Puntland forces backed by Somali National Army retake control of strategic coastal town from Daesh

Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland forces backed by Somali National Army have retaken control of the strategic coastal town of Qandala from Daesh Sunday.

Colonel Abdirasaq Aynab Ali, head of Puntland Marine Forces, told reporters that they recaptured Qandala town from militants loyal to Daesh Sunday afternoon.

“We have fully captured the town from militants, we reached there earlier in the morning, they fell and headed in their stronghold of Galgala” Colonel Abdirasaq told reporters.

“There have been huge fighting between Puntland forces backed by SNA and the militants, there is no clear real casualties,” Adan Mohamed in Bosaaso, the capital city of Barri, told Anadolu Agency over phone.

Senior Puntland military figure who requested not be named told Anadolu Agency that they have killed 7 fighters after 2 days of fighting.

“We killed 7 Daesh militants after we attacked their base in Qandala area where the fighters were planning to attack us,” he said.

Qandala is located in Somalia’s northern region of Barri and it is an ancient city which has been under control of Daesh since October this year.

The militants loyal to Daesh led by Abdukadir Moumin, had broke away from al-Shabaab last year.

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What can the lessons of naval cooperation in countering piracy off Somalia teach us?

thediplomat.com

UN human rights experts on Thursday said “ethnic cleansing” was under way in South Sudan after visiting the country where violence has soared since a peace deal collapsed in July.

“There is already a steady process of ethnic cleansing underway in several areas of South Sudan using starvation, gang rape and the burning of villages; everywhere we went across this country we heard villagers saying they are ready to shed blood to get their land back,” said Yasmin Sooka of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.

“Many told us it’s already reached a point of no return.”

Sooka was part of a three-member team which travelled to battleground towns including Bentiu, Malakal and Wau to gather facts about the situation in the world’s youngest country.

Jarring testimony gathered by the team during their 10-day visit shows a nation on the brink of “catastrophe”, said a statement issued by the commission.

“The stage is being set for a repeat of what happened in Rwanda and the international community is under an obligation to prevent it,” said Sooka.

At a press conference in Juba on Wednesday, Sooka warned of “unprecedented levels of violence and ethnic tension” without using the term ethnic cleansing, a war crime closely related to genocide which refers more to groups being forcibly removed from a particular area.

South Sudan’s current conflict began nearly three years ago when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy and political rival, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.

Hopes that an August 2015 peace deal would bring peace to the young nation were dashed when fighting erupted in Juba in July, leading to a surge of violence around the country characterised by divisions between the country’s 64 tribes.

STILL TIME TO PREVENT IT

Sooka said on Wednesday that government and rebel armies were both forcibly recruiting soldiers — including children — and warned that “renewed recruitment is an indicator that all the parties are preparing for the next conflict”.

She said fighting was expected to get worse as the dry season settles in.

Keith Harper, the US ambassador to the UN rights council warned that the government appeared to be preparing for large scale attacks, and had in the past two weeks mobilised at least 4,000 militia fighters to the southern Equatoria region.

Among the atrocities reported to the commission was widespread gang rape, with some women unable to receive medical treatment for the complications suffered after sexual attacks.

“The scale of rape of women and girls perpetrated by all armed groups in South Sudan is utterly unacceptable and is frankly mind boggling,” said Sooka.

“Aid workers describe gang rape as so prevalent that it’s become ‘normal’ in this warped environment.”

After decades of civil war South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July 2011.

However hopes of a fresh start for the oil-rich nation were quickly dashed as internal political divisions burst to the surface, fracturing the government and people along ethnic lines with devastating consequences.

Sooka said that many of the warning signals of impending genocide are already there.

“An existing conflict, resort to polarised ethnic identities, dehumanisation, a culture of denial, displacement based on ethnicity and in some places indications of systematic violations and planning — but the important thing is there is still time to prevent it,” she said.

nation.co.ke

Militants have beheaded eight Somali village elders and killed at least seven other people during fighting spurred by a dispute over payment of a tax, a villager and a local official said on Wednesday.

Villagers in the semi-autonomous region of Galmadug in central Somalia also killed 10 militants during three days of fighting, the villager said, adding that Somali authorities had provided no help or support.

“Al Shabaab ordered us to pay dozens of animals for tax and we rejected this – that is how the fighting started. We killed 10 militants on the first day,” local elder Nur Abdullahi said. “So Al Shabaab came from every region and fiercely attacked us in five villages. They beheaded eight elders and shot dead seven others on Monday and Tuesday.”

“They cut off the phones. We ran out of bullets, food and water. We have fled into the jungle and neither (forces from) Galmudug nor the federal government is helping us. They (the militants) took our borehole machine, a herd of camel and burnt two of our villages,” he said.

The insurgents could not be immediately reached for comment, but a local official largely confirmed Abdullahi’s account of the incident.

“The people are suffering from drought and rejected the zakat imposed by the militants. Some elders were beheaded,” Abdi Hussein Mohamed, deputy governor of the Mudug region in Galmudug, said on Wednesday.

“Shabaab also burnt two villages and thousands of families fled. The area is 300km away from us and we cannot help them because we are engaged in the election. The federal government has not saved the civilians.”

gulftoday.ae/

Militants have struck two airports in northern Mali with an explosives-laden truck and rockets, residents and a security source said on Wednesday, in attacks that caused no victims but pointed to desert jihadists intensifying their insurgency.

In Gao, the offices of the U.N. peacekeeping mission located next to the airport terminal were razed by Tuesday evening’s truck-bomb explosion which forced the airport to close.

French soldiers stationed in Gao took forensic evidence from among a tangle of papers, corrugated iron sheets and fragments of the attacker’s flesh and bones strewn out next to the runway.

Al Mourabitoun, a group closely linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), claimed the attack on social media.

Gao — seized by Islamist militants in 2012 before French forces drove them out a year later — is considered the best secured town in northern Mali with multiple U.N., French and Malian army checkpoints along main roads.

A U.N. security source said that the attackers had passed through the regular checkpoints by using vehicles with a U.N. label. A spokesman for the 13,000-strong U.N. mission could not immediately confirm the information.

“Yesterday at about 18:00 (GMT) a vehicle with explosives destroyed our pre-fabricated installations of MINUSMA at the Gao airport,” said Olivier Salgado, spokesman for the peacekeeping mission, adding that another vehicle was being examined.

There were no fatalities beyond the attackers whose number has not yet been confirmed. The U.N. security source said two people on site were injured.

In the second incident, residents in Timbuktu said that rockets were fired overnight at the airport there but landed outside the perimeter, without causing damage.

Mali’s government signed a peace deal last year with secular armed groups but Islamist militants pledging allegiance to both al-Qaeda and Islamic State have fought on and launched dozens of attacks on Western targets in recent months.

Even the peace deal with secular fighters has been broken many times, adding to difficulties faced by U.N. forces in stabilizing the former French colony in West Africa.

A pro-government militia GATIA said on Wednesday that one of its vehicles hit a landmine, killing five of its fighters. Three Malian soldiers were also killed in an ambush a few kilometers outside of Gao on Monday, security sources said.

reuters.com

President Barack Obama has expanded the power of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to track, plan, and potentially kill terrorists across the globe in places beyond the traditional war zones of Iraq, Syria, and Libya, The Washington Post (WaPo) has learned

The move comes as the Obama administration expands the legal scope of the U.S. war against al-Qaeda to allow the U.S. military to intensify its efforts against the terrorist group’s Somalia-based affiliate al-Shabaab.

According to The New York Times (NYT):

The administration has decided to deem al-Shabaab, the Islamist militant group in Somalia, to be part of the armed conflict that Congress authorized against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to senior American officials. The move is intended to shore up the legal basis for an intensifying campaign of airstrikes and other counterterrorism operations, carried out largely in support of African Union and Somali government forces.

The Obama administration is expected to officially notify Congress of its al-Shabaab decision next month in a letter listing global deployments.

“It is part of the Obama administration’s pattern of relaxing various self-imposed rules for airstrikes against Islamist militants as it tries to help its partner forces in several conflicts,” notes the Times.

Meanwhile, citing unnamed U.S. officials, WaPo notes that the decision to expand JSOC’s powers is “driven by concerns of a dispersed terrorist threat as Islamic State [ISIS/ISIL] militants are driven from strongholds in Iraq and Syria.”

JSOC is the U.S. military unit that helped kill al-Qaeda’s former leader Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid by Navy SEALs.

“The [new JSOC] missions could occur well beyond the battlefields of places like Iraq, Syria and Libya where Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has carried out clandestine operations in the past,” it adds. “When finalized, it will elevate JSOC from being a highly-valued strike tool used by regional military commands to leading a new multi-agency intelligence and action force.”

The U.S. military is simultaneously backing ongoing operations to push ISIS out of the terrorist group’s de-facto capitals of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

Under the recently expanded powers, a new JSOC group known as the “Counter-External Operations Task Force” has been formed.

“It is designed to take JSOC’s targeting model — honed over the last 15 years of conflict — and export it globally to go after terrorist networks plotting attacks against the West,” explains the Post. “The creation of a new JSOC entity this late in the Obama’s tenure is the ‘codification’ of best practices in targeting terrorists outside of conventional conflict zones, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss administration deliberations.”

“It is unclear, however, if the administration of President-elect Donald Trump will keep this and other structures set up by Obama,” it adds. “They include guidelines for counterterrorism operations such as approval by several agencies before a drone strike and ‘near certainty’ that no civilians will be killed.”

NYT notes that the president-elect will benefit from Obama’s decision to expand America’s war against al-Qaeda to include al-Shabaab.

Although the Pentagon hopes to see the new JSOC unit work in tandem with the CIA, WaPo acknowledges that it is still unclear if the agency is willing to cooperate with JSOC and the Pentagon as a whole.

“The agency, with its broad contacts overseas, espionage networks and long experience in covert operations still has much greater reach than JSOC,” notes the Post, adding that the CIA has declined to comment on the expanded powers.

“The new JSOC task force will report to the Pentagon through the U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, according to U.S. military officials, creating a hybrid command system that can sidestep regional commanders–with their coordination–for the sake of speed,” adds WaPo.

Ultimately, operations by the new task force will have to be approved by the White House and the Pentagon.

Some former and current U.S. service members have complained that the Obama administration is allowing too many civilian bureaucrats to make decisions about combat operations, placing American troops at risk.

In June, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Obama’s Pentagon had been expected to intensify its already heavy reliance on U.S. special operations forces, namely SOCOM, as part an effort to overhaul the manner in which America fights its war against terrorism.

“The new JSOC task force could also offer intelligence, strike recommendations and advice to the militaries and security forces of traditional Western allies, or conduct joint operations, officials said,” points out the Post regarding the recent changes implemented by President Obama. “In other parts of the world, with weak or no governments, JSOC could act unilaterally.”

breitbart.com

Police have issued an alert following alleged plans by terror groups Al-Shabaab and ISIS to attack public service vehicles, border regions and Mombasa. This is based on intelligence gathered on the groups’ planned activities ahead of the Festive Season.

Inspector General of police Joseph Boinnet said Al-Shabaab still remains a major threat in areas along the common border. “Daesh, also known as ISIS is equally among our major concern. Available information show that ISIS still continue to target our youths for recruitment online, but elaborate efforts have been employed to deal with the attempts of group to indoctrinate our youths,” said Boinnet in a statement.

He said the targets include security personnel, and establishments along the border as well as PSVs plying routes along the border. Boinnet urged members of the public to help by being vigilant and sharing information. He added that Al-Shaabab, which has been blamed for most of the attacks in Kenya are splitting into smaller groups and infiltrating into the country especially in Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Lamu Counties.

According to the police, the group wants to take advantage of ongoing rains to get into Kolbio near Hulugho, Garissa County. “We are also aware Al-Shabaab is planning to amass its militants in Jedahaley area in Somalia with intention of infiltrating into the country for attacks. Some are hiding in small groups pretending to be herders around Hida and Dambala in Somalia while plotting to sneak into the country,” said the statement signed by spokesman George Kinoti.

The police boss warned that terror groups may exploit clan fighting in Wajir County between Degodia-Matan and Degodia-Jirail and attack. He appealed to clan elders to help in averting further fighting. Boinnet said Al-Shabaab are making efforts to infiltrate back to Boni Forest with an intention of sneaking to other parts of the region and attack locals.

“We have deployed officers accordingly and call upon all Kenyans to exercise higher levels of vigilance and report promptly any suspicious person or activity that could endanger public safety or our security,” he added.

standardmedia.co.ke

Hundreds of pro-government Somali forces began moving toward the port town of Qandala on Monday for an offensive against Islamic State fighters who seized it last month, Qandala’s mayor said.

The forces include militia fighters, soldiers from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland and fighters from the same clan as Abdiqadir Mumin, the Somali insurgent leader who has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, Somali security officials said.

“We and our forces left Bosasso today with the intention to capture to Qandala, which is now only 100 km (60 miles) away from us. We shall keep on moving until we liberate the town,” Jamac Mohamed Khurshe told Reuters.

Bosasso is a major Somali city.

There were at least 400 clan fighters, an official added, but he did not know the size of the other two components of the pro-government forces.

Mumin and his men splintered from al Shabaab, a much larger Islamist insurgent force that is fighting the Western-backed Somali government to impose a strict interpretation of sharia law. No evidence has yet emerged of major operational ties between Mumin’s men and Islamic State in the Middle East.

Qandala is the first town Mumin’s men took since emerging as a rival force to al Shabaab a year ago. Residents in villages along the road to Qandala said Mumin’s men planted numerous bombs along the route.

reuters.com

NATO has ended Operation Ocean Shield after a sharp drop-off in attacks by Somali pirates.

The Royal Danish Air Force carried out the last Indian Ocean surveillance missions for NATO.

The NATO operation had been one part of a highly successful coordinated international response to the threat of piracy that also included the European Union, the United States and other independent nations.

During its peak, piracy off the Horn of Africa had an economic impact of $7 billion, with more than 1,000 hostages taken. There hasn’t been a successful piracy attack since 2012, down from more than 30 ships at the peak in 2010-11. The NATO planes flew from the Seychelles.

“They have been giving a lot of assistance to us regarding the piracy issue,” said Colonel Simon Dine, a commander with the Seychelles Coast Guard. “They assist us in training with the Seychelles Coast Guard and the Seychelles People’s Air Force, which has given us a great help to assist in the maintaining of the security of the Seychelles’ territorial water. It’s sad for them to go back, but we are looking forward to continue to work with good relationship for the future.”

The commander of the Danish air force detachment that carried out the last mission emphasized that NATO can resume its anti-piracy efforts at any time – whether in the Somali basin or the Atlantic Ocean.

NATO is now shifting resources to deterring Russia in the Black Sea and people smugglers in the Mediterranean.

NATO’s spokesman Dylan White said in a statement that the global security environment had changed dramatically in the last few years and that NATO navies had adapted with it.

After more than a decade of NATO-led operations far beyond its borders, the military alliance is shifting its focus to deter Russia in the east, following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

Earlier this month, NATO broadened its operations in the Mediterranean to help the European Union stop criminals trafficking refugees from North Africa.

voanews.com