Week's Highlights of Somalia

General decline of Insurgency operations and substantial increase of effective counter insurgency operations in various parts of the country, including Mogadishu, Hiiraan, Lower Jubba, Mudug, Bay and Bakool ,has been noted in the last three weeks, even though this week insurgent acitvities had picked up again, albiet in limited fashion, devoid of high profile acts.


According to Banadir intelligence chief, who spoke to the media on November 23rd, 2012, one senior commander was killed, whose body was shown to the media, as reported by Mogadisho radio website and others too.

Sixteen others were also apprehended, said to have been on their way to carry out small hit and run attacks on government installations in parts of Banadir Region; their faces were also shown to the public.

Weapons said to have been owned by these insurgent operatives were also presented to the media.

Operations of this nature were furhter sustained in subsequent days in Mogadishu by Police and local security forces, substantially reducing capacities of Shebab members in Mogadishu to carry out their violent activities. The success has been generally attributed to increased level of cooperation between the security forces and residents of the town.

Civil society groups met freely in Mogadishu, on Monday 26th, 2012, and encouraged people to work with security forces to make the city and Somalia in general more peaceful.

Civil society groups ought to have their own security screening in place whenever they meet, to prevent desperate Shebab operatives from harming them, because their activism appears to have increased cooperation between the government and the people, thereby denying Shebab opportunities to carry out their guerrilla activities, their last ditch, since they have  previously failed to fight conventionally.

If, therefore, they continue to fail miserably to carry out their guerrilla activities, then their existence as a group is in question.

Even suspected elements of Shebab who managed to carry out assassinations of some prominent people, this week, like the chairman of the council of elders in Hiiraan, did not manage to escape, they were apprehended by local security forces. They are now waiting justice.

Civilians, allegedly, were also killed in retaliation to the elder’s death, as reported by sites generally favorable to Shebab, even though the killing of three civilians, right after the elder was killed, was widely reported.

If true, the killers must face the law; doing so will increase chances of successfully ending Shebab insurgency in Somalia. Otherwise, relatives of the harmed civilians may now explore different venues of revenging, including joining Shebab to retaliate. To avoid retaliation and counter retaliation dynamics, strive to fight the insurgency within the bounds of the law, prosecute them.
 

Checkpoints in Mogadishu and in surrounding regions such as lower shabelle region were removed this week. This is a commendable job. It came after the president and the Prime Minister of the federal republic of Somalia made a passionate speech to security officials and district commissioners.
Public transport drivers were happy because they will save money, they did celebrate. They used to pay money as they cross these checkpoints, now they don't.

Some of these checkpoints collected money for people who were risking their life to make the city safe; as a result,  some security forces will lack money needed to cloth and feed themselves in the mean time.

It was unwise for the government to remove these checkpoints without  having an alternative mechanism in place to replace them. Even though they were removed too early than expected by the president himself.
Another challenge raised by the removal of checkpoints is the issue of taxation; who will
collect money? The central government or local government or both; if both, how are they going to share the money. Since the money that goes to the central government is used to support shared projects such as embassies, ministers and the federal parliament, such money ought to not originate from one region alone, to be fair, but it ought to originate from all regions.

If so, national legislation is needed to govern taxation for Banadir, since it has special capital status, and for other regions of Somalia too.

We ought to celebrate, in any case, the work done to allow the government to collect taxations and become the paymaster of all armed forces in the area. This step increases the capacity of the state to provide security to its citizens and by implication earn legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

 Source of the Picture,  Radio Mogadisho, Voice of the Federal Republic of Somalia