“Somali pirates are systematically torturing hostages and using them as human shields, the top commander of the European Union Naval Force said Tuesday.
Howes’ account of the worsening treatment of hostages was based on hostage debriefings, naval intelligence and liaison with commercial shipping companies.”
“Erik Prince, the founder of international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is secretly backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali troops, and battling Islamic militants there, according to Western and African officials.
His efforts to wade into the chaos of Somalia appears to be Mr. Prince’s latest endeavor to remain at the center of a campaign against Islamic radicalism in some of the world’s most war ravaged corners. Mr. Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates late last year.
According to a report by the African Union, an organization of African states, Mr. Prince provided initial funding for a project by Saracen International to win contracts with Somalia’s embattled government. The Somali government has been cornered into a small patch of Mogadishu by the Shabab, a Somali militant group with ties to Al Qaeda.”
“Undercover agents in a sting operation stopped a Somali-born teenager from blowing up a van full of explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, federal authorities said.
The bomb was a dud supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.
The Associated Press and the Oregonian newspaper that show the sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an ‘unindicted associate’ in Pakistan’s northwest, a frontier region where Al Qaida and Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are strong.”
“In a bold move that reveals his strong political will and willingness to affect change, the new Somali prime minister has appointed 18 ministers to his cabinet. The appointees are predominantly competent technocrats with a few selected on the basis of political and tribal considerations - making the cabinet the strongest Somalia has ever had.
Through this initiative, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed ‘Farmajo’, the Somali-American prime minister, is taking the international community to task, while offering up an excellent opportunity, upon which Somalis and the international community must capitalise.”
“The Somali transitional federal government strongly condemned the public execution, arguing that the two girls had not been given the right to a legal defense, nor had their parents even been informed.”
“The minister of information for the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia said Sunday that his government would most likely sever its relationship with Saracen International, a private security company in which South African mercenaries and the founder of Blackwater Worldwide are said to be involved.”
”’It is arguable how much of a deterrent effect counter-piracy forces are having,’ Thomas Ernst from the EU’s anti-piracy task force Navfor said.”
“Pirates have hijacked a chemical tanker almost 900 nautical miles (1,600km) off the Horn of Africa, in waters closer to India than to Somalia.”
“Over the years since Mr. Salat arrived here — an arid patch of Kenya roughly 50 miles from the Somali border — the refugee population at Dadaab has swelled to nearly 300,000, virtually all Somali, making it the largest refugee complex in the world, United Nations officials here say, and one of Kenya’s largest cities, dusty and spread out.
Next year, Dadaab will celebrate its 20th birthday. But as Somalia’s conflicts rage on, Kenyan attitudes toward them have grown icy, and this collection of refugee camps has become a nettlesome political problem and, some contend, a source of insecurity itself. Intense fighting in Somalia in recent months has sent new floods of refugees across the border, which Kenya officially closed in 2007. Last week, the United Nations accused Kenyan soldiers of forcing thousands of Somalis who had fled to Kenya back across the border.”
“Authorities in the self-declared separatist region in northwestern Somalia called “Somaliland” have intensified security operations in search of a suspected terrorist leader wanted in neighboring Puntland region of Somalia a day after Somali news agency Garowe Online reported the terrorist is hiding in parts of Somaliland, Radio Garowe reports.”
Note: Burao is an al-Shabab staging area.
“Somali pirates are systematically torturing hostages and using them as human shields, the top commander of the European Union Naval Force said Tuesday.
Howes’ account of the worsening treatment of hostages was based on hostage debriefings, naval intelligence and liaison with commercial shipping companies.”
“The minister of information for the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia said Sunday that his government would most likely sever its relationship with Saracen International, a private security company in which South African mercenaries and the founder of Blackwater Worldwide are said to be involved.”
“Erik Prince, the founder of international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is secretly backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali troops, and battling Islamic militants there, according to Western and African officials.
His efforts to wade into the chaos of Somalia appears to be Mr. Prince’s latest endeavor to remain at the center of a campaign against Islamic radicalism in some of the world’s most war ravaged corners. Mr. Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates late last year.
According to a report by the African Union, an organization of African states, Mr. Prince provided initial funding for a project by Saracen International to win contracts with Somalia’s embattled government. The Somali government has been cornered into a small patch of Mogadishu by the Shabab, a Somali militant group with ties to Al Qaeda.”
”’It is arguable how much of a deterrent effect counter-piracy forces are having,’ Thomas Ernst from the EU’s anti-piracy task force Navfor said.”
“Undercover agents in a sting operation stopped a Somali-born teenager from blowing up a van full of explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, federal authorities said.
The bomb was a dud supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.
The Associated Press and the Oregonian newspaper that show the sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an ‘unindicted associate’ in Pakistan’s northwest, a frontier region where Al Qaida and Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are strong.”
“Pirates have hijacked a chemical tanker almost 900 nautical miles (1,600km) off the Horn of Africa, in waters closer to India than to Somalia.”
“In a bold move that reveals his strong political will and willingness to affect change, the new Somali prime minister has appointed 18 ministers to his cabinet. The appointees are predominantly competent technocrats with a few selected on the basis of political and tribal considerations - making the cabinet the strongest Somalia has ever had.
Through this initiative, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed ‘Farmajo’, the Somali-American prime minister, is taking the international community to task, while offering up an excellent opportunity, upon which Somalis and the international community must capitalise.”
“Over the years since Mr. Salat arrived here — an arid patch of Kenya roughly 50 miles from the Somali border — the refugee population at Dadaab has swelled to nearly 300,000, virtually all Somali, making it the largest refugee complex in the world, United Nations officials here say, and one of Kenya’s largest cities, dusty and spread out.
Next year, Dadaab will celebrate its 20th birthday. But as Somalia’s conflicts rage on, Kenyan attitudes toward them have grown icy, and this collection of refugee camps has become a nettlesome political problem and, some contend, a source of insecurity itself. Intense fighting in Somalia in recent months has sent new floods of refugees across the border, which Kenya officially closed in 2007. Last week, the United Nations accused Kenyan soldiers of forcing thousands of Somalis who had fled to Kenya back across the border.”
“The Somali transitional federal government strongly condemned the public execution, arguing that the two girls had not been given the right to a legal defense, nor had their parents even been informed.”
“Authorities in the self-declared separatist region in northwestern Somalia called “Somaliland” have intensified security operations in search of a suspected terrorist leader wanted in neighboring Puntland region of Somalia a day after Somali news agency Garowe Online reported the terrorist is hiding in parts of Somaliland, Radio Garowe reports.”
Note: Burao is an al-Shabab staging area.
