008
East African Regional Group Threatens Sanctions on Somalia's Leaders
By Peter Heinlein Addis Ababa
Somalia's neighbors are threatening sanctions against the country's feuding leaders unless they settle a political dispute that threatens to plunge the Horn of Africa nation into chaos. VOA's Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports the East Africa regional group IGAD is calling on the African Union and the United Nations to follow suit.

The mood was somber as top foreign ministry officials from Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti gathered at an Addis Ababa hotel to address an issue many say is undermining regional stability. After a brief huddle, they issued a statement expressing dismay with the failure of Somalia's transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein to end their squabble over cabinet posts, as they had pledged to do at an IGAD summit meeting in Nairobi last month.
The statement, read by Ethiopia's ambassador to the African Union Sahle Work Zewde, calls for tough sanctions on anyone blocking peace efforts.
"Decides with immediate effect to impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans, freezing of assets among others, against all those in and outside Somalia who have become obstacles to the achievement of peace in Somalia, and calls upon the African Union and the U.N. Security Council to do the same," she said.

The statement did not name names, but afterward Ambassador Sahle Work told reporters it should be clear that the main target is Somalia's President Yusuf, who has refused to accept the list of cabinet ministers proposed by Prime Minister Hussein.
"We can clearly see that the leadership doesn't show enough political will and between the leadership it's very clear who presented and who rejected the list," she said. "So we are not in the business of pinpointing X or Y by name, but I think that things are very clear to know who the obstacle, obstacles are in this process."
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin bluntly warned the leaders to put aside their differences or face withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops, and possibly also the African Union peacekeeping force known as AMISOM, which are propping up Somalia's feeble transitional administration.
"I want to reiterate as unequivocally as possible. Ethiopian troops and perhaps AMISOM too are not prepared to continue paying heavy sacrifices indefinitely," he said. "The top leadership of the transitional government, the federal government of Somalia have to decide whether they commit to the Nairobi decision of IGAD heads of state and government, or that they be left alone to fight among themselves."
Somalia's Foreign Minister Ali Jama also attended the gathering. He described conditions in his country as "very grave", both in political and humanitarian terms. With an estimated 3.2 million people, 40 percent of the population in need of emergency assistance, he called on his president and prime minister to put aside their personal and clan animosities in the interests of avoiding what he called "a catastrophe."
"Enough is enough. The time has come for the leaders to reconcile, and resolve their differences with immediate effect, and implement the Nairobi declaration," he said.
One positive development at the ministerial gathering was announcement that an 800-strong battalion of Kenyan troops would join the AMISOM peacekeeping force, bringing it up to a strength of about 4,200. It was not clear when the Kenyan troops might be deployed.

Somalia : All at sea

Medeshi

All at sea
How did a mere bunch of Somali pirates manage to hijack one of the world's biggest supertankers? All too easily, say industry insiders. The spoils are huge, the crews unarmed, and the shipowners themselves curiously uninterested in stopping them. By Jon Henley
(Photo: Pirate boat on fire)
Jon Henley
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 19 2008

The Guardian,

Article history
The Sirius Star is one of the world's newest, and biggest, supertankers. Like other modern Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), it cost about $150m to build and measures around 330m from bow to stern, or nearly twice as long as the 41-storey building at, 30 St Mary Axe, better known as the Gherkin, is tall. It is, in the words of Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the US Naval Forces Fifth Fleet, roughly three times the size of an aircraft carrier.
So how come a vessel whose cargo is so substantial that its loss can cause the world oil price to jump by more than a dollar fall prey to a ragged band of Somali pirates who, in all probability, scrambled on board from a couple of fast launches? How could one of the biggest man-made objects on earth become the victim of yet another hijacking in the waters off east Africa, an area that has witnessed more than 90 such incidents this year alone (and which yesterday witnessed another, in the shape of a Hong Kong freighter called the Delight)?
The short answer is: easily. Contrary to what many imagine, the deck of a fully charged VLCC will be barely 3.5 metres above the waterline. After hitching a ride on a similar vessel from Saudi Arabia to Singapore for his book on modern-day piracy, Dangerous Waters, the author and former merchant seaman John Burnett wrote: "Could pirates take over a ship this huge, this important? On a VLCC you are above the world; the idea of being boarded and attacked by pirates seems ludicrous and on this voyage I shared with the captain his sense of invincibility ..."
But, the captain conceded and Burnett somewhat prophetically concluded, "laden with crude oil, it will be easy for pirates to take over this ship. They will come up from behind within the shadow of radar coverage and, attacking from the stern, the lowest point of the ship, they will throw their grappling hooks over the railings and scamper up the sides. Anyone standing on the bow of a fishing boat or a large speedboat could be up and over the railing of a VLCC in seconds. Perhaps we are not so invincible after all. Perhaps it is only a matter of time."
It gives Burnett no particular pleasure to have predicted precisely the fate of the Sirius Star more than five years ago. But piracy is widespread and, in some regions, very much on the rise. According to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which collates the figures for both attempted and successful hijacks, there were 264 piracy attacks around the world in 2007. By September this year there had been 199. Many take place in what has up until now been considered the most dangerous area: the South China Sea, and the Malacca Strait between Indonesia and Malaysia. But the fastest-growing area is the Gulf of Aden, off wartorn and lawless Somalia and its breakaway region of Puntland, where the number of attacks doubled to 60 in 2007 and has soared to 92 so far this year.
The Somali brand of piracy is different to that practised in south-east Asia, says Peter Newton, a captain with the Danish shipping line Maersk, who was the victim of an attack in the early 1990s. "We were out of Singapore, bound for New Zealand," he recalls, "and well out of the area where we were considered at risk of a pirate attack, so I'd stood down the anti-piracy precautions we had in place as a matter of course. I'd just gone back down to my cabin and a couple of minutes later they simply walked in. It was a bit of a surprise."
Newton's first thought, he says, was that the crew had mutinied. "They were dressed in balaclavas, armed with machete-type knives, and their leader at least spoke excellent English," he says. "In fact, they were basically interested just in robbing me and the ship's safe. The whole thing was over in about 30 minutes. They slapped me around a bit and forced me to open the safe, which had an anti-tamper device fitted that, if it had been set, would have triggered an alarm. They made it perfectly clear they would shoot me if that happened. Fortunately, it didn't."
Newton reckons the vast majority of pirate robberies, particularly in south-east Asia, are not even reported. "No shipping company likes to advertise that they've been the subject of an attack," he says, "because it's bad for their image. Plus, they're not even really bothered. The attack on my vessel netted a grand total of $24,000. The ship itself costs around $50,000 a day to charter."
Somalia is a different story. The Somali gangs, armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and operating often from a "mother ship" from which they launch fast, high-powered skiffs, are interested not so much in robbery as ransom. Of the 90-plus attacks carried out so far this year, 36 were hijackings. Around 500 crew members have been taken hostage and an estimated $30m paid out in ransom for the captured ships, their cargo, officers and crew. One of the most spectacular operations was against a luxury French three-masted yacht, Le Ponant, whose 32 passengers and crew were taken captive (and eventually ransomed) in April. At least 14 vessels are thought still to be held. And the pirates seem undeterred by a couple of high-profile operations by French special forces, or the presence in the area of a multinational task force including American, Russian, Danish and British warships.
In that, says writer Adrian Tinniswood, who is writing a book on the Barbary coast corsairs of the 17th century, they are descended pretty much in a direct line from their forebears. While the corsairs operated from modern-day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and although many of the most fearsome among them were actually renegade Europeans (including a
particularly notorious and bloodthirsty captain called Yusuf Rais, who was actually a fisherman from Faversham by the name of John Ward), "they used very much the same tactics", says Tinniswood.
"Like their modern equivalents, the Barbary coast pirates relied on fast boats and fear to overcome their prey," he adds. "Their aim, of course, was to capture the cargoes and sell, rather than ransom, the crew, which was a considerably worse fate. Not a lot of people know that in the 17th century one million Europeans were sold into slavery in Africa; the vast majority had been captured by pirates. More than 150 English ships were hijacked, and James I went so far as to call the Barbary corsairs 'the common enemy of mankind'."
This is the first time, though, that today's pirates have attacked anything as vast as a VLCC, or indeed any vessel quite so far from their home bases - the Sirius Star was several hundred miles out to sea, about 450 miles from the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Jim Wilson, Middle East correspondent of the shipping weekly Fairplay, says the attack "marks a significant step up in the confidence and capability of Somali pirates to attack shipping. It may also mark the effect of increased anti-pirate naval activity in the Gulf of Aden". Commodore Keith Winstanley, deputy commander of the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) in the Middle East, told the magazine: "It's inconceivable that [the CMF] can be everywhere. The pirates will go somewhere we are not. If we patrol the Gulf of Aden then they will go to Mogadishu. If we go to Mogadishu, they will go to the Gulf of Aden."
Burnett, for one, is not surprised. "The great fallacy is that because ships this size are nine storeys tall, they're impregnable," he says. "In fact, they're sitting ducks. These are the softest targets, the lowest-hanging fruit of the whole of world maritime commerce."
Newton agrees. "The thing about a VLCC," he says, "is that its size actually lets it down because it's so slow. This vessel was probably only doing about 15 knots, which would have made it easy prey for almost any reasonably speedy launch. Once they've reached it, it's a relatively easy task to board because the freeboard is so low. What impresses me, though, is the fact that they found it: they'd obviously been tracking it electronically, because succeeding in making a rendezvous with another vessel in open sea so far offshore is exceptionally difficult."
Once they had located and approached it, though, Newton says, the Sirius Star would have been considered "pretty much a risk-free operation" by the pirates. First, he says, the crew would not have put up a fight. "Maybe a European professional crew might have tried, but the pirates know full well that a civilian crew from the Philippines, from Russia or Croatia will not really resist. They'd be the first to admit that they are only there because they can earn more money at sea than they can at home; they'll have little or no appetite for a struggle."
Nor, even if the crew of a supertanker was attempting to guard against a pirate attack, could it actually do so. The Sirius Star, with its crew of 25, would have probably six deckhands, Newton points out. "Assuming one guy can be expected to survey maybe a 100-metre stretch of deck, on a carrier the size of this your entire deck crew would be permanently engaged in looking out for a possible attack," he says. "That's plainly impractical."
The suggestion, floated in the wake of the latest hijacking, that crews might in future be armed is equally unworkable, Newton argues. "Carrying weapons is very, very problematic. If I'm on board ship I'm bound by exactly the same rules and laws as you are in an office in London. We can't carry knives or any other kind of weapon. The problem is, if you're an armed security guard on land you're not going to find yourself in a different country in a few weeks' time. Can you imagine a merchant ship arriving in a foreign port with half its crew armed to the teeth? It's just not going to happen."
Against an increasingly professional and determined foe, then, what is the answer? Jonathan Davies, senior security instructor at the Maersk Training Centre, has taught a course called Spar - Surviving Piracy and Armed Robbery - for the past three years, and says his sessions are currently "extremely well subscribed: the problem with piracy is becoming more and more significant. It's becoming an extremely alarming problem."
As well as giving seafarers the psychological tools to reduce post-traumatic stress following any eventual attack, Davies says standard advice on avoiding one includes manoeuvring the ship rapidly and, if possible, unpredictably (difficult when, as in the case of a VLCC, it can take minutes between a command being given on the bridge and the vessel actually changing direction); operating the ship's fire hoses, basically to "dissuade pirates from boarding by demonstrating that the crew is alert"; deploying search and deck lights with a similar aim; and even "swamping the would-be boarders' boat".
But ultimately, industry insiders concede, it is extremely difficult for any ship to avoid an attack by well-armed, well-prepared, resolute attackers. "It's down to the captain, really," says one expert who asked not to be named. "If it's a tanker with a low freeboard, the attackers can basically step on board. If it's a container vessel or a roll-on roll-off, higher in the water, they may say: unless you heave to, we will shoot. So the captain has to think, for example, how many shots is he prepared to take. He has to consider not just the safety of his crew, but also the safety of his cargo. If he's carrying flammable product, any shots at all might be catastrophic. And of course certain kinds of cargo could trigger an ecological disaster."
A major part of the problem, says Newton, is that the shipowners themselves are curiously uninterested. "They're fully covered by insurance," he says. "Even if, heaven forbid, a crew member is killed, there'll be a $5,000 life insurance payout which will be something like 20 times the average annual salary in the Philippines. " There are certainly measures they could take: "You can install CCTV on deck," says Newton. "You can fit special radar equipment to pick small craft coming in from astern - normal radar looks forward, of course, which is why it misses most pirate launches. You could even look at forming convoys of vessels with a naval escort, although that would be horrendously complicated and prohibitively expensive."
Eventually, the experts believe, the insurance companies will force some kind of change. Premiums in the Gulf of Aden have increased tenfold in recent months, and at some stage, Newton says, "Lloyds of London will go to the government and say, look, something really has to be done". At present, however, no one in the shipping community seems to have any idea of what that something might be other than destroying the pirates' infrastructure and, if necessary, killing or capturing the pirates themselves. Burnett is even more pessimistic, believing the only long-term and lasting solution will be "a stable and bona fide" government in Somalia. Which is not what you might call around the corner.

Life is sweet in piracy capital of the world
Xan Rice and Abdiqani Hassan in Bosasso
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 19 2008 00.01 GMT
The Guardian, Wednesday November 19 2008
Article history
Dhows rest on a white sand beach in front of a few dozen ramshackle homes. A creek cuts inland, traced by a dirt road that runs to a craggy fishing settlement two miles away. Until recently Eyl was a remote and rundown Somali fishing outpost of 7,000 people. Now, thanks to some spectacular ocean catches, it is a booming mini-town, awash with dollars and heavily armed young men, and boasting a new notoriety: piracy capital of the world.
At least 12 foreign ships are being held hostage in the waters off Eyl in the Nugal region, 300 miles south of Africa's Horn, including a Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33 tanks and ammunition that was hijacked last month.
They are being closely watched by hundreds of pirates aboard boats equipped with satellite phones and GPS devices. Hundreds more gunmen provide backup on shore, where they incessantly chew the narcotic leaf qat and dream of sharing in the huge ransoms that can run into millions of pounds.
In a war-ravaged country where life is cheap and hope is rare, each successful hijack brings more young men into the village to seek their fortune at sea.
"Even secondary school students are stopping their education to go to Eyl because they see how their friends have made a lot of money," Abdulqaadir Muuse Yusuf, deputy fisheries minister for the Puntland region, said yesterday.
The entire village now depends on the criminal economy. Hastily built hotels provide basic lodging for the pirates, new restaurants serve meals and send food to the ships, while traders provide fuel for the skiffs flitting between the captured vessels.
The pirate kingpins who commute from the regional capital, Garowe, 100 miles west, in new 4x4 vehicles splash their money around. When a ransom is received the gunmen involved in hijacking the particular ship join in the splurge, much to the pleasure of long-time residents. Jaama Salah, a trader, said that a bunch of qat can sell for $65 (£44), compared with $15 in other towns. Asli Faarah, a tea vendor, said: "When the pirates have money I can easily increase my price to $3 for a cup."
Somalis in the diaspora - especially in Kenya, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and the UK - finance the pirate gangs and keep a large chunk of the ransom money, estimated at more than £20m this year alone, far more than Puntland's annual budget. But the gangs of gunmen sometimes split hundreds of thousands of pounds between them.
In the region's bigger towns, such as Garowe and Bosasso on the Gulf of Aden coast, a successful hijack is often celebrated with a meal and qat-chewing session at an expensive hotel.
One successful pirate based in Garowe, Abshir Salad, said: "First we look to buy a nice house and car. Then we buy guns and other weapons. The rest of the money we use to relax."
The pirates appear to have little fear of arrest by the weak administration, who many suspect of involvement in the trade. By spreading the money to local officials, chiefs, relatives and friends, the pirates have created strong logistical and intelligence networks, and avoided the clan-based fighting that affects so much of the rest of the country.
And though few believe the pirates when they claim to be eco-warriors or marines defending Somali waters from foreign exploitation, their daring and wealth has earned them respect. It has become something of a tradition for successful pirates to take additional wives, marrying them in lavish ceremonies.
Naimo, 21, from Garowe, said she had attended a wedding last month of the sort "I had never seen before".
"It's true that girls are interested in marrying pirates because they have a lot of money. Ordinary men cannot afford weddings like this," she said.

Pirate strikes off the African coast this year
How the Gulf of Aden and the coast of east Africa leapt to the top of world piracy charts
Xan Rice
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 18 2008 13.56 GMT
Article history
It is believed at least five Somali pirate gangs employing more than 1,000 gunmen are operating in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of east Africa.
Between July and September, there were 47 attacks off Somalia's coast, and 26 were successful. But the attack on the Sirius Star shows the reach of the pirates now extends far beyond Somali waters.
Pirate attacks this year include:
April 4: Pirates storm luxury French yacht Le Ponant, taking 32 crew and passengers captive. Ransom paid.
April 20: Pirates armed with grenade launchers hijacked a Spanish tuna boat, Playa de Bakio, and its 26 crew.
September 4: Egyptian vessel Al Mansoura, carrying cement, and its crew of 25 hijacked in the Gulf of Aden.
September 16: Members of Commando Hubert, the French equivalent of the Special Boat Service, storm the yacht of a French couple captured by pirates off Somalia. One suspected pirate killed.
September 25: Ukrainian cargo ship MV Faina hijacked. It was carrying military hardware, including grenade launchers and Russian-made tanks.
November 11: British commandos kill two pirates from a crew attempting to seize Danish ship in Gulf of Aden.

Barbaric Saudis and the Somali Pirates

Editors note:
Medeshi Nov 18, 2008

Barbaric Saudis and the Somali Pirates
Saudi Arabia compares pirates to terrorists. What about the actions of the barbaric Saudis executing innocent Somalis? Saudis have got used to getting it their way always specially among the expatriates who live in their country. Saudi citizens have the right to imprison or beat their foreign workers while the government turns a blind eye to these kinds of abuses.
I was amazed to read in the papers what prince Saud Al Faisal , the foreign minister for ever of the Wahabic peninsula wrote :

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called the hijacking "an outrageous act" and said "piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together."Speaking during a visit to Athens on Tuesday, he said Saudi Arabia would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have taken place this year.He did not elaborate on what steps the kingdom would take to better protect its vital oil tankers. Saudi Arabia's French-equipped navy has 18,000-20,000 personnel, but has never taken part in any high-seas fighting.

I think the disease is the Saudi system that swaps foreign prisoners for criminal Saudis during the Friday executions, or executing poor Somalis who have no government to defend them for petty crimes like theft or burglary. The disease is in the Saudi system that teaches religious extremism to selected and uneducated immigrants from Somalia and gives them money to go back and create misguided sharia law.
Perhaps the hijacked ship will open the eyes of naive Saudi ministers like Saud Al Faisal to current events of the world and will make them understand that there still exists a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye. These pirates will not release the tanker without the payment of enough ransom money to minimally compensate for the criminally executed innocent Somali men and women in the barbaric Wahabist den.
By : Medeshi editor

Ethiopia - Scapegoat for defeat in Somalia

Medeshi Nov 18, 2008

Ethiopia - Scapegoat for defeat in Somalia

(photo: Destroyed Ethio Military carrier in Somalia)

Tedla Asfaw
The TPLF [Ethiopia] supported Somali regime is now cornered like rat in Mogadishu and Baidoa and to distract us from this defeat terror is declared on the Oromo nationals and many respected Oromos from various fields more than two hundred are locked up in jail in the name of fighting terrorism.
This is not a coincidence and it is the same TPLF tactics we saw many times. Who will forget the Christmas invasion of Somalia almost three years ago in 2005. That year was the year TPLF was told by million of voters to pack and leave power and what we got was more killing and imprisonment of thirty thousands of people in various prisons and many still are languishing in jail and thousands exiled.Here we come after three years of adventure in Somalia,TPLF is told by Somalis to go home and who is paying the price here ? The Oromos who are accused of being OLF members and sympathizers.. Ato Bultcha's led OFDM is peacefully challenging the regime and why is it now targeted ? This is just to divert us from the big event unfolding in our own eyes, the humiliation and defeat of TPLF in its own war far from home by Somalis.
We have also another diversionary story in the North of Ethiopia. Have you heard the killing of Shabia's forces by the Eritrean Afars who are fighting to take their land from Eritrea and join it with Djibouti? What a development, this story is circulated from the head quarter of the movement from Tigray's capital.
The battle in Somalia between Djibouti group, Asmara group, Al-Shabab and TPLF's groups will now widen and it will be fought in Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia and the major actors in these conflicts are Isaias, Meles and their puppets. What Meles doing now against the Oromo intellectuals and leaders is to strengthen his Oromo wing by going after those who challenged him peacefully in his own parliament. We all know what Meles did to the then president of Somali Region of Ethiopia after defeat in Ogaden.

US issues travel warning for Eritrea, Somalia

Medeshi

US issues travel warning for Eritrea, Somalia
By roy_medina
Agence France-Presse 11/18/2008
WASHINGTON - The State Department issued a warning against travel to Somalia and Eritrea, following attacks in Somalia's Puntland and Somaliland regions, and after the Eritrean government interfered with the delivery of US diplomatic pouches.
"Kidnapping, murder, illegal roadblocks, banditry, and other violent incidents and threats to US citizens and other foreigners can occur in many regions" in Somalia, the State Department said in a statement.
Five suicide car bombs ripped through key targets October 29 in northern Somalia, including UN offices and a presidential palace, killing 19 people and the five bombers.
Noting that the US has no diplomatic presence in the country, the statement said "US citizens also are urged to use extreme caution when sailing near the coast of Somalia."
A number of attacks and seizures by pirates have occurred in the waters off the Horn of Africa, "highlighting the continuing danger of maritime travel near the Horn of Africa," the State Department explained.
In addition to unrest between rival political factions and clans in Somalia, the statement issued Saturday mentioned violent attacks in Mogadishu, border disputes in Somaliland, as well as kidnappings and attacks against international relief workers.
The State Department also warned against travel to Eritrea, noting that "since September 13, the government of Eritrea has repeatedly, and in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, interfered with the unfettered delivery of the US Embassy's diplomatic pouches."
"Until this matter is resolved, the consular section of the US Embassy has no choice but to suspend all non-emergency services." The US Embassy in Asmara has been unable to receive "critical" materials and supplies such as US passports, the statement said.
The State Department also noted heightened tensions along the country's borders with Ethiopia and Djibouti and escalating tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Lawless tradition of piracy off the coast of Somalia

Medeshi

Lawless tradition of piracy off the coast of Somalia
Amid country's state of near anarchy, buccaneers flourish on rich pickings of world's busiest sea lanes
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Somalia's pirates hail from a long tradition of seafaring clans who preyed on coastal traffic from bases up and down the country's long, flat coastline. The pirates supplemented their meagre living through trade in stolen goods and hostages - who were sometimes sold into slavery. But today's buccaneers, flourishing amid a state of near anarchy in the impoverished country, have fashioned an increasingly sophisticated, multimillion dollar business.
In the past most piracy was centred on the coastal towns of Harardheere and Hobyo in central Somalia and targeted the Mogadishu port area to the south. But in the past 10 years the focus has moved to the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in the north-east, abutting the Gulf of Aden. The reason for the shift is the richer pickings to be found in one of the world's busiest sea lanes, said author Roger Middleton. About 16,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year.
According to Middleton, author of a report on piracy published by the Chatham House thinktank, while the financial attractions of piracy are strong, western countries and businesses have also contributed to the problem.
"Somalia's fishing industry has collapsed in the last 15 years and its waters are being heavily fished by European, Asian and African ships," he said.
"In a region where legitimate business is difficult, where drought means agriculture is nothing more than subsistence farming, and instability and violence make death a very real prospect, the dangers of engaging in piracy must be weighed against the potentially massive returns."
Piracy also reflects political trends in Somalia, including the resurgence of warlordism and Islamism since the collapse of the last effective national government in 1991.
It is widely believed that Somalia's warring faction leaders and Islamist groups such as the hardline al-Shabaab take a cut of the ransom money in return for allowing the pirate gangs to operate.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008

Hijacked Saudi oil tanker anchored off Somalia coast

Medeshi

Hijacked Saudi oil tanker anchored off Somalia coast
11/18/2008 10:40 PM
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Pirates who seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million in crude oil anchored the ship within sight of impoverished Somali fishing villages Tuesday, while the US and other naval forces decided against intervention for now.
With few other options, shipowners in past piracy cases have ended up paying ransoms for their ships, cargoes and crew.
NATO said it would not divert any of its three warships from the Gulf of Aden and the US Navy's 5th Fleet also said it did not expect to send ships to try to intercept the MV Sirius Star.
The tanker was seized over the weekend about 450 nautical miles off the Kenyan coast, the latest in a surge of pirate attacks this year.
Never before have Somali pirates seized such a giant ship so far out to sea — and never a vessel so large. The captors of the Sirius Star anchored the ship, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crew members, close to a main pirate den on the Somali coast, Harardhere.
Somalis on shore were stunned by the gigantic vessel — as long as an aircraft carrier at 1,080 feet (329 meters).
"As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore," said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman in Harardhere.
"I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship, which they can see with their naked eyes."
He said two small boats floated out to the ship and 18 men — presumably other pirates — climbed aboard with a rope ladder. Spectators watched as a small boat carried food and qat, a narcotic leaf popular in Somalia, to the supertanker.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called the hijacking "an outrageous act" and said "piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together."
Speaking during a visit to Athens on Tuesday, he said Saudi Arabia would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have taken place this year.
He did not elaborate on what steps the kingdom would take to better protect its vital oil tankers. Saudi Arabia's French-equipped navy has 18,000-20,000 personnel, but has never taken part in any high-seas fighting.
Abdullkadir Musa, the deputy sea port minister in northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, said if the ship tries to anchor anywhere near Eyl — where the U.S. said it was heading — then his forces will try to rescue it.
Forces from Puntland have confronted pirates off the coast, though Somalia's weak central government, which is fighting Islamic insurgents, has been unable to mount a response to increasing piracy.
Puntland forces, their guns blazing, freed a Panama-flagged cargo ship from pirates on Oct. 14. The gunbattle killed one soldier and injured three others. No hostages or pirates were hurt.
The Dubai-based owner of the Saudi tanker Vela International Marine Ltd. said the oil tanker's crew "are believed to be safe." The crew consists of 19 Philippines nationals, two British, two Polish, one Croatian and one Saudi national.
The statement made no mention of a ransom or contacts with the bandits, but such companies have little choice but to pay out huge ransoms, usually totaling around $1 million, to ensure the safety of the crew and the vessel's return.
The Sirius Star's cargo is worth about $100 million at current prices, but the pirates have no known way to unload it from the tanker and there are no oil refineries in Somalia.
In Vienna, Ehsan Ul-Haq, chief analyst at JBC Energy, said the seizure was not affecting oil prices, since traders are focused instead on "the overall economy."
The latest in a surge of pirate hijackings highlighted the vulnerability of even very large ships and the inability of naval forces to intervene once bandits are on board.
The US Navy's 5th Fleet said Tuesday it was monitoring the situation but didn't expect to send warships to surround the vessel as it has done with a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weaponry seized Sept. 25 off the Somali coast.
That ship remains in pirate hands but the US is making sure those weapons are not taken off the ship.
In Somalia, pirates are better-funded, better-organized and better-armed than one might imagine in a country that has been in tatters for nearly two decades. They have the support of their communities and rogue members of the government — some pirates even promise to put ransom money toward building roads and schools.
Often dressed in military fatigues, pirates travel in open skiffs with outboard engines, working with larger ships that tow them far out to sea. They use satellite navigational and communications equipment and an intimate knowledge of local waters, clambering aboard commercial vessels with ladders and grappling hooks.
They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades — weaponry that is readily available throughout Somalia.- AP

Obama Meets With McCain in Chicago

Medeshi

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain agreed on Monday, in their first meeting since the election, to work together on some of the nation’s most pressing challenges, from the financial crisis to national security problems.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
The Caucus: McCain and Obama, Back Together Again (November 17, 2008)
The Caucus: Obama Mixes the Personal and Political on '60 Minutes' (November 16, 2008)
The Caucus: Those Lazy, Hazy Days of Presidential Transition (November 17, 2008)
The Caucus
The latest on the 2008 election results and on the presidential transition. Join the discussion.
Election Results More Politics News

After a private meeting in the Obama transition offices on the 38th floor of the Kluczynski Federal Building in downtown Chicago, the two men issued a joint statement saying that they agreed “that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time.”
The statement continued: “We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.”
There were few other clues to the dynamics between the two men, who until two weeks ago were vying for the presidency, and whose relations during the campaign were at times a bit frosty. When a reporter asked Senator McCain at the outset of the meeting on Monday whether he would help Mr. Obama with his administration, he replied, “Obviously.”
The meeting came four days after Mr. Obama met with his main rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, sparking widespread speculation that he would nominate her to be secretary of state.
And it came three days after Mr. Obama met with another former rival, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a former ambassador to the United Nations who might now be in competition with Mrs. Clinton for the State Department post.The Obama-McCain meeting in Chicago, an effort at reconciliation after a sometimes bitterly fought campaign, came unusually soon after Election Day.
The president-elect and the Arizona senator hold relatively similar views on issues like climate change and ethics reform, where cooperation might be fruitful. More urgently, Mr. Obama may be hoping for help in pushing for a new economic stimulus package that faces stiff Republican resistance.
Also taking part in the meeting were Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a trusted McCain ally, and Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois, who is to be Mr. Obama’s White House chief of staff.
Advisers to both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama said that they did not expect Mr. McCain to be offered a job in the new administration.
Mr. Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday on the CBS program “60 Minutes” that there would be at least one Republican in his cabinet. He would not say when he might announce his first cabinet nominations, except to say “soon.”
While the Obama-McCain meeting came earlier than some past efforts at reconciliation between newly elected presidents and their vanquished foes, the president’s father, George H.W. Bush, met on almost exactly the same date — Nov. 18 — with Bill Clinton after losing to him in the 1992 election.
Mr. Clinton later called the meeting “very helpful,” though he found that his host wanted to talk almost exclusively about foreign affairs while he had hoped to pick the outgoing president’s brain on domestic affairs.
In 2000, it was not until Dec. 19 that President-elect George W. Bush called on Vice President Al Gore, though that was just a week after the Supreme Court resolved the Florida recount debacle; the two spent less than 20 minutes together at the Naval Observatory, the official vice-presidential residence, where the elder Bushes themselves had once lived.
(President-elect Bush also called that day on Mr. Clinton at the White House. This time it was Mr. Clinton who guided the conversation to foreign affairs for most of a two-hour talk. It was unclear whether anyone brought up Mr. Bush’s vow, during the campaign, to “restore honor and dignity to the White House.”)
In Chicago, Mr. Obama might be mindful of the fact that former rivals can also be future foes. In 2005, Senator John Kerry did not wait even a week after the inauguration of President Bush before launching into barbed attacks on his health care plan, calling it “window dressing.”

Somalia: Good intentions took us on the road to hell

Medeshi

From The Times ,November 17, 2008
Good intentions took us on the road to hell
If world leaders want to restore financial stability, they should not shy away from clear-sighted analysis
William Rees-Mogg

As President Bush prepares to leave office, the pundits will start to produce their balance sheets. It is hard to know what they will list under “achievements”, but easy to predict their “disasters”: Iraq, Afghanistan, economic meltdown, soaring debt and America's loss of global stature.
One other debacle should feature prominently in that second column, but probably won't because it has occurred in a faraway country that most Westerners know only through the film Black Hawk Down - or from recent reports of rampant piracy including the seizure early on Sunday of a Saudi tanker, carrying more than two million barrels of oil, which had an immediate effect on crude prices.
I am referring to the Bush Administration's intervention in Somalia in the name of the War on Terror. It has helped to destroy that wretched country's best chance of peace in a generation, left more than a million Somalis dead, homeless or starving, and achieved the precise opposite of its original goal. Far from stamping out an Islamic militancy that scarcely existed, the intervention has turned Somalia into a breeding ground for Islamic extremists and given al-Qaeda a valuable foothold in the Horn of Africa.
Rewind to the early summer of 2006. For 15 years, since the fall of the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, feuding warlords had made Somalia a byword for anarchy and terrorism - the archetypal failed state. A tenth of its population had been killed. A million had fled abroad. At that point the warlords were finally routed, despite covert CIA backing, by a remarkable public uprising in support of the so-called Islamic Courts movement that promised to end the lawlessness.
Background
Islamists await hijacked ship's weapons cache
Plunder is used to fund terrorism
Britain’s phoney war on terror
Somalis in terror of the night letter
Somalia had always practised a mild form of Islam, but the Courts received a bad press in the West, being widely portrayed as a new Taleban determined to impose the most draconian forms of Sharia on a terrified populace. That was certainly what I expected when I visited Mogadishu in early December 2006. But what I actually found was a people still celebrating the return of peace and security.
Gone were the checkpoints where the warlords' gunmen extorted and killed. Gone were their “technicals” - the Jeeps with heavy machineguns on the back with which they terrorised the citzenry. For the first time that most Somalis could remember, they were walking around their shattered capital in safety, even at night. Businesses were reopening. Exiles were returning. Mountains of rubbish were being carted away.
“It's like paradise compared to even one year ago,” according to Mohammed Ahmed, a doctor who had returned from working at the West Middlesex Hospital.
The Courts had certainly imposed what would be seen in the West as some fairly repressive moral codes. They cracked down on the narcotic qat that rendered half the menfolk senseless, banned sexually explicit films, encouraged women to cover their heads and discouraged Western music and dancing. There had been two public executions. But that was a price most Somalis were happy to pay, and while the Courts' disparate factions undoubtedly included extremists with dangerous connections and intentions, they also included moderates with whom the West could have done business.
European nations favoured engagement. Washington did not. It accused the Courts of harbouring the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for bombing US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The Courts hardly helped their cause by claiming territory in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Weeks after my visit the US supported - morally, materially and with intelligence - an invasion by predominantly Christian Ethiopia, Somalia's oldest bitter enemy. That replaced what was, for all its faults, Somalia's most effective government in memory with a deeply unpopular one led by former warlords, which had been cobbled together by the international community in Nairobi two years previously.
“The Americans see an extremist under every Muslim stone,” one European official complained bitterly, and the consequences were entirely predictable. An insurgency that began early in 2007 has steadily gathered strength, while the reviled Government in Mogadishu has come to depend utterly for its survival on thousands of Ethiopian troops that were meant to withdraw within weeks.
As the fighting has worsened 10,000 Somali civilians are thought to have been killed, more than a million have fled their homes, and more than three million - 40 per cent of the population - now urgently need humanitarian assistance. Although the UN World Food Programme is still getting some aid into the country the situation is deteriorating and scores of humanitarian workers have been killed or abducted. Exploiting the lawlessness, pirates have turned the waters off Somalia into some of the most dangerous in the world.
In Kenya last weekend Abdullahi Yusuf, Somalia's President, finally admitted that insurgents now control most of the country and have advanced to the very edge of Mogadishu. His Government, he said, was close to collapse.
There are several insurgent forces, but one of the most powerful is the Shabab - a group of virulently anti-Western jihadists that has now eclipsed the Islamic Courts movement of which it was once part.
Somalia's nightmare may be only just starting. President Yusuf predicts wholesale slaughter if the Shabab seize Mogadishu. Diplomats fear that the Shabab will wage all-out war with other insurgent forces, including those of the Islamic Courts, for control of the country once Ethiopian troops - the common enemy - are withdrawn.
And unlike the Courts, the Shabab has no truck with moderation: in the port city of Kismayo last month a young girl who complained that she had been raped was stoned to death for adultery, while in Balad two dozen Somalis were flogged for performing a traditional dance.
Whatever happens, Somalia will be another horrendous legacy for Barack Obama, but somewhere on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border one man will be celebrating. Shabab openly supports al-Qaeda. It has adopted suicide bombings and other tactics. “Al-Qaeda is the mother of the holy war in Somalia... We are negotiating how we can unite into one,” Muktar Robow, a leading Shabab commander, recently told the Los Angeles Times. “We will take our orders from Sheikh Osama bin Laden because we are his students.”
All in all, hardly a resounding triumph for the War on Terror.

Q+A-Why should the world care about Somalia?

Q+A-Why should the world care about Somalia?
Mon 17 Nov 2008, 10:23 GMT
Nov 17 (Reuters) - Daily headlines from Somalia of violence, refugees and piracy may seem like a blur to the outside world.
But with Islamist insurgents knocking on the door of the capital Mogadishu, and the government declaring itself on the verge of collapse, here are answers to some questions on why Somalia's troubles matter well beyond its borders:
WHAT'S THE LATEST?
* Islamists have been gaining territory all year and last week took the port of Merka and the town of Elasha, bringing them to within 15 km (9 miles) of Mogadishu.
* President Abdullahi Yusuf has admitted the insurgents now control most of the south, with the exception of the coastal capital and the provincial seat of parliament, Baidoa, where they still, however, carry out attacks. "The Islamists kill city cleaners, they will not spare legislators," he said from Kenya.
* The Islamists are hampered by internal divisions, and deterred by the presence of Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu and Baidoa. But the most militant among them are said to be considering options for an assault on the capital.
WHAT IF THE ISLAMISTS TAKE MOGADISHU?
* Seizure of the capital could be the death-knell for Yusuf's Western-backed government, which exists more in name than in terms of any control on the ground.
* If moderates take the lead, there could be some sort of power-sharing government between secular and Islamist leaders. But if groups like the militant al Shabaab take prominence, they want to implement Islamic sharia law. Washington fears that could make Somalia a haven for al Qaeda-linked extremists.
* Secular and pro-Western neighbours Ethiopia and Kenya would both be extremely worried by an Islamist-run state next door. Last time the Islamists ruled Mogadishu -- for six months in 2006 -- Ethiopia invaded. Kenya helped catch fleeing Islamist fighters after they were toppled by that intervention in a nation whose population is traditionally moderate Muslim.
WHO IS SUFFERING?
* Already living in one of the dryest and poorest nations on earth, Somalis have suffered appallingly from the violence which has compounded the effect of drought and soaring food prices.
* About one million of Somalia's estimated 9 million people live as internal refugees. Several million lack basic food. Attacks on foreign and local aid workers, including assassinations and kidnaps, have hampered the ability to help.
* The Islamist-led insurgency of the last two years has killed about 10,000 civilians and many fighters on both sides.
* Hundreds of would-be refugees die each year trying to cross the shark-infested Gulf of Aden to Yemen.
* A small elite of Somali businessmen, many with dual nationalities and homes abroad, have benefited from Somalia's anarchy, making millions from businesses such as importing food and fuel, or setting up mobile phone services. Plenty of unscrupulous characters have also prospered from shady dealings like arms imports and illegal fishing off the coast.
WHAT INVESTOR INTEREST IS THERE IN SOMALIA?
* Other than foreign-based Somalis, there is little interest in the country at the moment due to its chaotic state. But those who have looked closely know that long-term Somalia has plenty of prospects, particularly for oil, tourism along its long coast-line, agriculture, and trade due to a strategic position.
* Somalia has no proven oil reserves, but one survey 16 years ago ranked it second only to Sudan as the top prospective producer temptingly placed in an oil window over the Gulf of Aden. Various foreign companies have been trying to strike exploration deals in the north, including in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, though insecurity is hampering progress.
* Should peace ever come to Somalia, there will probably be huge international funds available for reconstruction projects.
PIRACY
* Chaos onshore has spawned a wave of piracy off Somalia which came to international prominence this year when a rise in insurance premiums shocked the industry and the capture of one boat with 33 tanks on board drew world media attention.
* The NATO alliance and the European Union have scrambled to provide patrols in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean waterways off Somalia. The United States and France, which have bases nearby, are also helping, while Russia has sent a warship too.
* If the patrols do not stem piracy, shipping firms may opt to send freight around South Africa rather than through the Suez Canal, which could drive up the cost of manufactured goods and fuel for consumers in Asia and Europe.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE REGION?
* With Ethiopia backing the Somali government and Eritrea favouring the Islamists by hosting some of their leaders and also accused of providing material support, the conflict has fuelled the long-running Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict.
* The failure of an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force of 3,000 men to stem the violence has made the continental body look impotent, particularly as it was unable to muster a hoped-for 8,000 soldiers. The United Nations is resisting calls to replace the AU in Somalia, no doubt mindful of its disastrous intervention in Somalia during the 1990s.
* Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are nervous of militant attacks on their soil, after various past bombings round the region that were planned from Somalia.
* Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi wants to pull his troops out of Somalia, but faces a Catch 22 if he does not want to leave the government at the mercy of the Islamists. (Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; editing by David Clarke)

Mexican President Summarizes Results of the G-20 Meeting

Medeshi
Monday, November 17, 2008
Mexican President Summarizes Results of the G-20 Meeting
Press Statement by President Felipe Calderón
Washington D.C. – Good afternoon members of the media.
I am going to give you a very brief summary of the results of the G-20 Meeting, but since I understand you did not have access to the audio or video of the meeting, I am going to repeat the speech I gave at one of the meetings. There were several speeches, copies of which will be handed out later.
I said:
Heads of State and Government.
Friends.
At the beginning of the 21st century, we are experiencing a global crisis and the only way to deal with it is through global solutions.
There are three main causes of the crisis:
First. A long period of growing global economic imbalances that led to excess liquidity, a greater appetite for assets and increasingly great risk taking on the part of investors.
Second. Lax regulation and supervision of the financial system, based on the false premise of self-regulation.
And third. The limited capacity of international financial organizations to effectively supervise the health of the world financial system.
It is important to stress that the crisis did not originate in developing countries. On the contrary, the dynamism of the global economy has been sustained by the vitality of the emerging economies.
It is crucial to implement determined, immediate actions to be able to break the negative spiral of uncertainty, and in this respect, Mexico proposes four main actions.
First. Containing the financial crisis.
Second. Adopting contra-cyclical economic policies in a coordinated fashion.
Third. Reforming national and international financial institutions.
And fourth. Preventing a new era of protectionism.
Regarding the first measure, I insist that we need to take measures that will guarantee the containment of the financial crisis and minimize its impact on the world economy, thereby preventing its spread.
Developed nations could develop the processes and measures implemented to stabilize their financial markets and prevent financial policies from harming other economies by awarding broad or indiscriminate government guarantees to all kinds of financial liabilities.
Second. All countries, particularly developed countries, must adopt wide-reaching fiscal policies in a coordinated fashion to obtain the best possible synergies. This would offset the fall in consumption and private investment that has recently been observed.
The best way to overcome the crisis is to maintain our economic growth. In Mexico, we are using all available instruments to implement contra-cyclical policies, at least in the fiscal and financial spheres.
We have used the Development Bank to offset the reduction of available external funds for our economy, and we have provided sufficient liquidity for the financial system and the firms that require this.
We have boosted public spending, especially on infrastructure projects, and reinforced the network of protection and social security to protect the income of families with the least from deteriorating, and to prevent poverty from increasing as a result of the crisis.
At the same time, we have maintained healthy public finances and a macroeconomic balance, as a result of the reforms of both the government employees' pension system and taxes.
Third, we have proposed a reform of national and international financial systems. Both developed and emerging countries must carefully review the regulation of financial systems.
Discussion forums must be more inclusive, because they are almost exclusively dominated by developed nations.
That is why Mexico proposes including emerging countries as members of the Financial Stability Forum, and eventually having the International Monetary Fund resume its leadership of this debate, in view of its universal membership.
It also proposes undertaking additional reforms of the governing boards of multilateral financial institutions, given the increasing importance of emerging nations in the global economy.
It also proposes reinforcing the International Monetary Fund to enable it to undertake an impartial review of the international financial system, in order to identify any systemic problem it may have in a timely fashion, not only in developing but also in developed countries.
We also propose greater effectiveness and flexibility in financial institutions, such as the World Bank or regional development banks, such as the Inter-American Bank, since there is an urgent need for greater speed and flexibility in providing loans for developing countries due to the sudden reduction in the flow of private credits.
Fourth. Lastly, we must prevent the resurgence of protectionism at any cost. It is essential for our countries to promote confidence in the international commercial system and prevent tariff increases. It is also essential for us to promote the completion of the Doha Round negotiations, within the framework of the World Trade Organization.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The invisible hand failed and it is now up to the visible hand of the state to correct inequalities and imbalances and especially to reactivate the economy through contra-cyclical policies that will prevent recession.
This does not mean that the market economy is dead or that the global economy is over. Now, more than ever, we need more market and more global economy, more trade and more global investment.
There is also obviously a global need for faster actions and more efficient regulation with better aligned economic incentives.
Coordinated actions must not only resolve technical needs to reactivate the economy, but people must also see sufficiently clear leadership in their representatives to feel that there is a firm hand at the helm in the midst of the storm. This will enable countries and economic actors to recover their confidence in themselves and in the future, because distrust is one of the main causes that has paralyzed our economies.
Restoring faith in the financial system and the capacity for response of governments and multinational institutions will reduce panic and enable us to return to the path of stability and growth.
What the world requires of its leaders at this moment is to make the leap from words to actions, which is why Mexico has embraced this effort and urges other countries to continue working to achieve a global response to a global crisis.
I will now move on to the summary of the declaration which was eventually negotiated, voted on and approved within the framework of this G-20 Summit.
It is worth noting that the meeting was convened in the midst of a severe global economic crisis, whose solution requires the coordinated action of all countries.
As leaders, we reflected on the causes that led to this situation and the immediate measures we are taking to cope with it.
Most of our discussions focused on the actions we must adopt to pull through this crisis.
The declaration and plan of action that were approved include the following actions:
First. Stabilize financial markets and reactivate economic activity, in addition to establishing a reform plan to correct financial systems and redefine the architecture of international financial organizations.
We decided to boost international coordination within the sphere of macroeconomic policies as a means of reversing the recessive trends of the world economy.
We also pointed out the importance of offsetting the effects of the crisis on financial markets and the real economy of developed and emerging countries.
We therefore underlined the need to adopt special measures to enable the economies of emerging countries to continue to have access to the resources of international financing funds, to the extent that they need.
We decided to review the regulatory and monitoring framework governing financial institutions in order to make them more transparent and to strengthen accountability mechanisms to achieve greater control that will prevent future crises without reducing the dynamism of these markets.
A fundamental agreement I would like to stress is the commitment to reform the institutions that resulted from Bretton Woods, such as the Financial Stability Forum, so that they will adequately reflect the new realities of the world economy, particularly the specific importance of emerging countries such as Mexico.
We leaders acknowledged the fact that any solution to this crisis must be based on economic liberalization and free trade. We therefore agreed on a 12-month moratorium on the imposition of new barriers to trade and investment, and pledged to redouble efforts to conclude the Doha Round negotiations before the end of the year.
Lastly, in order to achieve these goals, we adopted a plan of action consisting of approximately 50 key measures that must be implemented over the next few days and in the medium term.
In order to follow-up the implementation of these agreements, we decided that the G-20 leaders must meet again before April 30, 2009.
As a final reflection on the Summit, I can say that it is quite clear that we cannot act in an isolated fashion in the face of a crisis of this size which requires a firm, timely, global response.
This juncture revealed the need to act in a coordinated fashion and showed the need for more determined, effective action on the part of the state, as we said at the meeting.
These agreements, the Declaration and the Plan of Action, are in my view an excellent starting point, not only to cope with the prevailing economic situations but also to redesign and transform the international financial system in the medium and long term.
——————————
Press statement, Presidency of the Republic, November 15, 2008, Mexico City

Saudi Tanker hijacked : Saudis to pay back for the executed Somalis

Medeshi

Monday, November 17, 2008
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Somali pirates have hijacked a Saudi-owned oil tanker off the Kenyan coast
The hijacking was the latest in a surge in Somali pirate attacks this year and highlighted the vulnerability of even very large ships moving through the area.

(THE SIRIUS STAR
*Nearly the length of a Nimitz-class US aircraft carrier

*Weighs more than three times as much as a Nimitz when loaded
*Can carry 2 million barrels of oil - more than 25% of Saudi Arabia's daily output
*Is third tanker, and biggest vessel, to be hijacked in the region)
The tanker, owned by Saudi oil company Aramco, was sailing under a Liberian flag. The 25-member crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, said the pirates hijacked the vessel on Saturday.
In a news release, sent out on Monday from the 5th Fleet's Middle East headquarters in Bahrain, the Navy said the large crude tanker Sirius Star was attacked more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said there were at least two British nationals aboard the MV Sirius Star, but said he could offer no further details on the ship or what had happened to it.
Source: AP, Nov 17, 2008

The collapse of the TFG

NAIROBI, 17 November 2008 (MEDESHI) - The widening split between Somalia's leaders could lead to the total collapse of the transitional federal government (TFG), a Nairobi-based regional analyst, who requested anonymity, has warned.
The split has widened as insurgents gain ground across Somalia, taking control in recent days of large parts of south and central regions, according to civil society sources. (President Abdullahi Yusuf (left) in a file photo. A split between Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein (not in picture) could lead to the total collapse of the transitional federal government, an analyst has warned)
Insurgents comprising Islamist Al-Shabab, nationalists and militia clans opposed to foreign forces have over the past two months taken control of more than a dozen localities, they said.
"The success of the insurgents is a reflection of the desire of ordinary Somalis to end the anarchy, coupled with the TFG's [Transitional Federal Government] inability to restore order," Timothy Othieno, a regional analyst at the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI), said.
"There is little doubt that the anarchic situation, with the inability of the TFG to restore order, security and provide the basic services, has enabled the Islamists to be ever more popular," he added.
According to Othieno, the only recent experience Somalis have had with peace and a sense of security was the six months in 2006 when the Islamists controlled vast parts of the country.
"That was the first time in nearly 15 years that witnessed a return to peace in Somalia, albeit only briefly. It is this sense of ‘security’ that Somalis crave and are willing to secede some of their freedoms to be safe from harm," he added.
Blame game
Somali legislators disagree on whether the situation is getting out of control, but blame their leaders.
"The TFG is not on the brink of collapse; it has already collapsed," Abdi Ahmed Dhuhulow, a parliamentarian allied to Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, told MEDESHI on 17 November.
"He [President Abdullahi Yusuf] started immediately after his election [in 2004] by trying to usurp the power of parliament; he fought with Sharif Hassan [former parliamentary speaker], then with Ali Gedi [former prime minister] and he will not stop until he gets his way," Dhuhulow said.

However, Abdirashid Mohamed Iro, an MP allied to Yusuf, disagreed, saying although there was a "very serious split" between the president and the prime minister, the TFG had not collapsed.
So far, Yusuf and Hussein have failed to agree on a new cabinet. On 17 November, the UN Special Representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, appealed to the leaders to put aside their differences.
He urged the government to agree on a new cabinet quickly, saying a continuing power struggle did not serve Somalia’s interests, particularly as there was now an agreement to establish a broad-based unity government.
Way forward
After months of on-off talks in Djibouti, representatives of the TFG and a faction of an Eritrea-based opposition alliance signed an agreement to cease hostilities in August.
"The TFG and the ARS [Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia] Djibouti wing must conclude the accord and cement their partnership without further delay, if they are not to be overtaken by events on the ground," the Nairobi analyst said.
Even then, the process faced serious challenges. Apart from Yusuf's resistance, he added, a determined opposition and the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia had continued to undermine public confidence in the Djibouti process.
It had also strengthened the hand of those insurgents who favour a military solution. "Should the Djibouti peace process fail, then the TFG is likely to disintegrate and southern Somalia be carved up between rival Islamist factions, some of them - like Al-Shabab - committed to an agenda of regional destabilisation and violence," he warned.
However, Othieno of ODI said it would be wise to allow the Somalis "to decide how they want to design their own state", adding, "I am not saying to neglect Somalia, but not interfere in their ‘state-making’ processes."
Conflict, drought and hyperinflation have combined to create a humanitarian crisis in Somalia, with aid workers estimating that 2.6 million Somalis need assistance.
That number is expected to reach 3.5 million by the end of the year if the situation does not improve, according to the UN.

Cutting charcoal use in urban Somaliland

Medeshi

HARGEISA, 17 November 2008 (IRIN) - Authorities in Somalia's self-declared republic of Somaliland have embarked on efforts to reduce charcoal use in urban areas to curb deforestation, officials said.

(A forested area in Somaliland. Charcoal burning has contributed to deforestation and environmental degradation)
"We are involved in a number of plans to get alternatives to charcoal and, with the collaboration of the ADRA [Adventist Development and Relief Agency], are encouraging the use of stoves that use less charcoal than ordinary ones," Mohamed Bile, Somaliland's Deputy Minister for Pastoralists and Rural Development, told IRIN.
He said the local organisations, known as the United Livestock Professionals Association, had established an awareness programme and were supplying low-cost gas stoves to the main urban centres in a bid to reduce charcoal use.
Charcoal use in the region has continued to rise, with most urban families using it as the main source of energy for cooking. This has led to greater environmental degradation in the region.
"The environment is already degraded, but we can't do much because of several reasons encountered by the ministry, including lack of trained staff," Bile said.
The licensing of commercial charcoal companies compounded the situation, he added.
"Instead of decreasing charcoal use, the ministry has, inadvertently, encouraged it as it issues licences to the charcoal companies; for example, in Hargeisa there are three or four charcoal companies," Bile said. "Similarly, the ministry collects revenues from the companies..."
The companies sell the charcoal inside the country and export it to the Gulf states.

"We load more than 10 trucks daily, carrying at least 100 sacks of charcoal in Hargeisa, and the trucks come from the western forest of the Hawd area near the border with Ethiopia," Mohamed Abdillahi, an employee of Hargeisa-based Laalays Charcoal Trade Company, said.
Somaliland has no meteorological institution and the only meteorologist, Ali Abdi Odowa, does not work in his profession, he is director-general of the Ministry of Education.
However, Odowa said: "When there are more trees in the country, a lot of evaporation takes place and more rain falls; but if trees are burned, evaporation decreases and less rain is received.
"This contributes to climate change, for example, when the rain system changes, the weather also changes; there may be more rains or less rain. When there is a lot of rain, we need to plan for more protection [of the environment] and when there is less rain, we need to deal with the resulting drought."

Somali president: Government on verge of collapse

Medeshi 16 Nov, 2008

Somali president: Government on verge of collapse
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — The Somali government is close to collapse because disputes within its ranks have allowed armed Islamic insurgents to take control of much of the country, the president said.
President Abdullahi Yusuf's remarks to about 100 Somali lawmakers in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, late Saturday represent the first admission by any official that the government is losing control.
Hours earlier, a radical Islamic group seized another Somali port town, consolidating its control over a southwestern region that borders the Somali capital.
"You know what the situation is. Because of the endless disputes in government, the opposition groups have taken most of the country, including Elasha, which is 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the capital," Yusuf said in comments that received wide coverage on radio stations in Somalia.
Yusuf said his government only had control of the capital and the southwestern town of Baidoa, which is the seat of Parliament.
"Imagine how the country's future will be if al-Shabab takes (control of Somalia). It is really at risk," the president said, referring to one of the Islamic groups that has recently made significant territorial gains.
The Somali lawmakers came to Kenya two weeks ago to meet with regional leaders for a one-day meeting to discuss Somalia's future. They have stayed on, in part because many of their families live in the safety of Nairobi.
Yusuf appealed to the lawmakers to return to Somalia and take steps aimed at "saving a government on the verge of total collapse."
He said that he had still failed to agree with his prime minister on a Cabinet. Last month, a regional grouping that mediated the formation of Somalia's government gave the Somali leaders until Thursday to form a new Cabinet. The seven-nation grouping, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, did not say what would happen if the leaders failed to meet the deadline.
In its latest offensive, al-Shabab on Saturday seized without resistance the port town of Barawe, 110 miles (180 kilometers) southwest of Mogadishu.
The U.S. considers al-Shabab — meaning The Youth — a terrorist organization and accuses the group of harboring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who allegedly blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 230 people.
Officials of a separate Islamic group on Saturday publicly whipped 32 traditional dancers in the southern town of Balad because they said it is "Un-Islamic" for men and women to dance together.
Islamic fighters have seized most of southern Somalia, but unlike in 2006 when they operated under one umbrella group, they are split and at times compete for control of the same key towns.
For almost two years the Islamic fighters have launched a vicious insurgency, mainly in Mogadishu, that has killed thousands of civilians and sent an estimated half of the capital's 2 million people fleeing from near-daily roadside bombings and remote-controlled explosions.
Associated Press Writer Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu, Somalia, contributed to this report.

Britain drafts new United Nation Somalia sanctions’

Medeshi Nov 14, 2008

Britain drafts new United Nation Somalia sanctions
* Diplomats say resolution proposes asset freezes, travel bans for violence
UNITED NATIONS: Britain has circulated a draft resolution that would impose new UN sanctions on anyone contributing to violence and instability in Somalia, UN Security Council diplomats told Reuters on Wednesday.

The draft resolution, distributed to the 15 members of the Security Council, calls for asset freezes and travel bans for anyone engaging in or supporting violence in Somalia, including individuals or companies that violate a 1992 UN arms embargo against the lawless Horn of Africa country. The resolution, obtained by Reuters, also targets anyone “obstructing the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Somalia.” Several Western council diplomats said they hoped the resolution would be approved next week. “The idea is to increase the pressure on those responsible for undermining stability in Somalia,” a Western diplomat told Reuters.

The situation in Somalia has grown steadily worse this year. Assassinations, kidnappings and attacks on aid workers have been rife amid a militant insurgency against the government and its Ethiopian military allies. Suspicion for attacks generally falls on clan militia, though rebel leaders have said the interim government is behind the killings to discredit them and stir the international community to intervene. Somalia’s transitional government has repeatedly called on the Security Council to send UN peacekeepers to take over from the African Union, which has 3,000 troops in Somalia but has said it is not up to the task. The council has asked the UN secretariat to prepare possible scenarios for sending peacekeepers to Somalia, but council diplomats and UN officials say privately that the situation is far too dangerous for UN troops. reuters

Somaliland: The pull of terror

Medeshi Nov 14, 2008

Somaliland: The pull of terror
Recent terror attacks in the self-styled independent Somaliland could be designed to destabilize the secessionist region, dragging it into Somalia's brutal quagmire, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Simon Roughneen for ISN Security Watch
Somaliland is not Somalia. Ever since Somalia fell apart in the early 1990s that has been the message hammered out by Hargeisa's would-be officials, who would be officially officials if Somaliland was ever officially recognized.
The latter has not yet happened, despite Somaliland's relative stability and nascent democracy - casting the rest of what was Somalia more clearly as the wanton haven for pirates, warlords, terrorists and chronic suffering that it is - with over 3 million people homeless due to fighting, and aid workers a constant target for murder and kidnap.
Somaliland has a working political system, government institutions and its own currency. It also has a 740-kilometer coastline along the Red Sea - a vital outlet for Ethiopia, which has been landlocked since the Eritrean secession in 1993.
Somaliland's democratic transition began in May 2001 with a plebiscite on a new constitution that introduced a multiparty electoral system, and continued in December 2002 with local elections that were widely described as open and transparent. Presidential elections held in 2003 were seen as another milestone, with nearly half a million voters casting ballots in one of the closest polls ever conducted in the region, and the would-be state is gearing up for general elections due next year.
While Somalia was riven by, inter alia, vicious clans, aid-stealing warlords, al-Qaida, an invading Ethiopian army and a weak but internationally-backed transitional government, Somaliland was holding successive rounds of elections, with both winners and losers sticking to the rules. This was laid on a bedrock of traditional authorities showing leadership and maturity, the utilization of indigenous means of negotiation and a measured, positive-sum view of inter-clan rivalries.
Unlike its now-archetypal failed-state neighbor to the south, Somaliland not only has emerged with the basic trappings of self-government, it has some solid legal grounding upon which to build a case for sovereignty.
In 1960, Somaliland was independent for a few days, between the end of British colonial rule and its union with the former Italian colony of Somalia (southern Somalia). Forty years later, in 2001, voters in the territory overwhelmingly backed Somaliland's independence in a referendum. Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of the Somali Republic in May 1991, following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of its leech regime in Mogadishu.
Somaliland voluntarily joined with its newly independent southern counterpart (the former UN Trust Territory of Somalia that was a former Italian colony) to create the present-day Republic of Somalia. Somalilanders note that they voluntarily joined a union after independence, and that, under international law, they should have the right to abrogate that union, as they did in 1991.
But without official recognition from other states, Somaliland, to its chagrin, is still Somalia. For now, that is in name only, and things could change, both for the better, as Hargeisa sees it, or for worse.
Maybe not by the fiat of international law or African Union pressure, or even by some powerful and dominant entity taking control in Mogadishu, but Somaliland could become Somalia - in the reductionist, pejorative sense, with country name used as synonym for terror-wracked failed state.
It would be a shame, but that seems to be the method-in-madness rationale behind recent terror attacks in Hargeisa - and in pirate-alley Puntland, a region in Somalia that claims increased autonomy, but not outright independence, from the barely existing transitional government in Mogadishu.
On 30 October, just days after the Ethiopian and US-backed transitional government signed an agreement in Nairobi with some of the Islamist opposition - a potential landmark given that both sides were at war in 2006, when the Islamic Courts Union tried to take control of Somalia by force before the Ethiopian Army intervened - five near-simultaneous and apparently coordinated suicide attacks struck high-profile targets in Hargeisa and in Bosasso, the economic capital of the neighboring region of Puntland.
In Hargeisa, the bombs targeted the presidential palace, the UN Development Programme's compound and Ethiopia's diplomatic representation, killing 19 people on the spot.
Somaliland is a US ally, and as such is seen by Somalia's hardline Islamists, most notably the misnamed al-Shebaab ("the lads" or "the youth") group - which opposed the Nairobi talks - as a perfidious abomination backed by an Addis Ababa bent on further breaking up the historic "Greater Somalia," which should include the Somali-speaking Ogaden in Ethiopia and parts of northern Kenya, not just Somalia as mapped today.
Somaliland has perhaps been designated an easy target by an al-Shebaab seeking vengeance for the 1 May US airstrike that killed its leader, Aden Hashi Ayro, in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb. That hit came just weeks after the US State Department designated al-Shebaab as a "global terrorist entity." Afghanistan-trained Ayro was linked to the murder of 16 foreigners, including a number of aid workers and BBC journalist Kate Peyton.
Reacting to the assassination, David Shinn from Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University told ISN Security Watch last May that "I have no doubt that al-Shebaab will attempt to avenge Ayro's death by attacking American, Kenyan and/or Ethiopian interests in the region."
The US has not moved on recognizing its unofficial ally Somaliland, out of deference to the African Union, which places a priori value on state sovereignty and integrity, even though both are effectively history in Somalia. What is an effective, relatively free and de facto sovereign state, is denied recognition as such, in favor of a fractious, war-torn country where the state has had at best limited control over the past decade and a half.
If Somalia's Islamist terror groups have their way, Somaliland's strong case for recognition will be dismantled - not by Somalia arguing a compelling counter-suit, but by undermining the real democratic and governance gains made by Hargeisa since 1991. This will drag Somaliland into the violent struggles over faith, fatherland, turf and tribe that have made Somalia the failed state par excellence since the early 1990s.

Islamists Continue Advance Through Somalia

Medeshi Nov 14, 2008
Islamists Continue Advance Through Somalia
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAIROBI, Kenya — Islamist militias in Somalia on Thursday continued their steady and surprisingly uncontested march toward the capital, Mogadishu, capturing a small town on the outskirts of the city.

Several dozen Islamist fighters poured into Elasha Biyaha, which is 11 miles southwest of Mogadishu, after government-allied militias fled. No shots were fired, but residents feared it was only a matter of time.
“Many people are now on the verge of fleeing,” said Yusuf Abdi Nur, a shopkeeper in Elasha Biyaha.
The tense but bloodless capture of Elasha Biyaha was a carbon copy of what happened in Merka, a strategic port town, on Wednesday, when hundreds of heavily armed Islamist militants took over the town after government-allied troops beat a hasty retreat.
But the siege of Elasha Biyaha on Thursday was carried out by a different wing of the Islamist movement, according to residents and the Islamists themselves. What seems to be emerging is an accelerating scramble among Somalia’s rival Islamist factions to seize control of areas that the weak transitional government can no longer defend. The government has been hobbled by infighting and plagued by defections to the Islamists, and seems on the brink of collapse.
Many towns in southern Somalia, including Merca, Chisimayu, Qoryooley and Buulo Mareer, are now firmly in the hands of the Shabab, the most militant wing of the Islamists and a group the Bush administration has designated a terrorist organization. The Shabab commanders are fighting to turn Somalia into an Islamic state and they often impose strict Islamic law in their zones of control. On Thursday, residents said the newly arrived clerics in Merca announced that all shops from now on would be closed during prayer time.
But other parts of Somalia — such as Beledweyne on the Ethiopian border, and Giohar, north of Mogadishu — are now falling under the control of a more moderate insurgent group, the Islamic Courts Union. This group receives strong support from Somalia’s influential business community, and often the population.
In Mogadishu, the government is clinging to a few shrinking enclaves, like the port, airport and the presidential palace — all of which are frequently shelled. Much of the rest of the city is controlled by Islamist groups and clan militias.
On Thursday, Abdirahin Isse Adow, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union, said it was his group that had taken over Elasha Biyaha, in order to “bring back peace and security.”
“We don’t want these people to feel insecurity, then evacuate,” he said, referring to intense fighting earlier in the year that displaced hundreds of thousands of Somalis.
Many residents said they were happy to see the Islamic gunmen.
The Islamic Courts Union and the Shabab used to be allies. In the summer of 2006, their combined forces ousted the predatory warlords that had controlled Mogadishu. For the first time since Somalia’s central government collapsed in 1991, many Somalis said they experienced peace.
But a few months later, Ethiopian forces routed the Islamist troops and brought Somalia’s transitional government to Mogadishu, which set off some of the most intense warfare Somalia has ever seen. Thousands of civilians have been killed since early 2007, with different Islamist groups waging relentless attacks on government and Ethiopian forces and sometimes battling it out themselves.

Off the coast of Somalia: 'We're not pirates. These are our waters, not theirs'

Medeshi 14 Nov, 2008

Off the coast of Somalia: 'We're not pirates. These are our waters, not theirs'

When Bile Wadani is not counting his money, he counts his wives. So far he has three – but he promises there will be more to come. "I didn't ever dream I would marry three wives but I have that dream now because I can get as much money as I want."

(Photo: Two boats from HMS Cumberland intercept a suspected pirate vessel in the Gulf of Aden after Russian and British forces repelled an attack on a cargo ship)
As he speaks, waves can be heard crashing in the background. Bile is speaking by mobile telephone from the deck of a captured ship somewhere off the mountainous coast of northern Somalia, near the tip of the Horn of Africa. His words are interrupted by the crackle of gunfire.
Bile will not reveal his exact location or identify the captured vessel as he claims he is being hunted by foreign warships.
He is one of the new generation of pirates who have turned the Gulf of Aden into the most dangerous shipping lane in the world. The success of their rough and ready tactics has been such that insurers are warning that shipowners may have to use alternative routes, which would have tremendous ramifications for global trade and commodity prices.
International governments are committing millions of pounds to fighting the pirates. The Royal Navy's HMS Cumberland joined forces with a Russian frigate to kill three pirates as they attempted to seize a Danish vessel in the latest incident on Tuesday.
Despite the fact that warships from Denmark, France, Russia, Japan and the US have joined the Royal Navy in patrolling the gulf, little attention has been paid to the roots of the problem.
Both the risks and the rewards of Bile's chosen career are colossal. And along with an increasing number of his compatriots in the anarchy of Somalia, he has chosen to embrace them. The lure of vast sums of money is transforming the coast of this country and turning the pirates into the heroes of a shattered land.
Millions of dollars in ransoms are being paid by desperate ship owners – an estimated $30m (£20.5m) so far this year. That is one and a half times the annual budget for authorities in the northern region of Puntland. One captured vessel can fetch up to $2m.
The epicentre of this piracy is the port town of Eyl, in the Nugal region. It is off limits to the outside world, a safe haven for the pirates and a base for their attacks. It now functions, according to residents, almost completely on the proceeds from piracy.
Much of the rest of Somalia has been destroyed by the seemingly endless wars that have washed across the country in the two decades since it last had a functioning government. The capital, Mogadishu, lies mostly in ruins.
In Eyl, the streets are lined with new buildings and awash with Landcruisers, laptops, satellite phones and global positioning systems.
Almost everyone in Eyl has a relative or husband among the pirates. Fatima Yusuf, who has lived her whole life in Eyl, describes the intense involvement of the whole community in the fortunes of the young men who set out in crews of seven or eight armed with AK-47s and rocket launchers to take on the tankers on the high seas.
The planning is rigorous, Bile insists: "When we want to kidnap a ship, we go with not more than six or seven men because we don't want to be a mob, this is a military tactic."
Fatima says the people will gather to pray for the pirates and that when they set sail sacrifices are made in traditional ceremonies where a goat will be slaughtered, its throat cut."
An industry has grown up around the pirates, with restaurants to feed the kidnapped crews who as potentially tradable assets must be looked after. The pirates have become glamorous figures. Like most of the girls in Eyl, Sadiya Samatar Haji wants to marry a pirate. "I'm not taking no for an answer," she says. "I'll tie the knot with a pirate man because I'll get to live in a good house with good money."
Twelve-year-old Mohamed Bishar Adle, in nearby Garowe, the regional capital of Puntland, knows what he wants to do with his education. "When I finish high school, I will be a pirate man, I will work for my family and will get more money."
Beyond the bravado, Bile acknowledges that the danger is increasing. He will not say how many attacks he has participated in but he does claim to have been one of the pirates who clashed with French forces in April this year after the capture and ransom of a luxury yacht. French commandoes pursued a band of Somali pirates en route to Eyl after a ransom had been paid. Bile says nine of his compatriots were taken and that only he and one other friend were able to escape. Six of those caught face prosecution in Paris after being transferred to France.
He also remembers the terror of his first mission. "You don't know if it's a warship. You have to open fire and if it doesn't respond you know."
Bile did not grow up dreaming of being a pirate. He comes from a family of fishermen whose livelihood was destroyed, he says, by the arrival of industrial trawlers from Europe.
At some 3,300 kilometres, Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa. With a fertile upswelling where the ocean reaches Africa's Horn, the seas are rich in tuna, swordfish and shark, as well as coastal beds of lobster and valuable shrimp.
With the overthrow of Siad Barre's government in 1991, the territorial waters off Somalia became a free-for-all. Trawlers from more than 16 different nations were recorded within its waters – many of them armed. EU vessels flying flags of convenience cut deals with the illegitimate authorities in Somalia, according to UN investigators.
Clashes between large, foreign fishing interests and Somali fishermen in the late 1990s were the prelude to the upsurge in piracy.
Bile, like many of the pirates, calls himself a "coastguard" and insists he has more right to these contested seas than the foreign forces now patrolling them. He says many of his friends' boats were destroyed in these battles and stocks of a fish known locally as "yumbi" have all but disappeared.
Like many in Somalia, Bile is angry that outside powers are seeking a military solution to a more complex problem. He rejects the tag of "terrorist" and denies links to Islamic militias, like the Al-Shabab, which are in control of large areas of Somalia. He insists that the pirates would not give "one AK-47" to the Islamists.
While admitting that the influx of foreign navies is making his life more dangerous, he remains defiant: "We will keep carrying out attacks. We are ready for long distance attacks as far as the coast of Yemen."

Somaliland : Somalia's new frontline

Britain is leaving once-stable Somaliland to the mercy of al-Shabaab Islamist militants

Jeremy Sare
guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 13 2008 10.00 GMT
Article history
The co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks in Somaliland's capital Hargeisa two weeks ago shattered more than a decade of stability. Yet the despite the continuing threat hanging over this former British protectorate, the British government will not act to properly protect the fledgling democracy.
Since tearing itself from a bloody union with the violent southern half of Somalia, Somaliland to the north has been an oasis of democratic hope in a turbulent region (about 8,000 people are estimated to have been killed in southern Somalia in the last 18 months). The car bombings, which killed about 30 people (including two UN officials), served as a bitter reminder to the Somalilanders, if one were needed, of their proximity to the pit of spiralling violence and their own vulnerability of sliding back into it. There were also lethal explosions in the semi-autonomous regime of Puntland.
The international community is watching passively as the terror and violence erupt again. There is no shortage of international condemnation for the attacks, including from the minister for Africa, Lord Malloch-Brown, but no real practical help is being offered. As the former colonial power, Britain has a particular responsibility to the 3.5 million Somalilanders. "We need two levels of support," says Abdi Karim, head of Wales Somaliland Communities Link. "First, capacity-building and training of police and security services. Second, humanitarian support for the hospitals, if there are further attacks".
Somaliland does not qualify for specific aid and development, let alone additional security support, because it is not recognised as sovereign by the UN. It has been effectively an independent country since 1991, but without diplomatic recognition there can be no support programme; the result is extreme poverty and a chronic lack of defence infrastructure. Michael Walls of Somaliland Focus (UK) blames "a lack of willingness on the part of many international actors to sufficiently recognise… both state and civil society remain enormously under-resourced".
The bombings in Somaliland were most likely a concerted effort to curtail the country's third presidential election to be held next March; voter registration has ceased in the ensuing security clampdown.There is a strong suspicion across the region the group responsible for the atrocities was al-Shabaab an extreme Islamist militia which now effectively controls the southern Somali port of Kismayo and parts of the capital, Mogadishu. They practice an extreme form of sharia law and have now turned their spiteful gaze to the harmonious north.
They announced their murderous intent in 2006 when one of the leaders of the Islamic Courts Union, Sheikh Dahir Aweys, promised publicly "to send 30 young martyrs to carry out explosions and killing of the Jewish and American collaborators in the northern regions".
Al-Shabaab is considered by many governments to be, at least ideologically, if not materially linked to al-Qaida. Since they overran Kismayo in August, al-Shabaab leaders have restored order. But then began the wholesale violent suppression of the people, particularly women, under their perverse interpretation of Islamic law.
To gauge the degree of fundamentalism within al-Shabaab, you need look no further than the stoning to death of 13-year old girl a few days ago in Kismayo.
The circumstances of Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow's killing could hardly be more brutal. She was first raped by three men but was condemned as "an adulterer" by Al-Shabaab leaders. An anonymous eyewitness told the BBC she was dragged to a stadium weeping. She was buried up to her neck before 50 men stoned her in front of a 1,000 strong crowd. The international community seems resigned to this institutionalised barbarism and routine human rights abuses in Somalia.
But there has been some hint from the British government they would like to help Somaliland but are held back by the "technicality' of not having recognised sovereignty - notably by, chair of the All-Party Group for Somaliland Alun Michael MP, Britain's support would risk offending the sensibilities of Italy and a couple of African Union countries which oppose their independence.
But the counter-argument to an independent Somaliland can be captured in one word: "Somaliweyn'. In essence it means a call for a Greater Somalia by uniting all the Somali peoples who currently live in southern Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, eastern Ethiopia and the north-eastern province of Kenya.
Somaliweyn is nothing more than chauvinistic patriotism which defies long-established international boundaries and flies in the face of political reality. Reports from Hargeisa in recent days describe a tense city still in shock and fearful of the next strike from al-Shabaab. It is time Britain acted to offer effective security support and intelligence to Somaliland.

SOMALILAND: Hostility rises in Hargeisa after suicide bombings

HARGEISA, 10 November 2008 (IRIN) - Somalis displaced to the self-styled independent republic of Somaliland from other parts of the Horn of Africa country have faced increasing hostility after three suicide bombing incidents in late October.
Reports of criminal incidents targeting non-Somaliland Somalis in Hargeisa, Somaliland's capital, have prompted Interior Minister Abdillahi Ismail Irro to call for restraint.
"I am calling on Somaliland citizens not to harm or take aggressive actions against the refugees from Somalia [by] linking them to the criminals, because these people were not part of the attacks; on the contrary, only a small number of people were involved in the crimes which we are now investigating. I urge you to report any suspects to the nearest police station instead of taking the law into your own hands," Irro said.
Somaliland considers Somalis displaced from outside Somaliland as refugees and only recognises those displaced within Somaliland as internally displaced.
Several people from southern Somalia in Hargeisa said they were now living in fear while others had been thrown out of their residences since the bombings, which targeted the presidential palace, a UN compound and the Ethiopian embassy.
The bombers have been linked to the Al-Shabab militia group based in Mogadishu.
Mohamed Abdirahman 19, who has been in Hargeisa for about a month, said: "The people of Hargeisa welcomed me when I first came to Somaliland after leaving Mogadishu; everybody was so nice to me and used to give me meals but this changed within 24 hours of the bombings.
"I was quickly thrown out by my hosts. Whenever I walk along the street, I try not to talk to anyone because I fear that if I am identified as a Somali citizen, I will face difficulties because the suspects were believed to have come from Mogadishu," Abdirahman told IRIN.
However, Abdirahman was taken in by another family on 3 November.
"I am now living with another family neighbouring my former hosts; I hope the situation will improve soon," he said.
Fadumo Hassan, another Somali resident, was robbed by people who posed as policemen investigating the bombings.
She said: "A day after the bombings, four men came to my home in Kodbur district here in Hargeisa; they claimed they were police officers and wanted to inspect my house in relation to the attacks; I allowed them into the house where they conducted a search. After they left, it was established that they were thieves and had stolen money and jewellery from me. I don't know how I will recover my property."
Meanwhile, Somaliland police have arrested freelance journalist Hadis Mohamed Hadis, another Somali citizen, who has been in Somaliland for the past six years.
The police declined to give a reason for his arrest.

Horn of Africa: The tragedy of the decade?

Medeshi Nov 6, 2008

The tragedy of the decade?

From The Economist print edition

Millions of people in dire need of help

ONE result of Ethiopia’s dreadful famine in 1984, when at least 1m people starved to death, was the invention of celebrity activism on behalf of the world’s most miserable. Band Aid, then Live Aid, then ever more sophisticated networking and the airing of films of starving children on television helped persuade rich countries’ governments to double aid to Africa as part of a wider set of promises to meet the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals laid out in 2000, the first of which is to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” by 2015. Despite progress in setting up early-warning systems, better procurement methods and the rapid delivery of nutrition in the form of foil packets of plumpy nut, the Horn of Africa has remained a hunger zone.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says the present drought is the worst there since 1984. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is usually slow to press the panic button, says it may be the tragedy of the decade. At least 17.5m people, the agencies reckon, may face starvation. The WFP is trying to feed 14m of them. High food prices, together with civil strife, the assassination of aid workers by jihadists, and piracy against food convoys sailing from Kenya to Somalia have combined with drought and desert to create a catastrophe. Some 12m of the hungry are in Ethiopia, 3m in Somalia, 2m in Kenya and Uganda, the rest in Eritrea and Djibouti.

Aid workers are getting better at stopping mass starvation. Fewer people will die than in 1984 or 1992, when Somalia was famine-stricken. But doctors at feeding clinics in affected areas say that children are already dying of illnesses linked to malnutrition, such as diarrhoea, heart failure, pneumonia and other infections. Survivors may be physically and mentally stunted, and ravaged by sores. Fighting in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region and across Somalia makes it more expensive to reach the hungry. The WFP says it needs an extra $572m to keep people alive until April. Falling oil prices may reduce transport costs, but not by much. A shortage in the region’s markets has forced the WFP to buy most of its food from distant South Africa.

An extra worry is that the world’s financial turmoil may reduce remittances from the Horn’s vast number of émigrés, putting more people at risk of starvation. The African Union, based in Addis Ababa, says a famine would wreck the region’s prospects and worsen general instability. Fighting between desperate pastoralist groups has already increased.

Obama in Pictures

Photograph taken in 1987 of Barack Obama and his grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama hangs in her home in the village of Nyagoma-Kogelo, western Kenya AP

Somaliland : Detainee Transfer Announced

Medeshi 05 Nov, 2008

Somaliland : Detainee Transfer Announced
The Department of Defense announced today the return of one detainee from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Somaliland. This detainee was determined to be eligible for transfer following a comprehensive series of review processes.

The transfer is a demonstration of the United States’ desire not to hold detainees any longer than necessary. It also underscores the processes put in place to assess each individual and make a determination about their detention while hostilities are ongoing – an unprecedented step in the history of warfare.

The Department of Defense has determined – through its comprehensive review processes - that more than 60 detainees at Guantanamo are eligible for transfer or release. Departure of these detainees is subject to ongoing discussions between the United States and other nations.

Since 2002, approximately 520 detainees have departed Guantanamo for other countries including Albania, Algeria, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, France, Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and Yemen.

There are approximately 255 detainees currently at Guantanamo.

Somaliland - Growing Stronger as a State Within a State

Medeshi 05 Nov, 2008

Somaliland - Growing Stronger as a State Within a State
The Monitor (Kampala)ANALYSIS

By Gitau Muthuma
Although Somaliland is not recognised as an independent state, in reality, it functions as one.
Despite the recent attack on the president's palace and the UNDP headquarters in the capital, Hargeisa - suspected to have been carried out by Islamic militants - the breakaway Republic of Somaliland remains largely unaffected by the chaos that persists in southern Somalia. Situated in northwestern Somalia in the Horn of Africa, it was part of Somalia until 1991.
The region is bordered by Djibouti to the west, Ethiopia to the south, and the Puntland region of Somalia to the East. Somaliland has a working political system, government institutions, and its own currency and a 740 kilometre coastline along the Red Sea.
Following the collapse of the Siad Barre regime, the northern part of the country declared itself independent as the Republic of Somaliland on May 18, 1991. However, it did not receive international diplomatic recognition.
In 1960, the area had enjoyed independence for a few days, between the end of British colonial rule and its union with the former Italian colony of Somalia (southern Somalia). 40 years later, in 2001, voters in the territory overwhelmingly backed Somaliland's independence in a referendum.
As a result, Somaliland leaders distance themselves from Somalia's central transition government, which they see as a threat to their autonomy. That is why they were not part of the just ended IGAD leaders' meeting on Somalia in Nairobi. The main preoccupation of the government of Somaliland is to get international diplomatic recognition, which has so far proved elusive.
Those opposed to the recognition of Somaliland internationally fear that such a move would trigger an avalanche of secessionist demands in the rest of the continent. But even without this recognition, Somaliland has political contacts with Britain, Djibouti, Ghana, Belgium, Sweden and Ethiopia.
Ethiopia, in particular, needs Somaliland as an import/export outlet since it is landlocked. The US is also said to be toying with the idea of acknowledging the less volatile Somaliland Republic.
Some parts of the Somaliland territory such as Sool, Sanaag, northeastern Maakhir and Cayn are, however, not quite reconciled to the idea of the Somaliland Republic and still yearn for unity with Somalia.
Somaliland's first president was the Abdirahman Ahmed Ali Tuur. He succeeded by the late Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal (also deceased) in 1993. Neither of them was elected; instead, they were appointed by the Grand Conference of National Reconciliation.
Egal was reappointed in 1997, and remained in power until his death on May 3, 2002. The vice president, Dahir Riyale Kahin succeeded him and in 2003 and became the first Somaliland president to be elected by popular vote.
Somaliland's system of government combines traditional and western institutions. The Executive consists of a President, Vice-President and a Council of ministers. The judiciary is independent, and the Legislature bicameral.
The traditional Somali council of elders was incorporated into the governance structure and forms the Upper House of the Legislature; it is responsible for managing internal conflicts. The government in Somaliland is a power-sharing coalition of the main clans, with seats in the Upper House proportionally allocated to clans according to a predetermined formula.
This was also the case with the Lower House, but in September 2005, voters elected a new parliament, and the system where MPs had hitherto been chosen by clan elders through a process of consultation was finally discarded.
The Somaliland constitution limits the number of political parties to three, and they are the United Peoples' Democratic Party (UDUB); Peace, Unity and Development Party (Kulmiye); and the Justice and Development Party (UCUD). These parties are mainly clan based and no single one is capable of winning power on its own, hence the coalition.
President Dahir Riyale Kahin of the ruling UDUB, who won Somaliland's first multi - party presidential elections in April 2003 with a slim majority, and whose five-year term ended in May 2008, had his term controversially extended by Somaliland's council of elders.
This was ostensibly because Somaliland was not adequately prepared in terms of voter registration and other logistics. Voter registration is now complete, and the presidential election will be held in April 2009.
Somaliland is mainly inhabited by the sub-clans of the Dir and the Darood clans. The major clan in Somaliland is the Isak, followed by the Gadabursi. Others clans are the Issa the Gabooye and the Darood sub-clans, the Dhulbahanta, and Warsengeli.
The Darood sub-clans mainly support the Kulmiye party, whose candidate is Ahmed Mohamed Mohamud Silanyo. The various sub-clans of the Isaksub- clan of the larger Dir clan, namely the Garhajis, and the Habar Jelo, support the UCUD party whose presidential candidate is Faysal Ali Warabe. The Habar Awal, also a sub-clan of the Isak, support President Riyale's UDUB.
The Gadabursi's support is divided between two parties. One of the sub-clans, the Mahadase, support Kulmiye since the vice-presidential candidate for the party, Abdirahman Saylici is one of their own. The other Gadabursi sub-clan, the Habar Arfan, support UCUD. The Makahil, also of the Gadabursi clan from which President Riyale hails, support UDUB.
As things stand now, there seems to be an alliance between the Kulmiye and UCUD parties, and they may well kick Riyale's UDUB out of power.
Economically, Somaliland is still in its developing stages. The Somaliland shilling, while stable, is not an internationally recognised currency and currently has no official exchange rate (unofficially $1 is equivalent to 6,000 Somaliland shillings).
It is regulated by the Bank of Somaliland, the central bank. The bulk of Somaliland's exports are livestock, hides and skins. Agriculture, mostly cereal production, is minimal.
However, recent research shows that Somaliland has large offshore and inshore oil and natural gas reserves. But since the country lacks diplomatic status, these resources cannot be exploited at the moment. Somaliland's port of Berbera has also grown as a major export port for Ethiopia since the latter's fall-out with Eritrea.
Given its relative stability, and despite some local and international opposition, it may well be more practical for the international community to recognise Somaliland as a separate entity from the chaotic south Somalia since it in fact functions as such in reality.
Gitau Muthuma is the registrar, Eelo American University, Borama, Somaliland.
Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group's Africa Media Network Project.

Racial Barrier Falls as Voters Embrace Call for Change

Medeshi 05 Nov , 2008

Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.
The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country.
But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a