Tuesday April 2, 2024
By GITONGA MARETE

Somalia is considered one of the most dangerous places to live due to the threat posed by the al-Shabaab militia.

But for some daring 18- and 20-year-old men from Meru County in Kenya, the allure of earning up to Ksh100,000 ($758) a month overrode the danger.

They left home with high hopes of making it in life to trade in Dhobley, a town located about five kilometres from the Kenyan border, selling plastic utensils and shoes, a lucrative business in Somalia.

Then tragedy struck. Last Friday, suspected Al-Shabaab militia invaded a business premises where the young men sold their wares and shot dead six of them.

On Sunday, the Kenyan government flew the bodies in a military chopper that landed at Isiolo airport.

Lewis Mwirigi, who survived the attack, recounted how he missed death by a whisker, as he ran for his life with bullets whizzing past his head.

“We opened our business premises at 6.45 am as usual and expected to make some good money because, during the holy month of Ramadhan, there is good business. Then around 7 am, a Toyota Probox pulled over near our shops and four hooded men came out,” he said.

Mwirigi said the men shot in the air but no one thought they were on a killing mission; armed men and gunshots are a daily occurrence in Somalia.

“Then suddenly the men opened fire on us and shot one of my colleagues. Several bullets bounced off the wall and one grazed my face. I was so shocked that the next thing I did was to take to my heels,” he said.

The attack lasted a few minutes. The attackers set the shops ablaze before quickly boarding their car and fleeing the scene.

When Mwirigi returned to the scene, accompanied by his other colleagues, he found four of his friends lying in a pool of blood. Two others were writhing in pain.

“They died on our way to the hospital. It was so terrifying that we could not continue living there,” said Alex Mutuma, another trader in Dhobley, adding that after the incident, several other colleagues decided to leave Somalia.

They arrived in Meru on Sunday morning.

Speaking to Nation.Africa at Mweronkanga village in Akithi ward, Tigania West, the young men vowed never to set foot in Somalia again.

Mutuma said they suspected that some locals who may not have been happy with their presence may have hired the hitmen.

“Business is good in Somalia, but it is not worth my life. I lost goods worth Sh300,000 but I thank God I am alive. I will never return there,” Mwirigi said.

Mutuma said that after seeing colleagues doing business there, making money, and providing for their families, they joined them and with business booming, they gradually got used to the hostile environment.

“Since I moved there three years ago, I have interacted well with Somalis and learned their language. But I think some people were not happy to see foreigners doing so well in their country,” he said.

Talaado 2, April 2024 {HMC} Suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s embassy in Syria on Monday in a strike that Iran said killed seven of its military advisers, including three senior commanders, and that marked a major escalation in Israel’s war with its regional adversaries.

Reuters reporters at the site in the Mezzeh district of Damascus saw emergency workers clambering atop rubble of a destroyed building inside the diplomatic compound, adjacent to the main Iranian embassy building. Emergency vehicles were parked outside. An Iranian flag hung from a pole by the debris.

“We strongly condemn this atrocious terrorist attack that targeted the Iranian consulate building in Damascus and killed a number of innocents,” said Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad who was seen at the site along with Syria’s interior minister.

Iran’s ambassador to Syria said the strike hit a consular building in the embassy compound and that his residence was on the top two floors.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement that seven Iranian military advisers died in the strike including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in its Quds Force, which is an elite foreign espionage and paramilitary arm.

Israel has long targeted Iran’s military installations in Syria and those of its proxies, but Monday’s attack was the first time Israel hit the vast embassy compound itself.

It has ramped up those strikes in parallel with its campaign against Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas, which ignited the Gaza war with an Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took 253 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israel’ military has escalated airstrikes in Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, both of which support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Israel typically does not discuss attacks by its forces on Syria. Asked about the strike, an Israeli military spokesperson said: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.”

The New York Times cited four unnamed Israeli officials as acknowledging Israel had carried out the attack.

Iran’s U.N. mission described the strike as a “flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the foundational principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises.”

Saying the strike was “a significant threat to regional peace and security,” the Iranian mission urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn the attack and said Tehran reserved the right “to take a decisive response.”

Hezbollah, the Lebanese group seen as Iran’s most powerful armed proxy in the region, vowed to retaliate. “This crime will not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge,” the group said in a statement.

Muslim nations including Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also condemned the attack, as did Russia.

Earlier, Iran’s ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari, who was unharmed, told Iranian state TV that five to seven people, including diplomats, were killed and Tehran’s response would be “harsh”.

Iranian state media said Tehran believed Zahedi was the target of the attack. His deputy and another senior commander were also killed along with four others.

Iran’s Arabic Language Al Alam Television said that Zahedi was a military adviser in Syria who served as the head of the Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington remained “concerned about anything that would be escalatory or cause an increase in conflict in the region” but did not expect the strike to affect talks on freeing Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Analysts were divided whether the attack on the Iranian embassy compound would spark significantly greater violence.

Jon Alterman of Washington’s CSIS think tank, said the attack probably reflected Israel’s belief that such strikes are deterrents and make a wider conflict less, rather than more, likely.

“The Israelis are convinced that if they seek to hang back, the threat will grow and not diminish,” he said. “They are persuaded that as long as they do something like this periodically, their adversaries will be deterred.”

However, Steven Cook, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, saw potential for escalation.

“The IRGC can loosen restraints on proxies in Iraq and Syria, placing American forces in jeopardy again,” he said. “The Iranians could also direct Hezbollah to escalate its attacks on Israel, which have been growing bolder and more numerous.”

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Talaado 2, April 2024 {HMC}– The oil-rich, semiautonomous region of Puntland said it will operate as a state that’s independent from Somalia until changes to the Somali constitution adopted on Saturday are approved via a popular referendum.

The federal government in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, “illegally replaced” the constitution with a new one that has “ulterior motives,” Puntland’s Council of Ministers said. Its statement followed a meeting Sunday where it announced it plans to withdraw from the federation.

“The Puntland government has withdrawn its recognition and confidence in the federal government institutions until such time as a comprehensive constitutional framework is negotiated and agreed upon by the Somali people, of which Puntland is a part of,” it said.

Pending a referendum, Puntland “shall exercise powers of an independent state.”

Constitutional changes that federal lawmakers adopted Saturday include introducing direct presidential elections and allowing the president to appoint a prime minister without parliamentary approval, Reuters reported.

Puntland’s government has consistently cautioned that, if enacted, the new federal constitution would “undermine the unity, state-building progress and solidarity of the Somali nation.”

Somalia’s information ministry declined to comment.

Puntland is a territory of about 4.9 million people in northeastern Somalia. In January, regional lawmakers reelected Said Abdullahi Deni as the area’s president for another five years.

The rift between the federal government and Puntland threatens the core of the Somali federation, said Omar Mahmood, a researcher at International Crisis Group.

“It complicates Somalia’s state-building path further, which is already riven by numerous divides and raises serious questions as to the future of both Somalia and Puntland,” he said. “Without a resolution, it will be difficult for Somalia’s state-building to advance.”

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Tuesday April 2, 2024

Addis Abeba – Local officials have denied a report that al-Shabaab is operating in the Bale zone of the Oromia region, and that it killed several zonal police officers and militiamen.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in 130-page, National Inquiry Into Persons Deprived of Liberty report released on 21 March 2024, indicated that the security challenges in Bale Zone, include “the formation of a terrorist group called al-Shabaab in Bale Forest by foreigners trained in Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda.”

The report, which analyzed rights violations related to deprivation of liberty in four regions between April 2018 and April 2023, referenced assistant commissioner Jeylan Aman, head of the Bale Zone Police, and said “the group recruited members and provided them with combat training,” adding that “several zonal police officers and militiamen were killed by the group, against which the police took measures in response.”

However, assistant commissioner Jeylan Aman told Addis Standard that there has been no al-Shabaab group operating in the Bale zone. He asserted that no civilians or members of the security forces were killed by the group in the zone, adding that he doesn’t know about the EHRC report.

Nonetheless, Nata Dhaba, head of the communications office of the neighboring East Bale zone told Addis Standard that in October 2023, four alleged al-Shabaab members were captured and handed over to the National Defense Forces, while one was killed in action.

Despite rumors of the group operating in the border areas of Oromia and Somali regions, Rayitu district of East Bale zone, in particular, “we surveilled the area, and didn’t find any al-Shabaab terrorist group so far, they are not there,” the official said. He further stated that no one has been killed by the group in the East Bale zone, and that the group poses no security threat.

Five districts of the East Bale zone; Sawena, Rayitu, Laga Hidha, Dawe Qachan and Dawe Sarar share borders with the Somali region which shares an extended border with Somalia, a base for the al-Shabaab militant group.

It is recalled that in July 2022, Al-Shabaab entered through the Afdheer zone into the Somali region of Ethiopia after attacking Aato and Yeed towns, where Somali region Liyu police were encamped in the Bakool region of southwestern Somalia and bordering Ethiopia.

Earlier in 2001, the Oromia regional government revealed the apprehension of a group linked to the al-Shabaab, called ‘Kawarija’ in Dalo Mana district of the Bale zone. The group recruited and encamped people for military training while preparing others for similar training. AS