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Advocating For Somali Unity
Browsing All Posts published on »January, 2011«
Somalis mark 20 years of war after government fell
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) —Aweys Abdullahi Ali has never known a day of peace in Somalia. Gunmen have killed his mother, set his home on fire, driven away his friends. Ali, who is 20, sees no end to the violence. Wednesday marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of Siad Barre, Somalia’s socialist dictator whose overthrow […]
Don’t Abandon Somalia
January 25, 2011
NAIROBI (IDN) – Twenty years after the Somalia President Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted on January 26, 1991, the country in the Horn of Africa remains embroiled in an endless cycle of civil war, religious conflict and clan violence, and has come to be known as a failed state. The present government led by President […]
Somalia Is Likely to Cut Ties To Mercenaries, Official Says
January 24, 2011
MOGADISHU, Somalia (NY Times) — The minister of information for the transitional federal government here said Sunday that Somalia was likely to end its relationship with Saracen International, a private security company in which South African mercenaries and the founder of Blackwater Worldwide are said to be involved. Saracen has offered to train the beleaguered […]
Puntland bans Somali govt officials from territory
January 23, 2011
MOGADISHU, – Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region has barred central government officials from entering its territory, an official said, as a row between Puntland and the capital Mogadishu escalated. Puntland officials said the ban extended to all lawmakers and civil servants, a week after declaring it would not cooperate with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) until the […]
Somalia MPs owed six months salary arrears
January 23, 2011
Somalia legislators have been working without pay for the last six months, a member of parliament has revealed. Prof Mohamed Omar Dalha who is a MP of Lower Shebele, said 550 MPs who serve in the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia are a miserable lot owing to the refusal of the international community to pay […]
‘Prince of Mercenaries’ who wreaked havoc in Iraq turns up in Somalia
January 22, 2011
Erik Prince, founder and CEO of Blackwater Worldwide Erik Prince, the American founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has cropped up at the centre of a controversial scheme to establish a new mercenary force to crack down on piracy and terrorism in the war-torn East African country of Somalia. The project, which emerged yesterday […]
Video: FBI Questioned Gulet Mohamed Without Counsel
January 21, 2011
Gulet Mohamed was released over two hours after he was detained at Dulles airport by government agents. He left Dulles for his home in Alexandria, Virginia, without saying much about the questioning (at his lawyer’s suggestion). But as he was entering a taxi, a reporter asked, “What everyone wants to know is, are you a […]
Detained Va. teen set to return to U.S.
January 21, 2011
Gulet Mohamed from the Annandale High School yearbook for the 2006-07 school year. (Courtesy of Fairfax County Public Schools) (Courtesy Of Fairfax County Public Schools – Courtesy Of Fairfax County Public Schools) A Virginia teenager who was placed on the no-fly list and barred from returning home to the United States from Kuwait is expected to […]
Denmark starts cartoon attack trial
January 20, 2011
A Somali man charged with trying to kill a Dane who caricatured Prophet Mohammad has appeared in court, saying he was only trying to scare the cartoonist. The 29-year-old defendant, who used an axe to force his way into the home of Kurt Westergaard on New Years Day last year, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder on the first day […]
Teenager Held in Kuwait May Be Able to Return to U.S. Soon
January 19, 2011
Government lawyers told a federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday that they were trying to expedite the return of an American teenager detained in Kuwait, and that they expected him back in the United States by the end of the week. The court hearing came after lawyers for the detained American, Gulet Mohamed, 19, sued […]
Somaliland Minister Says to Push for Recognition After Sudan Referendum
January 19, 2011
Somaliland plans to step up efforts for international recognition on expectations that a referendum on independence in Southern Sudan will aid its campaign for statehood, Foreign Minister Mohamed A Omar said. The referendum will have a “positive knock-on effect,” Omar said by phone today from the capital, Hargeisa. “We will be using the South Sudan […]
The U.S. role in Gulet Mohamed’s detention
January 17, 2011
I’ve written several times about the plight of Gulet Mohamed, the American teenager detained without charges more than three weeks ago in Kuwait by unknown captors, relentlessly interrogated about numerous matters of interest to the Obama administration, and, he claims, severely beaten and tortured. One of the central questions of this episode has been this: who […]
Puntland breaks with Somali government
January 17, 2011
Puntland, an autonomous Somali region home to pirates who threaten shipping in the Indian Ocean, said Sunday it was breaking with Somalia’s transitional government until a legitimate federal authority is in place in Mogadishu. The decision was made during a special cabinet meeting in the Puntland capital Garowe, said a government statement received by AFP […]
US, Kuwait, and United Airlines Heading for Anti-Terrorism Clash?
January 16, 2011
Gulet Mohamed in detention in Kuwait. | Photo: Mohed Mohamed. There’s a looming confrontation between the United States, Kuwait, and United Airlines over a Kuwaiti attempt to deport to the US an American teenager, Gulet Mohammed, who has been detained in the Arab nation for several weeks and reportedly questioned by the FBI about terrorism. […]
Fairfax man returning from Yemen stranded in Cairo after landing on no-fly list
January 14, 2011
Yahya Wehelie A Fairfax County man returning home from Yemen has been stranded in Egypt for six weeks after being told he was on a no-fly list. Yahya Wehelie, 26, said Wednesday that after landing at the airport in Cairo in early May, he was told he would not be able to board his connection […]
Lawyer: FBI Illegally Interrogating Gulet Mohamed
January 14, 2011
Gulet Mohamed in a Kuwaiti detention cell. | Photo: Mohamed family. By Nick Baumann FBI agents are taking advantage of an American teenager’s detention in Kuwait to illegally harass and interrogate him without counsel, the teen’s lawyer said Wednesday. Gulet Mohamed, a Somali-born American Muslim, says he was tortured and interrogated after he was detained by […]
Somali judge sends 72-year-old German to jail for 4 years for making porn in Somalia
January 14, 2011
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A court official says a Somali judge sentenced a 72-year-old German man to four years in jail for making pornographic films and pictures in Somalia. The official says Gunter Pischof Albert was engaging in un-Islamic behaviour by making films and pictures of himself having sex with local women. On Thursday a judge […]
Detained American Says F.B.I. Pressed Him
January 13, 2011
WASHINGTON — An American teenager detained in Kuwait said he underwent a heated interrogation by F.B.I. agents for several hours on Wednesday, in a case that has renewed debate over the Obama administration’s expansion of the no-fly list after the attempted bombing of a passenger plane bound for Detroit in 2009. The interrogation grew steadily […]
Torture of U.S. Muslim Teen Called ‘Proxy Detention’ (CAIR)
January 12, 2011
Interview with Gulet Mohamed’s lawyer
January 12, 2011
Last Thursday, I wrote about and interviewed Gulet Mohamed, the 18-year-old Somali-born American citizen who described how he was abducted in Kuwait by unknown authorities, blindfolded and taken to an unknown location, and then interrogated, beaten and tortured for the next week (he has since turned 19). After he was moved to a new facility to be […]
kaarshe Blog 
January 28, 2011
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