Thursday 3 2024 {HMC} Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud opened the National Consultative Council (NCC) meeting in Mogadishu on Wednesday to focus on political and security issues.

The two-day meeting is attended by leaders from four regional states: Jubaland, Hirshabelle, Southwest, and Galmudug, as well as the mayor of Mogadishu, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, and his deputy.

According to the federal government, discussions will focus on the country’s security situation, particularly accelerating efforts to combat Al-Shabaab, completing the democratization process, and implementing previous NCC agreements.

“The meeting focuses on accelerating the fight against Khawarij al-Shabab, advancing the democratization process, and ensuring the implementation of prior agreements from the National Consultative Council,” the Presidential Palace stated.

“There will also be discussions on state-building, federal-state cooperation, and ensuring peace and development in the country,” the statement added.

President of the Puntland administration, Said Abdullahi Deni, is absent from the National Consultative Council due to ongoing political disputes with federal government leaders, particularly President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

SOURCE

Wednesday 2 Oct 2024 {HMC} Dozens of people are feared dead after a boat capsized in north-central Nigeria.

The boat was ferrying more than 300 passengers on the River Niger when it overturned on Tuesday night, said Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA) head Abdullahi Baba Arah.

Around 60 dead bodies have been recovered from the scene, local council chairman Abdullahi Muregi was quoted as saying by Nigerian media.

Mr Arah’s statement said 150 people had been rescued alive so far and that most of the boat’s passengers were women and children on their way to celebrate the Muslim festival of Mawlid.

Mr Arah praised the “prompt response” from community volunteers, who have been attempting to rescue the passengers with “brave” local divers.

The boat had been travelling from a community called Mundi.

Many of the passengers were headed to the village of Gbajibo to mark Mawlid – a celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth.

Mr Arah’s statement did not say what had caused the boat to capsize.

However incidents of boats overturning on the River Niger, the third-longest river in Africa, are common, especially during the rainy season when water levels are high.

Some of the boats on the river are rickety and overloaded with passengers. Debris, such as tree branches, on the water can also cause challenges for the boats.

In September last year, at least 24 people died when a boat overturned in the same area. The vessel was ferrying over 50 passengers, who were on their way to farm for harvest.

SOURCE BBC

Wednesday 2 Oct 2024 {HMC} Islamic State in Somalia has approximately doubled in size over the past year, the chief of U.S. Africa Command told VOA.

“I am concerned about the northern part of Somalia and ISIS growing in numbers,” AFRICOM commander Gen. Michael Langley said in an exclusive interview, using an acronym for the terror group.

Langley declined to provide the United States’ estimate of how many Islamic State fighters are in Somalia, other than to say that the group’s had grown about “twofold” in the past year. Previous estimates have put the number of Islamic State fighters in north Somalia at about 200 fighters.

The AFRICOM commander also warned about the possibility of Islamic State increasing its foreign fighter presence in Somalia.

Somali Brigadier General Abdi Hassan Hussein, the former intelligence and police commander of Puntland, where Islamic State is located in the north, told VOA earlier this year that the number of Islamic State foreign fighters there alone is estimated in the hundreds. This figure has yet to be confirmed by local authorities.

A U.S. official told VOA in June that Abdulqadir Mumin, the leader of Islamic State in Somalia, had been targeted in an American airstrike in May. Mumin appears to have survived the strike.

Asked whether Mumin was now the global leader of IS, Langley said the U.S. must take those reports as “credible.”

“ISIS professes that. Sometimes you’ve got to take that seriously,” he said.

Al-Shabab

The increase in Islamic State fighters in northern Somalia comes as the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab has exploited diplomatic disagreements between Somalia and Ethiopia to raise its recruitment numbers.

Landlocked Ethiopia and Somalia’s breakaway Somaliland region signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year to use its Red Sea port of Berbera, a deal that Somalia has rejected. Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre on Friday accused Ethiopia, before the U.N. General Assembly, of actions that “flagrantly violate” Somalia’s territorial integrity.

“The have used that (dispute) to their advantage,” Langley told VOA.

Al-Shabab has been back at high numbers of between 12,000 to 13,000 fighters due to strong financing and heavy recruitment efforts, senior defense officials told VOA in June.

The political rift has bled into counter-terror cooperation between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu, with Langley telling VOA that Somali operations with Ethiopia have been “limited.”

“Time will tell if they can settle their differences and coalesce into a force that’s very effective, because when they do work together, they’re very, very effective at clearing out al-Shabab.’’

Al-Shabab has continued attacks on civilians, including in the Mogadishu area. The terror group claimed responsibility for a gun attack and suicide bombing that killed at least 32 people in August on a popular beach in the Somalia’s capital. The group is also suspected to have carried out two deadly bombings on Saturday, one in Middle Shabelle region and another about one kilometer from the president’s office.

Al-Shabab has suffered defeats from the South West State of Somalia down to the Juba River Valley and has sought to reset and counter-attack in those areas.

However, in central Somalia, al-Shabab has reversed gains made by Somali forces over the last two years as government forces failed to hold the terrain they had retaken, according to senior U.S. defense officials.

“We need a credible holding force, because sometimes shadow governments of al-Shabaab try to re-insert themselves back in that region and try to influence some of the local leaders,” Langley said.

He said the time following the clearing and liberating of a region is a “very fragile period” where Somalia and partners like the U.S. Agency for International Development can initiate local services that will increase the population’s faith in the federal government.

“If they can’t sustain that because they’re moving to the next region or next district, it ebbs,” he said, adding that U.S. training was currently focused on helping Somali forces hold liberated terrain.

The Somali government has pointed to the El Dheer and Harardhere areas as evidence that some liberated terrain in central Somalia remains under government control.

ATMIS transition

Later this year, the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia will leave the country after nearly two years of helping Somalia fight al-Shabab terrorists and will be replaced in 2025 by a new African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia. Which forces will be comprised in the mission is still being worked out by the African Union and the United Nations.

Langley ruled out any U.S. role in the transition, saying American forces would maintain only their advise-and-assist mission.

“Our piece of enabling is not our boots on the ground. We’re there to advise and assist, and assist in their training, but the fight is theirs,” he told VOA.

Houthis

In addition to Islamic State and al-Shabab, Somalia also must worry about Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, just north of Somalia across the Gulf of Aden, whom Langley says have “aspirations” to collaborate with al-Shabab.

“We’re concerned, and we’re closely watching that, because this can turn into a bad neighborhood real quick,” he said.

Should the Houthis and al-Shabab put pressure on the Gulf of Aden from opposite sides, Langley worries that squeezing this strategic choke point could further hinder the free flow of commerce and affect the global economy. And analysts fear that Houthis could insert more sophisticated weapons into the fight for Somalia.

Houthi militants have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October, seizing one, sinking two and killing at least four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.

The Houthi militant campaign began after Israel launched a retaliatory attack against Hamas in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack, and the Houthis claim they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians during the war.

Harun Maruf and Mohamed Olad Hassan contributed to this report.

Wednesday 2 Oct 2024 {HMC} Rescuers are searching for more than 100 migrants off the coast of Djibouti after smugglers forced them to jump into the sea, the U.N. migration agency said on Wednesday.

At least 45 bodies have been recovered from Tuesday’s incident, a death toll that makes 2024 the deadliest year on record for sea crossings on the migration route between East Africa and Yemen, the International Organization for Migration said.

Another 154 people have been rescued from the two boats, which left Yemen for Djibouti with a total of 310 passengers, IOM said in a statement.

“Ongoing search and rescue operations are underway by the Djiboutian Coast Guard to locate the missing migrants,” it said.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people leave the Horn of Africa in pursuit of better economic prospects in Gulf nations via the so-called Eastern Route, described by the IOM as one of the world’s busiest and riskiest migration corridors.

Survivors told IOM that they were forced off the two vessels by the boat operators in the open sea off the coast of Obock, a port town in Djibouti.

The survivors included a four-month-old infant whose mother drowned, the agency said.

Many migrants on the Eastern Route end up trapped in violence-wracked Yemen and attempt to return to Djibouti.

VOA SOURCE