Somalia would welcome a U.S. special-forces attack on al Qaeda-affiliated militants on Somali soil, similar to the strike that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, said Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed on Wednesday.
"I would prefer training so we can do it ourselves," Mr. Mohamed said in an interview. "But in the absence of that, if there is a target or a threat to dismantle, I would welcome it." U.S. officials declined to comment.
The remarks from Mr. Mohamed, a U.S. citizen who heads a weak interim government, stand in contrast to Pakistan, which blasted Washington over a breach of its sovereignty after the U.S. didn't inform Islamabad in advance of its raid to kill bin Laden.
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Mr. Mohamed warned that al Shabaab has the capability to strike outside of Somalia, including Western targets. "We are the first line of defense," he said.
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That is why, he said he tells Western leaders "we are not only doing this to protect ourselves and our people, we are protecting you, too." To help defend the West from possible attacks organized by al Shabaab, Mr. Mohamed added that Somalia needs "the same attention as Afghanistan and Iraq" from the West. "You have to fight Somalia and Afghanistan at the same level and intensity," he said.
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"What we need is air power," he said. "Sometimes you have places where you cannot fight them in conventional way. You need some high-tech weapons to fight them."
I've said it before, but this guy sounds just like his predecessor in his pleas for u.s. airstrikes and direct references to the war on Afghanistan. I don't know if they're working from someone's script, being coached to make these points, actually that incredibly stupid, or if this is just the inevitable response of puppet to puppetmaster when dangling so precariously from a string, but it's a terrible strategy and can only further undermine whatever pretense of legitimacy they may hope to exert on the ground in Mogadishu.
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Press Release: Africa Oil Signs Letter of Intent to Create New Puntland Focused Exploration Company
Africa Oil Corp and Denovo Capital Corp are pleased to announce that they have entered into a letter of intent dated May 11, 2011 for the creation of a new Puntland focused oil exploration company, to be named Puntland Petroleum Corp. Puntland Petroleum will be created as a result of the transfer of Africa Oil's interest in its oil and gas properties in Puntland Somalia to Denovo.
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Keith Hill, President of Africa Oil Corp., said "The creation of Puntland Petroleum allows Africa Oil Corp. to keep a large working interest in a highly prospective exploration project and also provides the necessary capital to pursue an aggressive drilling program. We are in advanced planning stages of a two well drilling program which will drill the first well in a basin that appears to be directly analogous to the rift basins in Southern Yemen that have yielded multi-billion barrels of reserves."
Range Resources' JV partner pens deal with contractor to drill well in Puntland
Range Resources’ joint venture (JV) partner Africa Oil has signed a letter of intent with a drilling subcontractor to drill an exploration well in Puntland in Q3.
Shares in Range rallied 5 percent to 18.25 pence on the news.
Early in the year, Range and Africa Oil amended the production sharing agreements (PSAs) for the Dharoor Valley and the Nugaal Valley exploration areas in the Puntland region of Somalia, also saying that they planned to spud a new exploration well before 27 July 2011.
Africa Oil decided to include the well as part of its exploration commitments of the joint venture agreement. As a result Range will be carried for the first US$15 million spent on the exploration well. Under the agreement, Range’s JV partner is obliged to spend US$22.5 million in both Dharoor and Nugaal. At that point, it had met its commitments at Dharoor, however with US$7.5 million spent to date on Nugaal it still had about US$15 million left to spend.
The company has also amended its agreements with the government of Puntland over the Dharoor Valley and the Nugaal Valley exploration areas in January.
Under the amended PSAs, the first exploration agreement has been extended for a further 12 months until 17 January 2012. The amended agreement also calls for one well to be spudded in Dharoor Valley by 27 July.
A second exploratory well is required to be spudded in Nugaal Valley or, at the option of operator Africa Oil, in Dharoor Valley, by September 27, 2011.
From Range Resources' profile statement:
Range Resources Limited is an ASX and AIM listed exploration Company, with its principal activity directed towards finding and delineating natural resources in the oil, gas and mineral sectors in Puntland, Somalia. Range Resources currently has a 100% interest in the sole and exclusive rights to all mineral and hydrocarbon exploration and development in the Somali state of Puntland which covers an area of approximately 100,000km2. Puntland is believed to have all the geological requirements to become a commercial oil-producing region. Somalia, and in particular Puntland, remains one of the last under-explored countries that has a high potential for considerable reserves of hydrocarbons which can be subsequently developed for the benefit of both the people of Puntland and Range Shareholders.-- -- --
UN News Service: Somali political bickering undermines peace process – UN envoy
Political divisions between Somalia’s transitional Government and interim Parliament have undermined the momentum of the country’s peace process, a United Nations envoy said today, calling for a concerted regional and international effort to help break the stalemate.-- -- --
“We had reached a stage where we thought we had provided a very good momentum through the Djibouti agreement two years ago… we had agreed in Djibouti that the transitional has to come to an end in August,” Augustine Mahiga, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia, told the UN News Centre.
“The problem is that neither Parliament nor the Government want change. And that is the crux of the paralysis,” said Mr. Mahiga.
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He said the Security Council is expected to meet Somalia’s leadership and representatives from the AU and IGAD in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, during its forthcoming mission to Africa, in an effort to break the deadlock.
From an article on Farmajo in Saturday's Buffalo News:
Osama bin Laden is dead, but the Grand Island resident who now serves as prime minister of Somalia said Thursday that the terrorist movement bin Laden founded is very much alive.-- -- --
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“What I am doing is to protect Americans,” he said. “The fight should be in Mogadishu [the Somali capital], not Buffalo, not Manhattan.”
AHN: Djibouti sends troops to turbulent Somalia
Djibouti on Saturday announced that it will send two battalions of troops to the war-torn Somalia to join the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMSIOM).-- -- --
Mohamoud Ali Yusuf, Djibouti’s minister of foreign affairs, said that his government was hecticly training and preparing those troops over the last few years, adding they are fully equipped right now and ready to perform regional peacekeeping duties as deputized by African Union (AU).
“At the end of this month or the start of June, our troops will be deployed to Mogadishu to be as a part of AU peacekeeping forces to help the interim government bring peace, law and order back to the eastern African country of Somalia” Yusuf said in an interview with VOA Somali Service.
Thursday, May 12th AMISOM press release: Security operations in IN Hodan and Hawlwadag
AMISOM troops yesterday launched an operation in support of Transitional Federal Government Forces with the objective of further expanding the area of responsibility and denying the extremist insurgents the ability to threaten the population in Hodan and Hawlwadag districts.
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I appeal to the public for their understanding and urge them to minimize unnecessary movements within the Bakara market area to avoid being caught up in crossfire.
Nathan Mugisha
Maj Gen
Force Commander – AMISOM
MOGADISHU
On Friday
RBC Radio: Mogadishu witnesses another day of shelling and battle
Somalia capital Mogadishu witnesses today another day of shelling ah fierce fighting between Somalia government forces backed by African Union troops [AMISOM] and Al-Shabab fighters persists in Hodan and Hawlwadag districts in Mogadishu, RBC Radio reports on Friday.
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Local residents told RBC Radio that the shelling from AMISOM bases in Mogadishu targeted Bakaro market and killed at least four civilians in the market today.
The second day battle affects small access road to Bakaro market called ‘Farjano’ where many people used to reach the market.
On Saturday
Shabelle Media: Somali forces, Al shabaab fight in Mogadishu for the third day
For the third day, heavy fighting between Somali government forces backed by African Union peacekeepers and Al shabaab is still going on the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Witnesses and local residents said that heavy crackling machine and artillery shelling could be heard in parts of Mogadishu’s Hodan and Howlwadag districts.
It is still unknown the casualties of civilian people and both warring factions as the fighting continuing so far.
Residents said some of the bombardments are landing far away from the battles zones and may cause deaths or injuries in the civilian queues.
Press TV: 35 killed in battle for Mogadishu
Intense clashes between Somali government troops backed by African Union forces and al-Shabab fighters in Mogadishu have left at least 35 people dead.
Twenty Somali soldiers lost their lives in a fierce gun battle between al-Shabab fighters and transitional government troops in the Hodan district of southern Mogadishu late on Friday.
The skirmishes continued until the crack of dawn, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported on Saturday.
In addition, 15 civilians were killed as the two sides exchanged heavy gunfire and barrages of mortar shells were fired. More than 25 people also sustained injuries during the bloody skirmishes.
Somali ambulance workers said they ferried the wounded to different hospitals in Mogadishu.
On Sunday
Shabelle Media: A single hospital receives nearly 40 injured in one day
In only one day, Madina, a hospital in the Somali capital Mogadishu has received at least 37 injured people after heavy fighting.
Rawlings made a speech as African Union High Representative for Somalia.
ReplyDeleteRawlings: Somalia Peace Plans Must Be Properly Implemented. There is a brief intro and the full text of the speech. You may have seen it other places by now. Included in his remarks:
... I will share with you some of my observations since taking my responsibilities.
The 2008 Djibouti process, which has the support of the international community, is the 16th attempt in the broader process of political settlement and peacemaking in Somalia, which began almost immediately after the outbreak of the civil war in 1991. It builds upon the achievements of the earlier efforts but the challenge, as always, is to cement the gains that have been made, and to draw others into a constructive dialogue and out of a cycle of violence.
The question is why all these efforts have not yielded any tangible results? From our observation, the various peace attempts were not Somali owned, inclusive and there was always questions surrounding the legitimacy of some of the participants.
Secondly, the reconciliation conferences were often hijacked by individuals who had no real connection on the ground and who were bent on keeping the real actors out of the process. As a result, the reconciliation conferences were turned into power-sharing conferences and political wrangling among the top leaders in the successive Transitional Governments became the norm.
In addition, once an agreement was sealed, it lacked an implementation plan, the necessary resources and arbitration and monitoring mechanism to ensure that the accord was fully implemented. The situation was further complicated by the fact that all the reconciliation conferences happened in a regional context where external actors would use the processes not only to further their own agenda but also to wage proxy wars in Somalia.
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Djibouti Peace Agreement did not escape this cycle and we are once again at risk ...
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In the end the overall objective is to give back the peace process to the Somali people so that there can be genuine reconciliation. The scourges of Piracy and Terrorism are only the symptoms of a conflict that has dragged on for too long.
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The United Nations responsible for world peace must do more! According to a UN official, the United Nations is only providing 50 percent to the AMISOM forces when they would otherwise support them 100 percent if the troops had blue berets. That is why we need to continue pushing for a re-hating of AMISOM forces.
He seems reasonably realistic, keeping in mind who pays his salary. I'd been wondering about him in regard to Somalia. I really hadn't seen or heard much of anything since he was appointed, aside from occasional snark on GhanaWeb. It sounds like he has been looking at the Somalia situation. He also makes a point about the ministries not having any budget, which is a sure recipe for failure.
I have doubts about external forces changing hats. Outside fighters should get out. I don't know much about Burundi, but I get the impression M7 wants his soldiers in Somalia. And of course the "international community" does not have much in the way of good intentions.
rawlings has been more visible in the past two or so months in this regard, being presented at various conferences in ghana, kenya and ethiopia, like this latest panel of the wise meeting, and getting more press coverage as of late, but he's really not saying much that i would see as offering hope for a substantial change in the situation. like you say, keeping in mind who's paying the piper...
ReplyDeletegranted, he would be dropped quite fast if he started attaching names to some of those "observations" he made (i.e., ethiopia, kenya & djibouti) and it's futile to expect any one person to have much impact in a systemic gordian knot as tightly wound as what's going on wrt somalia and external parties, however i am not that convinced that rawlings has any desire to speak truth to power. rather, from what i've read of his interviews and published remarks, it's just more of the same, shilling for the powers-that-be and not straying far from the official narrative.
to state, as he did in addis ababa, that the djibouti process "has the support of the international community" is extremely disengenous, since that "process" was foisted upon even the very ARS actors that it promoted by "the international community."
he came out early and endorsed the transitional parliament's vote for term extension since 'there was no alternative', which is essentially ethiopia's position, and thus IGAD's. keeping in mind that this parliament was essentially crafted and paid to do the bidding of outsiders in securing the selection of sh sharif to permanently fissure the ARS et al while ensuring that all other indigenous political potential remain in a state of chaotic disrepair.
he supports the transitional institutions, praises AMISOM, which hardly qualifies as being at all AU-sponsored, and works at the behest (and on the dime) of the very actors who are ultimately responsible for creating and further eroding the catastrophe that has befallen somalis. words, at this point, are rather meaningless.
to finish some thoughts on this, context is key so it is important to recall the role for which rawlings was chosen to execute. from oct 2010, Rawlings named AU envoy to Somalia
ReplyDeleteADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — African Union chief Jean Ping has appointed former Ghanaian leader Jerry Rawlings as his special envoy to Somalia, the AU said on Saturday.
The body said Ping had been asked by African leaders to appoint a "high-level personality" who could garner support and generate more attention to the conflict in the Horn of Africa nation, which has not had an effective government since 1991.
Rawlings, 63, will be tasked with "mobilising the continent and the rest of the international community to fully assume its responsibilities and contribute more actively to the quest for peace, security and reconciliation in Somalia," it said in a statement.
(the AU website's search feature is absolutely worthless in finding the original document)
he is a spokesperson for what is passing as the AU position - seeking the expansion of external resources and funding to implement nation-building in somalia from the outside in - and he will not be criticising that position in any substantial manner. he has alluded to some of where the problem lay, which should be fairly obvious to any party truly seeking objectivity and free of ideological biases, and he is correct in stating that, ultimately, it is somali's who have to reconcile and move forward, yet that will not happen if the "process" is not of their own design and the institutions and folks claiming residence in them have no real popular legitimacy.