The Pirates of Somalia
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Al-Qaeda's Keys to Success
DIGITAL-ONLY VIEW Al- Qaeda’s Keys to Success MAJ RYAN CK HESS, USAF ver the past 20 years, al- Qaeda has been the most recognizable and infa- mous terrorist organization on the planet. The group has planned and executed thousands of violent attacks, spurred dozens of offshoot affiliate Oand copycat groups, and even created rival Islamic extremist organizations. De- spite all this, and subsequently spending the past 20 years at war with the world’s most effective militaries, the group continues to carry out its operations. More- over, the success of foreign al- Qaeda affiliates illustrate that the group has become a global threat. Analyzing the tools that the organization has used to succeed will give us a better understanding of how to combat al-Qaeda. Perhaps more impor- tantly, it will also help intelligence agencies recognize what strategies the group will likely employ in the future. There are some who argue that al- Qaeda is dying. In this article, I argue that not only is it far from dead, but that the main factors contributing to al- Qaeda’s continued global success are decentralization, effective narratives and propaganda, and the specific targeting of locations with a preexist- ing history of instability and violence. This article will use three al-Qaeda affiliates and allies—al-Shabaab, Ansar al- Dine (AAD), and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) — to demon- strate each of the above listed success factors. However, before we can discuss how al- Qaeda has achieved their success, we must first define success. If success is to be defined as the completion of each organization’s stated goals, none of them have yet succeeded. -
The Scarcity of Land in Somalia
The Scarcity of Land in Somalia Natural Resources and their Role in the Somali Confl ict Occasional Paper April 2009 Occasional Paper III The Scarcity of Land in Somalia Natural Resources and their Role in the Somali Conflict Dustin Dehérez Director of Northeast-African Studies Düsseldorf Institute for Foreign and Security Policy (DIAS) April 2009 The responsibility for contents and views expressed in this Occasional Paper lies entirely with the author INTERNATIONALES KONVERSIONSZENTRUM BONN - An der Elisabethkirche 25 BONN INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR CONVERSION (BICC) GMBH D - 53113 Bonn Tel.: 0228-911 96-0 Geschäftsführer: Peter J. Croll Fax: 0228-24 12 15 Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Staatssekretär Dr. Michael Stückradt E-Mail: [email protected] Handelsregister: Bonn HRB 6717 Internet: www.bicc.de Contents Introduction 6 Traditional conflict resolution in the clan-based society of Somalia 7 Land as a natural resource and its role in the Somali civil war 9 Conclusion 11 References 14 About BICC 16 5 The Scarcity of Land in Somalia Natural Resources and their Role in the Somali Conflict Introduction proposed by this Occasional Paper, might illuminate one of the underlying roots of n the past years, Somalia has become the conflict and state failure and might also help I most prominent example of state-failure in address central problems to conflict Sub-Saharan Africa. It is important to note, resolution in Somalia. It is the thesis of this however, that not the entire country is Paper that in the fertile riverine areas of plagued by the breakdown of civil and state southern Somalia, natural resources and order. -
Download Report with Cover
Somalia HUMAN “So Much to Fear” RIGHTS War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia WATCH “So Much to Fear” War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia Copyright © 2008 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-56432-415-X Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA Tel: +1 212 290 4700, Fax: +1 212 736 1300 [email protected] Poststraße 4-5 10178 Berlin, Germany Tel: +49 30 2593 06-10, Fax: +49 30 2593 0629 [email protected] Avenue des Gaulois, 7 1040 Brussels, Belgium Tel: + 32 (2) 732 2009, Fax: + 32 (2) 732 0471 [email protected] 64-66 Rue de Lausanne 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 738 0481, Fax: +41 22 738 1791 [email protected] 2-12 Pentonville Road, 2nd Floor London N1 9HF, UK Tel: +44 20 7713 1995, Fax: +44 20 7713 1800 [email protected] 27 Rue de Lisbonne 75008 Paris, France Tel: +33 (1)43 59 55 35, Fax: +33 (1) 43 59 55 22 [email protected] 1630 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel: +1 202 612 4321, Fax: +1 202 612 4333 [email protected] Web Site Address: http://www.hrw.org December 2008 1-56432-415-X “So Much to Fear” War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia Map of Somalia ............................................................................................................. 1 Map of Mogadishu ....................................................................................................... 2 Summary.......................................................................................................................3 Recommendations ....................................................................................................... 9 To the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia ................................................. 9 To the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia......................................................10 To Al-Shabaab and other Insurgent groups............................................................ -
The Security Bazaar Aisha Ahmad Business Interests and Islamist Power in Civil War Somalia
The Security Bazaar The Security Bazaar Aisha Ahmad Business Interests and Islamist Power in Civil War Somalia Many intractable civil wars take place in countries with large Muslim populations.1 In these pro- tracted conºicts, Islamists are often just one of many actors ªghting in a com- plex landscape of ethnic, tribal, and political violence. Yet, certain Islamist groups compete exceptionally well in these conºicts. Why do Islamists some- times gain power out of civil war stalemates? Although much of the existing research points to either ethnic or religious motivations, I argue that there are also hard economic reasons behind the rise of Islamist power.2 In this article, I offer a micro-political economy model of Islamist success in civil war that highlights the role of an important, but often-overlooked, class: the local busi- ness community. The convergence of business and Islamist interests is relevant across a wide range of cases of contemporary civil war. In present-day Syria and Iraq, jihadi groups have built strong ties to smuggling and criminal networks to fund their Aisha Ahmad is Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and a former fellow of the International Se- curity Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. The author is especially grateful to outstanding colleagues in Kenya and Somalia, including Jabril Abdulle, Sahal Abdulle, Dr. Ibrahim Farah, Dr. Yahya Amir Ibrahim, and Dr. Deqo Mohamed. The author also thanks Theodore McLauchlan, Stephen Saideman, Stuart Soroka, and the anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts, as well seminar and workshop participants at the Belfer Center and McGill University who provided helpful feedback. -
Vulnerability Without Capabilities? Small State Strategy and the International Counter-Piracy Agenda Smed, Ulrik Trolle; Wivel, Anders
Vulnerability without capabilities? Small state strategy and the international counter-piracy agenda Smed, Ulrik Trolle; Wivel, Anders Published in: European Security DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2016.1265941 Publication date: 2017 Document version Peer reviewed version Citation for published version (APA): Smed, U. T., & Wivel, A. (2017). Vulnerability without capabilities? Small state strategy and the international counter-piracy agenda. European Security, 26(1), 79-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2016.1265941 Download date: 28. sep.. 2021 Vulnerability without capabilities? Small state strategy and the international counterpiracy agenda Ulrik Trolle Smed and Anders Wivel This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Security 26(1): 79-98. Available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2016.1265941 ABSTRACT Today, small European states regularly need to go out of area and out of tried and tested institutional settings to defend their security interests. How do small European states meet this challenge most effectively? This analysis suggests that small states can influence multilateral decisions on international security by combining norm entrepreneurship with lobbying and taking on the role as an ‘honest broker’. However, economic capacity, an effective state administration and interests compatible with the agendas of the great powers are key to success. Based on a comprehensive empirical material including 19 elite interviews as well as official documents and other written material, we process trace how one small European state, Denmark, influenced the development of international counterpiracy cooperation and the development of an international counterpiracy strategy for the Gulf of Aden and off the Horn of Africa and discuss which lessons the Danish case may hold for other small states. -
Electronic Communication and an Oral Culture: the Dynamics of Somali Websites and Mailing Lists
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND AN ORAL CULTURE: THE DYNAMICS OF SOMALI WEBSITES AND MAILING LISTS BY ABDISALAM M. ISSA-SALWE A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THAMES VALLEY UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY CENTRE FOR INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND TECHNOLOGY THAMES VALLEY UNIVERSITY SUPERVISORS: DR. ANTHONY OLDEN, THAMES VALLEY UNIVERSITY EMERITUS PROFESSOR I M LEWIS, LSE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EXAMINERS: PROFESSOR CHRISTINE MCCOURT, THAMES VALLEY UNIVERSITY DR. MARTIN ORWIN, SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON NOVEMBER 2006 TO MY WIFE HAWO, MY CHILDREN MOHAMED-NASIR, MOHAMUD, ALI, HAFSA-YALAH, HAMDA, SHARMARKE AND YUSUF-HANAD ACKNOWLEDGMENT Foremost, I would like to thank to the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) who helped in funding my studies. I would like to thank my thesis advisors, Dr. Tony Olden (Thames Valley University) and Emeritus Professor I M Lewis (London School of Economics) for their continuous encouragement, optimism and confidence in me to make it possible to write this dissertation. Both Dr. Olden and Emeritus Professor Lewis put an enormous amount of time and effort into supervision. Likewise, this study has been enhanced through the incisive comments of Dr Stephen Roberts (Thames Valley University). I also appreciate the advice of Dr Mohamed D. Afrax and Abdullahi Salah Osman who read and commented on the manuscript of this dissertation. I am also thankful to Ahmed Mohamud H Jama (Nero) who allowed me to have useful material relevant to my research; Dr. Ebyan Salah who solicited female correspondents to reply to the research questionnaires. I am also grateful to Said Mohamed Ali (Korsiyagaab) and Ismail Said Aw-Muse (PuntlandState.com) who gave me permission to use their websites statistics. -
Somali Fisheries
www.securefisheries.org SECURING SOMALI FISHERIES Sarah M. Glaser Paige M. Roberts Robert H. Mazurek Kaija J. Hurlburt Liza Kane-Hartnett Securing Somali Fisheries | i SECURING SOMALI FISHERIES Sarah M. Glaser Paige M. Roberts Robert H. Mazurek Kaija J. Hurlburt Liza Kane-Hartnett Contributors: Ashley Wilson, Timothy Davies, and Robert Arthur (MRAG, London) Graphics: Timothy Schommer and Andrea Jovanovic Please send comments and questions to: Sarah M. Glaser, PhD Research Associate, Secure Fisheries One Earth Future Foundation +1 720 214 4425 [email protected] Please cite this document as: Glaser SM, Roberts PM, Mazurek RH, Hurlburt KJ, and Kane-Hartnett L (2015) Securing Somali Fisheries. Denver, CO: One Earth Future Foundation. DOI: 10.18289/OEF.2015.001 Secure Fisheries is a program of the One Earth Future Foundation Cover Photo: Shakila Sadik Hashim at Alla Aamin fishing company in Berbera, Jean-Pierre Larroque. ii | Securing Somali Fisheries TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, BOXES ............................................................................................. iii FOUNDER’S LETTER .................................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. vi DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................ vii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (Somali) ............................................................................................ -
Anti-Piracy Review Week 49 06 December 2011 Comprehensive Information on Complex Crises
CIVIL - MILITARY FUSION CEN TRE Anti-Piracy Review Week 49 06 December 2011 Comprehensive Information on Complex Crises INSIDE THIS ISSUE This document provides a weekly overview of developments in Anti-Piracy from 22 November—05 December 2011. Further information on the topics covered is available at www.cimicweb.org. Hyper- Economics links to source material are highlighted in blue and underlined in the text. We encourage you to con- International Response tact the Anti-Piracy Team Leader or our Subject-Matter Experts for more detailed information. Justice Security Erin Foster ► [email protected] Humanitarian Affairs—Somalia Economics Regional Issues—Somalia iracy off the coast of West Africa has Kenya’s Business Daily reports that Kenyan remained a major news item over the consumers will most likely not benefit from an ABOUT THE CFC P past two weeks, with the Integrated expected decrease in the cost of global sea The Civil-Military Fusion Centre Regional Information Networks (IRIN) report- trade. According to the article, the introduc- (CFC) is an information and ing that Benin has seen a 70% drop in local tion of new and larger vessels will decrease knowledge management ship activity. The International Maritime Or- shipping costs. However, analysts point to- organisation focused on improving ganization (IMO) Deputy Director of Mari- wards the added costs maritime piracy impos- civil-military interaction, facilitating time Safety, Chris Trelawny, told IRIN, “most es on the shipping industry as the reason no information sharing and enhancing attacks off Benin are directed at oil and energy decrease will be observed. In Kenya, addition- situational awareness through the tankers and are not only damaging local econ- al monthly fees for imports (USD 23.9 mil- CimicWeb portal and our weekly omies and threatening seafarers but could also lion) and exports (USD 9.8 million) are passed and monthly publications. -
Somalia: Al-Shabaab – It Will Be a Long War
Policy Briefing Africa Briefing N°99 Nairobi/Brussels, 26 June 2014 Somalia: Al-Shabaab – It Will Be a Long War I. Overview Despite the recent military surge against Somalia’s armed Islamist extremist and self- declared al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Shabaab, its conclusive “defeat” remains elusive. The most likely scenario – already in evidence – is that its armed units will retreat to small- er, remote and rural enclaves, exploiting entrenched and ever-changing clan-based competition; at the same time, other groups of radicalised and well-trained individ- uals will continue to carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks in urban areas, in- cluding increasingly in neighbouring countries, especially Kenya. The long connec- tion between Al-Shabaab’s current leadership and al-Qaeda is likely to strengthen. A critical breakthrough in the fight against the group cannot, therefore, be achieved by force of arms, even less so when it is foreign militaries, not the Somali National Army (SNA), that are in the lead. A more politically-focused approach is required. Even as its territory is squeezed in the medium term, Al-Shabaab will continue to control both money and minds. It has the advantage of at least three decades of Salafi-Wahhabi proselytisation (daawa) in Somalia; social conservatism is already strongly entrenched – including in Somaliland and among Somali minorities in neigh- bouring states – giving it deep reservoirs of fiscal and ideological support, even with- out the intimidation it routinely employs. An additional factor is the group’s proven ability to adapt, militarily and politically – flexibility that is assisted by its leadership’s freedom from direct accountability to any single constituency. -
Is India Ready for the Indo- Pacific?
Harsh V. Pant and Abhijnan Rej Is India Ready for the Indo- Pacific? One of the key geopolitical developments in 2017 was the first-ever formal enshrinement of the “Indo-Pacific” as a unified strategic theater in the U.S. National Security Strategy.1 Subsequently, the U.S. National Defense Strat- egy also adopted this terminology, suggesting buy-in across the Executive Branch.2 The development was arguably the result of the growing realization in Washing- ton, D.C., and other capitals that it cannot be business-as-usual going forward with China, given its increasingly assertive foreign policy since 2013. As analysts have noted, it is hardly an accident that this new term was introduced in the same document that officially termed China as a “revisionist” power for the first time.3 The idea of the Indo-Pacific received further validation when the quadrilateral security dialogue (colloquially, the quad)—involving the United States, Australia, Japan, and India—reconvened for the first time in a decade in Manila in Novem- ber 2017. Most significantly, in June 2018, the U.S. Pacific Command—one of the oldest and largest unified combatant commands—was renamed the U.S. Indo- Pacific Command while its area of responsibility remained the same. The normative significance of the formal adoption of this nomenclature for India cannot be overstated. The moniker firmly and officially situates India in U.S. grand strategy. The expansive maritime space that is the Indo-Pacific, per the U.S. definition, includes the Pacific and part of the Indian Ocean, up to India’s western coastline. -
Excluding Women: the Clanization of Somali Political Institutions
NUMBER 9 CMI BRIEF JULY 2020 Photo by Udey Ismail. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 Excluding women: the clanization of Somali political institutions AUTHORS Hawa Jibril, a poetess and a long-time activist for Somali Ladan Affi women’s rights, identified male elders as a barrier to Zayed University, Abu Dhabi women’s inclusion in the politics and governance of their society. In her 1962 poem, ‘the old men who hold us back’ Hawa recited “don’t you see these old men; who hold us back, let them not prevail over us” (Jibril 2008:151). Sixty years later, Somali women still face elders attempting to hold them back. This CMI Brief examines the effects of the political institutionalization of clan and its effects on women’s aspirations to participate in politics and outlines how Somali women have responded to these obstacles. 2 CMI BRIEF 2020:09 Bypassed by clan elders Institutionalization of the electoral process and gender Somali society is a patriarchal clan-based society, where lineage quota is traced through the father. Women are considered transient By the time of the 2016 election, the negative consequences members who belong to neither their father’s clan nor that of of giving the clan elders sole responsibility for selecting and their husband. These multiple clan connections are an asset appointing members of the parliament were made abundantly in building networks and community connections but has clear. Women’s civil society groups and the international simultaneously made it difficult for them to participate in the community pushed to have the problems from the 2012 clan-based politics of Somalia (Dini 2010:199-120). -
The Combined Maritime Forces Approach to Security Challenges in the Middle East and Indian Ocean
The Combined Maritime Forces Approach To Security Challenges In The Middle East And Indian Ocean Commodore Will Warrender RN Deputy Commander CMF Combined Maritime Forces Ready Together UNCLASSIFIED 1 Scope • Background • Strategic Context • Task Organisation and Missions • Recent Success • CMF Challenges Combined Maritime Forces Ready Together UNCLASSIFIED 2 Combined Maritime Forces The Coalition has grown and evolved to encompass and address commonly perceived threats to the member states and their values. 2015 CMF – Combined Maritime Forces CMFC: Combined Maritime Forces Central (+ maritime & joint) CNFC: Combined Naval Forces Central (reduced security enclave) GCTF: Global Counter Terrorism Force – Maritime (post 9/11) Coalition of states formed in response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 Combined Maritime Forces Ready Together UNCLASSIFIED 3 COMMANDER’S VISION A global maritime partnership aligned in common purpose To conduct Maritime Security Operations (MSO) To provide security and stability in the maritime environment To remain scalable, flexible and responsive to a changing environment Nations will never be asked a to do more than what national mandate allows MISSION STATEMENT Improve overall security and stability in the area of operations. Non-State Threat Focused Assist in the development of maritime capacity Intelligence-Driven building to help counter terrorist and piracy threats in the maritime area, Enduring If requested, respond to environmental and humanitarian crises. Combined Maritime Forces