Islamist Al Shabaab militants burnt many homes during raids on villages in Lower Shabelle, Somalia in May 2017, Human Rights Watch has said, like reported by the-star.co.ke.

“The militia abducted civilians, stole livestock, and committed arson in attacks that caused more than 15,000 people to flee their homes,” HRW said in a statement on Thursday.

Based on witness accounts and satellite imagery analysis, HRW said at the start of May, al Shabaab forces raided villages in the Merka and Afgooye districts of Lower Shabelle.

Senior Africa researcher Laetitia Bader said there was no justification for al Shaabab to abduct civilians and cause the mayhem in the region.

“The militia is responsible for causing mass flight, but the government needs to address communal tensions and hold those most responsible for abuses to account,” she said.

In mid-May, Bader said fighting intensified around the Biyomaal stronghold in Afgooye district known as KM-50 and was followed by al Shabaab raids.

“They attacked villages after several months of calling on their residents to leave their homes, ” she said.

Residents said al Shabaab stole large numbers of cows, goats and camels – critical for survival in the face of ongoing drought.

Local elders said hundreds of livestock were stolen, many died, and only a fraction have been returned to the community.

‘Infidels’

A man identified as Abdi told the Watch that he fled his village, Ceel Waregow after al Shabaab accused them of being murtads (infidels).

“They accused us of joining the government. Some of our elders have talked to al Shabaab and told them that those without guns should be spared,” he said.

Abdi said the al Shabaab initially used to tax them and take livestock and money from them, “but now they are burning our homes.”

A woman from Bullo Mudey, whose father was killed and home burned in an attack said: “How can you stay in a place where there are constant attacks and where children are burned in the houses?”

Bader said those who commit war crimes in Somalia should eventually be brought to justice.

“However, the government and its backers need to immediately assist the people who escaped the violence,” she said.

The United Nations reported that al Shabab abducted approximately 70 people, including women and children, from KM-50 village during fighting between May 21 and 23.

The UN found that about 100 houses were torched at the height of the attacks in the Merka district and that homes were also burned down in the village of Muuri and KM-50 in the Afgooye district on May 23.

According to the UN, 15,240 people were displaced at the height of the raids from May 21 to 24.

HRW spoke to 25 people in person in Mogadishu and by phone who fled from the two districts to Mogadishu and to Lower Shabelle, as well as to local elders and area experts, and analysed satellite imagery of 30 villages from the Merka district.

Inter-clan conflict, primarily between the Habar Gidir and Biyomaal clans, has increased in Lower Shabelle since 2013.

Both clans have fought with and against Somali government forces and al Shabaab.

Throughout this violence, civilians have been repeatedly targeted in retaliatory attacks.

Human Rights Watch analysed satellite imagery showing changes over time recorded between May 8 and July 12, 2017, and found evidence of widespread building destruction in 18 of 32 villages assessed in Merka district.

An open source data collection site reported fighting between the militia and Biyomaal clan militia and government forces in two of the 18 villages in which Human Rights Watch identified property destruction.

Somalia’s economy is still picking up slowly after a combined force of the army and an African Union peacekeeping force helped drive the militia out of Mogadishu and other strongholds.

Al Shabaab wants to topple the western backed government and rule according to its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

The group remains formidable and lethal, with its campaign of frequent bombings and killings a key source of significant security risk for most businesses and regular life.

Fears of widespread famine as people in extremist-controlled areas are threatened with death if they contact aid agencies, theguardian.com

Islamist militants in Somalia have imposed a ban on humanitarian assistance in areas they control, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to choose between death from starvation and disease or brutal punishment.

In some towns, hungry and weak people have been ordered by extremist leaders to remain where they are to act as human shields against US airstrikes.

Somalia is suffering its worst drought in 40 years, with the effects of climatic catastrophe compounded by war and poor governance.

Interviews with villagers in the swaths of land controlled by al-Qaida-affiliate al-Shabaab, in the centre and south of the east African state, reveal a population on the brink of catastrophe, with children and older people already dying in significant numbers.

Al-Shabaab has told people they will be punished – possibly executed as spies – if they have any contact with humanitarian agencies.

Strict British and US counter-terrorism laws are also discouraging humanitarian organisations from delivering vital emergency assistance, aid agencies have said.

Although aid officials say a huge international effort and donations by Somalia’s vast diaspora have so far averted a repeat of the 2011 famine, when 250,000 people died, conditions in much of the country have continued to deteriorate in recent months.

An additional 500,000 people now need humanitarian assistance, bringing the total to 6.7 million. Almost half of these people face starvation if they do not receive help.

One reason for the high death toll six years ago was a blockade imposed by al-Shabaab on humanitarian assistance by international and local NGOs that did not meet its strict criteria.

This time, al-Shabaab appeared initially to adopt a more moderate policy, which analysts said suggested leaders were wary of being blamed once more for failing to either provide or allow help to reach needy communities.

However, its approach appears to have hardened since late June, possibly owing to internal power struggles.

Tiyeglow, a town in the Bakool region that is largely controlled by al-Shabaab, has been badly affected, according to its government-appointed mayor.

“People in Tiyeglow are starving. Al-Shabaab suddenly stopped aid agencies which were trying to reach hungry people in the town. That is why some of the residents began to flee to seek food aid,” Ibrahim Abdirahman Mohamed said.

“Children under five are particularly in a very risky situation, because the malnutrition rate is going up, and if this blockade by Al-Shabaab continues we will be witnessing more and more children dying,” Mohamed warned.

A Save the Children survey published last month showed that the number of severe acute malnutrition cases had soared in four out of nine districts it assessed in southern and central Somalia. In the district of Mataban, 9.5% of children aged under five were severely malnourished.

The survey focused on areas that are largely controlled by al-Shabaab.

Hassan Noor Saadi, Save the Children’s country director in Somalia, said any aid reaching al-Shabaab-controlled areas was “a very localised response”.

“These locations are getting perhaps 10 to 15% of what is reaching places where there is government control or the presence of humanitarian actors,” Saadi added.

More than two million people – a fifth of the population of Somalia – live in areas controlled by al-Shabaab. The extremist group has repeatedly attacked aid workers and continues to launch daily strikes against government targets.

More than 700,000 people have already fled their homes in Somalia, 200,000 over the past two months. Almost all have left al-Shabaab-controlled territory in a desperate bid to find food or medical aid.

Abdiya Barrow, a 48-year-old mother of seven who fled Tiyeglow, told the Guardian she had walked for seven days to reach the city of Baidoa, where her three youngest children were being treated by international medical teams for diarrhoea and malnutrition.

“When the drought began, al-Shabaab told us that we could accept food only from aid agencies related to Islamic organisations, but eventually they said no. Anybody found bringing food aid will be killed because of suspicion that aid agencies might be affiliated to the [Somali] government,” Barrow said.

“Life was extremely bad. There is no food and water. People were dying on a daily basis. The day I and my family left, a male neighbour and his young son starved and died.”

In some towns, al-Shabaab leaders have stopped residents leaving their homes.

Mohamed Osman, who lives in Buale, a drought-hit town in Somalia’s Middle Juba region, said the group did not allow aid workers to operate there and had warned locals they would be punished if they attempted to arrange assistance from outside.

“[Al-Shabaab] warned the residents not to move out, because they said they do not want the town to become empty, but … there is nothing to eat. A kilo of rice is nearly $4. Who can afford that? Children and women are dying,” Osman said.

One woman in Buale, who requested anonymity owing to security concerns, said her four-year-old daughter died from diarrhoea last month. “My five-year-old son is now sick. He is severely malnourished. Al-Shabaab is giving us nothing and yet they do not allow aid agencies to come to us. If you talk about the aid or call for aid, they even kill you by labelling you a spy,” she said.

Abdirahman Mohamed Hussein, the government official overseeing humanitarian aid in Jubaland, said the situation in al-Shabaab-controlled areas was likely to deteriorate in coming weeks. “The situation will turn into famine if the people in these towns do not get food very soon. We are very worried about the condition there.”

Al-Shabaab is facing a new military campaign launched by Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, the president of Somalia, and supported by the US.

Hussein said the extremists used local populations as a human shield because they wanted to ensure towns remained “safe havens for al-Shabaab militant leaders”.

“They do not want people to move out because they are worried that there could be an airstrike if the civilians leave,” he added.

A recent United Nations assessment said “Somalia is not yet out of the woods”, with other analyses suggesting that an “elevated risk of famine in 2017 persists”.

This year’s rainy season has been disappointing. Some parts of Somalia, already parched, have so far received only half of the usual rainfall.

Donald Trump, the US president, recently designated Somalia a “zone of active hostilities”, allowing commanders greater authority when launching airstrikes, broadening the range of possible targets and relaxing restrictions designed to prevent civilian casualties. He also authorised the deployment of regular US forces to Somalia for the first time since 1994.

The US in effect pulled out of Somalia after 1993, when two helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu and the bodies of American soldiers were dragged through the streets.

Boko Haram militants kidnapped 10 geological researchers from the University of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, said a spokesman for the state oil company that had contracted the academics.

Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) spokesman Ndu Ughamadu said on Wednesday the geologists and surveyors contracted to work on oil exploration in nearby Lake Chad were abducted near Jibi village in Borno state on Tuesday afternoon.

The Al-Qaeda associated armed group, Al-Shabaab, yesterday released seven humanitarian aid workers in Somalia, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The aid workers had been taken captive on 16 July near the city of Baidoa, 150 miles southwest of the capital, Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab released two females and five male aid workers in return for weapons paid as ransom, indicating a negotiated release.

Police officials confirmed to Anadolu that the armed group received weapons.

In an attempt to take over Somalia’s government, Al-Shabaab continually attacks official sites and African Union troops to implement a strict version of Islamic law across the country.

Boko Haram militants have killed more than 20 000 people and displaced more than 2 million others in north east Nigeria since 2009.

At the height of its activities between 2009 and 2015, the insurgents attacked a range of targets leaving death and destruction in their wake. These include churches, mosques, schools, universities, markets, police stations and even military installations.  They bombed locations, attacked with guns, raped women, killed children, took hostages and occupied territories.

The militants left government and its security forces looking powerless and people in the region helpless. No place was safe.

Under siege, communities in the north east were faced with three options. They could flee, join the insurgents, or risk being killed. Many took the first option and fled to safer destinations. Those who stayed were compelled to either join Boko Haram or risk being slaughtered.

But a fourth option emerged – self defence. People began to organise into emergency community vanguards to defend themselves. Community vigilante movements were born in several communities across the region.

One of the first Civilian Joint Task Force was formed in early 2013 in Adamawa State in north east Nigeria. It was made up of community vigilante formations, including neighbourhood guards and hunters guilds. The task force carries out community policing through reconnaissance. The members watch over the community and accost any strange or suspicious people that enter. They operate in cells and carry a combination of traditional and modern weapons. They mount road blocks, conduct area patrols, mount guards at entry points and borderlines of their communities.

Generally, the involvement of vigilantes in counter-insurgency operations in Nigeria has been a subject of contentious debate. It’s apparent that they have contributed to improving security for some communities. But there are also concerns that in the long run they could pose a threat given their heavy-handed approach. Examples include extra-judicial killings, violation of human rights, extortion and criminal impunity.

What they have done

The vigilante groups are based on three models. The first is communal neighbourhood guards, the second the village hunters’ guild, and the third is the government recognised Civilian Joint Task Force. Communal neighbourhood guards are village based vigilante outfits dedicated to community defence. Hunter’s guild is the vanguard of traditional hunters and warriors that intervenes to reinforce the operation.

Since their emergence, vigilantes have contributed a great deal in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency. They have reinforced and complemented the efforts of Nigeria’s Armed Forces, particularly in the areas of grassroots reconnaissance and intelligence.

Their cooperation and partnership with the military contributed to the finding of the first abducted Chibok Girl to escape from the militants in May 2016.

Despite their laudable achievements, there are legitimate concerns about the activities of vigilante groups. These include fears that their unguarded deployment could be counter-productive in the long run.

While they may be important in the short term in disrupting Boko Haram activities and serving as local partners in a successful counter terrorism strategy, arming militias is not a long-term policy. This is particularly true if unintended consequences are to be avoided.

Already there have been allegations of forced recruiting, child and woman soldiering and extra-judicial killings of suspected insurgents. In addition, there are fears that the vigilantes could degenerate and proliferate into mercenary militias.

But that’s not all. Vigilante activities often give rise to reprisal attacks on communities by the insurgents. The loose organisational and leadership structure of vigilante groups makes them susceptible to infiltration and internal sabotage.

For and against

The government and military have acknowledged the apparent successes of volunteer vigilantes in the fight against Boko Haram. But critics contend that vigilantes operate illegally, and argue that giving them a front line role in counter-insurgency operations implies that the state is abdicating its primary responsibility of ensuring sustainable national security.

Despite these misgivings, the justification for the vigilante approach to counter-insurgency can’t be disputed.  Vigilante groups are uniquely poised to contribute to local security for a number of reasons. These include the fact that they are formed in response to specific issues and conditions. They are staffed by local volunteers who have knowledge of the area and trust of the local community.

So what should be done?

If vigilantes are going to continue in counter-insurgency operations in a way that’s fruitful and sustainable they must operate within the law and established rules of engagements. Their activities must be properly regulated and coordinated through legal and institutional procedures to prevent impunity and other excesses.

The government can institute policy and institutional mechanisms that absorbs the groups into community policing systems, existing paramilitary structures or institutionalise them into a national reserve force dedicated to emergency mobilisation.

These measures would optimise the gains made and help manage abuses inherent in vigilante operations.

Four Somali soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb and two others were injured yesterday, according to reports in Al Jazeera.

The improvised explosive device exploded in the town of Baidoa, south west of the Somalia capital Mogadishu. A unit of soldiers were travelling through Baidoa form the village of Daynunay. The injured soldiers were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, a police officer told the Turkish Anadolu Agency.

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.

The group carries out frequent attacks in Somalia, in an attempt to topple the Somalia government, push back African Union peacekeeping troops and implement a strict version of Islamic law across the country.

A civilian self-defense group says at least eight people are dead after female suicide bombers attacked two displaced persons camps in northeastern Nigeria’s main city, like reported by ap.org.

Spokesman Bello Danbatta tells The Associated Press that the attack started late Sunday night in Maiduguri and left another 15 people wounded.

The Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram often targets the city with suicide bombers and increasingly has been using female ones.

Danbatta says one bomber sneaked into the Dalori camp and detonated, and two other attackers exploded on or near the camp’s perimeter fence.

Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, spilled into neighboring countries and created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

Malian and French troops have arrested a close associate of a preacher whose jihadist group has claimed dozens of attacks against Western and Malian targets, Mali’s security minister said, like reported by reuters.com.

Macina Liberation Front, based in central Mali’s Mopti region, is led by cleric Amadou Koufa who has called upon followers to take up arms and rebuild the historic Fulani empire of Massina.

“I confirm that the terrorist Alhousseyni Ag Assaleh, in charge of logistics for…the group run by Amadou Koufa was arrested on 8 July during a joint operation with Barkhane in the Timbuktu region,” General Salif Traoré told Reuters.

He said the arrest was kept secret until now because of ongoing efforts to capture others in his network.

A spokesman for France’s 4,000 strong Barkhane counter-terrorism force in the Sahel said he did not communicate on people placed “hors de combat”, or “out of combat”.

This term may refer to a fatality or an arrest or anything else that affects the subject’s capacity to fight, he said.

Barkhane is collaborating with regional troops in five West African countries to form a new force to fight desert militants who have regrouped since the French army drove them out of their urban strongholds in northern Mali in 2013.

Losses have been high among Malian forces in recent months. The United Nations, which has a peacekeeping force in the country, reported 131 soldiers killed over the past year versus 49 in the previous year.

Reports reaching DAILY POST from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital said, Boko Haram terrorists have invaded Korongilim village near Chibok local government area of the state, where they burnt down all the houses in the village, like reported by dailypost.ng .

Barr. Lawan Abana, a resident of Maiduguri, told DAILY POST that, the attackers, who arrived the village at about 8:00pm did not meet anyone in the village at the time they came because the people were alerted by gunshots from the insurgents and escaped before they arrived the village.

According to him, the terrorists were on their way to attack the village when their vehicles stuck in the mud. In the process of pulling their vehicles out, a heavy gunfire went off, which put the village on alert and they fled their homes.

“By the time terrorists eventually came to attack, nobody was around and they burnt the whole village. Soldiers arrived, but by then the terrorists wreaked havoc and left.

“All the villagers dispersed and displaced with their houses burnt needs urgent help particularly in this rainy seaon. Thank God, no death was reported,” he added.