Condaleez Rice to Vsist Gaddafi, Libya

By Viola Gienger

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to travel to North Africa tomorrow to welcome an unlikely ally to the U.S. fight against terrorism: Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.

For most of Qaddafi’s 39 years in power, the U.S. listed Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism, including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and banned American companies from doing business there.

• Now the country is sharing intelligence with the U.S. about the North African activities of al-Qaeda, the Islamic militants behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
• And U.S. energy, telecommunications and construction companies are vying for billions of dollars in contracts tied to expanded oil production in Libya, which has 3.4 percent of the world’s proven reserves.
• Qaddafi’s help on intelligence matters has been “exemplary,” said Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, whose negotiations with Libya paved the way for Rice’s visit. “One of the benefits of working with Libya in this area over the last several years is that we’ve been able to expand this kind of cooperation,” he added in an interview.
  
  
• The U.S. is negotiating a military cooperation accord with Libya and says the country is helping stem the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq.
• Al-Qaeda consolidated Islamist fighters in Algeria and Libya in the past two years under the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb group, or AQIM.
• In November, al-Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri urged his fighters to topple Qaddafi, excoriating his decisions to renounce terrorism and shun nuclear and chemical weapons.
  
• Libyans may want to buy aircraft and related equipment to help patrol their borders.
  

As U.S. officials court Qaddafi, they’ve said little about the regime’s suppression of its own people beyond annual government reports citing its “authoritarian” rule and “poor” record on human rights.

Libya holds political prisoners, torture is widespread and the government allows almost no free press or assembly, said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in New York.

The Rest @ Aftermath News

Robow Threatens to Kill Any US Citizen Found

Residence city of kismayo are outraged by what appears to be an organized attack resulting in the killing of humanitarian worker at one pm local time in his house in city of kismayo .

humanitarian worker was from gedo region. jubbaland state of somalia .. Civil society groups and the local are organised protest, according to Hawo Ugas Farah, leader of a women's group and one of the organisers. "We are demonstrating to show our anger and dismay at the murder of people who had came to help us," Farah said. She said it was also meant to show the families and friends of the victims that "the people of Kismayo were grieving with them".

The al shabaab Terrorist are in controlling the town. Al-Shabab is an armed group, once connected to the Islamic Courts Union, which is now in conflict with the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the Ethiopian military forces supporting them.

On Thursday 8 May 2008, Muqtar Robow now in kismayo with hassan turki was reported in Somali press as saying that Al Shabab “will kill American citizens in Somalia, even if they are journalists and aid workers”. [ in Kismayo ]

This threat was issued the day after a driver contracted by the World Food Program was killed by members of a militia after being stopped at a roadblock 30 kilometers north of Galkayo in Mudug region.

This is the second driver contracted by the WFP to have been killed during a militia attack in Somalia this year. None of the militia is considered to be linked to Al-Shabab.

The Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia has recently warned that the dire humanitarian situation in Somalia continues to worsen. The combination of drought and rising food prices, in addition to persistent insecurity and armed conflict, has pushed 2.6 million Somalis to the point where they require essential humanitarian assistance.

There is no excuse for attacks on humanitarian workers in any conflict, regardless of their nationality. Amnesty International calls on all armed groups to end attacks on civilians, including humanitarian workers, and to give assurances that their status as neutral non-combatants will be respected. Armed groups that are preventing humanitarian access during this period would be contributing to, and increasing, the risk of widespread starvation among the Somali people.


In Memoriam http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/pr/release.cfm?id=2490

The Rest @ Terror Free Somalia

Nigerian Fighting with Shabaab Killed by Ethipean Troops

Ethiopian Army Kill 10 Rebels in Somalia

September 5, 2008

The Ethiopian army on Friday evening said it killed 10 Al-Shabaab fighters including one Nigerian who was fighting alongside the belligerents in Somalia. An Ethiopian Television (ETV) reporter in Mogadishu said the peacekeepers were engaged in a battle with the Somalian Al Shabaab militia when they attempted to ambush the army.

The incident occurred on route from Baidowa to Dollo.
Reports said the Nigerian fighter was identified as Saad Mohammed Al Sad but gave no further details on the man’s identification.

The ETV report also indicated that the Ethiopian army also seized a quantity of assorted arms as well as a vehicle that was used by the fighters.


The Rest @ Net News Publisher

Who is al Jabberi?

HARGEISA, Somalia Sep 4 (Garowe Online) - A Somali politician in the country's northwestern breakaway republic of Somaliland was released Thursday after spending a month in jail, Radio Garowe reported.

Somaliland opposition dismisses govt al Shabaab allegations]

Hersi Haji Ali, who resigned from the Somaliland Election Commission, was released by order from President Dahir Riyale.

Mr. Hersi was not formally charged with any crime, but Somaliland Interior Minister Abdullahi Irro had accused the politician of having "links to al Shabaab," a militant group spearheading an anti-Ethiopia insurgency in south-central Somalia.

Sources in the Somaliland capital Hargeisa said Mr. Hersi's arrest was linked to his opposition to the Somaliland administration's agreement with Saudi Arabian company al Jabberi, which gave the company exclusive rights to export livestock via the Port of Berbera.

The Somaliland Livestock Traders' Union, for which Mr. Hersi was deputy chairman, opposes the al Jabberi deal on grounds it gives a foreign company a "monopoly" in the most important sector of the local economy.

Robow and Shabaab Carry out First Ramadan Attacks

MOGADISHU, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Five people have been killed and more than fourteen others wounded in Mogadishu after fierce skirmishes broke out between Somali government forces and insurgent fighters, witnesses said Wednesday.

"Two people died after they were hit by stray bullets in our neighborhood and four others were severely wounded," Hussein Isse, an eyewitness in Wardigley district of Mogadishu where some of the fighting took place, told Xinhua.

The fighting began after Islamist insurgent attacked government military bases around the presidential palace in Mogadishu with mortars and rocket propelled grenades while government forces responded with heavy artillery shells in and around Bakara market in the south of the restive Somali capital.

Witnesses in Bakara market, the largest in Somalia, said that two more civilians were killed by the shrapnel while six others were injured.

Somali government military spokesman confirmed that insurgent fighters attacked their positions in the early hours of the morning. He said that the fighters were repulsed back.
Meanwhile, Sheik Muqtar Robow, spokesman for Al-shabaab Islamist fighters, claimed that his fighters "inflicted heavy losses" on Somali government troops. He did not elaborate. But he said that one of his fighters was "martyred" and four others wounded in the fighting.

Speaking in a press conference by phone, Robow told reporters that his group would intensify their attacks on Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops during the holy month of Ramadan which started three days ago

"We will increase our attacks on the enemy of Allah during this holy month because we are fighting in the way of Allah and we will go to heaven should anyone of us die," Robow said.


The Rest @ China View

Libya to Shut Down Most of Gvt in 2009

Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar al-Qadhafi, has confirmed his intention to abolish most government departments from the start of 2009, and to hand over the country's oil revenue directly to citizens to spend as they see fit.

• Colonel Qadhafi first outlined his vision for a whittled down government in his address in March to the General People's Congress (GPC), an annual gathering of the popular committees that notionally hold power in his "jamahiriyya" (entity of the masses).
• Little more was heard on the subject over the subsequent months. However, Colonel Qadhafi returned to this theme in a speech delivered in Benghazi to a rally marking the anniversary of the Fateh revolution that he launched on seizing power on September 1st 1969.
• He said that the new system of direct distribution of sovereign revenue would go into effect in four months time.
• He said that the only ministries that would remain would be those dealing with sovereign affairs: justice, security, defence and foreign relations.
• It would be up to the people to establish new entities to channel the funds that would be allocated proportionately from oil export revenue into activities such as health and education.

Ultimately, people would form companies to undertake projects such as the construction of houses, roads, bridges and airports. He observed that this was the only means to avoid funds being wasted in corrupt bureaucracy—repeating his earlier description of government as an octopus, sucking up the country's wealth and providing little of value in return.

• Assuming oil exports of 1.5m barrels/day, a price of about US$110/barrel and a Libyan population of 5.6m, the plan would entail about US$1,000 per month being available for every Libyan man, woman and child.
• Colonel Qadhafi's initiative reflects his evident frustration with the failure of Libya to take advantage of the combination of rising oil prices and a dramatic improvement in relations with the West to press ahead with economic development and modernisation.

Over the past five years, he has lent his support to a core group of Western-educated officials who have sought to reform the economy through opening the system up to private sector investment. However, progress has been painfully slow, owing to the lack of effective centralised decision-making and to obstacles erected by vested interests within the security elite.

• Public investment in infrastructure and services has similarly been held back by the chaotic state of the Libyan regulatory and administrative systems.
• His second-eldest son, Saif al-Islam, has been closely identified with the efforts to modernise Libya's government, but he has recently announced his withdrawal from active political life.

Colonel Qadhafi's proposals incorporate some of the ideas put forward by Saif al-Islam, notably in the promotion of private enterprise and the reduction of the powers of the bureaucracy. However, it is doubtful whether Saif al-Islam had in mind the wholesale destruction of the apparatus of government.

His denials of any differences with his father or with the "old guard" were hardly convincing.Saif al-Islam may have made a shrewd decision to step away from the limelight for a while. Colonel Qadhafi's plan—if indeed it is implemented—is likely to be every bit as chaotic as some of his previous initiatives, for example the early-1980s move to abolish retail trade and services such as hairdressing on the grounds that they were petit bourgeois.

The Rest @ Viewswire, The Economists, Econommic Intelligence Unit

Sweden's Somalian Terrorist Financing Network al Barakaat to Reopen

The European Court of Justice in Luxemburg has annulled a 2005 ruling against a Sweden-based Somali banking network which had its assets frozen due to suspicions of ties to terrorism.

Because those associated with the al Barakaat International Foundation, based in the Stockholm suburb of Spånga, had no way to defend themselves against the charges, the Court of Justice ruled that their fundamental rights had been violated.

“It’s with great joy that this ruling has come. Time after time we have said that we are subjected to a violation of our legal rights, and the judgment confirms that,” said Abdirisak Aden, one of the three Somali-born Swedes who were singled out by the United Nations, the EU, and Sweden has associating with terrorists and had their assets frozen as a result.

Thomas Olsson, who handled the case for the three Swedes and their organization, sees the decision as good news for everyone who has used the informal al Barakaat banking network for sending money to relatives back in Somalia.

“But this is also an unbelievable relief for all of us. The court showed that human rights must be enforced when we are fighting terrorism, and that there is a guarantee that the battle is about something which is worth protecting, namely the democratic state governed by law,” he said.

• The court also nullified the regulations which made the freezing of al Barakaat’s assets possible.
• In setting aside the 2005 ruling, the court concluded that “the rights of the defence, in particular the right to be heard, and the right to effective judicial review of those rights, were patently not respected”.

The al Barakaat asset freeze took place following the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington.At the time, the United States Treasury Department generated a list of individuals and organizations it saw as having ties to terrorism.

The list was subsequently accepted in its entirety by the United Nations, which in turn created its own list. As a UN member, Sweden was required to make legislative changes in order to enact the provisions.

In addition to al Barakaat, three Somali-born Swedes were affected by the new asset-freezing legislation.

The Rest @ RaxanReeb Blog