Mohammed Omer Mulla

The U.S.’s killing of the deputy leader of an Islamic State faction in Somalia’s Puntland will blunt the group’s ability to carry out further attacks in the semi-autonomous region that sits near a key shipping lane, Puntland’s security minister said. The U.S. on Monday confirmed it carried out an airstrike that killed Abdulhakim Dhuqub in the northeastern Somali region over the weekend. It described Dhuqub as responsible for the extremist group’s daily operations and planning of attacks. His death “will have a negative military impact on the group, given his personal creativity and militant strategy,” Security Minister Abdisamad Mohamed Galan told reporters Monday. “He was the mastermind of some attacks in Puntland — killing him was like a mission accomplished.” Semi-autonomous Puntland is situated on the Gulf of Aden, near the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Like the rest of Somalia, it’s battling militants from the al-Shabaab group, an al-Qaeda affiliate. ...

A surge in the number of U.S. air strikes in Somalia is raising questions about Washington’s mission there, the risk it poses to civilians, and whether Congress should pull back the reins on increasingly opaque military operations in Africa and elsewhere. At odds over civilian deaths The Trump administration is facing increasing scrutiny over the U.S. presence in Somalia from human rights groups, which say that civilian deaths have been  increasingly obscured . A  March 2019 report  by Amnesty International found that at least fourteen civilians were killed in just five of the more than seventy air strikes the United States has carried out in the country since early 2017. The report is based on interviews with witnesses, family members, and medical professionals, as well as a review of photographic evidence. The U.S. military  disputes the report ; it says none of those strikes resulted in any civilian casualties. For more than a decade the United ...

Kenya has ordered the closure of the Dadaab refugee camp by the middle of this year with the race now on to find homes for more than 210,000 people, according to a leaked internal United Nations document obtained by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.  Citing "national security concerns", the Kenyan government wrote to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) on Feb. 12 about plans to close Dadaab within six months and asking the agency "to expedite relocation of the refugees and asylum-seekers residing therein". Officials from Kenya's interior ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but the UNHCR confirmed the plan. "UNHCR is aware of the renewed call by the Government of Kenya to close Dadaab and is working with the government to continue to implement long-term and sustainable solutions for over 210,000 refugees living in the camp," said the UNHCR in a statement emailed to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "These...

Forty-nine people were killed in  shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch, New Zealand,  on Friday, in a terrorist attack that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described as “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence.” Officials said that one man in his late 20s had been charged with murder, and that two explosive devices were found attached to a vehicle that they had stopped. A Muslim leader in New Zealand said the attack was especially shocking as it took place around Friday Prayer. The police urged people to stay away from the mosques until further notice. A video and manifesto that appeared to be by a gunman involved in the shooting were posted online on the day of the attack. Two mosques are attacked Shots were fired at Al Noor Mosque on Deans Avenue in the center of the city and at Linwood Mosque, about three miles away, the police said. The country’s police commissioner, Mike Bush, said in an evening news conference that 41 people h...

Kenya and Somalia have committed to peace while undertaking to amicably resolve the current maritime dispute at talks mediated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia on Wednesday. Although State House had not released a statement on the outcome of the meeting between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Somalia’s Mohammed Abdullahi by the time of writing this article, the Ethiopian Premier said the duo agreed to address issues that have led to the escalation of tensions between the two countries. “Through the leadership of PM Abiy Ahmed, Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Mohammed Abdullahi met this morning to discuss extensively on the source of the two countries dispute. As an outcome both agreed to work towards peace and to take measures in addressing particular issues that escalated the tensions,” Ahmed’s office said. A translated message issued by President Abdullahi’s office said the meeting discussed recent diplomatic tensions adding Somalia and Kenya had committed to strengt...

Somali security forces have arrested three al-Shabab militants in the Amniyat, al-Shabab's intelligence wing in an operation in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, officials said on Sunday evening. Mohamed Abdullahi Tulah, deputy mayor for security in the Benadir region told journalists in Mogadishu that three al-Shabab militants were apprehended Sunday in an offensive conducted by Somali national forces in Wadajir district in Somalia's capital. "Our forces nabbed three al-Shabab extremists as they were trying to assassinate female member of electoral delegation committee," Tulah said. He noted that they will intensify their operations against the extremists. The militants paraded by the government pleaded guilty and asked the people to forgive them. The arrest comes as assassinations in Mogadishu increased. On Feb. 20, militants shot Mohamed Mursal, a Somali deputy attorney general, while on Feb. 24, suspected al-Shabab fighters gunned down Osman Elmi Boqore...

U.S Africa military command (AFRICOM) said Monday that its latest airstrike in Somalia killed 35 fighters in Hiiran region in Central on Sunday. The U.S. military command for the African continent said Sunday’s airstrike targeted the al-Qaida-linked fighters as they were travelling in a rural area about 23 miles (37 kilometres) east of Beledweyne town in Hiran region in Central Somalia. The U.S. has dramatically increased airstrikes against Al-Shabaab since President Donald Trump took office. Its military has carried out 22 such strikes this year, including four on Saturday that eliminated checkpoints used by Al-Shabaab to collect taxes to fund its violent campaign to establish an Islamic state in the long-chaotic Horn of Africa nation. The U.S. militray carried out nearly 50 strikes against al-shabab and IS in Somalia in 2018 alone.