Sunday, May 11, 2008 Alex Strick van Linschoten in Mogadishu When Ibrahim Saeed Abdullah saw a neighbour’s cinema burnt down by a barrage of grenades, he realised that he had no choice but to heed the death threats he had received from the big men with guns in their hands and hatred in their hearts. Last week he closed the doors of his own cinema for the last time. It was two years since Abdullah had opened for business in Mogadishu, the largely ruined capital of war-torn Somalia. The location may have been inauspicious but the timing seemed right: the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist coalition that briefly took over much of the country in 2006, had just been driven out by an American-backed Ethiopian invasion. In recent months, however, Al-Shabab, the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union, has spread renewed fear through Mogadishu, a city of up to 3m people that has been convulsed by fighting for 17 years. Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, Al-Shabab does not approve of the showing of films. Soon Abdullah’s cinema was the last one standing in Mogadishu and he was threatened repeatedly. “They came with weapons, surrounded my cinema and told me, ‘We will kill you if you don’t close’,” he said. Al-Shabab, now an autonomous rebel group which has added an explosive element to the combustible mix of Mogadishu’s militias, enforces strict sharia (Islamic law) and uses tactics imported from the global jihadi movement. As in Afghanistan, those who work or trade with the government risk being branded as spies or collaborators and beheaded as a warning to others. Members of Al-Shabab deliver “night letters” to businessmen and others they wish to intimidate. One such letter listed “traitors assisting the occupiers who attacked the country” and warned of action if they did not make amends in 48 hours. The group has overrun at least eight towns this year and taken control of large swathes of Mogadishu. It is behind a spate of roadside bombings directed at convoys of Ethiopian troops. Journalists are routinely harassed. Editors and broadcasters received a letter from Al-Shabab last week instructing them to stop referring to the government and to say “puppets” instead. They were told to call dead insurgents “martyrs”. The government’s writ does not run far and the Ethiopian forces propping it up are widely loathed. They come under attack as soon as they leave their heavily fortified bases. Meanwhile, some militias regarded as pro-government have received no wages for months and are switching their loyalties to whoever pays them. Mogadishu is at the epicentre of the anarchy. The threats posed by rival militias mean that to travel in the city is to be in constant fear of ambush or bombing. My photographer Philip Poupin and I experienced a hold-up at a government checkpoint five miles from the city centre. A group of perhaps 20 heavily armed men with a flat-bed truck and a large antiaircraft gun mounted on it pointed their rifles and ordered us out of our vehicle. Our armed guards scuffled with them but were easily overpowered. The confrontation was eventually calmed by our translator and our guards’ guns were handed back, but it was a reminder of the risks that foreigners face in Somalia. In February a roadside bomb killed three people working for Médecins Sans Frontières, forcing the aid organisation to withdraw all its international staff. Last month Murray Watson, 69, a British flood prevention expert, was kidnapped by six gunmen in the south of the country. He and a Kenyan colleague are still missing. Two Somali-born Britons who had returned to build a school in the town of Baladwayne were shot dead by rebels with links to Al-Shabab. Last week the group announced that it would target all white people in Somalia. Meanwhile, the country is witnessing what United Nations officials have called “Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis”. Some aid workers estimate the number displaced at well over 1m. In Mogadishu, two Red Cross-funded hospitals have treated 1,112 casualties this year, a third of them women and children. At the city’s Medina hospital nearly all the patients had been caught up in the haphazard violence. Ahmed Dalal, the uncle of six children recovering there, described how two mortar shells had hit his house, killing the children’s mother. Many people have been killed by Ethiopian troops who responded to rebel attacks by shelling entire districts. South of Mogadishu are the camps for internally displaced refugees. These makeshift huts and shelters fashioned from twigs and cardboard boxes spread along both sides of the road for 15 miles towards the town of Afgoye. Ahmed Osman and his wife Khadija Yusuf were rebuilding their tiny shelter with branches they had gathered. “It had almost fallen down and it will rain soon. We can’t afford any plastic sheets,” Ahmed said. Khadija added there was little chance of it being safe for them to return to Mogadishu. American diplomats still hold out hope that the government will be able to hold elections next year. But they fear that Somalia could become a terrorist hub in east Africa and are concerned by links between Al-Shabab and Al-Qaeda. Most of Al-Shabab’s senior members were bodyguards to foreign Al-Qaeda operatives in Somalia during the 1990s and display a powerful streak of antiAmericanism. Aden Hashi Ayro, one of its leaders, was killed with 24 others in a predawn US airstrike on his home in Dhusa Mareb, several hundred miles north of the capital earlier this month. Ayro, Al-Shabab’s military commander who was trained in Afghanistan, had been blamed for the deaths of at least 10 foreigners, including Kate Peyton, a BBC news producer, who was killed outside her hotel in Mogadishu in 2005. Ayro’s assassination provoked a furious response from Al-Shabab, which called for revenge against all foreigners. “This incident will cause a lot of problems to US interests in the region,” said Mukhtar Robow Adumansur, an Al-Shabab spokesman. Last week Al-Shabab fighters seized a police headquarters and attacked two Ethiopian military convoys. Ahmad Abdisalam, Somalia’s deputy prime minister, said he believed the only hope of a solution to the country’s problems was through local dialogue. “We need to reduce the internationalisation of the conflict,” he said. However, at the Americans’ insistence, Al-Shabab has been excluded from the peace talks, which are being held in Djibouti between the government and the Islamic Courts Union. Talk of peace means little to most Somalis. At a government checkpoint, a young boy stood guard last weekend. He said he was 17, but looked closer to 12 or 13, and had been working there for a year. Paid about £25 a month, he said he had signed up to support his mother, father and three brothers. I asked what he saw himself doing in a few years’ time but he did not grasp the question. He replied that he had been in many battles and expected to die soon: “Everyone who does this job dies.” Road to ruin 1991 Muhammad Siad Barre, dictator, deposed 1992 US Marines sent to restore order 1993 Two US helicopters downed in Mogadishu. US pulls out in 1994. Years of internecine warfare follow June 2006 Islamic Courts Union takes control of Mogadishu December 2006 Ethiopia, with US backing, invades. Islamic Courts routed April 2008 US airstrike kills Aden Hashi Ayro, a leader of Al-Shabab rebels Source: The Sunday Times, May 11, 2008

SFGates Zoe Alsop, Chronicle Foreign Service Sunday, May 11, 2008 Galkayo, Somalia -- In November, Islamic insurgents broke into Madina Ali's home in the capital of Mogadishu, forcing an explosive-laden package into her younger sister's hands. The militants then ordered the teenager to carry the parcel past a group of Ethiopian soldiers. If she didn't, they threatened to kill her family. When she complied, they detonated the explosive by remote control, killing her and injuring several soldiers. "After that, we decided to leave," said Ali, 28. "Otherwise we might have been killed." Ever since Ethiopian troops, with tacit U.S. support, ousted the Islamic Courts Union government 18 months ago, Ethiopian and Somali forces have been fighting a swelling Islamic insurgency along the narrow, densely populated Mogadishu streets and across southern Somalia. The change of government may have unintentionally played a role in pushing Somali women like Ali back to a brutal era. Since conflict began at the end of 2006, violence has displaced nearly 1 million people, aid groups say. In the northern city of Galkayo, dozens of women living in refugee camps told identical stories of being raped, robbed and beaten by militia members linked to politically powerful clans, which have carved out armed fiefdoms and set up checkpoints along roads leading out of Mogadishu. The Islamic Courts Union, an organization modeled after Afghanistan's Taliban with alleged ties to al Qaeda, assumed power in early 2006 in south-central Somalia. Like the Taliban, the group offered a welcome respite from years of political chaos. Many women said they preferred its restrictive brand of Islamic law - women were required to wear veils in public and most women's groups were banned - to no justice at all. Men convicted of rape faced execution, but a woman alleging rape who failed to produce four male witnesses could be stoned for adultery. "Many women supported the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu because they received security," said Alia Adem Abdi, who chairs Hiran Women Action on Advocacy for Peace & Human Rights in the turbulent central Hiran region. "They had access to move freely in the capital city. ... Children had access to school. But not now." Improvement in theory In theory, the current transitional government's secular Constitution offers women greater freedoms. But with the ranks of the insurgency swelling every day, the state is too weak to enforce its laws, most observers say. And while insurgents have not been shy about using women and children, like Ali's sister, as human shields and unwilling suicide bombers, Ethiopian and Somali army soldiers have also been accused of rape and murder. Galkayo, which is some 300 miles north of Mogadishu, was once a beacon of stability for those fleeing the more violent south. But without a functioning government, clan elders have stepped into the vacuum, doling out justice only to those with private militias that have the firepower to demand it. "The whole country is a clan-based system," said Gov. Abdulkadir Dahirahmed of the Mudug region, whose capital is Galkayo. "The police support the elders, the military supports the elders. The elders are the highest authority here." Galkayo is a densely packed warren of low stone buildings spiked with delicate minarets, which gleam white and blue in the desert sun. Its estimated 150,000 residents straddle the boundary dividing the nation's restive central and southern regions from the relatively peaceful neighboring autonomous state of Puntland. The Islamic Courts government never reached the north, and insurgents have concentrated attacks in regions where the Courts once controlled - central and southern Somalia. A handful of decrepit white Toyota station wagons, a nearly finished public hospital, a tidy development of canary-yellow homes with generators to produce electricity, and a smattering of foreign-sponsored Islamic schools are the fruits of Somalis living abroad who send remittances to their impoverished relatives. But such development pales in comparison to the shocking conditions of the nine refugee camps inhabited by some 35,000 displaced people who live in homes constructed of dry brush and rags. Ali is one of dozens of newly displaced people living in the stick and rag shelter of Mulyun Ahmed Osman, also a former Mogadishu resident. "My husband was killed in front of me while I was delivering a baby," Osman said. A rape every day The camps also offer little or no security. Last year, a survey by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees concluded that one woman is raped each day in Galkayo camps by gangs of men from town. "I was sleeping in the camp when a man came into my hut and raped me," said a 55-year-old woman who was unable to sit because of injuries sustained during the attack and declined to give her name because of the stigma of rape. "We came to find a better life. Now I cannot walk or work." Many observers here agree that police and soldiers who investigate rape cases are subject to the influence of clan elders, which means little or no justice for a victim from a weak clan. They point to the man who raped an 8-year-old girl in October and still runs a garbage collection station - aid organizations pay people to collect garbage - several hundred yards from the stick and rag shelter where the girl lives with her mother and three younger sisters. The man was arrested after residents heard the girl screaming and ran for police. After he spent a week in jail, clan elders persuaded the police to charge him with robbery and had him released. "If we see him, we run and hide," said the girl, who fled Mogadishu with her family four months ago and whose mother asked not to name the family for fear of retribution. The mother says she is too poor to leave the camp and appealed to the clan to punish the man or order him out of town. In response, clan elders threatened her with violence. "We did not talk about it after that day," the mother said. Work is scarce for the displaced. The victim's mother still depends on her daughter's rapist for the 10 cents a day she earns selling recyclable trash that she collects from town streets. "When I see him, I cry," she said. E-mail Zoe Alsop at foreign@sfchronicle.com. Source: SFGates, May 11, 2008

Lool meant mushakal as in its nicer to have mix of flavours then only one and that i think you'll agree too. malawad btw is an cay so none of that walaashis

Nephthys lool that was a good try but mawalad is not only for group of mixed people but for all..... and it derives from the word mushakal another for mixed and c'mon u dont think a mushakal is nice if you ever had one

Miskiin qof la caayo nooga ma dhigeyso wadan keena nabad ilaah uun bari cuz allah only knows whats best for us and that the imtixaan he's putting us through inuu naga saaro. Why lie about it cuz the government and these shabaabs are killing people in the most gruesome way inshalaah ilaah ha inoogu badalo wax kheyr dhibtaan maanta ina heysta.

Nephthys call it whatever you want loool but i consider myself as much somali as am emarati and not muwalad cuz that term doesnt define your ethnic background. Malika seriously somalis like to diss themselves too much because they take the beauty of their culture and the people for granted. Dadka oo labadoodu waarid ka yimaaden dalal kala duwan usually they lean towards one culture more and made me explore the somali part a bit more and really made me proud of being somali but i never faced that problem really cuz both of my parents culture are almost exactly the same and the language barrier no problem cuz when you speak both of the languages you will see how really close they are but a bit sad that those who have parents that are both somali and cant write and read somali and dont know much about their country and it aint their parents fault because if you're really proud of what you are then you will go and learn more about it like me cuz i wasnt born in somalia and yet i visited it twice and alxamdulilaah can read and write somali.

lool nuune everyone has their day lool... Rose lets say her father was very strict so the only places we saw each other where in uni and her family house although many other respectable places lool. But am really a gentleman so i confined to the rules and my dad is from UAE too but markad heysatid hooyo somaali c'mon i think they're probably the strongest women in the world and therefore the moryooley part of your body takes over the other part whatever it may be.

Thinking about getting maried to my girlfriend but she's mixed cadaan her dad is from UAE and her mom is from Sweden, but then i think i have always been attracted to different people maybe cause am mixed too and that opened up my mind. And as long as there's choice out there hey go for it you might strike some luck.

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Somali President Wednesday 07 May 2008 Elected to the presidency in 2004, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed still faces the delicate challenge of reconciling Somalia's war torn population, as an Islamist insurrection endures and food riots shake the country. The Interview

Kaalin Intee la eg bay Maxkamaduhu ku lahaayeen howlihii sirdoon ee sababay dilkii Macalin Aadan Ceyroow?? Yaase kale oo wax ka ogaa in shirqoolka dilkaasi uu socday?? Hadase waa sidee xiriirka maxkamadaha iyo Shabaabku??? AQRISO XOG DHAB Tan iyo markii 1-diibishan ciidamada Mareykanku ay duqeymo ku dileen AlZarqaawigii Soomaaliya ahaana wakiilkii Al-Qaacida ee dalkan waxaa soo if baxayay warar la isla dhex marayo oo ku saabsan siyaabaha loo dilay iyo meelaha loo soo maray, iyo waliba cida gacanta ku siisay Amerikaanku in ay guushaa gaaraan. Waxaa su’aasha sida weyn la isu weydiinayay ay ahayd Yaa kala shaqeeyay SIR DOONKA MAREYKANKA dhacdadii ka dhacday Dhuusa-Mareeb khamiistii la soo dhaafay oo bishu ahayd 1 da May, hase ahaatee baaritaan ay shabakadani waday dhowrkii maalmood ee lasoo dhaafay ayaanu ku helnay xog fafaahsan. Guri uu Dhuusa-Mareeb, ku lahaa Shiikh Xasan Daahir Aweys, oo uu isla markaana deganaa Allaha U Naxariistee taliye Macalin Aadan Ceyrow, ayaa waxaanu ogaanay in maalmihii weerarka ka horeeyay ay ka socdeen shirar loogu talagalay in lagu dhameeyo khilaaf iyo mad madow soo kala dhex galay Maxkamadaha beelaha midoobay iyo Al-Shabaab. Shirarkaas waxaa ka soo qayb galay rag dhowr ah oo 2 ka mida ay ka socdeen Isbaheysiga Tuulada Asmara kana soo dirayn Jabuuti iyo nin uu Xamar ka soo diray shaqsi aanu magaciisa kusoo gaabineyno "Hamiye" Saddex-daas nin oo dhamantood ay isku hayb ahaayeen Cayroow ayaa ahaa niman ka tirsan Maxkamadaha una shaqeeya Sir-doonka Maraykanka, Kuwaas oo watay Aalado la shaqeysa Dayax Gacmeedka (satellite-ka) oo ay dhex dhigeen meelo ka mid ah guriga shirku ka socday, oo halkaas dayuuradaha war-doonka oo Maraykanku kala socdeen waxa guriga ka dhex socday, isla markaasna ay muuqaaladaas la qaybsanayeen Maraakiibta dagaalka Maraykanka ee Badwaynta Hindiya fadhiya. 3 dii habeenimo markii weerarku dhacay, 3 daas nin oo ku jiray guri yara ka fog goobtaas qaraxu ka dhacay ayaa intii jahwareerkii socday ka tegay Dhuusa-Mareeb. Laakin Midkii Xamar ka yimid oo malaha laga shakiyey bixitaankiisa ayaa rag ka tirsan Al-Shabaab ay afduubeen Aabihiis iyo 4 wiil oo la dhashay ninkaas laga shakiyey. Waxaa Al-Shabaab hadda ka dhex bilowday is aaminaad la'aan iyo kala shaki badan. Isla markaas waxaa meesha ka baxay in ay isku soo dhowaadaan Garabka Maxaakimta iyo Al-Shabaab. Source: http://dowladnimo.com/index.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&id=646

the funniest was probably the 'qabo qabo war hedhe kamerada madow bey iga dhigeysaa' maybe it proves that somali men are as conscious as others in this world.

A.J since when became suffering of my people in mogadishu became of such a concern for somalilanders as specially when your leaders openly say that yarka addis ka yimid baa iga dhow kan muqdishu ka yimid marka please spare the fake concern and tears that is riddled with political opportunism and outright disgusting ill wills for my people. If you had any somalinimo in you you'd also talk about those female protestors who oppose your administration being shot dead in Las-Canood everyday or those brave men and women who joined the police force trying to stabilise and protect their country and people.... Let me remind you that inshalaah southern somalia is becoming more peaceful and as more stable it becomes the closer the date draws to the stabilisation plan being expanded to the three-city-triangle in the north.

Raganimo saaxib ma waxey kula tahay nin lagala soo baxayo masaajid oo horteeda lagu dilay mise waxey tahay hooyoyinka soomaliyeed oo iskood jidadka xamar ka xaaqayey wasaqdii ka hadhey 17 sano oo loogu hoos qariyey miiino oo deetana kula qaraxdey.. Mise waxey tahay ciyaalkii skoolka uu socdey oo gaari BL-ka saaran oo miino la kacday,mise ummada soomaliyeed oo ka qaxay caasimada oo tagey tuuboyinka dayniile oo geedaha hoostod ku noola inaad xabad la timaado oo iska horimaad ka sameysid oo ey ku leeyihiin ... Intaanu xalay kasoo qaxney magaaladii beyna subaxdiina inaga daba yimaaden oo xabado nagu dareen Then the journalist asked where they went? Awalba geed hoostiisa baanu ku nooleyn ee ma dad geed geed uu dhaama baanu kula egnahay Remember is not the government who chooses the locations of these skirmishes it's these so called Shabaab who attack police officers doing their job. Mise saraakiishi,dhaqaatirtii,askartii iyo waxgaradkii faraha badnaa oo deynta aanu ku lahayn ileen dhaqaalihi dowlada iyo shacabka soomaliyeed ba lagu barey baad babi'seen Horta mid, argagixiso marnaba la deyn-maayo oo iska daaye amxaaro iyo tigreey aad sheegeysid dad ka daran baan anigu uu keeni lahaa. Tallo: Waxaadan heli kareyn uu hanqal taaga waxaad heysaana yuusan kaa habsaamin. Thats an old somali mah mah that usually fits the secessionists but also fits those who support terrorists.

Its from the Etn tv station from Bosaso and the crews mistakes... Specially the last guy who totally freezes.. http://youtube.com/watch?v=DUG1p1Pmlvc&feature=related

Anigu mar mar dadka waan la yaabaya war wixii argagixisa ah mise tageerayashooda war intaad dumarka iyo ciyaalka aad af-duubka ku haysateen 17 sano ee maatada kasoo baxa ee meel aad adigu qabsatid oo banaan ah isku kaaya keena.. Somali waxey tirahda ragu wey is xinya taabtan ee rag iska dhiga ee dumarka aad ka hoos dagalameysaan iska daa.... Koleyba anigu i support the Shaaweye guy who said nimankan shabaabka isku sheegaya , kii la qabtana madaxa baa laga jari kii baxsan rabana madaxa baan xabad kasii gaarsiineyna.

I fullt endorse his campaign for 5 more years.... When he's re-elected in 2009 I'll give everyone an insight into how we got the votes in Mbghati (worked on the campaign)and besides Duke looking forward to your coronation in xamar in 2014 and you do have a big support base of voters here in SOL

This is from todays reporting from shabelle... Somalia: Exchanged Gunfire Mass Rally in Central Region Email This Page Print This Page Comment on this article Visit The Publisher's Site Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu) 16 January 2008 Posted to the web 16 January 2008 Reports from Galkayo town central Somalia say eardrum bullet barrages could be in the city also is the provincial capital of Mudug region central Somalia. The fighting comes after the police in the town attempted to get rid of road blocks were laid at a toll road in the city by angry people those were protesting against insecurity situations and high inflation in the town. The soldiers and the angered people have exchanged bullets which no causalities were still reported besides several business sites have been shattered by angry people and the bullet hums could still be heard in the town. We shall update you as soon as we have the latest news on this incident. Somali government convicts a people against the law" spokesman said U guys figure out the wrong parts..

The only people I consider to be ethnically somalis are the D*r like people in Djibouti, Awdal, Dire Dhabe, Shabeelada Hoose,Parts of Puntland and Galgaduud but all else from other places. So if they are the real somalis oo dadka kale including me are not original somalis then miskiin why do you got a problem with a president expressing his real origins. If its painful for other people to talk about their origins or lack of clearity in their history then why should a forced taboo on all be in place. And what I often hear is that when questions on this matter is raised in the quarter of those who dont want to discuss these issues then they go to something called samaale and pls we all know if somalis had the same dad then none of us would be here (qurbaha).

war sheekha anigaba reer buuhodle ah sxb oo weliba raga wax ka dhiibey baan ahay lacagta lagu dhisey ee ha sheegan adiga iyo wixii kula mid ah dadaalada aniga iyo tolkeyaga sameyeen inuu yahay mid xaga ka yimid ama somaliland ama mid lagu beegay imaatan ciidan.War hedhe miyaa lacagta laga aruuriyey Hargeysa . Dhibaatadu maanta waxeey salka ku haysa waa dad isku qasbeya dad aanan rabin . War hedhe hadaanu ku diidney mid kale dooro ee na DAA ku doonimeyno adiga iyo wixi kula mid ah.

sxb hadalka waxaa ku hoos qarisey iney horumarka hada ey bilaabmatey ee bal adigu isheeg hadaadan ujeeda kale la lahayn hadalka..... Waanu is ognahay ee yaanu kusii jeex jeexin hadalka. Horumarkana ma ahan mid la wakhti ah ciidamo laaska yimid ee waa mid socday 2 sano. Ee sxb inaga daa hadalada daciifka ah.

JUst heard saalim cali yibrow is acting prime minister now! Fresh news from Baydhabo

Just heard saalim cali yibrow is acting prime minister now! Fresh news from Baydhabo

Just heard saalim cali yibrow is acting prime minister now! Fresh news from Baydhabo

Sheekha sxb you and the administration did not facilitate nor helped this development but it was the people of buuhodle and puntland who made this development a reality , marka iska daa sheega shada aad sheeganeysid wax yaabo aadan shuqul kula heyn.