Pre-empting a power struggle Next week, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud will mark two months since he was elected. His chosen P...
The modern story of Somalia tends to be told through the narrow lens of conflict. As the 'poster child' of a failed state, depictions of Somalis have often been reduced to one of piracy and famine, driven by Hollywood films such as Black Hawk Down and Captain Phillips. As such, there has been a tendency to reduce the rich and nuanced Somali culture to one single narrative of chaos and violence – erasing the creativity and humanity of Somalis. Though internecine conflict and political instability have nevertheless dominated the lives of millions of Somalis since the 1990s, the nuance of poetry and art's relationship to these issues can often be overlooked.
In the aftermath of Hamas's 7 October devastating onslaught in southern Israel, Al-Shabaab spied an opportunity. In Jilib, the extremist's de facto capital, operatives were tasked with studying the widely circulated videos of Hamas fighters attacking Israel's military outposts, villages, and a music festival. These operatives, whose role is to monitor and develop weaponry from information gleaned from the internet, were inspired.
Did Channel 4 go too far with "Inside Al-Shabaab"? On 15 June, UK broadcaster Channel 4 News released a documentary entitled “Inside Al-S...
Them’s the Breaks: Puntland’s President Deni must move beyond electoral defeat to help build Somalia’s federation Deadly clashes er...
The Statesman and the Stuntman: HSM Meets Isaias Afewerki Last week, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) flew to Asmara and spent...
Last week, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) flew to Asmara and spent four days in the country in an audacious bid to secure the return of thousands of Somali troops languishing in military camps in the Red Sea state.
Earlier this month, on 6 July 2022, a man named Hashi Omar Hassan was killed by an explosive device attached to his car in the capital Mogadishu. More than two decades earlier, Hashi had been sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison for the killing of Italian reporter Ilaria Alpi and her Slovenian cameraman, Miran Hrovatin. In 2015, Hashi was acquitted on appeal, released from jail, and awarded three million euros as compensation for wrongful imprisonment.
Somalia is currently experiencing the worst drought in a generation. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud’s (HSM) foremost priorities seem to be the drought and the return of the missing soldiers from Eritrea
On Tuesday, 5 July, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) delivered a speech at Turkey’s SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research. In his remarks, HSM emphasized the need to fight Al-Shabaab in an integrated way, by targeting their military, financial, and ideological capabilities. The president’s address was notable for not just advocating a purely military solution: more troops, more weapons, more operations. Instead, he offered a more olistic strategy, one that seemed to acknowledge that the threat posed by Al-Shabaab owes to more than just their fighting strength.
In an interview with the BBC that aired on 13 July, Olympic star Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah – Mo Farah, to his legions of fans – revealed that he was trafficked as a child to the UK. Born Hussein Abdi Kaahin in Somaliland, he lost his father to a stray bullet in 1987 during the civil war, when Mo Farah was four. He said that he was flown to the UK from Djibouti at age nine by a woman he had never met. She provided him with documentation that had his photo but a different name – Mohamed Farah – which he used to enter the UK, where he believed he was going to be living with relatives. Instead, he was forced to work as a domestic servant, doing housework and providing childcare.
On Wednesday, 20 July, Al-Shabaab launched a large-scale attack on a string of villages located along the Somalia-Ethiopia frontier. The militants made deep incursions into Ethiopia and engaged the paramilitary Liyu police – drawn from the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia (SRS) – in what many observers agree was the insurgent group’s most audacious and unprecedented operation since Al-Shabaab took control of south-central Somalia in 2007. The attack has rattled the regional government and alarmed neighbouring states.
In the late 1980s, Mogadishu witnessed the rise of one of the most fearsome street gangs, Ciyaal Faay Ali (The Children of Faay Ali). Faay Ali was a single mother who used to hustle to raise her nine children in Mogadishu’s Wadajir district. One street near her house was where the gang members met up and hung out. They gained notoriety as a result of the violence they occasionally meted out to unfortunate victims around Mogadishu. Many Mogadishu residents were seized with fear and gangs such as Ciyaal Faay Ali became a household topic.
The president of the Somali Regional State (SRS) of Ethiopia, Mustafa Omer ‘Cagjar,’ wove a grand conspiracy theory on Amharic TV and radio channels this week. He claimed that Somalia, Egypt and Al-Shabaab were working together to undermine Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD).
During a recent visit to the border with Somalia, Mustafa Omer ‘Cagjar,’ the president of Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State (SRS), declared, “To shield this area from terrorist attacks, we will create a security buffer zone [in which there would be no terrorist presence].” Cagjar was addressing members of the paramilitary Liyu Police, who had been engaged in heavy fighting with Al-Shabaab militants during the previous 10 days and repelled a significant incursion deep into Ethiopia by Al-Shabaab forces.
As the sun rose over Kabul early on Sunday, 31 August, Ayman al-Zawahiri was sitting on his third-floor balcony, waiting for the slight morning chill to burn off. He would have already been up for several hours, rising early for the fajr prayer at 3:30 am. He enjoyed reading alone outside on his balcony in the early morning, something he did most days. This seemingly innocuous pastime would result in his death.
Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre this week unveiled Somalia’s new cabinet. The most notable nominee was Mukhtar Roobow “Abu Mansur,” a former deputy leader of Al-Shabaab who defected in 2013, as Minister for Religious Affairs, Endowments, and Countering Violent Extremism.