Autralian Shabaab? Perhaps, Perhaps Not

There have been reports claiming that a Group in Australia is associated with the Somali al Shabaab. I have been waiting to see where this falls out, becasue this doesnot fit into their normal way of operating.

For the Record, Some in Somalia have denied the Australia Connection - But the Shabaab are signficantly decentralized, and one of the four battlions could do such a move without informing the other.

It may be an group recruited by internet, or a dispora connection like the Minnesota Mujahadeen.

At the moment, I would say the jury is still out.

-Shimron Issachar


PROSCRIBING Somali-based al-Shabaab as a terrorist organisation could force its Australian supporters underground and make monitoring their activities more difficult for police and intelligence agencies, security analysts have warned.

On Tuesday, four men of Somali and Lebanese descent aged between 22 and 26 years, with alleged links to al-Shabaab, were arrested in a joint counter-terror police operation in Melbourne.

The group is accused of plotting a suicide attack on Holsworthy army base in Sydney in which they would have become Islamic martyrs.

Yesterday, Kevin Rudd said al-Shabaab had been considered for listing as a terrorist group in Australia.

But the federal government had not proceeded to list al-Shabaab because it didn't want to compromise Tuesday's counter-terrorism operation in Victoria.

"This has been the subject of some internal deliberation within the government ... for a period of time," the Prime Minister told ABC radio.

In Cairns, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said al-Shabaab's status was under review but no decision had been made to list the organisation as a terror group.

"These things are kept under constant review but, given the events of the last couple of days, it's obviously something we're now giving very serious consideration," Mr Smith said.

Al-Shabaab (The Youth) is a militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union that controlled much of restive Somalia prior to its invasion in 2006 by US-backed Ethiopian forces. Respected national security analyst Allan Behm said there were good reasons for not declaring al-Shabaab a terrorist organisation.

Many of the 5000-strong Somali community are former refugees who fled years of violence and lawlessness but have found it very difficult to integrate.

"This is a community under real stress," he said. "Many of them are not educated, many have not got good employment prospects unless they are educated, they are a very isolated community and they will stick together.

"When communities are in that sort of situation, they can fall victim to a lot of different sorts of things -- alienation and anger."

The Rest @ The Australian News.com

US talks about Rape in African War Yet Leaves Arms Trafficking Unaddressed

Thailand refused to Extradite Viktor Bout to the United States for Prosecution, stating that it was clear that the reason for the US request was clearly political.


The US State Department clearly is trying to minimize it. The current Administration only allocates a certain amount of their attention to Africa, and they would rather talk about the Secretary of State's visit to Africa, and her attempt to bring attention to rape being used as a weapon of war in the DRC's civil war, a fruitless, futile excercise, when adressing Arms Trafficking would better serve to end the practice.

Let's be clear: Years ago Viktor Bout's arms trafficking equipped the DRC war that is going on, arming the soldiers and rebels using rape as a weapon. Both his trafficking and rape as a weapon are not new African traditions.

Yet Rape as a weapon of war seems to be a new horror to the Secreatary's staff, though deeper insde the State Department they know this is very old news in Africa.

In the 11 Agust press conference by Phillip J. Crowley of the State Deparment, note that neather he nor the reporter asking the question were aware of the details of the Decision by Thailand not to Extradite Viktor Bout.

The refer to him as "the Russian" and the unknown reporter first seem to think Bout had been extradited to Russia.....


My point is this Secretary Clinton.... If you really want to stop rape as a weapon of war, bring attention to the arms trafficking in Africa. Your office knows all abou it.

It is happening all over, from countries like Romania and Moldavia, paid for by Arabs, Iranians, and even Americans, shipped by European and Dubai based transport companies, facilitated by UAE, Malta, Africa, and Lebanese based businesses, shipped into Mogadishu by Way of Eritrea,, across the Sahara by way of Algiers, Tunisia and Libya. Local funds are still generated by Diamonds and oil.

Secretary Clinton, bring attention to these issues, and the ihorror of rape of women as a weapon of war will begin to serve to end these wars, Africa's true needs and agenda.
Is t heri anyone on you staff who understands why these wars are going on?

Who on your staff suggested that this issue was more imprtant than stopping arms trafficking?" Will bringing attention to to rape in war stop the combatants from doing it?

I am not one to complain without solution: So learn a bout it, Secretary Clinton, talk about Trafficking, where it comes from who gest paid, what big and small companies and countries profit from Arms Trafficking in Africa.

Talking only about Rape in war shows America to have a shallow understanding insincere concern about African Issues. I know that this is not really the case.

There is a Gambian Proverb: A smart opportunist can be an intellectual moron . Please take care not to let the US support illustrate this proverb.

Here is a statement from the US State Department about the Viktor Bout Affair:

-Shimron Issachar



MR. CROWLEY:

........[ deep in the interview by Mr Crowly of the State Deparmtnet]

QUESTION: Do you have any sort of an understanding that the Russian alleged arms smuggler will not be extradited until the process runs its course? Again, I’m wondering – the Russians sound like it’s all over, of course. We’re waiting for him.


MR. CROWLEY: Well, I think we – we obviously requested the extradition.


QUESTION: I mean to Russia, excuse me.

MR. CROWLEY: Oh, to Russia?


QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. CROWLEY: We would like to see him extradited to the United States.


QUESTION: Yeah, I’m sorry. I misstated. I was wondering if you think he’ll remain in Thailand
long enough for another step or two to be taken in this process.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, let’s take it one step at a time. We’ve got this court ruling. I think the Thai Government will be evaluating its options. Let’s see what the Thai Government decides to do, and then we’ll see what happens after that.

.......Yes, back in the back........

The Rest @ ENews Park Forest

The Council of the European Union Investigating Arms Trafficking

The Council of the European Union appears to be doing an investigation into Dyncorp, Areolift Sierra Leon, as well as Botir Avia, Pecotox and their connection to Arms Dealing.


-Shimron Issachar

III

Mali's Norther Tribes Joing with the Government to Fight Al Qaeda

BAMAKO — Leaders of Mali's northern communities agreed Sunday to join the government's fight against Al-Qaeda at their first meeting in a decade, called in a bid to end their conflicts, a participant said.

The meeting brought together representatives from the Tuareg, Arab and Songhai communities of the northwest African country's three regoins.

"It is a reconciliation meeting -- a first in 10 years," said Moussa Maiga, a representative of the Gao region.

"We have also decided to support the Malian government's fight against Al-Qaeda in the Sahel-Sahara strip," Maiga said.

The meeting, which started Saturday, included regional elected officials, prominent members of the community and tribal chiefs in efforts to resolve past conflicts that have on occasion led to deadly clashes.

"We are all insisting on reconciliation after moments of incomprehension," Amed Ag Mahmoud, a regional figure and moderator of the meeting, told AFP.

Mali's arid north has also been the scene of battles between government forces and Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the terror network's north African branch, which has extended its activities beyond Algeria.

President Amadou Toumani Toure announced last month a "total struggle" against the AQIM.
According to Mali's army, dozens of people were killed on July 4 during clashes in the Timbuktu region between the army and AQIM fighters.

And on June 17, the Malian army announced that it had killed 26 "Islamist fighters" in the far north of the country.

In recent months, the AQIM has taken four European tourists and two Canadian diplomats hostage in Mali and neighbouring Niger. All have been released, except for a British tourist, Edwin Dyer, who was executed.

The Rest @ AFP

How Two UN World Food Program Scams Work in Somalia

One of the UN’s largest international relief efforts is under investigation after it emerged that thousands of sacks of food aid were being diverted from starving refugees and openly sold for profit.

The head of the UN’s $955 million (£580 million) aid operation in Somalia has launched an inquiry after being shown footage showing tonnes of food bearing the World Food Programme
(WFP) logo widely on sale in Mogadishu, the capital.

Stacks of bags of maize and wheat and tins of cooking oil — marked “not for re-sale” and bearing the UN stamp — are on sale from ten warehouses and 15 shops in the city’s main market.

• About 45,000 tonnes of WFP food are shipped to Somalia from Kenya every month.
• Mogadishu traders told Channel 4 News that they bought their supplies straight from UN staff. “We buy [food] aid from WFP staff directly or from people they employ,” one market trader said.
• “They take us to the warehouses used by the WFP and let us load our lorries. The goods are freely available and you can buy as much as you like, but we usually buy no more than 500 to 1,000 sacks at a time.
• Just a tonne or half a tonne a day can be shifted more discreetly.”
  

The food could hardly be more needed. More than a million people have been driven from their homes by fighting in the area, including 117,000 thought to have fled from Mogadishu in the past month.

UN officials say that civil war and the worst drought in a decade have created “near-famine conditions”, with Somalia ranking alongside Darfur as the worst humanitarian emergency in the world.

The WFP is charged with feeding 3.5 million Somalis — almost half the population — and is struggling to overcome an operational shortfall of more than $84 million over the next six months.

Britain gave the WFP £9 million for Somalia last year through the Department for International Development and is now deciding whether to give more.

Another market trader described how he invented fictional refugee camps, which were then allocated food that he could sell.

• “You go to the WFP office and fill in an application form to create a camp,” he said. “
• When we receive the food, we give out some and then divide the rest between ourselves and the WFP guys who negotiated the deal.”
• The scam is, according to Mark Bowden, the former British diplomat who is now the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, “disturbing”. He is urging the WFP to speed up its inquiry.
  

Many of the sacks for sale are marked: “A gift from the American people”, with the US government’s aid agency, USAID, providing $274 million last year in food and in humanitarian assistance for Somalia.

Peter Goossens, the WFP’s Somalia director, describes food for sale as a “minor phenomenon”.

The Rest @ Dadweyne

Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz Wins Mauritanian Election

Mauritania coup chief wins vote amid fraud claims

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — Nearly a year after seizing power in a military putsch that ousted Mauritania’s first freely elected leader, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz won the presidency Sunday in a landslide vote his opponents decried as a fraudulent “electoral coup.”

The poll was officially held to restore civilian rule, but critics say little is likely to change in this moderate Islamic republic on the western edge of the sand-swept Sahara: Power will remain in the hands of the 52-year-old retired general who spent his life in the military and resigned only to legitimize his grasp on it by running for president.

“We’ve gone backward to an era of dictatorship,” said Boubacar Ould Messaoud, who heads an organization that fights a tradition of slavery that continues here despite being banned.
“Aziz is no democrat,” Messaoud said.

“He is a soldier, and like all soldiers, he should stay in his barracks.

There will be no difference between this regime and the junta” he ruled.
Aziz, however, styles himself as a defender of democracy who staged a coup only to prevent the country from reverting to a past epoch of repressive rule — which he helped end with an earlier putsch, in 2005.

The final result announced late Sunday by Interior Minister Mohamed Ould Rzeizim gave Aziz 52 percent of the vote, enabling him to avoid a runoff.

The count must be validated by the constitutional court before it becomes final.
Parliament speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir came in second with 16 percent, while veteran opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah was third with 13 percent, Rzeizim said.

The main opposition candidates rejected the final outcome even before it was announced, saying the count had been “prefabricated.” In a statement, they accused Aziz of carrying out “an electoral coup d’etat.”

“We refuse to recognize these results and call on the international community to create a commission to investigate to expose this manipulation,” Boulkheir told reporters.

In a victory speech, Aziz said his staff and supporters had “committed no fraud.” He said the vote could not have been rigged because results from each polling station had to be approved and signed by rival parties before being forwarded to the electoral commission headquarters.

Several hundred international observers are monitoring the vote. But key delegations from the African Union and French speaking countries have released their findings.

Lawyer Bouhoube Yni of the nation’s independent electoral commission — whose 15 members represent the rival political parties — said no serious complaints or proof of fraud had been received so far.

Messaoud spokeswoman Amal Mint Abdallahi said the opposition was preparing to formally submit its complaints. Among them: allegations Aziz’s camp handed out ballots pre-marked in his favor and paid voters to cast them; the voters then returned with empty ballots taken from polling stations to prove they had done so, she said.Abdallahi also alleged Aziz’s camp fabricated false identity cards and illegally inflated voter lists.

After nightfall, Aziz supporters sent red and white fireworks bursting into the air above Nouakchott in celebration. They crisscrossed the sandy streets, honking horns relentlessly, chanting his name. Others hung out the windows of dilapidated Mercedes Benzes and pickup trucks waving posters of the unsmiling former general.

In his speech, Aziz vowed to eradicate terrorism and ensure his army is equipped to do so. He also said the government must also fight poverty in equal measures, “because the cause of terrorism is poverty.”

On the eve of the vote, police exchanged gunfire with two alleged members of an al-Qaida-linked terror cell that had claimed responsibility for gunning down an American teacher here last month. The pair was detained, and one was found wearing an explosive belt.

The U.S. has expressed concern over the steady spread south from Algeria in recent years of al-Qaida’s North Africa branch. While Washington never recognized Aziz’s junta, it is keen to maintain Mauritania as a bulwark against the terror group and prevent the moderate Muslim nation from sliding toward extremism.

Saturday’s election represents a chance for the desert nation straddling the Arab and African worlds to resurrect billions of dollars in pledged international aid, which was cut after Aziz ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi last August. Restarting that aid will be no easy task: Aziz will first have to convince skeptical donors that democracy has really been restored.

Mauritania has suffered five coups since independence from France in 1960, and has been led by military rulers for most of the past three decades.

Born Dec. 20, 1956, Aziz joined the armed forces at the age of 21. Since 1998, he served as head of the presidential guard, a post that allowed him an influential, behind-the-scenes role in the top echelons of power and politics for a decade.

Together with a small clique of the country’s senior military brass, he helped foment a popular putsch in 2005 that ended the two-decade dictatorship of Maaoya Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya and paved the way for unprecedented freedoms.

But when the same military group led by Aziz staged another coup last year, many viewed it as a setback to the nation’s democratic gains.

Aziz says he acted to protect the country’s nascent democracy; Abdallahi, the president, had begun appointing members of the old regime to senior government posts and was trying to censor the press.

Aziz’s junta quickly found itself isolated for breaking the constitutional order, and met unexpected political resistance at home.

Elections offered a way out.

From the beginning, though, Aziz had a huge advantage over his opponents — who only joined
the race a few weeks ago after his junta was replaced by an interim government of national unity that was charged with overseeing the weekend ballot.

Unlike his opponents, Aziz was also able to take advantage of the machinery of state to carry out public works projects like paving roads. He cast himself as “president of the poor,” dropping the prices of electricity, water, sugar and gas by as much as a third.

Associated Press Writer Ahmed Mohamed contributed to this report.

The Rest @ Breaking News from Taragana