President, Clinton in handshake diplomacy President, Clinton in handshake diplomacy Agence France-Presse August 07, 2009 01:49am Text size + - Print Email Share Add to MySpace Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Fark Post to Facebook Add to Kwoff What are these? FOR the top US diplomat, handshakes are usually a mere formality but when it comes to meeting Somalia's leader, it certainly seemed meaningful. After widespread speculation, Somalia's Islamist but pro-US President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed accepted US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's hand in front of the cameras today. Mrs Clinton appeared to initiate the contact, giving him a robust handshake as she left the podium at a joint news conference at the US embassy in neighbouring Kenya. Pressed later by a Somali reporter about the handshake, Mr Sharif said, "I don't think it's a problem." Many devout Muslims believe it is improper for men and women to appear in each other's company outside wedlock, let alone touch. Mr Sharif, a young Islamist cleric, was at the forefront of the armed resistance against the 2006 military invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia but has since joined a UN-sponsored reconciliation process and is perceived to be occupying the country's political middle ground. Mrs Clinton and President Barack Obama have made reaching out to Muslims and respecting their sensitivities a key priority after taking over from president George W Bush, who was widely unpopular in the Islamic world. But Mrs Clinton is also a staunch advocate of a more assertive role for women.

Somalia's President Sharif Ahmed addresses a news conference inside the presidential palace in the capital, Mogadishu, Aug.4, 2009. (Str - Reuters) In Somalia, a Twist on 'Handshake Diplomacy'[The Washington Post] The former spokesman for the ousted Islamist courts movement, Abdirahim Issa Addou, said that in his view, Sharif is no longer interested in appeasing the Shabab and that "we need to show the Americans we're different." Following that line of reasoning, he said, Sharif should not just offer Clinton a hearty handshake. "To me, I'd go as far as kissing her," Addou joked. "But really, Sheikh Sharif is in a difficult position. "You know," he said with a sigh, "that Sharif has a lot of problems." In Somalia, a Twist on 'Handshake Diplomacy' By Stephanie McCrummen Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, August 6, 2009 NAIROBI, Aug. 5 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Somali President Sharif Ahmed are expected to discuss weighty security issues when they meet in this city Thursday. But many Somalis will be paying close attention to a more delicate, but highly symbolic, matter of diplomacy: whether the two will shake hands. "The talk is everywhere," said Abdirhaman Mumin, a Somali sugar exporter who is hoping for the handshake. "Will he or won't he? For many people, whether he's loyal to Islam or not depends on the handshake." Somalia is a traditionally moderate Muslim country. Music and poetry are treasured, and handshaking between men and women -- taboo according to some conservative readings of Islam -- has long been considered normal. But since the collapse of the last central government in 1991, a more conservative strain of Islam has taken hold, with Somalis depending more on Islamic law to establish order. Ahmed, a former geography teacher and Islamic scholar, was the widely respected leader of a movement of Islamist courts that briefly took power in 2006 and imposed a more strict interpretation of Islamic law. The movement was soon ousted in a U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion fueled by accusations that the movement's military wing, known as al-Shabab, had ties to al-Qaeda. These days, a more resolutely moderate Ahmed is back in power and battling the Shabab, which broke with him and now controls much of southern Somalia. Increasingly, though, its members are rebels without a cause. They lost one of their main battle cries when the Ethiopian army withdrew from Somalia. They lost another recently, when Ahmed heeded a popular call and adopted Islamic law for the country. And so, at the moment, the Shabab is relying heavily on portraying Ahmed as an "impure" Muslim, a puppet of the West, a turncoat. Last week, pro-Shabab Web sites were speculating about a possible shake between Ahmed and Clinton, arguing that, were it to come to fruition, it would prove that Ahmed had lost credibility with Islamists. Some Somalis have argued that Sharif should refrain from pressing palms, if only to keep the Shabab from scoring a public relations victory. "If they shake hands, they'll definitely use it as propaganda," said one Somali analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Shabab is known to target critics. But in recent interviews with Somali exiles -- a generally moderate bunch -- most said they are in favor of the handshake, a view that reflects their cautious optimism about U.S. support for Ahmed, usually referred to as Sheikh Sharif. The United States recently shipped 40 tons of ammunition to help the government fight the rebels. The pro-shake crowd also reflects a deep-seated desire among many Somalis to shed their image as citizens of one of the most dysfunctional and anarchic countries in the world. "I think it's good for him to shake hands," said Abdi Ibrahim, who was discussing the issue with friends at a cafe in Nairobi's bustling Eastleigh neighborhood. "Sheikh Sharif has to show Somalis that this is normal. Everyone shakes hands. Why should Somalis be different? Why the big deal? We need to join the world." "But," he added somewhat gloomily, "the insurgents will use it to say he has changed a lot -- maybe he shouldn't. I cannot say 100 percent." The former spokesman for the ousted Islamist courts movement, Abdirahim Issa Addou, said that in his view, Sharif is no longer interested in appeasing the Shabab and that "we need to show the Americans we're different." Following that line of reasoning, he said, Sharif should not just offer Clinton a hearty handshake. "To me, I'd go as far as kissing her," Addou joked. "But really, Sheikh Sharif is in a difficult position. "You know," he said with a sigh, "that Sharif has a lot of problems."

Somali lawmakers reject Kenya-Somalia maritime deal BEIJING, Aug. 3 -- The Somali parliament on Saturday overwhelmingly rejected a controversial maritime agreement signed between the governments of Somalia and Kenya last April. The Memorandum of Understanding was reached between the two coastal states in accordance with a requirement by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). UNCLOS demands the provision of non-objection with respect to the two neighbors' respective presentation submissions to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf because the preparation of a country's claim for submission requires cooperation of its neighbors. After two days of heated debate, Somali lawmakers voted overwhelmingly against the MOU between the two countries which would allow the extension of the two coastal states' continental shelf. "347 deputies attended the session. 334 voted against the motion, four deputies requested postponement of the vote while nine parliament members asked for the setting up of a committee for the issue," Somali parliament speaker Sheikh Adan Madobe said after the vote. "Therefore, the Somali parliament rejected the maritime Memorandum of Understanding between Kenya and Somalia." The Transitional Somali government is battling a deadly insurgence against Islamist rebels who wage a daily attacks on its troops and African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu. Most of the lawmakers said the agreement "compromises the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of the war-torn horn of Africa country. Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, a Somali MP "We are happy that the vote has taken place as we wanted and it is a victory for the Somali people. I congratulate Somali parliamentarians for showing patriotism." Since the agreement was signed in April, controversy over the maritime deal has been growing in its rejection by Somali parliament. It is not clear whether the MOU could affect the Limits of the Continental Shelf of the two countries. Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Mogadishu. (XHTV)

Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed: Can the people of Somalia trust him...still? Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed: Can the people of Somalia trust him...still? Sophia Tesfamariam July 17, 2009 Much has been written and said about Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the new President of Somalia. Washington is presenting him as the "moderate" Islamist-not sure what that means anymore. In Washington politics, it looks like a "moderate" is someone that is amenable to the West, and someone who will advance western interests ahead of that of his own people, someone who is willing to get rid of, even kill, those that are opposed to it, or get in the way. The people of Somalia rallied behind the Union of Islamic Courts and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in 2006 because the UIC brought peace to Mogadishu and other areas in Somalia, but more than that, they trusted the UIC to defend Somalia�s sovereignty and territorial integrity and the interests of the Somali people. Sheikh Sharif Ahmed went from being "hunted down" by the invading Ethiopian forces in 2006 to the man the US-led international community chose to head the third externally established Transitional National Government of Somalia. On the surface, it looks like he was chosen because the US-led international community felt that he had the best chance of gaining legitimacy in Somalia, because during the brief 6-month Union of Islamic Courts takeover of Mogadishu, the UIC under his leadership, had managed to bring some semblance of normalcy to the city, had facilitated the opening up of its ports and airports for the first time in 15 years and seemed to have gained the respect of the Somali people. When the UIC ousted the CIA and Ethiopian backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), that controlled Mogadishu in June 2006, the jubilant "moderate" Sheikh Sharif Ahmed told us: "�We won the fight against the enemy of Islam. Mogadishu is under control of its people�" With the "moderate" Sheikh Sharif Ahmed at the helm again, is Mogadishu under the control of its people? If the UIC represented the wishes of the people of Somalia back then, does the UIC, as it is constituted today, still represent the people of Somalia? Does Sheikh Sharif Ahmed represent what they want? Let us take a look at what ordinary Somalis want in their leadership. After reading a series of articles written by Mr. Luqmaan Suleiman, a Somali writer, I got the sense that he represented what most Somalis wanted. In an 18 April 2008 article Mr. Suleiman expressed his sentiments about the UIC and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. He provided a brief comparison between the two, Abdulahi Yusuf and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, and offered his personal observations. He began his article by writing the following: "�.Unfortunat ely, Somali people have been lacking both local and national good leaders for the last twenty years and the temporary leaders who are now in charge of the Somali affairs lack even minimum standard of leadership qualities. The leadership situation in Somalia was aggravated by the Tigrian occupation because no one can do something without their permission�." Mr. Suleiman had this to say about Abdulahi Yusuf "�He was supposed to be, look like and take a lesson from progressive leaders who lead their people with prosperity, peace and understanding. Instead Abdullahi Yusuf followed a criminal thug and a killer, communist and dictator like Meles Zenawi who is firstly half of his age and secondly led his people to destruction, abuse, torture, rape and killing. Not only that be this old man Abdullahi Yusuf for the first time in Somalia�s history brought foreigners in to Somalia�Abdul lahi Yusuf, lacks all kinds of basic qualities leadership�Hi s leadership qualities are a bad mouth, saying things without thinking, manipulator, congenital liar, irresponsible and not trustworthy, blood on his hands and psychopathic� if he is a good man he would have left politics and devoted his last day of his life to surrender Allah (swt) and ask for forgiveness for his past sins instead he is ordering the killing of innocent children, women and elders..." Mr. Suleiman seems to want the same qualities in leadership that we all seek. He expects Somalia�s leaders to be honest, principled and visionary. He expects them to be selfless leaders who promote the unity of the Somali people and promote Somalia�s social, economic and political interest. Now let us take a look at his impressions of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and see if he semms to fit the bill. Mr. Suleiman wrote: "�Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed possesses the qualities of a good leader. He is calm, respectable, authoritative, charismatic, multi-lingual, cooperative, compromiser, trustworthy, realistic, and optimistic, possess listening skills, patience, forgive and forget, communicator and self knowledge these and many more�Sheikh Sharif is now the leader of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia. As the leader of the opposition group, he demonstrated the abilities to deal with many well known experienced foreign politician and Journalist and convinced them that the solution of the Somali people rests the withdrawal of the Tigrean militias from Somalia and they finally accepted that view. These politician and journalist saw him during IUC and they saw him a leader whom they deal and trust�" In addition to his cool demeanor, it seems that there was something else that made Mr. Suleiman choose Sheikh Sharif Ahmed over Abdulahi Yusuf. This is what he wrote: "�Furthermore , he showed clearly his leader qualities during the reign of the Islamic Union Courts (IUC) which ruled Somalia for six months. With his leadership the Somali people tasted a good sense of normalcy, safe environment, with hope and prosperity. During that period, Sheikh Sharif was the face and speaker of the IUC and he showed to the world that Somalia can be restored back with an environment of progress and tranquility and safety after seventeen years of lawlessness, hunger and suffering�Not only that but he refused to sit with Transitional Government officials including the current so called President Abdullahi Yusuf and previous Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister and their Tigrian Master Meles Zenawi �" Today, as I follow developments in Somalia and follow Sheikh Sharif Ahmed�s reign, I wonder if Mr. Suleiman would still approve of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed�s record. Is Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's conduct today any different than that of Abdulahi Yusuf and Ali Mohammed Ghedi? Is Sheikh Sharif Ahmed living up to the expectation of the Somali people, such as Mr. Suleiman? Can the Somali people trust Shekh Sharif Ahmed to do what is right for the Somali people or is he, like his predecessors, using the supposed presence "extremists" as a pretext to ingratiate himself with the US-led international community? As they say, a man is only as good as his word. Is he today, like Mr. Suleiman said, still "the face and speaker" for the UIC? I decided to go back and take a look at what Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was saying then, and compare it to what he is saying today. The readers can judge his honesty, credibility and integrity for themselves. Let us look at the fundamental issues that were the most important to the Somali people, such as Mr. Suleiman, and see where Sheikh Sharif Ahmed stands. In addition to exercising their sovereign right to choose their own leaders, as we have heard over and over again, the Somali people do not want any foreign forces on their soil, especially Ethiopians. We also know that the Somali people want peace, stability and security in their country. Back then Sheikh Sharif Ahmed seemed to agree with the Somali people. Is Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in step with the people of Somalia or is he on a different course, dancing to a different tune? Let�s see how he stacks up. Today, the western media keep reporting about the presence of "foreign fighters" in Somalia and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has joined the chorus with his own wild accusations against those who are opposing his rule. The recent revelations about a group of young Somali men from Minnesota who went to fight alongside the Somali people explain the sudden influx of "foreigners" in Somalia. It should be recalled that as far back as 2001, there were some analysts who wrote about the presence of Afghan, Pakistani and other "foreigners" being in Somalia. They relied on intelligence provided by the minority regime in Ethiopia. It is unfortunate that Sheikh Sharif Ahmed who once called on all Somalis everywhere to resist the Ethiopian occupation with their "souls and money" and said "It is our belief that every individual in Somalia has to participate in the resistance and the defeat of the Ethiopian occupation" now wants to label those who heeded that call as "terrorists". Defending your country against foreign intervention is not terrorism. Back then, when the Abdulahi Yusuf TNG claimed that Al Qaeda was in Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was adamant about Somalia not being a haven for terrorists. In the letter delivered to the diplomatic corps in the Kenyan capital in June 2006, he said: "�We share no objectives, goals or methods with groups that sponsor or support terrorism�" He repeated the same thing again on 25 August 2007 saying: "�There are no Al-Qaeda members in Somalia and we are not terrorists: we are simply Somalis�" Unfortunately, today, he is singing a different tune. He is willing to label his own comrades in arms as being "terrorists". He is willing to betray those that gave him refuge and provided him a safe haven when he was being hunted down by Meles Zenawi�s forces. Today he is parroting Meles Zenawi�s deceptions and towing Washington�s line on "terror". Here is what the Washington Post reported on18 June 2009: "�Al Qaeda considers Somalia a strategic place. They want to make it a safe haven for criminals," President Ahmed told a news conference. "This is an international war against Somalis. We ask the world to help us fight the international..." Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in a Statement on 10 April 2007 said that Ethiopia wanted to "wipe Somalia off the world map", but he has had a lot more to say about Ethiopia in the last 3 years. Let us take a look at some of his statements "�We want the whole world to know what's going on�The United States is encouraging Ethiopia to take over the area�" -18 June 2006 speaking to reporters in Jowhar "�For any genuine Somali dialogue to take place inside the country there has to be immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops from Somalia�"-16 July 2007 "�Somalia is under attack and Somalis must defend their country�Anybo dy who sides with Ethiopia will be considered a traitor ...... the Islamic courts will lead the people to victory�"-21 July 2006 "�We do not negotiate with a government which is being helped by the enemy of Somalia�"- 22 July 2006 "�I call on Somalis to be ready for a holy war against an invasion from the enemy of the religion and the country�"-24 July 2006 "From this time on, we will wage a war against Ethiopians inside Somalia�We need anyone who can give us weapons, even a dagger." Speaking to thousands of Somalis in Mogadishu in October 2006 "�We are independent, we can't accept Ethiopian occupation, we are neither a risk to Ethiopia nor any other country. That means if Ethiopia invades we will defend ourselves�"-N ovember 2006 "�This declaration of war by Meles Zenawi against Somalia is something that shows that they also have the consent of the US�"-24 November 2006 "�The Ethiopian forces have massacred people in the areas they have taken�"- 26 December 2006 press conference "�There is no change in the political climate as long as the Ethiopia-imposed government is in Somalia�"-30 October 2007 "�Our problem is not with the old prime minister or the new prime minister. Our problem is Ethiopia's occupation�"- 6 December 2007 "�The Ethiopian forces backing the transitional government mercilessly killed many innocent people, including the people slaughtered at the al-Hidaya mosque�"- 21 April 2008 "�It is our belief that every individual in Somalia has to participate in the resistance and the defeat of the Ethiopian occupation�" When residents in a Somalia border town with Ethiopia recently said they saw Ethiopian troops there, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was once again signing a different tune. He said that authorities had discussed the matter "and they have agreed that Ethiopian troops will remain inside their border." Wasn�t the presence of Ethiopian forces on sovereign Somalia territories that triggered the bloody war? The minority regime in Ethiopia, in justifying the 24 December 2006 invasion and occupation of Somalia claimed that the UIC was a threat to Ethiopia's security. They based their concerns mostly on media statements made by the UIC and the "moderate" Sheikh Sharif Ahmed who said in July 2006 that the UIC would: "� declare jihad if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops from Somalia�" And when Ethiopia refused, on 9 October 2006, he did just that saying: "�From today, I am declaring jihad against Ethiopia, which has invaded our country and taken parts of our homeland�" Those of us following the developments in Somalia were surprised to hear Sheikh Sharif Ahmed�s change his stand on the presence of foreign forces in Somalia. On 27 May 2009 speaking in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he said that AMISOM was playing an "important and needed" role in securing peace and stability in Somalia. What would that role be and how is that different from the role they were playing during the Abdulahi Yusuf rule? Back then, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said that the AU forces would be "unnecessary and counter-productive" and that they would be resisted. Let us take a look at what else he had to say back then. Sheikh Sharif Ahmed had rejected the presence of Ethiopian and African Union forces in Somalia, and had refused to recognize the Abdulahi Yusuf TNG because it was being "propped up" by Ethiopian forces and African Union forces from Uganda and Burundi. On 12 June 2006 he said: "�The government should stop the request of foreign troops in order for internal discussion with us to continue�Nego tiations with the government are not possible at this time because parliament could approve foreign troops�" The "moderate" Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told the Associated Press on 19 September 2006 that Somalis must fight IGAD troops saying, "They are not the owners of Somalia. Somalia belongs to Somalis". On 9 September 2006 he reiterated his opposition to the IGAD proposal saying: "�We might demand from IGAD states not to have international forces intervene in Somalia�There is no need for international forces in Somalia. The problem is ended. The Somali people are living in safety and (peace)..." Today, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed�s TNG is not only asking for more African Union forces it�s also calling on neighboring countries to intervene in Somalia-again. On 22 June 2009 Al Jazeera reported the request made by Somalia�s parliamentary speaker Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur who said: "�The government is weakened by the rebel forces. We ask neighbouring countries - including Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Yemen - to send troops to Somalia within 24 hours�" Is this something that the people of Somalia want? Can Sheikh Sharif Ahmed�s TNG prevent a repeat of the international crimes that were committed by Ethiopian forces during the invasion and occupation of Somalia? Has he forgotten the pain and suffering that was wrought on the people of Somalia? Did he forget about the rapes and tortures of Somali girls and women? Has he forgotten about the wonton destruction, pulverization of Somali villages and the displacement of over 2 million of his compatriots because of Ethiopia�s brutality? Much has been said about the formation of an "Islamic" government in Somalia and the western media have justified the extra judicial and random killings of "extremists" to prevent a "Taliban-like" government from being established in Somalia. The media must be suffering from amnesia and may have forgotten their own reports on Sheikh Sharif Ahmed who, as early as in 2005, was clear about what type of government Somalia would have and said so. On 11 February 2005 he told the Associate Press : "�We are all Muslims, so we don't need any other kind of government here�" On 6 June 2006, the "moderate" Sheikh Sharif Ahmed spelled out his intentions when he spoke to a crowd in Mogadishu in which he told them : "�Until we get the Islamic state, we will continue with the Islamic struggle in Somalia�" Today, afraid of loosing his "moderate" label, is claiming that he agreed to Islamic Sharia law to diffuse the conflict and because "the mediators asked me to introduce Islamic Sharia in the country" . State Department officials such as Vicki Huddleston and Jendayi E. Frazier, with the western media in tow, made a big deal about the UIC banning of khat, a drug banned in the United States. The press reported extensively on the ban on smoking, cinemas, live music, and other activities in Somalia to paint an ugly picture of the "Islamists" and "extremists" and present them as being dangerous for Somalia. It was this image of the "Islamists" that was used to justify US and Ethiopian intervention in Somalia. As the face and voice of the UIC, the "moderate" Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has made many statements on these issues and more. Here is what the Voice of America reported on 17 November 2006 about the banning of khat: "�Islamic Courts Union official Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told reporters that anyone caught carrying, consuming, transporting, and selling the popular narcotic would be fined up to 500,000 Somali shillings, about $365�Ahmed said Somalis spend too much money on khat, harming the economy and "being a source of anti-social behavior" that is not to be tolerated under Sharia, or Islamic, law�" BBC reported the following on 14 November 2006 about the ban on movies: "�The Islamic courts have been attempting to control the activities of the cinemas - accusing them of fuelling crime, drug abuse and immorality� Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the chairman of the Islamic courts, says they [studios] open from early in the morning showing "scandalous movies to children even not allowed by producers in their home country"�" So, here is man who called for jihad against the occupying Ethiopian forces, asked for the unconditional removal of Ethiopian forces from sovereign Somali territories, rejected AMISOM and IGASOM, banned khat and movies and believes an Islamic government with Sharia law is good for Somalia�if that makes him the "moderate", than what is it that the others are calling for that has earned them the "extremist" label? Are they not calling for the same things? Sheikh Sharif Ahmed must know that being "UN recognized" does not mean much if the Somali people don�t have confidence in his leadership, if they can�t trust him to do what is right for Somalia. He must have learned some lessons from his predecessors; the people of Somalia do not like stooges. If he betrays the trust of the Somali people and his comrades in arms, he will remain as impotent as the others before him. Allow me to remind him of what he said about Ali Mohammed Ghedi, Meles Zenawi�s stooge, when he was forced to resign as Somalia�s Prime Minister in the Abdulahi Yusuf led TNG: "�When the colonizer used him and finished with him, he was forced to resign�It was part of the scheme the colonizer used to capture Somalia and whoever replaces Gedi will certainly serve the colonizer�" For Somalia�s sake, I hope that is not what he is also doing� The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!

Somalia: President Asks Somali-Americans to Shun Islamists 14 July 2009 Mogadishu — Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed called on all Somalis living in America not to engage in the activities of Al-Shabaab, the Islamist rebel organisation. His plea comes at a time when fresh fighting erupted between Transitional forces and Islamist rebels. "I call on the Somali-American community not to send their youth to Somalia to fight alongside Al-Shabaab," he said in a press briefing Sunday. Somalis began arriving in the United States in significant numbers after the U.S. intervention in Somalia's humanitarian crisis in 1992. American media reports say last year, a group of Somali-Americans left Minneapolis and are feared to have been recruited into Al-Shabaab. Shirwa Ahmed a 27-year-old Somali-American living in his adopted home state of Minnesota had been radicalized by the Al-Shabaab before travelling to Somalia and blowing up himself and 29 others in October 2008. The president showed concern over the high number of Somalis coming from America to support Al- Shabaab's activities. "I am saying to those young men from abroad: 'Your families fled your home to America because of insecurity. You should not return here to ferment violence against your people,'" he said. The US homeland security website acknowledges that Somalis are indeed moving in large numbers to Somalia to support the terror movement's activities. Somalia: President Asks Somali-Americans to Shun Islamists

Two journalists arrested amid growing crackdown on media Two journalists arrested amid growing crackdown on media Published on 17 July 2009 In the same country 14 July 2009 - Concern for journalists mounts after abduction of two French security advisers 5 July 2009 - Radio reporter shot dead in Mogadishu 12 June 2009 - Heightened fears over the fate of Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the arrest of two journalists and the closure of a TV station in the northwestern breakaway territory of Somaliland and the beatings which several journalists received from police in the northeastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland. “While the international community’s attention is focused on the abduction of two French government advisers who were posing a journalists in Mogadishu, the real journalists continue to be arrested and attacked with complete impunity,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The international community should help Somali journalists, who are exposed to enormous risks.” Ahmed Saleban Dhuhul and Sayid Osman Mire, both members of the Somaliland Journalists Associations (SOLJA), were arrested without a warrant on 13 July when police raided Horyaal Radio, a privately-owned station based in the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa. Accused by Somaliland President Dahir Riyate of stirring up a tribal dispute that led to the death of four people, they are still being held at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department in Hargeisa. A local television station, Horn Cable TV (HCTV), has been closed on the orders of the Somaliland attorney general for broadcasting a report about the same dispute. In Puntland, several journalists, including Aweys Sheikh Nur of Horseed Media Radio, were attacked and beaten by police while attending the trial of a number of Somali pirates in the port city of Bosaso. The journalists were attacked after some of them took photos of the prosecutor although they complied with a request to delete the photos. The judge and other court officials did not intervene while the police beat them. When the journalists complained, one police officer said: “We do not like what you report; you journalists are against the government.” Africa’s deadliest country for the news media, Somalia was ranked 153rd out of 173 countries in the 2008 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. Kidnappings of journalists and humanitarian aid workers are now common in Somalia and six journalists have been killed since the start of the year.

Journalists arrested, beaten in Somalia's breakaway regions: RSF (AFP) – 3 hours ago NAIROBI — Two journalists were arrested and a television station shut down in Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland while several others were beaten in the self-declared state of Punltand, a media watchdog said Friday. The two Somaliland journalists Ahmed Saleban Dhuhul and Sayid Osman Mire were arrested Monday after police raided a private radio station in the region's capital Hargeisa, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. They were accused by Somaliland president Dahir Riyale of stirring a tribal dispute that killed four people, while the region's attorney general ordered a local TV station shut for airing the same dispute. In Puntland, police attacked and beat up several journalists covering a trial of pirates in the port city of Bossaso. "While the international community?s attention is focused on the abduction of two French government advisers who were posing as journalists in Mogadishu, the real journalists continue to be arrested and attacked with complete impunity," the group said. France has denied reports that the two security advisers kidnapped Tuesday in a Mogadishu hotel were posing as journalists. Somalia is one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists. Media houses have been routinely shut down by the authorities and many reporters, Somali and foreign, have been kidnapped by armed groups. Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

SOURCE: HIIRAAN ONLINE Somali News Update - Friday - July 17, 2009 Somaliland's addict economy - HARGEISA, Somaliland — Somalia’s economy is dominated by trade in khat, a narcotic banned in the U.S. and much of Europe. Eye-popping, head-buzzing khat is loved by Somali men who chew the leaves for their stimulant effect. Full News Somalis in Britain find their voice at last - TimesOnline UN seeks donor help to address health situation in Somalia - Xinhua Somalia Islamists Jail 20 Women - HOL Warning over conditions at Dadaab camp - IRIN Kidnapped French agents held by hardline militia - AFP French hostages given to al Qaeda-linked Somali group - Reuters Former PM says instability in Somalia "painful" - Xinhua Al-Shabaab Holding Both French Hostages, Police Say - Bloomberg Somaliland's addict economy Multimedia: PICTURES AND VIDEO Growth of khat chewing habit drains struggling economy. By Tristan McConnell GlobalPost/Pulitzer Center - GlobalPost HARGEISA, Somaliland — Somalia’s economy is dominated by trade in khat, a narcotic banned in the U.S. and much of Europe. Eye-popping, head-buzzing khat is loved by Somali men who chew the leaves for their stimulant effect. While most of war-torn Somalia's economy is moribund, khat does a bustling trade estimated at well over $50 million annually. Doctors warn, however, that the drug is not only a drain on limited Somali resources but is also destroying lives. Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland, the northern territory nominally independent from Somalia which maintains peace and economic activity, especially the khat trade. Lounging on a rug on the second floor of an ostentatious glass and stone mansion overlooking Hargeisa, Mohamed Yusuf Moge, aptly known as "The Fat Mohamed," lit up another cigarette. In front of him was a pile of leafless khat twigs. His eyes were wide and red-rimmed, a symptom of the leaves that have been chewed. “We bring in 80-tons of khat every day,” he said. “We have many vehicles and two airplanes for transporting our produce. We control the market: We are the De Beers of the khat industry!” "We" is "571 Allah Amin," a family business started 15 years ago that has grown to become Somaliland’s biggest khat importer. Moge is 571’s country rep. Although he would not reveal how much the company makes, it is estimated that its revenue is $320,000 a day. Downtown at the company depot, the second of the day’s trucks arrives from the highland farms of neighboring Ethiopia mid-morning. Thursday is the busiest day of the week because, as one man explained, Friday is the Muslim day of rest so everyone can sleep off their khat hangover. < !--pagebreak--> As the khat truck pulled in, barrow boys and vendors crowded round the tailgate to unload the 70 kg sacks of khat wrapped in hay to keep it fresh. Inside are small bundles of shoots that are bought wholesale for $1 and sold retail for $1.50. “Business is good!” shouted Omar Hersi Warfa, 571’s depot manager, over the clamor. “We are working hard and people are chewing!” Khat vendor Shamis Abdullahi Nur, 50, squatting on the ground nearby, agreed. “Business is very good because of our security and peace,” she said as she directed a sack of khat to be loaded into the back of a beat-up station wagon for the drive across town to her stall. Others pushed smaller consignments away in wheelbarrows. “I’ve been selling khat for over 30 years and now is the best time. There was a time of war, a time when I was a refugee, but now you can see I am sitting here eating my mango,” she said with a sticky, happy smile Street prices are highest in the early afternoon because this is gayiil time when most men chew the khat and shoot the breeze. They can be found sitting on carpets in shady spots close to khat kiosks, with an ashtray, a flask of sweet tea and a jug of water at their feet. Women often sell khat but are not invited to chew. But increasingly men are also chewing in the morning, the evening and throughout the night. The stoned man in a cotton wrap tottering in a daze along a crumbling potholed road with a fistful of green stems is a common sight. Some warn the national habit does psychological damage. In the mental wing of Hargeisa’s main hospital, a staff member walked past the patients, many of whom were chained to a bed or a post or sat staring vacantly on the floor. “The majority of the men here are affected by chewing khat, most are schizophrenic,” said Faisal Ibrahim. Dr. Yassin Arab Abdi, the hospital’s chief doctor, said: “Chewing is part of it although there are many reasons for mental illness. Before they used to chew at a certain time for a few hours now there are four sessions 24-hours a day. These people are addicts.” Back at the khat mansion, "Fat Mohamed" Moge and his colleagues, however, extolled the virtues of the drug. “Khat plays a great role in our society. If there’s conflict people have to sit down, chew, talk about it," Moge said. “It is not like a drug which destroys the mind. It is a stimulant. If you chew khat in the right manner it doesn’t affect you.” But, he admitted, “There are some guys who are addicted, this is because they are jobless and have nothing to do.” Unfortunately this description applies to many Somali men. The last national government — a military dictatorship — collapsed in 1991. Since then the unrecognized state of Somaliland has declared itself independent while Somalia has descended deeper into war and chaos. Isolation on the one hand and war on the other have left the formal economy shattered with many surviving on remittances sent from relatives abroad. Yet it is not unusual for men to spend $5 or $10 a day on khat, making the habit a huge drain on very limited resources. The government’s entire annual budget is less than $50 million, around $14 a head for each of Somaliland’s 3.5 million citizens. Such is the love of khat that to outlaw it would be political suicide. Nevertheless a senior Somaliland politician, Musa Behe of the opposition Kulmiye party, said, “The Somali man works less because he chews khat. We won’t ban it but we need to raise awareness of the harm khat does.” Tristan McConnell and Narayan Mahon traveled to Somaliland on a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting

A different Letter to Congressman Donald Payne by Ali H Abdulla Monday, July 13, 2009 To: Congressman Donald Payne, Chairman Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health 2310 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, District of Columbia 20515 Dear Mr. Chairman, Congressman Donald Payne, Chairman Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health The Somali people everywhere in this world would like to thank you for your efforts to bring the Somali people together so that they can extricate themselves from the prolonged sufferings they have endured for nearly two decades. The Somali people would also like to congratulate your country on the recent election of Barack Obama to the white house. Somalis are delighted that their African American brothers, with the help of their other fellow Americans, have finally managed to overcome centuries of injustice and marginalization. Let us hope that the election of President Obama serves to bring the American people closer than ever and contribute to a truly integrated society that is well equipped to tackle the numerous challenges that our world faces today, such as global warming, the economic meltdown and the numerous conflicts raging on in many parts of the world. The United States is a country that brings together people from all around the globe. African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans and White Americans live in harmony, and have managed to overcome their differences to create the most powerful nation on earth. Your people have managed to overcome their fears and prejudices, and they have succeeded in sending a black man to the white house for the first time in their history, an achievement that would have been unthinkable in the recent past. This is the result of patience, perseverance and hope. The dream of Martin Luther King has finally been realized. Your glorious achievements show that dreams do come true. As Somalis, we hope that our dream of uniting the Somali people peacefully will also come true. The Somali people are one people. They are the most homogeneous people in Africa and perhaps in the world. They speak the same language, adhere to the same religion, are endowed with same color, and enjoy the same physical features. They live in a country that is not bigger than Texas. Yet, they suffer from disunity and internal conflict. The nomadic nature of the Somalis have imposed on them over the centuries a clan structure that has been exploited by the European colonialists in the 19th century to divide them into five areas of influence against their will. Most Somalis have fought against that and lost thousands in the process. After two of the five parts got rid of the colonialists in 1960 and established a democratic government known as the Republic of Somalia, the Somali people started the process of nation building. Unfortunately, Somalia was not immune to the numerous coup d’etats that afflicted the African continent, and fell prey to the cold war influences of the time. A military junta took over in 1969 that was initially welcomed by most Somalis who were tired of the corruptions of the then democratically elected civilian government. As hindsight, it seems that Somalis were hasty in their judgment to support the junta at the time, just as some fellow Somalis are hasty in their desire to complete the work started by the colonialists in the19th century; i.e. to divide Somalia into clan fiefdoms once again. The division of the Somalis into several countries had contributed a lot to the current mess in Somalia. When the military junta tried to re-unite some of the Somali people by force in 1977, the defeated national army became weakened and started to lose its grip on the country. Years of latent dissent surfaced, and the ugly clan influence reared its head again to further weaken the central government that eventually resorted to heavy-handed tactics in order to suppress legitimate grievances in many parts of the country. After losing the national army that held the country together, Somalia started to disintegrate into clan fiefdoms. Some clans have been more successful than others in creating good governance in their areas of influence. Others have fallen prey to warlords, criminal gangs and religious fundamentalists, and were not given the chance to establish successful local administrations. Somaliland is one of the clan fiefdoms that have been successful in overcoming their sub-clan differences, although all is not well there also. Religious fundamentalists have sleeper cells in many parts of Somaliland, and clan rivalry can erupt any time, if disgruntled politicians choose to play that ugly card when it suits their self-interests. As I write this letter to you, two clans are at loggerheads over disputed land not far from the capital of Somaliland, Hargeisa. Farther East, Somaliland forces illegally occupy a city whose inhabitants are vehemently opposed to the desire of some groups in Somaliland to break away from the Somali Republic. Opposing forces are assembling around the city to evict these forces, a process that can only contribute to the current mess in Somalia. As a country that unites many ethnic groups, I believe that your country can play a major role in resolving the intractable problems in Somalia. Instead of supplying weapons to those fighting each other, the US can start engaging the different groups in Somalia as an honest broker. The Somali problem has been left to regional countries for many years. Many of these countries have no desire to see a stable Somalia that they perceive as a threat to their national interests. Ethiopia and Kenya occupy Somali territories given to them by colonial powers. They should not be allowed to exploit the current situation in Somalia to advance their strategic interests at the expense of the Somali people. Drought, Poverty, rampant un-employment and scarce resources also contribute to the instability of Somalia. Food aid delivered by NGOs cannot solve these difficult problems. The World Community needs to pursue innovative strategies to help Somalia overcome these difficult challenges. Regions that are committed to peace, democracy and the Federal system in Somalia need to be rewarded for their efforts. Finally, I would like to convey to you the gratitude of the Somali people for your gallant efforts to help them overcome their seemingly endless misery. We all hope that you will follow the example of your people who dreamt, hoped, persevered and finally overcame difficult challenges. Please do not give up on Somalia and continue your efforts to help them overcome their differences. Instead of isolating any group, we hope that you will engage all groups and bring them around to the common goal of uniting their country and people in a Federal system that is characterized by justice, democracy and respect for human rights. Sincerely yours, Ali H Abdulla

Mogadishu "descending into chaos" Alanna Shaikh - July 7, 2009 - 12:30pm MSF just put out a warning that the majority of the populaiton of north Mogadishu has fled as fighing escalated in the Somali capital. They have even had to close a pediatric hospital and three health clinics in the city. MSF just put out a warning that the majority of the populaiton of north Mogadishu has fled as fighing escalated in the Somali capital. Somalia has displaced people in clusters throughout the country; 1.2 million people are now displaced. Things there are so bad and dangerous that you can find people fleeing to the same places others are fleeing from, as each family tries to calculate their best odds for safety. The capital, Mogadishu, is an example; it’s got ten years of internally displaced persons (IDPs) accumulated in camps in and around the city. Right now, people from conflict-affected villages are heading for Mogadishu even as people are leaving the city in droves. 204,000 people have been displaced from Mogadishu since May, one of the worst waves that has been seen. At the same time, about 30,000 have arrived to the city since February. Reliefweb has an excellent map of population movements. That was a really long introduction to possibly the only good news you will hear about Somalia for the next year. Women’s groups in Mogadishu are doing their best to help IDPs in the city. Asha Sha'ur, an activist, described in IRIN Africa how women’s groups can access IDP camps. “We have had problems but both sides to the conflict have been good at allowing us [women] to help the needy. When they see a bunch of women they don’t bother us…” Larger agencies are trying to tap into that ability to move freely and understand local context; the UN is looking for consultants from the Somali diaspora willing to do 3-6 month consultancies in-country. Somalia / Massive population displacement MOGADISHU, Somalia, July 8, 2009/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Daily press briefing by the office of the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general. On Somalia, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is warning that escalating fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, is causing enormous suffering and massive displacement, with a devastating impact on the city’s population. UNHCR says an eight-week offensive by anti-Government militiamen has now left more than 200,000 people displaced. The agency’s local partners have put the death toll in the past week alone at more than one hundred, with nearly 400 others injured. The agency says that though the majority of the displaced are seeking assistance in the Afgooye corridor, some 30 kilometres west of Mogadishu, thousands more have been crossing the border into Kenya, where they are seeking help at the UNHCR-run Dadaab refugee complex.

U.N.: Fighting in Somalia's capital sparks massive refugee exodus U.N.: Fighting in Somalia's capital sparks massive refugee exodus (CNN) -- Around 204,000 people have fled their homes in the Somali capital of Mogadishu as a result of a militant offensive against government forces, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday. The eight-week long push by Al-Shaabab and Hisb-ul-Islam militias has prompted what the agency calls "the biggest exodus from the troubled Somali capital since the Ethiopian intervention in 2007." "The escalating conflict in Mogadishu is having a devastating impact on the city's population causing enormous suffering and massive displacement," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said. The agency said its local partners in the capital reported that fighting over the past week "has killed some 105 people and injured 382." "Neighborhoods affected by the fighting include Kaaran, Shibis, Shangaani and Boondheere in North Mogadishu. These areas have hitherto been islands of peace, escaping much of the conflict and destruction. Many residents are fleeing their homes for the first time since the start of the Somali civil war in 1991," the agency said. The agency said the number of internally displaced people in Somalia amounts to more than 1.2 million people. There has been growing concern that Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, could be the next base for al Qaeda as U.S. forces pound their positions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last month, a U.S. State Department spokesman said the United States is providing weapons and ammunition to Somalia's transitional government as it fights al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants. CIA Director Leon Panetta recently said that the intelligence agency is keeping tabs on the region as a possible destination for fleeing al Qaeda operatives. "Our concern right now is that likely safe havens are areas in the Horn of Africa, like Somalia and Yemen, that are countries that because of their political status can be attractive to al Qaeda in order to operate there," Panetta said earlier this month. Al-Shaabab, also known as the Mujahideen Youth Movement, was officially designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in March 2008. It is waging a war against Somalia's government in an effort to implement a stricter form of Islamic law. Fighting forces 204,000 to flee Mogadishu Fighting between Islamist militias and government-aligned forces has caused 204,000 people to flee Mogadishu since May and forced the closure of some of the Somali capital's few health centres, the UN refugee agency said today. The eight-week offensive by the al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam guerillas was devastating parts of north Mogadishu that had until now been "islands of peace", UNHCR said. Many residents were fleeing their homes for the first time since the country's descent into anarchy in 1991. At least 105 people have been killed in the past week alone. Almost half a million people are living in temporary shelters made from sticks and plastic sheeting along the road to Afgooye, west of Mogadishu. Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said there was a "desperate" shortage of food and water there. The aid organisation added that continuous shelling and open combat had forced it to close three clinics and a paediatric hospital in north Mogadishu last week. "The population is terrorised, and in the past two weeks the number of dead and wounded has drastically increased. It has become impossible to provide medical and humanitarian assistance to those in need," said Monica Camacho, general co-ordinator of the MSF mission in Somalia.

War crimes may have been committed in Somalia: UN War crimes may have been committed in Somalia: UN By Hui Min Neo – 3 days ago GENEVA (AFP) — The UN human rights chief said Friday that war crimes may have been committed in Somalia, where fierce fighting between hardline Islamist rebels and government troops has forced more than 200,000 people to flee in two months. Citing witness accounts that fighters from both sides had used torture and also fired mortars into areas populated or used by civilians, Navi Pillay said: "Some of these acts might amount to war crimes." "In this new wave of attacks, it is clear that civilians -- especially women and children -- are bearing the brunt of the violence," Pillay, who is UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. On May 7, the Shebab, a hardline Islamist armed group, and Hezb al-Islam, a more political group, launched an unprecedented nationwide offensive against the internationally backed administration of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The violence has forced more than 200,000 people to flee in the past two months, while hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed and wounded, according to Pillay's office. Quoting witnesses, the UN said that the militant groups have carried out extra-judicial executions, planted mines and bombs in civilian areas and even used civilians as human shields. There is also evidence that various forces are recruiting child soldiers, many aged between 14 and 18, in what is described as a "serious violation of international human rights and humanitarian law." "There needs to be a much greater effort to protect civilians. Displaced people and human rights defenders, aid workers and journalists are among those most exposed, and in some cases are being directly targeted," added the UN. Pillay said evidence of violations must be collected so that those responsible for the crimes can be brought to justice once order has been restored. Amid the current unrest, however, official judicial institutions in the capital Mogadishu and the southern and central regions of Somalia have "ceased to function." "UN human rights staff have received credible reports that in areas controlled by insurgent groups, ad hoc tribunals are judging and sentencing civilians without due process and in violation of Somali as well as international law," said the UN. Punishments handed down by such tribunals include death sentences by stoning or decapitation. Cemeteries and places of religious significance are also said to have been destroyed by Shebab militants, it added. The UN Security Council on Thursday said it would consider taking measures against countries, including Eritrea, that provide aid to armed militant groups in Somalia. The United States, which is giving Somalia's embattled government supplies of weapons and ammunition to fight off the insurgents, had earlier fingered Eritrea for backing the militants. "We think they (the Eritreans) are providing material support, including financing to some of these extremist groups, most particularly Al Shabaab," Ian Kelly, State Department spokesman said late June. "We've taken these concerns up with the government of Eritrea," he added then. Both the African Union and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development have also called for sanctions against Eritrea, which has denied aiding the extremists and slammed the United States for providing weapons to the Somali government.

Essay by Mohamoud Hassan Essay by Mohamoud Hassan The following is an essay posted on Facebook by Mohamoud Hassan, one of a group of Minneapolis men who left for Somalia to join in a militant Islamic movement last November. Mr. Hassan, who went by another name on his Facebook account, posted this in May 2007, when he still supported the Ethiopian invasion, which was backed by the United States and came at the request of the transitional government in Somalia. Friends said Mr. Hassan was related to the president of that Somali government, which may partly explain his initial support of the occupation. When you Really Really Think About It Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 4:56am Our country has been without a government for 17 years and every attempt to create one has ended in failure. Today the Somali people for the first time in many years have an opportunity of seeing the return of a functioning government that has the support of the international community. The attention of the world is focused on our country again, our people are tired of the sad state that we are in and the political leaders in the country now accept the need for a solution. Simply put, all the right circumstances are in place or as one might say the stars are aligned for peace in Somalia. Realizing this, why should we allow for some people to squander this opportunity for us again? Is it fair for a nation of 10 million people to be held hostage by a handful of thugs driven by selfish interests? The reality is that those who oppose the Transitional Federal Government have no alternative to offer. They are quite content to see Somalia in the same state of chaos and anarchy that it has been in for the last 17 years. Yes, they may try to present themselves as the saviors of Somalia but in reality they are the destroyers of our nation. Under various disguises and multiple aliases they oppose the return of normality and sense of order to our country. They want to keep us in a state of nature where those who are strong get their way at the expense of those who are weak. These folks who claim to be a religious movement one day, a nationalist movement the other or tribal militias when their back is against the wall are only interested in one thing: To keep Somalia in the same state of hopelessness for as long as possible. They fight because in a state of hopelessness they are happy, in the anarchy they are strong and in the poverty of the masses they have plenty. The truth is they have nothing in common with the majority of peace loving Somalis who can not wait to see the return of a stable government. They have denied our nation peace, violated the dignity and honour of our people and turned our country into a safe haven for international outlaws. After all this, they have the nerve to present themselves as the saviors of Somalia. Do they really believe that we are fooled by their trickery and deception? “The Ethiopian Invasion” They claim that they are against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) because it is a puppet of Ethiopia. It is no secret that the TFG is closely aligned with Ethiopia and receives a great deal of support from Addis Ababa. However, Ethiopia did not invade Somalia; instead it came in at the request of the TFG. As the sole legitimate authority of the country the TFG has the right to exercise a foreign and security policy that it sees fit. It decides the countries that Somalia will have relations with and those that it will not. One does not have to agree with every decision that a government makes and no one should certainly attempt to overthrow the legitimate authority in a country because one disagrees with its policies. However, these things are difficult to understand for people who reject the whole concept of a government let alone its policies. The reality is that the Ethiopian argument is a cover for their real motive which is to oppose the return of a government that will establish the rule of law and end the anarchy that currently exists. If it is Ethiopia they oppose then why was the Transitional National Government reduced to being locked down in one of the local hotels in Mogadishu? Would they argue that Abdiqasim Salad Hassan and Ali Khalif Galaydh were puppets of Ethiopia? The truth is that there is no difference between the TNG, TFG and any other government in their eyes because any established authority would make these gangsters illegitimate. These are people who have greatly benefited from the chaos of the last 17 years by establishing themselves at the top of an anarchic society and they will oppose anything that threatens their status. They have no remorse in sacrificing the lives of innocent people in order to continue their strangulation of our country. Ever hear some of the demands being made by these folks? It is simply pathetic. Moreover, if they oppose foreign troops then why do they continue to create a situation that makes it necessary for the country to need outside intervention? Why did they not volunteer to become the troops that their government needs? Why did they not disarm and welcome the TFG? Instead they twice attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister and sent suicide bombers to Baidoa in an attempt to eliminate the President just to show their opposition to the legitimate authority of the country. They also began assassinating anyone who wanted to see the return of a government and the rule of law. These folks have to realize that the Somali nation will not be a hostage to them any longer. They should understand that Somalia is determined to move forward from this sad period in its history. Working against the wave of hope that is spreading across our country is irrational. Furthermore, arguing that we need to “liberate” our country from Ethiopia misses the fact that our nation first needs to be freed from the forces of darkness that have held it hostage for 17 years. Ever wonder why the nationalist fervor is limited to a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu but not throughout the rest of the country? How interesting! Advice to the anti-government forces Your cause is unjust no matter how much religious/nationalis t rhetoric you use to portray otherwise. Moreover, you do not have the support of the international community which fully supports the TFG. Despite the cries of invasion and massacre, no country has stepped forward to seriously challenge the TFG and its allies. On the contrary, a United Nations resolution (Resolution 1744) authorized African Union intervention in Somalia. Eritrea, a state sponsor of terrorism is the only country which supports your cause and only because it sees you as a tool in its wider war against Ethiopia. Most of all however, you do not have the support of the Somali people. You do not even have the support of the majority of the neighborhoods in Mogadishu yet you claim to be a mass movement which speaks for all the Somali people. You are not waging an insurgency with grassroots support despite all the comical comparisons to Vietnam and Iraq that you and your supporters make. An insurgency with no mass internal support and a formidable external backer is not much of an insurgency but rather a hopeless struggle. Therefore, I would advise you to stop sending young Somali boys on suicide missions against well armed and well trained troops. Most of your strength was destroyed when this conflict began which makes one wonder what you can achieve now with your hopeless and desperate tactics which only results in the suffering of innocent civilians. It is clear that you have no military option to back your flawed political objectives. Moreover, you have to realize that Ethiopia is not going to cut and run like the US as it is not a Western democracy where its leader has to worry about public opinion affecting the next election like an American President. Burning corpses and dragging dead soldiers on streets only gives ammunition to the government and its allies while exposing you as savages. Furthermore, the international community has fully committed itself to seeing the return of a functioning government to Somalia no matter how hard you try to prevent it. Most significantly however, the Somali people are now seeing you as nothing more than an obstacle to the peace that our country longs for. The question is how long will it take for you to realize the truth and accept these undeniable facts? What is the Alternative? People should ask themselves what would become of our country if we were to lose this chance. Is there really a viable alternative to the Transitional Federal Government? Our country has lost many historic opportunities before and I believe we should not repeat those mistakes again. The TFG is the only and all inclusive option which represents all Somalis, a characteristic no other movement can claim. It is also the only authority that can obtain the support of the international community that our country desperately needs. It is time to stop sticking our heads in the sand and blindly opposing something without understanding the consequences. Our nation is waiting to wake up from this terrible nightmare that has been haunting us for far too long. After 13 or 14 peace conferences, a major UN intervention and a couple of previous governments when is enough really enough? The folks who are opposing the Transitional Federal Government are not motivated by principles or patriotism. They are only interested in continuing the bililiqo, piracy, poverty and backwardness that has become the norm in our country. The reality is if we squander this chance it will be at our peril. It would also be a shame if we let these selfish thugs cost us this historic opportunity.

This undated photo provided Monday, July 13, 2009 by the Somali Justice Advocacy Center shows Jamal Bana. Bana's parents said Sunday that they identified their son in a photo on a Somali news Web site showing a dead body in Somalia. Bana was among a group of up to 20 young Somali men who left Minneapolis in recent years- disappearances under investigation by the FBI out of suspicion they were recruited by a radical Islamic terror group to fight in their homeland. (AP Photo/Somali Justice Advocacy Center) Minn. grand jury indicts 2 in missing Somalis case Minn. grand jury indicts 2 in missing Somalis case By AMY FORLITI The Associated Press Monday, July 13, 2009 10:45 PM MINNEAPOLIS -- Two men are accused of supporting terrorism in a grand jury indictment unsealed Monday, the first charges in an investigation into the disappearances of several young Somali men who activists believe were recruited from the Minneapolis area by radical elements in Somalia. At least one of the men, Salah Osman Ahmed, traveled to Somalia to fight with Islamic militants, according to the indictment returned Feb. 19 but not unsealed until Monday. Ahmed and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse both are charged with providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure. Ahmed also is charged with lying to investigators. FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation. In Minneapolis, home to the nation's largest concentration of Somali immigrants, as many as 20 young men - including Ahmed and Isse - are believed to have gone in the last 18 months to take part in the fighting in Somalia. Family members say at least three have died there. Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, said family members believe Isse, Ahmed and others were "foot soldiers" and not involved in planning or recruiting. Both men were in federal custody, according to Jamal, who said he had spoken with their families. Isse's age was not immediately available, but Jamal said he is younger than Ahmed, who is 26. He did not know if the men knew each other. Jamal said both men went to Somalia but were able to "escape" and return to Minneapolis. Isse then moved to Seattle, Jamal said, but he has been in custody since authorities brought him back to Minneapolis in February. Family members believe he is cooperating, Jamal said. Isse's attorney didn't immediately return a call for comment. Ahmed, of Brooklyn Park, was arrested Saturday and made his first appearance in U.S. District Court on Monday. A voicemail box for Ahmed's attorney, James Ostgard, was full but Ostgard told the Minneapolis Star Tribune after the hearing that Ahmed "will be pleading not guilty." Jamal said the two indicted men may be considered lucky as other Minnesota families work to bring relatives home alive. Though short on details, the indictment is a relief for a community seeking answers about missing loved ones for months, he said. Dozens of local Somalis have faced FBI questioning or been subpoenaed before a grand jury, leading to finger-pointing, fear and speculation in a community where many tribal alliances still run deep. Officials at a large Minneapolis mosque have repeatedly denied accusations by families of some of the missing men that the mosque played a role in their decision to leave. "Now we know (Isse and Ahmed) are in jail and they are connected with the Somali missing boys from Minneapolis," Jamal said. "We hope these young boys will cooperate with authorities to find the masterminds of this recruitment." The first two counts in the indictment cover alleged activity from September 2007 through December 2008. Ahmed and Isse are accused of providing "material support, namely personnel including themselves" as part of a conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure "persons in a foreign country." Ahmed also is accused of taking a flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam on Dec. 6, 2007, bound for Somalia, then lying about it when questioned by investigators in July and December 2008. "He stated that he did not know anyone on his flight to Somalia in December 2007 when, in fact, he traveled to Somalia together with an individual he knew, so that they could fight jihad in Somalia," the indictment alleges. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a socialist dictator then turned on each other, causing chaos in the African nation of 7 million. Islamic insurgents with alleged ties to al-Qaida recently intensified their efforts to capture the capital city, Mogadishu. Dozens have been killed and wounded in recent days. The most recent Census figures estimate about 32,300 Somalis live in Minnesota, but local advocates say the number is much higher. --- Associated Press Writer Elizabeth Dunbar contributed to this report. Two indicted in Minnesota on Somali terror charges Mon Jul 13, 2009 8:16pm EDT MINNEAPOLIS, July 13 (Reuters) - A federal grand jury in Minneapolis indicted two men on Monday on charges of conspiracy and aiding terrorism overseas, according to court papers. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said on Monday that one of the men, Salah Osman Ahmed, 26, is of Somali descent and lived in a Minneapolis suburb. According to the indictment, Ahmed and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse were charged with two counts of providing material support to terrorists "and resources, namely personnel including themselves," and conspiring "to kill, kidnap, and maim and injure persons outside of the United States" between September 2007 and December 2008. Ahmed was also charged with two counts of making false statements about a flight he took from Minneapolis to Amsterdam on Dec. 6, 2007, and bound for Somalia. Ahmed "stated that he did not know anyone on his flight to Somalia in December 2007 when, in fact, he traveled to Somalia together with an individual he knew so that they could fight jihad in Somalia," the indictment said. The Star Tribune said that Ahmed told federal court he worked as a part-time security guard making $800 a month. The judge ruled that he qualified for a federal public defender. After the hearing, federal officials would not comment on whether Ahmed's case was connected to the investigation into the disappearance of up to 20 local men of Somali descent, the newspaper said. Ahmed is scheduled to appear again in court on Thursday afternoon. Local media reports have said the men returned to their families' homeland to fight in an ongoing civil war in Somalia. At least four of the men have been killed there, the Star Tribune reported on Monday. Omar Jamal, executive director of a local group, the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, told reporters outside the court that he thought the two men indicted were "foot soldiers." Jamal has said U.S. probes into Somali immigrants in the U.S. aiding the conflict in Somalia has hurt U.S. disaster relief to the African nation. "I'm relieved. We want this case to come to an end. I expect more indictments very soon," Jamal told Reuters. (Reporting by Todd Melby, writing by Peter Bohan, editing by Philip Barbara)

From the Midwest to Mogadishu From the Midwest to Mogadishu By The Editors Photo: Mohamed Sheikh Nor/Associated Press Armed Shabaab fighters patrolled a market in Mogadishu, Somalia, June 2009. An article in The Times by Andrea Elliott on Sunday examined the case of more than 20 young Somali Americans who are now the focus of a major domestic terrorism investigation. Most of the men are refugees who left Minnesota, which has one of the largest Somali communities in the United States, to join Al Shabaab, a militant Islamist group in Somalia. One of the men blew himself up in a suicide attack in Somalia in October. We asked some experts what dynamics in the Somali community might make it more possible to lure these young men to that group. While “homegrown” jihadism has caused alarm in Britain and other European countries, does the United States face challenges of its own? Can the government detect and prevent such movements from gaining footholds here? * Ken Menkhaus, political scientist * Bruce Hoffman, professor of security studies * Zainab Hassan, The Minneapolis Foundation * Steven Simon, co-author, “The Next Attack” * Thomas Sanderson, Center for Strategic and International Studies Not a Case of Global Jihadism Ken Menkhaus a professor of political science at Davidson College, N.C., and specializes in the Horn of Africa. He is the author of numerous articles and monographs on Somalia, including “Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism.” Why have Somali-Americans apparently been more susceptible to recruitment into a jihadist militia in their family’s country of origin than other immigrant groups? Much has to do with events in Somalia. First, recruitment of Somali-Americans into the Shabaab is very recent, correlated with politics in Somalia since 2006, not with Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war on terror. The agenda which appears to have initially inspired Somali recruits into joining Shabaab was primarily about Somalia, not global jihadism. For many Somalis, Al Shabaab was an entirely justifiable liberation movement against Ethiopian occupation, not a terrorist group. Second, it is important to recall that the Shabaab was not designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government until March 2008, by which time many of the Somali-Americans in question had already been recruited into the movement. For many Somalis, Shabaab was an entirely justifiable liberation movement against Ethiopian occupation, not a terrorist group. In addition, the recruitment of Somali-Americans into Shabaab is a reflection of the “diasporization” of Somalia. Roughly one million Somalis, about 15 percent of the total population, now live abroad. The diaspora plays a leading role in every aspect of Somali life. Most leaders of the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia hold citizenship abroad, as do many of the top Islamist opposition figures, business people and civic leaders. Somalis in that country now complain that the current violence is a “war of the diaspora” over which they exercise little control. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that some Somalis holding passports abroad are turning up as Shabaab members. Close Americans have long presumed that our immigrant communities are largely immune to recruitment into radical (especially jihadist) movements back home because the U.S. is better able to absorb immigrants than is the case in Europe. But Somali-Americans have, perhaps more than most immigrant groups, chosen to cluster tightly in their own communities, and are thus more prone to a sense of isolation from broader American society. Many older Somali-Americans hope to return to Somalia, see their residency in the U.S. as temporary, and so have little incentive to assimilate. Some younger Somali-Americans feel they live in exile, belonging neither in America nor in Somalia. As the Times’s article illustrates, a small percentage of these Somali-American youth were attracted to the Shabaab because of various factors, including a quest for a higher purpose, an impulse for adventure, an adolescent search for identity and the alluring conflation of Somali nationalism and Islamism. In no small part, Ethiopia’s harsh military occupation of Somalia appears to have catalyzed and radicalized Somalis abroad to a degree rarely seen in other Muslim diasporas in this country. What Local Authorities Should Know Bruce Hoffman is a professor of security studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The case of the Somali-American youths is alarming for at least two, key reasons. First, is the surprising international reach of the Shabaab, a hitherto inconsequential, local Somali militia — a bit player at best — that has now become a major security concern because of its successful radicalization and recruitment of American citizens and residents. Second, Al Shabaab’s emergence from relative obscurity to its new-found prominence presents the first concrete evidence of a sustained process or radicalization and recruitment having occurred and gone largely undetected in the U.S. Detection requires bottom-up information from local law enforcement as well as top-down, intelligence-driven guidance from federal authorities. Even if the direct relationship between Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda is arguable, it nonetheless reveals that the U.S. continues to face a terrorist threat from a variety of jihadi adversaries — including Al Qaeda and now the Al Shabaab — that is as operationally durable as it is elusive and evolutionary in character. In terms of effectively countering this threat, this development underscores again that protecting and securing the U.S. homeland from terrorism ultimately depends on state, local and law enforcement officers who are both the first and last lines of defense. Close Their familiarity with the communities that they patrol enables these officers to observe and detect radicalization and recruitment efforts that may indicate a broader terrorist plot. The case of the Somali youths cries out both for the intimate knowledge and bottom-up information that community-oriented local law enforcement is best situated to provide and the top-down big-picture strategic knowledge and intelligence-driven guidance and direction that only federal authorities can furnish to their state and local counterparts. The fact that the radicalization, indoctrination and recruitment of young Somali-Americans to terrorism was apparently missed at all levels of our national and homeland security apparatus until it had already occurred, emphasizes the critical importance of federal, state and local authorities working closely together to identify, prevent and interdict such threats from several vantage points. Somalia’s Troubles, Exported Zainab Hassan is a program officer for The Minneapolis Foundation. Originally from Somalia, she is active in the Somali community and advocates for social and environmental justice, human and civil rights and immigrant rights especially on women’s issues. The Somali community in Minneapolis has been struggling with the issues surrounding the missing Somali youths from Minneapolis who have returned to Somalia within the past two years. These families escaped from brutal civil war and resettled in the United States to find safe environments for their children and lead normal lives. Indeed, it is disheartening to see young men who could have amble opportunities to pursue a bright and productive future throw their lives away. As long as the Somali civil war continues, it will affect the Somali diaspora and its youth, as well as the world through threats like piracy and Al Shabaab. Several factors might have caused these young men to go back: lack of cultural identity and belonging; the involvement and atrocities committed by Ethiopian forces in Somalia during the time of their disappearance; and a desire to help solve the problems in their country of origin. While they worry, most in the Somali community in Minneapolis do not believe that these young men pose a threat to the United States if they return. First, they have family members, relatives and friends here, and would not want to harm them. Second, the U.S. has resettled them as refugees when none of the Muslim countries accepted them. These men, and the community as a whole, are grateful for what the U.S. has done for them. Third, they consider Minneapolis their home. Close A number of community forums have been organized by faith-based and community-based groups to examine how to prevent radicalization among such youths. They have talked about developing a counterideology against the radical views of Al Shabaab and similar groups, conducting more outreach and education, holding youth forums, providing more opportunities for integration, and providing civic education as well as mentoring programs. But Somali community organizations, on their own, lack the resources and capacity to provide these youth social programs. They need support from government agencies, mainstream nonprofit organizations and the private sector. The Somali people, the United States government and the international community need to focus on ending the civil war and reestablishing a functioning government in Somalia. As long as the Somali civil war continues, it will affect the Somali diaspora and its youth, as well as the East African region and the world through threats like piracy and Al Shabaab. Give Them a Voice Steven Simon is an adjunct senior fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the co-author of “The Age of Sacred Terror” and “The Next Attack.” Young people don’t need a lot of persuasion to fight for what they see as a noble cause in distant lands, even when their governments are not involved. Indeed, in the last century passion for a cause has led many Americans to join wars in which the U.S. was not a combatant. That a few Somali-Americans have embraced the duty — and the thrill — of combat in defense of their homeland merely conforms to a long multicultural tradition. In this case, however, it pits them against the thrust of U.S. policy and opens the door to violence against their own government. It is essential to remember that the suicide attack was not against Americans, either here or in Somalia. The radicalized Somalis who embarked on this fateful trip displayed a variety of profiles, including strivers and slackers, misfits and conformists, religious zealots and once-a-year worshipers. Resentment, pursuit of the cool, a need to transcend the banality of everyday life in slums; all of these impulses probably played a part. But without a mobilizing ideology, the opportunity to act out these impulses and a svengali, to crystallize these impulses and transform them into action, there would have been no Minnesotan suicide bomber. Nonetheless, the emergence of a suicide bomber from the margins of the large, mainstream and achievement-oriented ranks of American Muslims was to be anticipated. A 2007 Pew survey noted that 26 percent of U.S. Muslims between 18 and 29 years old believe that suicide bombing in defense of Muslim interests is often/sometimes justified (15 percent) or rarely justified (11 percent). These are striking numbers, though not quite as bad as in Britain, France or Spain, probably because Muslims are generally better integrated into American society than they are in most European countries. Close It is essential to remember, however, that the suicide attack was not against Americans, either here or in Somalia. The issue for Washington is how to combat this trend without turning these radicalized individuals against the state and their fellow citizens. Based on the experience — good and bad — of other countries, like Algeria, Egypt and Turkey, the British in Northern Ireland and Europeans challenged by left-wing violence, the key is to respond selectively and lawfully, while giving the embattled community a voice. Carefully targeted response is essential because indiscriminate round-ups of the sort that typified the panicky days after 9/11 in the U.S. are likely to convince fence-sitters that the state will come after them no matter what so they might as well go under ground and prepare to fight. The need to act lawfully stems from the importance of preserving the legitimacy of the state, so that its actions are accepted by society. In the 1980s, German and Italian authorities ignored this rule and for a time made terrorists there look like the good guys. This made it easier for militant radicals to operate. And letting the community speak is essential, because nothing radicalizes more powerfully than a sense of isolation and ineffectuality. This process was at work in nearly every instance of violent radicalization, from Russian revolutionaries in the 19th century through Egyptian and Algerian rebels in the last century to Anglo-Pakistani terrorists in the 21st century. Assessing the Domestic Threat Thomas Sanderson, deputy director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, specializes in researching terrorism threats and counterterrorism approaches. The case of the Somali-American young men who traveled to, fought in, and died in Somalia do present a serious, potential threat to the U.S. The young men’s primary motivations are to defend Somalia from Christian-dominated Ethiopian “infidels” in one front of a perceived global campaign against Islam. While that purpose may appear disconnected from America, that Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia was backed by the U.S. and these men fought on behalf of the Qaeda-linked Somali group known as Al Shabaab is cause for concern. There are no urban “mini safe havens” in the U.S. as in Europe, where police fear to patrol. Many bridges must be crossed before such an outcome; intent and capability cannot be assumed. But with American passports and their combat training, these young men present appealing recruits for Al Qaeda. That they appear to have deliberately departed for Somalia separately demonstrates an awareness of operational security. Networking with foreign fighters from other countries in Somalia only adds to this concern. American intelligence and law enforcement officials fear that these Somali-Americans — or like-minded members of the Somali diaspora — could come to view the U.S. as a legitimate target. This case may surprise many because Muslim communities in the United States have been far less prone to radicalism than those in Europe. They have met with greater socio-economic and political success here, and their religious traditions are respected. And there are no urban “mini safe havens” in America as in Europe, where police fear to patrol and therefore miss opportunities for outreach and gathering of street-level knowledge. Close Of course, detecting and responding to homegrown radicalism can be very difficult, and strong police and community cooperation is crucial. The assimilation and academic success of some of the young men in the Minnesota case demonstrate that “marginalization” is not necessarily a reliable indicator. Other motivations to radicalization and violence may include a sense of duty to kin, clan and country; peer pressure and adventure; and, radicalization through the Internet and by senior males. These factors make it essential to have strong family, school, workplace and community involvement in the lives of those who might be vulnerable. Failing that, the United States could see new cases of “homegrown” jihadism.

July 12, 2009 A Call to Jihad, Answered in America A Call to Jihad, Answered in America By ANDREA ELLIOTT MINNEAPOLIS — The Carlson School of Management rises from the asphalt like a monument to capitalist ambition. Stock prices race across an electronic ticker near a sleek entrance and the atrium soars skyward, as if lifting the aspirations of its students. The school’s plucky motto is “Nowhere but here.” For a group of students who often met at the school, on the University of Minnesota campus, those words seemed especially fitting. They had fled Somalia as small boys, escaping a catastrophic civil war. They came of age as refugees in Minneapolis, embracing basketball and the prom, hip-hop and the Mall of America.By the time they reached college, their dreams seemed within grasp: one planned to become a doctor; another, an entrepreneur. But last year, in a study room on the first floor of Carlson, the men turned their energies to a different enterprise. “Why are we sitting around in America, doing nothing for our people?” one of the men, Mohamoud Hassan, a skinny 23-year-old engineering major, pressed his friends. In November, Mr. Hassan and two other students dropped out of college and left for Somalia, the homeland they barely knew. Word soon spread that they had joined the Shabaab, a militant Islamist group aligned with Al Qaeda that is fighting to overthrow the fragile Somali government. The students are among more than 20 young Americans who are the focus of what may be the most significant domestic terrorism investigation since Sept. 11. One of the men, Shirwa Ahmed, blew himself up in Somalia in October, becoming the first known American suicide bomber. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert M. Mueller, has said Mr. Ahmed was “radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota.” An examination by The New York Times, based on interviews with close friends and relatives of the men, law enforcement officials and lawyers, as well as access to live phone calls and Facebook messages between the men and their friends in the United States, reveals how a far-flung jihadist movement found a foothold in America’s heartland. The men appear to have been motivated by a complex mix of politics and faith, and their communications show how some are trying to recruit other young Americans to their cause. The case represents the largest group of American citizens suspected of joining an extremist movement affiliated with Al Qaeda. Although friends say the men have never thought of carrying out attacks in the United States, F.B.I. officials worry that with their training, ideology and American passports, there is a real danger that they could. “This case is unlike anything we have encountered,” said Ralph S. Boelter, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Minneapolis office, which is leading the investigation. Most of the men are Somali refugees who left the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in two waves, starting in late 2007. While religious devotion may have predisposed them to sympathize with the Islamist cause in Somalia, it took a major geopolitical event — the Ethiopian invasion of their homeland in 2006 — to spur them to join what they saw as a legitimate resistance movement, said friends of the men. For many of the men, the path to Somalia offered something personal as well — a sense of adventure, purpose and even renewal. In the first wave of Somalis who left were men whose uprooted lives resembled those of immigrants in Europe who have joined the jihad. They faced barriers of race and class, religion and language. Mr. Ahmed, the 26-year-old suicide bomber, struggled at community colleges before dropping out. His friend Zakaria Maruf, 30, fell in with a violent street gang and later stocked shelves at a Wal-Mart. If failure had shadowed this first group of men, the young Minnesotans who followed them to Somalia were succeeding in America. Mr. Hassan, the engineering student, was a rising star in his college community. Another of the men was a pre-med student who had once set his sights on an internship at the Mayo Clinic. They did not leave the United States for a lack of opportunity, their friends said; if anything, they seemed driven by unfulfilled ambition. “Now they feel important,” said one friend, who remains in contact with the men and, like others, would only speak anonymously because of the investigation. The case has forced federal agents and terrorism analysts to rethink some of their most basic assumptions about the vulnerability of Muslim immigrants in the United States to the lure of militant Islam. For years, it seemed that “homegrown” terrorism was largely a problem in European countries like Britain and France, where Muslim immigrants had failed to prosper economically or integrate culturally. By contrast, experts believed that the successful assimilation of foreign-born Muslims in the United States had largely immunized them from the appeal of radical ideologies. The story of the Twin Cities men does not lend itself to facile categorizations. They make up a minuscule percentage of their Somali-American community, and it is unclear whether their transformation reflects any broader trend. Nor are they especially representative of the wider Muslim immigrant population, which has enjoyed a stable and largely middle-class existence. Even among the world’s jihadists, the young men from Minneapolis are something of an exception: in their instant messages and cellphone calls, they seem caught between inner-city America and the badlands of Africa, pining for Starbucks one day, extolling the virtues of camel’s milk and Islamic fundamentalism the next. “Allah will never change the situation of a people unless they change themselves,” Mr. Hassan, the engineering student, wrote in a Facebook message he posted on April 15. “Take a sec and think about your situation deeply. What change do you need to make?” Generation of Refugees Shirwa Ahmed climbed the worn, concrete steps of Roosevelt High School on his first day as a freshman in September 1996. A slim boy with a watchful gaze, he was one of hundreds of Somali teenagers who had landed at the school in southeastern Minneapolis. Some had never seen a drinking fountain. Others did not know how to hold a pencil, recalled the school’s principal, Bruce Gilman. They carried unspeakable traumas. A number of the students had witnessed their parents being killed. “It’s almost unimaginable what some of these kids went through,” Mr. Gilman said. The country they had fled, on the eastern tip of Africa, was embroiled in a civil war that had left it without a functioning government since 1991. The anarchy reached American televisions two years later, when warlords shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, killing 18 United States soldiers. By then, tens of thousands of Somalis had died and a mass exodus had begun. A generation of Somalis grew up in the overcrowded refugee camps of northern Kenya, where malaria, scorpion infestations and hunger took their toll. Tales of America sustained them. Clean water was said to flow freely in kitchens, and simple jobs like plucking chickens paid handsomely. Proof came in the cash sent by a first wave of refugees who had arrived in the United States in the early 1990s. Minneapolis, with its robust social services and steady supply of unskilled jobs, quickly became the capital of their North American diaspora. When they ended their shifts as cabdrivers or janitors, many Somalis retreated from American life. They had transformed a blighted stretch near the Mississippi River into a Little Mogadishu, commandeering a grim collection of cinderblock buildings known as the Towers — a onetime fictional residence of the heroine of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” They cut their hair at Somali barber shops, prayed at Somali mosques and organized themselves along the same clan lines that had divided them for decades, calling on tribal elders to settle family disputes and community rifts. If the adults kept their distance from American culture, their children had little choice but to dive in. At Roosevelt, Mr. Ahmed was a quick study. He memorized Ice Cube’s lyrics. He practiced for hours on neighborhood basketball courts. He took note of the clothing and vernacular of his African-American classmates, emulating what he could. His pants sagged, but never too much. He spoke of “homeboys” and used the “n” word, but gave careful regard to the school’s rules. When a classmate’s purse was stolen, it was Mr. Ahmed who dutifully turned in the thief. Much as he tried, he failed to fit in. You’re not black, his peers taunted. Go back to Africa. Somali and African-American students clashed frequently at the school, but Mr. Ahmed seemed ill-suited to the fight. Taciturn by nature, he recoiled at the taunts, his close friend Nicole Hartford said. “How can they be mad at me for looking like them?” she recalled him saying. “We’re from the same place.” Even as Mr. Ahmed met rejection at school, he faced disapproval from relatives, who complained that he was mixing with “ghetto people,” Ms. Hartford recalled. It was a classic conundrum for young Somalis: how to be one thing at school and another at home. Developments in the homeland, followed obsessively by the adults, held little interest among teenagers. They rolled their eyes at the older men known as “the sitting warriors,” who debated clan politics with such gusto at one Starbucks that the staff bought a decibel meter to ensure that the noise did not rise above legal limits. Yet young men like Mr. Ahmed remained tethered to Somalia by the remittances they were pressed to send. After school every day, he joined a stream of teenagers headed for the airport, where he pushed passengers in wheelchairs. He sent half of his income to Somalia, to “relatives we don’t even know,” his friend Nimco Ahmed said. The war had torn families apart, and fathers were in short supply. Somali boys struggled most visibly. The financial strain on families like Mr. Ahmed’s, which was headed by an older sister, proved staggering. Of the estimated 100,000 Somalis in the United States, more than 60 percent live in poverty, according to recent census data. After graduating from high school in 2000, Mr. Ahmed seemed to flounder, taking community college classes while working odd jobs, friends said. But he had done better than many peers, who turned to crime and gangs like Murda Squad and Rough Tough Somalis. At the root of the problem was a “crisis of belonging,” said Mohamud Galony, a science tutor who was friends with Mr. Ahmed and is the uncle of another boy who left. Young Somalis had been raised to honor their families’ tribes, yet felt disconnected from them. “They want to belong, but who do they belong to?” said Mr. Galony, 23. By 2004, Mr. Ahmed had found a new circle of friends. These religious young men, pegged as “born-agains” or “fundis,” set themselves apart by their dress. Their trousers had gone from sagging to short, emulating the Prophet Muhammad, who was said to have kept his clothes from touching the ground. Perhaps none of Mr. Ahmed’s contemporaries had undergone a transformation like that of Zakaria Maruf. A short boy prone to fits of rage, Mr. Maruf began running afoul of the law at the age of 14. For a time, he fell in with the Hot Boyz, a violent street gang. He seemed to crave recognition. Known on the basketball court as Zak, he was a mediocre athlete, but he pushed himself harder than anyone else, recalled his coach, Ahmed Dahir. Mr. Maruf threw himself into Islam with the same intensity, becoming a fixture at a mosque near the Towers, where he mastered the call to prayer. “He had an ego the size of Minnesota,” one fellow mosque member said. “It was, ‘Look at me.’ ” Mr. Ahmed and Mr. Maruf were sometimes seen preaching to kids on the street, offering their own lives as examples of reform. Yet they continued to struggle. Mr. Maruf’s criminal record had foiled his search for a job. When he proposed to a young woman in 2005, her parents scoffed, one friend recalled. They did not want their daughter winding up “on welfare,” they told Mr. Maruf, who worked at a Wal-Mart. “They think that life is about money and material things, but watch what that will do for them,” Mr. Maruf told the friend one afternoon, sitting slumped at the mosque. He seemed to be searching for a clean slate. Both he and Mr. Ahmed would find it thousands of miles away. A Political Awakening In 2006, an Islamist movement swept through Somalia and seized control, giving the country its first taste of peace in a generation. The group, known as the Islamic Courts Union, promised to end 15 years of internecine violence by uniting Somalia’s clans under the banner of Islam. Key ports were reopened, and order was restored to the capital, Mogadishu. In Washington, officials of the Bush administration saw a threat to East African stability. Hard-line factions of the Courts were thought to be sheltering Qaeda operatives and had declared a jihad against neighboring Ethiopia, a predominantly Christian country. In December 2006, Ethiopian troops crossed the border and routed the Islamist forces with intelligence support from the United States, beginning a two-year occupation. These events triggered a political awakening among young Somalis in Minneapolis. They had long viewed their homeland’s problems as hopelessly clan-based, but the Ethiopian campaign simplified things. Here was an external enemy against which young Somalis could unite. Spurred by a newfound sense of nationalism, college students distributed T-shirts emblazoned with the Somali flag and held demonstrations during a frigid Minnesota winter. The protests took on a religious dimension as well. While the United States had defended the Ethiopian invasion as a front in the global war on terrorism, many Somalis saw it as a Christian crusade into a Muslim land. They were outraged at reports of Ethiopian troops raping Somali women, looting mosques and killing civilians. If the Ethiopians were seen as infidel invaders, an insurgent group known as the Shabaab — “youth,” in Arabic — was emerging as “freedom fighters.” In its online propaganda, the Shabaab conflated nationalist sentiments with religious ideology, following a tactic honed by Al Qaeda. The Shabaab began releasing videos portraying Somalia’s struggle as part of a global movement to defend Islam and restore its rule. Foreign recruits were promised “victory or martyrdom” for enlisting. Several American converts to Islam joined up. The recruitment of the Twin Cities men can be traced to a group of Somali immigrants from Northern Europe and other countries who, in 2005, traveled to Somalia to fight with the Islamist movement, a senior law enforcement official said. A handful of those men later went to Minneapolis, the official said, and helped persuade the first large group from the Twin Cities to leave for Somalia starting in late 2007. That first wave consisted of men in their 20s and 30s who had been fixtures at the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, the largest Somali mosque in Minneapolis. They included an emergency medical technician, a former waiter, a car-rental employee and Shirwa Ahmed, the onetime Roosevelt student who now wore a thick beard and silk gown. That fall, Mr. Ahmed announced to friends that he was moving to the Middle East to study Islam. After he left for Saudi Arabia to make hajj, the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca, his nephew wrote to a friend, “My uncle is a changed man.” The following spring, Zakaria Maruf, the former gang member, vanished. Shortly after his disappearance, two teenage boys walked into a travel agency near the Towers, clutching their Somali passports, recalled Abia Ali, an accountant at the agency. Ms. Ali recognized the boys from the mosque and suspected that they planned to follow Mr. Maruf to Somalia. She warned the mosque’s leaders, who alerted the boys’ parents and then summoned a meeting with the mosque’s young members. “All this talk of the movement must stop,” the imam, Sheikh Abdirahman Sheikh Omar Ahmed, recalled telling the crowd. “Focus on your life here. If you become a doctor or an engineer, you can help your country. Over there you will be a dead body on the street.” In the audience were several young men who would soon disappear. ‘Our Best Kids’ If the first men who left for Somalia had struggled to find their place in America, the boys to follow were “our best kids,” in the words of one uncle. Mohamoud Hassan outdid most of his peers at Roosevelt High School in 2006, becoming one of the few Somali boys to make it to college that year. He stood out at the University of Minnesota. Answering to the nickname Snake, the tall, lanky freshman wore a black cotton beret and a pencil-thin moustache. Women found him clownishly charming, occasionally giving in to his pleas for their “digits.” The engineering major tried to cultivate a more serious image, writing poetry, debating politics and poring through “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” his friend Hindia Ali recalled. Even his closest friends found Mr. Hassan an enigma. He had come to the United States without parents or siblings and looked after his ailing grandmother in a dim apartment in the Towers. He longed to return to his homeland, both to experience it for himself and to rebuild it. It was a common obsession among his friends. “It’s just this missing piece of us,” his friend Ruqia Mohamed said. After the Ethiopian invasion, a circle of listeners sometimes gathered around Mr. Hassan at the Coffman student center. Mr. Hassan, then the vice president of the Minnesota Somali Student Union, defended the occupation, posting an essay on Facebook assailing the insurgents as “a handful of thugs.” But over time, he began to see things differently. Mr. Hassan’s interest in the Islamist movement dovetailed with his own religious transformation, friends said. In the fall of 2007 he began downloading sermons onto his iPod and soon was attending the Abubakar mosque. By then, Mr. Hassan had become upset by the reports of rapes in Somalia and set out to learn more about the insurgency, one friend recalled. He began talking of joining the movement as early as February 2008, around the same time that a friend from the mosque — Mr. Maruf, the former gang member — left for Somalia. “I wanted to go, so I got to know him,” Mr. Hassan said in a recent telephone conversation from Somalia with a Minneapolis friend. That May, he was incensed by a United States military air strike that killed Aden Hashi Ayro, a leader of the Shabaab, along with at least 10 civilians. “How dare they?” Mr. Hassan demanded one afternoon at the student center. “Who is the terrorist?” Mr. Hassan and another university student searched the Internet for jihadist videos and chat rooms, the friend said. They listened to “Constants on the Path to Jihad,” lectures by the Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is suspected of inciting Muslims in the West to violence. While Somali nationalism had initially driven the men, a friend said, their cause eventually took on a religious cast. They became convinced that Somalia’s years of bloodshed were punishment from God for straying from Islam, the friend said. The answer was to restore the Caliphate, or Islamic rule. “They saw it as their duty to go and fight,” the friend said. “If it was just nationalism, they could give money. But religion convinced them to sacrifice their whole life.” Over the next few months, the men communicated frequently with Zakaria Maruf, who was then in southern Somalia trying to recruit men in Minneapolis to join him, said a senior law enforcement official and a lawyer, Stephen L. Smith, who represents one of the men Mr. Maruf approached. Mr. Maruf reached out through listservs and conference calls arranged by a teenage boy who distributed 800 numbers and passwords so people could listen in. Mr. Maruf had little trouble finding an audience for his pitch in the Twin Cities; he had shuttled boys from the Abubakar mosque to basketball games, and a recording of his call to prayer was a ring tone on the cellphones of young Somalis. In his calls, listeners heard him boast that he had gotten married, had a child and become a governor for the Shabaab. The onetime stock boy with a criminal record was now a figure of authority, if one believed his claims. “He was the ‘I’ll take you to the battlefield’ person,” one acquaintance said. Despite all the spirited talk of the jihad, Mohamoud Hassan, the engineering student, seemed to waver, friends recalled. The tipping point, one said, may have come that September when a close friend was shot dead outside a youth center — the fifth slaying of a young Somali in the Twin Cities in a year. “I used to think that death only happens to old people,” Mr. Hassan told his friend Ruqia Mohamed. “But he was young — my age. I guess I could die tomorrow.” Mr. Hassan began spending much of his time with a small group of men that included a pre-med student, an electrical engineering student, a white 27-year-old convert and a pesky 17-year-old Roosevelt senior. The boy, known as Little Bashir, had memorized the Koran and talked of going to Harvard. The men acted secretive, friends recalled, meeting alone in a study room at the Carlson building, where Mr. Hassan and the pre-med student worked as uniformed security personnel. In late October, the group visited University Travel Services, near the Towers, accompanied by an older man with a gray beard who introduced himself as their uncle, the manager of the agency said in an interview. The “uncle” explained that the men wanted to buy tickets to Somalia, and were waiting for passports. Soon after, the young men returned by themselves and paid cash for their tickets, roughly $1,800 apiece, the manager said. They left on different days to avoid drawing attention, a friend said. Mr. Hassan drove to Chicago, where he boarded a plane to Dubai on Nov. 1, according to an itinerary obtained by The Times. By the eve of the United States presidential election three days later, all of the men were gone. Training for Jihad As word spread in Minneapolis that a new group of men had disappeared, another piece of jarring news came from Somalia: Shirwa Ahmed had blown himself up. On Oct. 29, 2008, he drove a car packed with explosives into a government compound in Puntland, a region of northern Somalia. The bombing was among five attacks that day coordinated by the Shabaab, which left more than 20 people dead in the group’s campaign to eliminate enemies and show their might. The F.B.I. investigated and sent Mr. Ahmed’s remains to Minneapolis in November. By then, Mr. Hassan and his friends were journeying in the opposite direction. A close friend said the men were met by Zakaria Maruf, the recruiter, and taken to the southern port city of Merka, where they stayed in a “welcoming house” run by a Somali woman whom the men called Mama. By January, most of the men were at a training camp in southern Somalia, following a strict routine that Mr. Hassan and others described to their Minneapolis friends in phone calls. They woke before dawn to pray and study the Koran. They engaged in rigorous training, running obstacle courses and learning to make bombs. As foreign recruits, they received special treatment. These mujahideen slept in a different bunker and were considered to have a higher status, the friend said. Mr. Hassan was struck by the diversity of the fighters, who included Chechnyans and converts from Europe. “I am looking out into the field and I see so many different colors,” Mr. Hassan told the friend by phone. If becoming a jihadist usually means parting with life in the West, the men from Minneapolis soon broke with tradition. They frequently communicated with dozens of friends in the United States whom one acquaintance described as “the homeys they left behind.” Two friends showed The Times the Facebook communications of four of the men, including one whose profile picture was, until recently, of Osama bin Laden. One exchange on Facebook distilled the push and pull: “’Sup dawg,” one of the men wrote to a friend in late December. “Bring yourself over here” to “M-town,” the message continued, where the men carry “all types of guns.” “I ain’t goin’ over there man,” the young man answered. “Dats the same reason we came 2 America Locco.” Mr. Hassan and the others claimed to be enjoying their adventure. They had grown up hearing tales about the winding Shabelle River in southern Somalia and the rich taste of camel milk. When they finally swam in the river and drank the milk, they called their friends in Minneapolis, their voices dreamy. The men seemed to revel in their new identity as fighters. One day in March, Mr. Hassan’s friend the pre-med student was talking on the phone with someone in Minneapolis when he opened fire with his AK-47. He was checking “to see if it worked,” the person recalled him saying. But there were cracks in the men’s bravado. While on a boat headed to a Shabaab stronghold in the south, the high school student known as Little Bashir began vomiting so violently that he lost his glasses, his mother said in an interview. After he told her this by phone, she fetched his prescription and read it to him, hoping he would somehow find an optometrist. It was hard to imagine this 17-year-old — a frail, bookish boy who had delighted in calculus — making his way through war-ravaged Somalia, friends of his said. “I doubt that he could even pick up a handgun,” said Mr. Galony, who had tutored the boy in chemistry. If the others seemed hardier, they still had moments of weakness. They missed movies and basketball, deodorant and boxer shorts, they told friends back home. One of the men, who suffered from heartburn, asked if anyone could send him a box of Tums by DHL. Their longing for life in America came and went. They encountered more serious challenges in Somalia. By the time some of them entered training, the Shabaab was fast losing popularity. The Ethiopian troops had pulled out, making way for a new Somali president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the same man who had once led the Islamist movement to which the Shabaab formerly belonged. “Some of them wondered who they were fighting,” one friend said. The jihadists’ conversations with their Minneapolis friends sometimes turned testy. Two of the friends said in interviews that they, like many Somalis, had become sharply critical of the Shabaab. The group has carried out beheadings, amputations and the fatal stoning of a 13-year-old rape victim. In April, the Shabaab fired several mortar rounds at a plane carrying Representative Donald M. Payne, a New Jersey Democrat who was leaving Somalia after meeting with the president. “What, are y’all retarded?” one of Mr. Maruf’s friends, a college student, chided him in a phone call. “He’s our only friend in Congress.” “You have been brainwashed by the media,” Mr. Maruf shot back. Later, the student thought back on the conversation. “Sometimes they will talk and you’re like, Are you trying to prove this to me or to yourself?” she said. “They have this inner struggle.” An Inquiry Intensifies Ralph S. Boelter had a robust résumé by the time he took over the F.B.I.’s Minneapolis office in early 2007. He had worked on white-collar crimes in Boston and violent gangs in Los Angeles. He had investigated the leak of the C.I.A. officer Valerie Wilson’s identity. Returning to the Midwest put Mr. Boelter, a square-jawed Wisconsin native, back on familiar ground. But less than two years later, he found himself tasked with one of the most complex terrorism cases since Sept. 11. “Never did I imagine that I would step into this here,” Mr. Boelter said one recent afternoon. In the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, Somalis had remained largely under the law enforcement radar while other Muslim immigrants — primarily Arabs and South Asians — experienced the brunt of the raids and scrutiny. While federal investigators had tracked the movements of American recruits to the Shabaab since at least early 2008, the F.B.I.’s case did not swing into high gear until after Shirwa Ahmed’s suicide attack that fall. Investigators in Minneapolis approached Somalis on the street, in their homes, at the Abubakar mosque and on the University of Minnesota campus. Brandishing photographs, the agents asked questions about community figures like the imam of the mosque and its youth director. As the inquiry wore on, community leaders say, more than 50 people were subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in Minneapolis and another jury was convened in San Diego. In April, F.B.I. agents raided three Somali money wiring businesses in Minneapolis. By then, the investigation had expanded to smaller Somali communities in Boston; Seattle; Portland, Me.; and Columbus, Ohio. Somalis in Minneapolis, by turns frightened and intrigued by the inquiry, came up with a Somali code name for the F.B.I. agents in their midst: Fadumo Bashir Ismael. Mr. Boelter tried to counter the negative attention by appearing on Somali television and radio, encouraging people to cooperate with investigators. Yet he has revealed little about the case itself. The scope and intensity of the investigation, he said, is merely commensurate to the danger posed by the men. “If American citizens are joining the Shabaab, the potential threat domestically is serious,” Mr. Boelter said. “I think they could be commissioned to come back. Or they could do it on their own because they are philosophically aligned with the Shabaab or Al Qaeda.” Senior Qaeda leaders have aggressively promoted Somalia as the latest destination for foreign fighters, said Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism consultant who frequently works for the government. In recent months, a small number of Qaeda operatives have reportedly sought sanctuary there. Analysts find the alliance troubling because Al Qaeda has long sought recruits with American and European passports who can cross borders more freely, said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University who studies terrorism. There are indications that three Twin Cities men have returned, possibly after defecting from the Shabaab. A friend of the men still in Somalia said they had no thought of attacking America. “Why would I do that?” the friend recalled the pre-med student, Adbisalan Ali, saying on the phone last spring. “My mom could be walking down the street.” The central question driving the F.B.I. investigation is whether United States citizens have provided material support to the Shabaab, either in the form of personnel or money. Three local acquaintances of Mr. Maruf, the recruiter, sent him small amounts of money at his request, according to one of the friends and a lawyer for the others. It is not known how the young men who followed him to Somalia paid for their trips. Two of the teenage boys were seen knocking on doors at the Towers last summer, asking for donations for “an orphanage.” The full dimensions of the recruitment effort also remain unclear. A close friend of several of the men described the process as “a chain of friendship” in which one group encouraged the next. “They want to bring people they are close with because they need that familiarity,” the friend said. “They created their own little America in Somalia.” The manager of University Travel Services said that since November, he had turned away at least 20 men looking to buy tickets to Somalia, adding that the requests had slowed considerably. Meanwhile, some Somali parents in the Twin Cities have taken to hiding their sons’ passports. The tension in the community has turned inward at times. Last March, the uncle of Burhan Hassan, the boy known as Little Bashir, testified at a Congressional hearing on the case that the mosque had been “brainwashing” the young men and had possibly raised money for the Shabaab. The mosque’s leaders denied this, in turn accusing the family and others of shirking responsibility for their own children. “That’s their obligation, to know where their kids are going,” said Omar Hurre, the mosque’s executive director. A Struggle to Understand For many older Somalis in Minnesota, the deepest mystery is why so many young refugees would risk their lives and futures to return to a country that their parents struggled to leave. The mother of Burhan Hassan had been trying to persuade him to escape to the United States Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, said the uncle, Osman Ahmed. The boy had been calling from Somalia, telling her that he was “fine” and that he missed her cooking. “There is no future for me in America anymore,” she recalled him telling her. “If I come back they’ll send me to Guantánamo.” But he finally agreed to leave, and in late May his mother wired him about $800, Mr. Ahmed said. Ten days later, on June 5, she picked up the telephone to learn that her son was dead. He had been shot in the head, a stranger on the phone told Mr. Hassan’s mother. Some of the boy’s relatives suspect that he was killed to prevent him from cooperating with the American investigation. F.B.I. officials have declined to confirm Mr. Hassan’s death. Months have passed since the older members of his group completed their training in Somalia. Lately, they seem “hardened” and at times radical, a Minneapolis friend said. During one call, the friend asked Mohamoud Hassan, the engineering student, what it was like to kill people. He told of getting “an adrenaline rush,” the friend recalled, and joked that he and his friends compared “body counts.” Two weeks ago, they spoke again and the conversation turned to the killing of Little Bashir. One of the men had referred to his passing as “martyrdom” in a recent Facebook posting. Mr. Hassan seemed to agree. “Allah knows how to pick,” he said. “The family’s feeling sad, but we’re feeling happy for him.” Ramla Bile contributed reporting from Minneapolis and Margot Williams from New York.

MOGADISHU

Somali president hails 'clear victory' in battle for Mogadishu MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Sunday hailed a "clear victory" over Islamist rebels in a months-long battle to gain control of the capital, as the latest clashes left at least 21 dead. At least 18 of those killed in the heavy fighting, as the government attacked rebel positions in the Abdiasis neighbourhood of northern Mogadishu, were civilians. Sharif said the operation had dealt a heavy blow to the militants in long-running efforts to win control of the conflict-ravaged city. "You can see government forces are today in control of most areas that were being fought over in the capital," he told reporters Sunday. "This is a clear victory over the rebels." Battles for control of Mogadishu's districts have become increasingly focused on strategic points, such as police stations, but often both sides have been unable to declare a decisive victory. Sharif is fighting to end an 18-year-old conflict in Somalia against a fierce insurgency led by Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab armed group and the more political Hezb al-Islam. The hardline Islamists control much of the country. Paramedics, police and government forces said the fighting Sunday spread across several districts of the city and claimed many lives. "The ambulances collected 75 injured civilians and 14 dead bodies of civilians," Ali Muse, the head of the city's ambulance service, told AFP. "Some of them were killed by mortar and artillery shells and others by crossfire." Colonel Mohamed Farah, commander of the government forces, told AFP: "Heavy artillery shells and crossfire left around 14 civilians dead around neighbourhoods in northern Mogadishu where the fighting spread." Earlier Sunday, witnesses, hospital sources and police said the clashes had killed seven people: two government soldiers, one fighter, and four civilians. "We are advancing in on their last positions in northern Mogadishu and several of their dead lay in the streets this morning," Somali police officer Abdulahi Duale told AFP. One witness said African Union tanks fought the militants alongside government troops but Sharif denied this. Mohamed Hashi Gurey, who lives in the Abdiasis neighbourhood, said two African Union tanks had been involved in the fighting. "The tanks were firing shells at the rebels near (a hotel) and they advanced in onto the Islamists' strongholds," he said. The African Union has deployed 4,300 peacekeepers to Somalia. But the president said: "We have no information indicating African Union soldiers took part in the battle. "It is the Somali government alone who is responsible for cracking down" on the insurgents, he added. The clashes come after fighting on Saturday killed at least 10 people, mostly militants, in northern Mogadishu. Hardline Islamists launched their latest offensive against the internationally backed administration of Sharif on May 7. Government forces began their counter-offensive on May 22. More than 200,000 people have been displaced in the past two months, while hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed and wounded, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Shebab militia, the main force fighting to oust Sharif, have imposed strict sharia, or Islamic law in areas under their control. Last month Shebab militiamen chopped off the right hand and left foot of four people found guilty of theft by their court in Mogadishu.

African Union peacekeepers reinforce Somalian troops 21 die as AU forces engage Islamist rebels in Mogadishu fighting Al Jazeera : AU forces drawn into Somalia war AU soldiers help Somali forces as fighting rages

Shiikh Shariif oo bixiyey Amarka Dagaalka saakey ka bilowdey Muqdisho iyo Taangiyada AMISOM oo dagaalka ka qayb qaatay Dagaal aad u qaraar ayaa weli ka sii socda qaybo ka tirsan Magaalada Muqdisho kaasoo u dhaxeeya Dowladda Federaalka iyo Xarakooyinka Al-Shabaab iyo Xisbul Islaam oo isku dhinac ah wuxuu dagaalka xoogiisa saakey aroortii ka bilowdey Degmada Cabdi casiis kasoo markii dambe ku fidey Degmadda Karaan waxaana lagu waramey in dagaalkaan ay ka qaybqaadanayaan Taangiyo ay leeyihiin ciidamada AMISOM inkastoo Saraakiisha Amisom ay dafireen kuna andacoodeen in aysan Fasax u heysan ka qayb galka dagaalka ka socda Magalada Muqdisho hase yeeshee dadka deegaanka ayaa sheegey in ay arkeen Taagiyada Cidamada Amisom oo ka bar bar dagaalamaya kuwa Dowladda. Gaadiid Gurmadka deg dega ah ayaa la sheegay in ay Isbitaaladda Muqdisaho Gaarsiiyeen Dad gaaraya ilaa 30 qof oo dhaawac kuwaas oo la sheegey in ay u badan yihiin Dad Rayid ah oo rasaasta ugu tagtey Guryahooda , waxaa kaloo la sheegay in Dagaaladaan ay ku dhinteen Ilaa 10 Qofood oo u badan Kooxihii Dagaalamayey Sidoo kale Afhayeen u hadley Xarakada Al-Shabab wuxuu sheegay in Fariisamadooda ay ku lahaayeen Waqooyiga Muqdisho la soo weerarey ka dibna ay iska caabiyeen , wuxuu kaloo sheegay in ay ciidamadooda ay ku sugan yihiin Goobahoodii ay ku lahaayeen Degmada Cabdi Casiis iyo Kaaraan. Ciidamadda Dowlada ayaa la sheegay in ay guulo ka gaareen Dagaalka sida uu sheegay gudoomiye kuxigeenka arrimaha Nabadgelyada Gobolka Banaadir Cabdifitaax Shaaweeye , wuxuu kaloo sheeya in Ciidamada Dowladda ay gaareen Deegaanka Galgalato iyo Deegaano ka tirsan waqooyiga Muqdisho oo ay hore u joogeen Kooxaha Mucaaradka ,Sheegashada Dowlada Guulahaas ayaa la xaqiijin , sidoo kale Ma jiraan warar ka soo baxay dhinaca Kooxaha Mucaaradka ah. Weli waxaa la maqlayaa Daryanka Madaafiicda ku hoobaneyso Xaafado ka tirsan Magaalada Muqdisho iyadoo wararkii ugu dambeeyey waxay sheegayaan in Madaafiic ay ku soo dhaceen Suuqa Bakaaraha iyo Deegaano ka tirsan Cali Kamiin waxaana la xaqiijiyey in Madaafiicdaas ay geysteen Khasaarooyin isugu jira Dhimasho iyo Dhaawac Ila iyo hadda lama garanayo waxa keeney in la duqeeyo Suuqa Bakaaraha?. Labadii Bilood ee ugu dambeeyey waxaa Magaalada Muqdisho ka jirey dagaalo ay ku dhinteen dad fara badan kuwa kale ay ku dhaawacmeen , waxay dagaaladaas sababeen in ay ku barakacaan Kumanaan qoys kuwaas oo haatan ku dhibaateysan Daafaha Magaalada Muqdisho mana muuqato Rajo ay ka qabaan in ay dib ugu soo laabtaan Guryahoodii waxayna markasta ayu dalbanayaan in labada dhinac ay gaaraan heshiis si loo dhameeyo Dhibaatada Sidoo kale waxaa Maalmahan Dowladda soo gaarayey Hub noocyadiisa kala waxaana Hubkii ugu dambeeyey uu uga yimid wadanka Mareykanka kasoo Dowladda loo soo marsiiyey Wadanka Uganda. Dowladda Federaala ayaa soo bandhigtey Maydka qof ay ku sheegtey in uu u dhashey Wadanka Afganistaan kasoo ku dhintey Dagaalada ka socda Magaalada Muqdisho hase yeeshee Qofkaas ayaa noqdey Qof Soomaali ah sida ay xaqiijiyeen Waalidkii oo ku nool Wadanka Mareykanka waxay kaloo ay sheegeen in wiilkooda uu ka maqnaa Muddo dheer iyagoo sheegay in aysan garaneyn halkii ugu dambeeysey waxayna Magaciisa ku sheegeen Jamaal Baana Wararkii ugu dambeeyey ee Dagaalada waxay sheegayaan in Ciidamada Dowlada ay gaareen Isbitaalka Keysaneey , waxaana halkaa Shir jaraaid ku Qabtey Wasiiru Dowlaha Gaashaandhiga Shiikh Yuusuf Maxamed Siyaad oo sheegey in Madaweyne Shiikh Shariif uu Bixiyey Amarka Dagaalka ka dib markii uu indhacadde Sheegey in kooxaha ka soo horjeeda ay diideen wadahadal. W/D Amiin Yuusuf Khasaaro E-Mail amiinkhasaaro@hotmai l.com

Haatuf News: Maryan Mursal Ma Dareen Cadholeh Bay Kaga Dhooftay Soomaliland “Waxaan ka cudur daaranayaa in dugsiga magacayga laga daayo oo loogu magacdaro halgamayaashii badnaa ee ay lahayd beesha gabooye”Hadraawi “Hadduu hore iigu sheegi lahaa inaan ogalayn magaca dugsiga loo bixiyey waanu ka bedeli lahayn laakiin markii doraad saxaafadu na waraysanaysay ayuu ii sheegay waxaanan ku idhi saxaafada ha u sheegin waxaynu bedeli magaca markaad dhismaha dhamaysaan waanu iga diiday”waraysi Maryan Mursal Hargeysa, July 8, 2009 (Haatuf)- Mashruuci dugsiga ay ugu dhisaysay fanaanada Maryan Mursal Xaafada Daami ee magaalada Hargeysa ayaa qarka u saaran inuu burburo oo joogsado ka dib markii fanaanada Maryan Shalay subaxdii si degdega oo lama filaan ah uga dhooftay madaarka Berbera iyadoo kasoo horumartay wakhtigii u qorshaysnaa inay dhoofto iyadoo raaci lahayd Booking ku lahayd diyaarada Daalo halka ay tigidho degdega ka goosatay diyaarada Xoriyo una sii raacday shalay magaalada Dubay iyada iyo labadii wiil ee ay dhashay, iyadoo sababta tagitaankeeda degdega ah loo sibir saarayo inay keentay hadal uu ku sheegay Abwaan Maxamed Warsame Hadraawi inuu ka cudur daaranayo in laga daayo dugsigii ay Maryan Mursal ka dhisaysay xaafada Daami ee ay ugu magac dartay isla markaana loogu magac daro dad isaga ka mudan oo ku fiican in loogu magac daro sida halgamayaashii badnaa ee ay lahayd beesha gebooye ee geriyooday isagoo abwaanku intaa ku daray in uu isagu wali nool yahay oo aanu dhiman sida darteed qof dhintay loogu magacdaro isaga laga daayo isagoo abwaanku arintaa kaga hadlay waraysi maalintii sabtidii ee toddobaadkan horaantiisii TV-ga Qaranku kula yeeshay magaalada Hargeysa isaga iyo Maryan Mursal. Hadaba waraysi uu khadka telefoonka wargeyska Haatuf kula yeeshay fanaanada intii aanay shalay ka dhoofin magaalada Berbera oo aanu wax kaga waydiinay sababta ay sida degdeg ah ugu dhooftay ee bedelay wakhtigeedii u qorshaysnaa inay Somaliland ka dhoofto iyo inay jirto waxyaabo ay ka cadhootay Waxaanu u dhacay waraysigii sidan: S:waa maxay sababta soo dedejiyey bixitaan kaaga? J:waxaan keenay hawlo faro badan oo London igaga dayacmay oo is dul fuulay wakhtigii badnaa ee aan halkan joogay sida dukaankii iyo hawlo kale oo ii yaala. S:maxaad ku sii sagootiyeysaa eed odhan lahayd dalkan Somaliland? J:walaahi si degdega ayaan u baxay oo hada waanigaa Berbera u baxaya, waxaanan aad ugu mahadnaqayaa xukuumada iyo shacabka Reer Somaliland sida qiimaha leh ee ay ii soo dhaweeyeen ee aanan waligay iloobi karayn. waxaana I qorshaysan inaan markan soo noqdo ummada reer Somaliland u dhigo show yo bilaash ah oo lacag la’aan ah markaan barnaamijyada iyo hawlahaa London ii yaala soo dhamaysto. S: hawshii iskuulka yaad kaga tagtay? J:hawshii iskuulka waxaan kaga tagay oo wadaysa guddi todoba ah ee Hadraawi sameeyey oo la wareegtay anigana hawshayadii inaan ku wareejiyo uun bay ku ekayd waanan ku wareejiyey aniguna qorsha uun baan keenaye dhamaystir guddidaa ayaa iska lahayn waanay wadaan. S: maalintii dhawayd waa kii Hadraawi sheegay in magaciisa laga bedelo oo magac kale loogu magac daro ma jiraa magac cusub oo aad u bixiseen? J: Maya wali magac looma bixin markaan soo noqdo ayaanan eegayaa magaca loo bixinayo. mashruuca ama iskuul ha noqdo ama warshad samaysa hargaha iyo saamaha iyo kabaha ha noqdee S:sideed u aragtaa magaca uu abwaan Hadraawi ka cudur daartay in maga kale dugsiga loo bixiyo? J:horta walaahi hadraawi magaca isaga iska leh oo u xora laakiin waxa haboonayd inuu intii hore ee hawsha ka jiray ka ahayd ii sheego inaanu raali ka ahayn laakiin waan yaabay doraad markii saxaafadu noo timid ee uu ii sheegay inuu saxaafada ka sheegayo markaas oo aan aniguna ka codsaday inaanu saxaafada ka sheegin oo aanu anagu hoos uga wada hadalno, haddii uu magaca bedelayo in marka dugsiga la furayo ee xadhiga laga jarayo uu magacu doonayo ku bedelo taasina waa iga diiday oo markaasuu saxaafadii horteedii afka furtay. Arrintaasina waxay igu noqotay mid wadnaha igaga dhuftay. Qofkuna isagaa magaciisa xor u ah sidaa darteed, Hadraawi waa walaalkay wuu I dhoofiyey abaal weyn ayaan u hayaa, wuxuu igaga yaallaa meel qaali ah waa nin Odaya oo aan islahaa waxa kaliya oo aad abaalkiisa ku guddi kartaa isaga oo nool inaan meel ugu magacdaro. Waxaan u gartay inaan ugu magacdaro xaafada dadka masaakiinta ah ee reer Daami aan uga dhisayo, sidaa daraadeed maadaama oo mashruuca iskuulku soo gebogabaysmayo waxaan ka fikirayaa inaan mashruuc cusub oo ah warshad Hargaha iyo saamaha oo samaysa kabaha oo dadka xaafadaasi ku nooli farsamadooda yaqaanaan. S:waxaa la sheegayaa inaad ka cadhootay magaca uu diiday Abwaanku iyo cadho kale oo dhanka Xukuumada ahi ay kuu raacday, taas maxaa ka jira? J:waxba kama jiraan arrimahaas, cid aan u cadhoodayna ma jirto Xukuumad iyo shacbiba si aanan waligay ilaaween ayey ii soo dhaweeyeen oo Hargeysa waa la isoo dhaweeyey oo Berbera waa la isoo dhaweeyey, Burcana si fiican ayaa la isoo dhaweeyey oo waligay noloshayda aanan ilaawi Karin. Barnaamijkana anaa la imid, Hadraawina anaa ugu magac daray, haddii uu diidayna markaan soo noqdo ayaan mashruucan magaca loo bixinayo iyo wixii laga dhigayo eegi doonaa. Dhinaca kale waxa baritoole isku imanaya 10:00 subaxnimo xubnihii guddida ee loo magacaabay dugsigan, taas oo sida la sheegay ka kooban toddobo xubnood oo uu Hadraawi u yahay guddoomiye lamana hubo inuu Hadraawi ka soo qaybgali doono iyo in kale maadaama oo uu ku maqan yahay magaalada Burco. Sida ay noo xaqiijiyeen xubno ka mid ah guddida in saddex cisho ka hor Acoun kii Dahabshiil ee dugsiga loo furay kaas oo loo magac bixiyey Hadraawi Iskuul oo ay saxeexa wada leeyihiin Guddoomiyaha guddida Hadraawi iyo xubin kale oo ka mid ah guddida dugsiga, isla markaana natiijada kulanka guddida dugsiga ee Bari ka dhici doona Hotel Crown ayaa ay ku xidhan tahay in uu mashruucaasi is taago iyo inuu sii shaqeeyo, mar haddii magaca Abwaanku diiday in dugsiga loogu magac daro ayaa la filan karaa inay burburiso mashruucii Fanaanada Maryan Mursal ay dugsiga ka dhisaysay xaafada Daami ee magaalada Hargeysa. Si kastaba ha ahaatee dadweynaha caasimada Hargeysa ayaa layaab iyo fajac ku noqotay sida filaan waaga ah ee ay Maryan Mursal uga baxday magaalada,iyadoo habeen dambe bandhig faneed ku qabanaysay Beerta xoriyada, maalinta ku xigtaynay Banaroma Holl ku qaban lahayd bandhig Faneed lacagta ka soo baxda lagu kaabi lahaa dugsigaa ay ka dhisaysay Xaafada Daami ee magaalada Hargeysa. Hadaba, waxa ummadda reer Somaliland ku waajib ah haday tahay guddidii hawsha loo xilsaaray, Xukuumadda iyo Xisbiyada iyo dhamaan bulshada reer Somaliland inay u gurmadaan si aanay mashruucaasi u istaagin, isla markaana looga midho dhalin lahaa hindisaha fanaanada Maryan Mursal ugu talo gashay inay ku horumariso aqoontoodana sare ugu qaado dadka danyarta ah ee la haybsooco ee ku dhaqan xaafada Daami ee magaalada Hargeysa.

Haatuf News: Haween 80 Jiro Ah oo Xabsiga La Dhigay Badhasaabka Awdal Oo Lagu Eedeeyey Inuu Xabsiga Dhigay Haween 80 Jiro Ah Oo Ka Soo Jeeda Qoyska Reer Sh. Cali Jawhar, Dhulkoodiina Dad Kale Siiyey “Waxan Illaahay Ka Baryayaa In Qofka Na Haysta, Illaahay Wax Kadeeda U Keeno” Faadumo Sh. Cali Jawhar Boorama, July 12, 2009 (Haatuf) – Xubno ka mid ah qoysaska caanka ah ee reer Boorama, ayaa guddoomiyaha Gobolka Awdal, Maxamuud Sh. C/laahi Cige, ku eedeeyey inuu kula kacay falal arxan darro ah, kana baxsan shuruucda dalka iyo kan diinta islaamka ah, kaddib markii uu xabsiga u diray haween da' ah oo ka soo jeeda qoysaskaasi, isla markaana dhul-beereed ay ku leeyihiin Boorama uu siiyey dad kale oo ay isaga dano kale ka dhexeeyaan. Sida uu ku soo waramay weriyaha Haatuf ee gobolka Awdal, Maxamed Cumar Sheekh, xubnahan ayaa sidoo kale badhasaabka Awdal ku eedeeyey, nin aan ku dhaqmin shuruucda dalka, isla markaana ciddii uu doonana xidhxidha, wax ka daba hadlaana aanu jirin, sidaa darteedna loo baahan yahay inay bulshada reer Somaliland iyo reer Awdalba kula taliyaan inuu dadka si caddaalad ah ugu xukumo gobolka. Faadumo Sh. Cali Jawhar, oo ka mid ah saddex haween ah oo dhawaan loo qabqabtay muran dhul-beereed ay ku leeyihiin Boorama oo dad kale ku sheegteen qaybo ka mid ah, ayaa wareysi ay arrintaasi Haatuf ka siisay kaga hadlay arrimo door ah oo ku saabsan caddaalad darro, sharci la'aan iyo arrimo kale oo ay ka tirsanayaan gudoomiyahaasi, waxayna Faadumo Sheekh Cali Jawhar tidhi: ''Dhawr iyo sagaashan sano ayaan jiraa weligayna ma arag xafiisyo dawladeed, ama mid la iiga yeedhaba. Waxaan la yaabay waxa aniga iyo haween kale oo walaalahay ah naga qabsaday guddoomiyaha gobolka Awdal, oo beer aan weligayo Boorama ku lahayn na dul keenay dad aanaan wax naga dhexeeyaa jirin, kaddibna beertayadii badhtankeedii jago ka qabsaday oo leh qasab baan ku dhisanayaa. Waxa dhacday in maamulka dawladda Hoose ogyahay sharcigayaga dhulbeereedkaasi, cashuurtiina aanu bixinnay, isla markaana aanu ku dhaqaaqnay inaanu qayb ka mid ah dhisanno, kaddibna annagoo halkaa marayna ciidan iyo dad shicib ah nala dul keenay oo nalaga burburiyey dhismahayagii, isla markaana xabsiga saldhigga Bileyska nala geeyey. Markii aan nidhi maxaa nalagu haystaana la yidhi dhul baa la idinku haystaa, oo weliba badhsaabku cid uu wato ayaa idinku haysata, waxana nalagu yidhi ma dhisan kartaan. Intaa markay marayso ayaa habeennimadii dambe koox kale dhulkayagii qabsatay oo haddaan doonayo in dhulkayga xoog ku raadsanno, waxay tafiirtaydu maraysaa 72 qof, gabdhaha kale ee ila dhashayna waa intaa in le’eg, mana doonaynno inaan xaqayaga u dagaalanno. Dadkan ma garanaynno, dhul deris ah ma nihin, dhul nagama iibsan ilaa imikana waan garan la’nahay sida wax u socdaan iyo waxa badhsaabku annaga noogu haysto dhul jago ah oo uu dad la doonayo. Waxaan ummadda reer Somaliland, ummadda reer Awdal, muslimka dhulka ku nool, Golayaasha qaranka, iyo xukuumadda sareba ka codsanaynaa in arrintaasi badhsaabku nagu hayo ee tacaddiga iyo dulmiga ah wax laga qabto, loona sheego in dhulka ay shaqo ku leedahay dawladda Hoose, maxkamadda iyo meelaha kale ee sharciga dawladda laga hago, intaaba hanala horgeeyo, wixii intaa ka baxsan waxaanu u aragnaa gef iyo awood sheegasho iyo shaadhka dawladda oo nalagu dhacayo, waxaan Illaahay ka baryayaa in cidda dhibtaa nagu haysa Illaahay keligii meel ka siiyo wax kadeeda.” Intaa kadib ayaan dadkii deriska la ahaa dhul-beereedkaasi wax ka weydiinnay sida wax u socdaan iyo cidda meeshaa isku haysta. Ugu horreyn waxan wax ka weydiinnay nin la yidhaahdo Faysal C/raxmaan waxaanu yidhi “Meeshan waxan deggenayn muddo toban sano, dhulkan aan guriga ka dhisannay waxa naga iibiyey reer Sh. Cali, iyaga uun baan meeshan ku ogeyn, waxaanu maalin dhaweyd aragnay ciidan iyo dad kale oo muddo saddex saacadood na haystay, weligayna ma arag.” Oday kale oo isna ka mid ah odayaasha xaafadda ee jaarka la ah beertaa ayaa isna yidhi “Annagu buuqa waan maqlaynay dadka meesha yimidna waan moodaynay inay reer Sh. Cali ka iibiyeen meesha, waxan ogaannay goor dambe in dadkani meel kale ka soo duuleen oo meeshan uun farta loogu fiiqay, waar Illaahay ka yaaba ayaan nidhi, weyna na maqli waayeen, reerkaasina iyagaan ka iibsannay jagadan aanu deggenahay.” Si kastaba ha ahaatee muranka dhulka ee magaalada Boorama ayaa haatan cirka isku sii shareeraya oo kolba weji la imanaya, sharcigii dawladda ee lagu kala baxayeyna haatan waa la dhaafay oo waa la maqli waayey, waxayna u egtahay in arrimahan dhulku haddii ay sidan ku sii socdaan ay keeni karaan xasilooni-darro aanay cidi itaal u haynin xalkeeda, daawladdana ay ka soo gaadhi doonto dhibaato kale.

Why Somaliland refused Mr. Donald Payne's invitation‏ For quite some time it has been common knowledge among Somalis that the secessionist politicians in Hargeisa harbour deep routed animosity for all Somalis in the Horn of Africa except, perhaps, their own clan. Mr.Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, the former separatist leader fueled the fire of the civil war in southern Somalia with money and weapons in the believe that the longer the civil war continued there, the better would be the chances for Somaliland to get international recognition. It was Mr.Egal who started handing over innocent Somalis {ostensibly as terrorists} to the Ethiopian government. This ruthless, utterly abhorrent and by all standards inhuman and unsomali behavior is maintained till today by his successor. Mr.Faisal Ali Warabe, a chairman of one of the subclanish parties in Hargeisa once said that and I quote:" a Somalilander could better understand and cooperate with an Ethiopian than he would with a Somali from the south" Unquote. This misguided amateur politician uttered this infamous statement at a time when the secessionists were beseeching recognition from the Ethiopian government which they mistakenly thought would be the key to African and world recognition for their enclave. Recently, while addressing a group of his clan {some of whose loyalty to Somaliland he obviously suspected} Mr. Warabe told his audience, Quote:"Any one who talks about rejoining Somalia will get his/her tongue cut off" Unquote. Just a few days ago Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud {Silanyo}, the leader of another subclanish party, told his supporters during a visit to London that Somali unity serves only the interests of the "expansionist" clan that produced Ahmed Guray, Mohamed Abdullah Hassan and Mohamed Siyad Barre. Unlike Mr.Warabe who is politically immature and personally irresponsible, Mr.Silanyo is a seasoned politician who held prominent political posts during the presidency of the late Mohamed Siyad Barre. Hence, it is unbecoming of him to utter pronouncements in line with those of Mr.Warabe’s unless he is suffering from an incurable phobia about Somali unity. Moved by the Somali tragedy and with the intention of trying to salvage what is left of the country, Mr. Donald M. Payne of the United States Congress invited the TFG of Somalia, the Puntland administration and the Somaliland administration to a meeting in Washington on 25th June, 2009. All the three entities accepted the invitation to the meeting the purpose of which was to discuss the current situation in the country with the aim of establishing ways and means of cooperation between the three Somali administrations. Congressman Payne's idea was that once an inter-Somali cooperation is obtained, then he could secure American {and consequently international} firm involvement and support towards putting an end to the chaos in the country. The TFG and the Puntland administration showed up for the meeting while the secessionist clique abstained despite its previous confirmation to attend. In a last minute regret letter to the Honorable Congressman the clique’s "foreign minister" said that he would not be attending the meeting because "Somaliland is an independent country which has nothing to do with Somalia". "However", he continued, "the Republic of Somaliland would be ready to cooperate with the U.S government in matters related to counter terrorism, piracy etc." provided that the U.S government would deal with Somaliland as an independent country. What a primitive mediocre diplomacy!!! The secessionists repeatedly argue that they deserve to be treated differently from the rest of Somalia because while the rest of Somalia is in turmoil, they are flourishing in an oasis of peace and prosperity. This is a baseless argument; otherwise how would they justify the presence of their militia in unionist Sool region and its capital Lasanod which they invaded in October, 2007 and expelled over 60.000 of its population from their homes. Most of these victims of the Hargeisa administration's aggression are scattered all over the region and neighboring regions living in misery either in refugee camps or with relatives who could hardly take care of their basic needs for survival. Some had trekked all the way to refugee camps in Kenya while others ventured the high seas towards Yemen and beyond. The secessionist militias are also present in Sanag and Cayn regions to suppress the largely pro union natives there. For anyone who questions their abhorrence for being part of a united Somalia, the secessionists have a ready answer: "because Mohamed Siyad Barre treated us badly". They ignore to mention that the former president also treated badly all those who challenged his rule or threatened the country's sovereignty. The inhabitants of the central and north-eastern regions suffered most under the socialist regime, but nevertheless these regions never considered independence from the rest Somalia after the president’s demise. During the war of liberation led by Sayid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan {1900-1921} in which the people of the regions of Sool,Sanag and Cayn {SSC} formed the bulk and backbone of the freedom fighters, most of the Somali clans in the Horn of Africa sided with the British, Ethiopian and Italian colonialists in suppressing this sacred Darwish Movement and in massacring the SSC Dawishes as well as non combatants including old men, women and children. As a reward for massacring their own kit and kin the pro colonialist Somalis were promised, and subsequently received, the livestock and land of the Darwish freedom fighters. The forefathers of the separatists in Hargeisa, Burao and Berbera benefited most from the spoils of war for superbly serving their British masters. Yet despite this gruesome experience at the hands of their own countrymen, the inhabitants of the SSC regions are staunch advocates of Somali unity. Unlike the secessionists, the grandchildren of the great Darwishes bear no malice for the Somali nation. After eighteen years of international disinterest in their unjust cause, it is time that the recognition begging administration in Hargeisa realized that avoiding to sit with other Somalis to solve the bleeding nation's problems is not in anybody's interest more so their own. After all, an ostrich doesn’t guarantee its own safety by hiding its head in the sand. Ahmed Tabaatiig Kuwait

Somaliland leaders still smell the British Rule, therefore Mr Donal Payne, they will not sit with other Somalis. Saturday, 11 July 2009 01:02 In an attempt to alleviat the ongoing targedy in Somalia, Mr. Donald M. Payne of the United States Congress invited the TFG of Somalia, Puntland administration and Somaliland administration to a meeting in Washington on 25th June, 2009. Initially all the three entities accepted the invitation but only the TFG and Puntland representaives have attended the meeting, while the Somaliland´s "foreign minister" being ill-advised by foreign whistle-blowers did not show up in the meeting, claiming that "Somaliland is an independent country which has nothing to do with other Somalis". Following this and during the congressional hearings in Washington DC, Hon Donald Payne, Chairman of Committee for African Affairs at US Congress had, bearing in mind that the so-called Somaliland is not sui generis and its people are not diffrent from other Somalis, stated the following: If they [somaliland people] want to be isolated, they can be assured that I will do all I can to isolate them. This statement by the congressman, which certainly did not cut ice with the secessionists, has apparently prompted an outcry among those who are desperate for a secession, to the extend that in an article: to Awdalnews.com, Hon Donald Payne was likened to a warlord and a terrorist of Somalia. In another letter: , which has appeared in some Somali websites and addressed to Hon Donald Payne, Mr Mohamed Baranbaro, the author of the letter tried to convince the congressman and his associates that “Somaliland” deserves an international recognition. If anything this type of letter is a downnright insult to the intelligence of any learned congressman, like Hon Donald Payne. There is a paucity of truthfulness in the said letter and its content is basically a rehash of the secessionist’s stereotype and ludicrous claims for a much sought international recognition. These types of acts clearly reflect how the “leaders” of one clan in North-west Somalia want to mislead the international community and get an interantional recognition for a pretend state called, Somaliland. Institutions like the US congress and all other international fora are privy to the fact that the concept of “Somaliland” is the invention of some disgruntled “politicians” of one clan among the five clans in northern Somalia (former British Somaliland), who acting upon tribal dominance and taking the advantage of the collapse of the Somali state, unilaterally declared in May 1991, a secession of the area from Somalia and adopted a former colonial name of Somaliland. For the last 18 years the secessionists and some hired foreign agents have been relentlessly campaigning for Somaliland´s recognition and these often present flimsy justifiactions as pre-requisite for a recognition. Among these justifications are that Somaliland is democratic, peaceful and both presidential and parliamentarian elections were conducted or that all the clans in the former British Somaliland are identified with the secession. All these, justifiactions which are similar to the hackneyed collection of claims stated by Mohamed Baranbaro do not hold water and a point-by-point rebuttal to these claims is given below: 1. Somaliland was an independent nation with internationally delineated boundaries and was recognized by 34 nations including 5 permanent members. This is a lie and I challenge anyone who can produce a single country, let alone 34 countries or the 5 permenant memebers of the UN, which ever recognised Somaliland as an independent state. It is irrational that any government would have recognised a transient adminstration as an idependent state, that was only to exist for 4 days (26 June -1 July 1960) and then to disappear for good after joining an adminstartion from the South to form the unity government of the Somali Republic. Mr Baranbaro is day-dreaming if he thinks that his claim is available in the archives of the UN or in the records of the 34 countries , mentioned in his letter. 2. Somaliland existed before Somalia was granted independence. Once Somalia achieved independence, Somaliland then initiated a Union with Somalia for a greater “Somali Republic”. There had never been a state called Somaliland unless one erroneously beleives that the then British Somaliland Protectorate was a separate state and was not an occupied part of the Somali home by the British colonisers. Also, the union was not initiated by the North, but it was an aspiration of all Somalis. 3.This Union was never legally formed thus never bound Somaliland to perpetuity. Contrary to this claim and unless Mr Baranbaro is speaking through his hat, one clan has no solid legal basis to abrogate the act of union (Atto di Unione) formed and signed by the governments of North and South in 1960. 4. Somaliland never relinquished her right to restore her independence at any point. Somaliland restored her independence in 1991 after 30 years of the disastrous policies that saw the aerial bombardment of cities, the massacre of over 50,000 innocent people and the systemic humiliation of the people of Somaliland. The writer of this claim, like all the proponents of secession beleives that his clan had solely inherited from the British, all the territories of the former British Somaliland Protectorate and by virtue of this, his clan alone decides in an on-and-off mode, when and how the north-west of Somalia can be part of Somalia. Again, Mr Mohamed Baranbaro as usual heaps all the blames to the unity itself or the South but conveniently ignores that the politicians, both from North and South were to be blamed. The secessionist´s claim that 50 000 of their people were killed by the former Somali president, Siyad Bare who was from the South, is exceedingly over the top and even if this and other fabricated stories were true, these would not justify for an international recognition to Somaliland, as the said regime which had army officers both from North and South of Somalia, also carried out killings in the South and central parts of Somalia. One, must also recall that the people of Sool, Sanag and Cayn of North Somalia were massacred by thier thousands during the Darwish movements in1900 – 1921. These massacres were committed by the British colonisers with the collobration of Somalis and Ethiopia. This historical fact is not an invented one, but it is documented and can be found in the world libraries. From these library records, Mr Baranbaro can find out who were these Somalis who collobrated with the British colonisers. 5. The Somaliland public voted overwhelmingly- on more than one occasion - to rescind the union. This decision is neither reversible nor open to negotiation. This is again a wishfull thinking to contemplate that all clans in the north-west regions of Somalia are behind the secession. The fact that Somaliland militia occupies in the unionist Sool region and its capital Lasanod which they invaded in October, 2007 speaks for itself. 6. Somaliland's case is unique in that the recognition of Somaliland will not set precedent or infringe upon African Union protocol or convention.There are no other formerly independent and recognized nations seeking to exita union or reclaim independence. There is nothing uniqueness in the secessionist´s cause and simply put, if Somalia is divisible so is the so-called Somaliland. World bodies like the UN, AU and all other international organisations know that if this clan-entity is recognised this will let the genie out of the bottle, therefore the unity of Somalia is sacred and untouchable. 7. Somaliland fulfills all requirements for statehood; a) the nation has a permanent population, b) had been independent once before, c) has a clearly defined territory. The secessionists always highlight their fond for the legacy of British rule and its attributes, like a defined territory, based on arbitrary boundary and drawn by the British . One has to know that such boundary was illegal in the first place, and became obsolete once the internationally recognised boundary of Somalia was in place and, if an arbitrary boundary was to be counted one has to remember that the Turks, Egyptians and even the Omanis ruled some parts of the Somali home and as a result had drawn their respective arbitrary boundaries. One wonders why unlike other regions of Somalia and of all those powers who occupied Somalia, the British legacy in Hargeisa is olfactory and aural – Was there very special bond between the British colonisers and those who still evocatively remember the British rule? By Mohamed A Mirreh10 July, 2009

President Yoweri Museveni yesterday received the President of Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who was on a one-day working visit to Uganda. According to a statement issued by State House, the meeting took place at State House, Nakasero. Sharif was accompanied by the deputy prime minister and finance minister, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan and transport minister Ali Ahmed Jamac. “The President and his guests discussed bilateral issues. They reviewed the situation in Somalia and other regional matters,” the statement said. The state minister for international affairs, Okello Oryem and the principal private secretary to the President, Amelia Kyambadde, attended the meeting. Uganda and Burundi are the only African countries which contributed peace-keeping troops to the war-torn-country under the Africa Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). According to agency reports, before coming to Uganda, Sharif held talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi. “The two sides discussed how to mobilise the international community to support peace efforts in Somalia, a senior Ethiopian foreign affairs official told journalists. Foreign terrorist groups have increased pressure on the Somali government and AMISOM, the official said. The officials said the government was drumming support from the international community, saying the problem was beyond its capacity. The international community, foreign media have said, seem to have understood the depth of the situation and has started to take the Somali conflict more Source: New Vision, July 08, 2009