Wefti uu Hogaaminayo Gudooomiye Ku-xigeenka Baarlamanka Kiiniya oo Somaliland Soo Gaadhay

Somaliland

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December 22, 2009

Hargeysa (Somalilandpress)- Wefti ka socda dalka Kenya oo ka kooban todoba xubnood, oo uu hoggaaminayo guddoomiye xigeenka Baarlamaanka Kenya Faarax Maxalin, ayaa maanta ka soo degay garoonka Cigaal International lee magaalada Hargeysa.

Wefttigan, ayaa la sheegay inay ku yimaadeen martiqaad uu siiyey baarlamaanka Somaliland, islamarkaana mudada ay joogaan ay kulammo kala duwan la yeelan doonaan Goleyaasha qaranka Somaliland.

Guddoomiye xigeenka Baarlamaanka Somaliland Cabdicasiis Maxamed Sammaale, ayaa imaatinkan weftigan saaka ka sheegay kal-fadhigii Golaha Wakiillada ee saaka, isagoo sheegay in maalinta khammiista soo socota ee todobaadkan weftiga ka socda Kenya ay kullan kula yeelan doonaan Xarunta Baarlamanka.

Guantanamo 'hell on Earth', says Somali detainee

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December 22, 2009

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HARGEISA, 22 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) — A Somali just home from eight years in the US jail at Guantanamo Bay told AFP the prison was “hell on Earth”, and alleged torture there had scarred some of his fellow inmates.

Mohamed Saleban Bare, who arrived in his hometown of Hargeisa on Saturday, said he was innocent of any charges that would have caused security forces to arrest him in Pakistan in 2001 and transfer him to the US jail via Afghanistan.

“Guantanamo Bay is like hell on Earth,” he said in an interview Monday with an AFP reporter who visited him at his hotel in Hargeisa, capital of the northern breakaway state of Somaliland.
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“I don’t feel normal yet but I thank Allah for keeping me alive and free from the physical and mental sufferings of some of my friends,” he said.

Sporting short hair and a long scrawny beard, Bare says he is in good physical health but looks dazed, speaks very softly and walks gingerly.

Bare, 44, was among a dozen Guantanamo detainees from Afghanistan, Yemen and the breakaway Somalia region who were sent home at the weekend, bringing the number of detainees at the “war on terror” prison in Cuba to below 200.

He and another Somali, 45-year-old Osmail Mohamed Arale, were handed over to their relatives in Hargeisa by the International Representative Committee of the Red Cross in the presence of Somaliland authorities.

“Some of my colleagues in the prison lost their sight, some lost their limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed. I’m OK compared to them,” he said.

Bare said he was picked up in the Pakistani port city of Karachi in December 2001, weeks after the United States launched its “war on terror” following the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.

He claims he had been there for some time with several relatives who had fled the violence in Somalia and were hoping to find asylum in a western state.

After about four months he was transferred to US military prisons in Kandahar and Bagram in Afghanistan, he said.

“At Bagram and Kandahar, the situation was harsh but when we were transferred to Guantanamo the torture tactics changed. They use a kind of psychological torture that kills you mentally,” he said.

This included depriving prisoners of sleep for at least four nights in a row and feeding them once a day with only a biscuit, he said.

“And in the cold they let you sleep without a blanket. Some of the inmates face harsher torture, including with electricity and beating,” he said.

Bare was reluctant to answer questions about his alleged ties with Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya, a Somali Islamist movement which produced many of the current leaders of the Al Qaeda-linked Shebab.

“Guantanamo is a place of humiliation for Muslims. All the inmates are Muslims but they (Americans) claim the prison is for terrorists. Why don’t they arrest non-Muslims belonging to these so-called terror groups?”

“No human rights convention stands in Guantanamo. Interrogators force inmates to confess crimes they didn’t commit by torturing them and sullying their religion,” Bare said.

“They would throw Korans into the toilet and raise the volume of their music during prayers,” he recounted.

Bare said the US authorities had never told him why he was arrested.

“They used to ask many questions, most of them relating to my background like what I was doing in Somalia and about the people I know. It was all about suspicions and not a clear case,” he said.

US President Barack Obama has vowed to close down the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility by January with some of the inmates to be moved to a maximum-security prison in the state of Illinois.

By Mustafa Haji Abdinur (AFP)

The Stories Of The Two Somalis Freed From Guantánamo

World

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December 22, 2009

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HARGEISA, 22 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald broke the news on Saturday that 12 prisoners have been released from Guantánamo. The news followed hints in the Washington Post on Friday that six Yemenis and four Afghans were set to leave, but Rosenberg — and the East African media — reported that the men had already been freed and that two Somalis were also released. I’ll be writing soon about the Afghans and the Yemenis, but for now I’d like to focus on the stories of the two Somalis: Mohammed Sulaymon Barre and Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad (identified as Ismael Arale).

Rosenberg reported that the two men “were processed by the Somaliland government and then released to rejoin their families in Hargeisa,” the capital of “the breakaway region in northern Somalia that has its own autonomous government.” She added, “The United States does not recognize the government in Somaliland and there were no official statements on how Arale and Barre arrived there. A local newspaper, the Somaliland Press, said they arrived aboard a jet provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross, suggesting that the United States had released the men to the Red Cross in a third country.”

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As President Obama attempts to close Guantánamo, with the administration recently announcing its intention of purchasing a prison in Illinois to hold some of the prisoners, the release of these two men — as with the overwhelming majority of releases from Guantánamo — yet again demonstrates how hysterical and unsubstantiated are Republican claims that Guantánamo is full of hardcore terrorists, as their stories demonstrate:

Seized in Pakistan: Mohammed Sulaymon Barre

Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, who was 37 years old at the time of his capture, was one of the first men to be seized in the “War on Terror.” As I explained in my book The Guantánamo Files, he had been living in Pakistan as a UN-approved refugee since fleeing his homeland during its ruinous civil war in the early 1990s, and was seized at his home in Karachi on November 1, 2001 “by police and intelligence agents who had made two previous visits to check his papers, and who seem, therefore, to have seized him on this third occasion because they were looking for easy targets to hand over to the Americans.”

As I also explained in The Guantánamo Files:

Barre worked from his home as the Karachi agent for the Dahabshiil Company, a Somali organization with branches around the world, which provides essential money transfer operations for the Somali diaspora. According to the Americans, Dahabshiil was “closely related to al-Barakat, a Somali financial company designated as a terrorism finance facilitator,” [which had been added to a US terrorism watch list and had its assets frozen]. Barre said that he knew nothing about this allegation, pointing out that his job only involved making small transactions on behalf of Somalis living in Pakistan.

In fact, as was noted in a report in 2004 [for a UN conference on Trade and Development], the enforced US-led closure of money transfer operations with suspected links to terrorism was “disastrous for Somalia, a country with no recognized government and without a functioning state apparatus. After the international community largely washed its hands of the country following the disastrous peacekeeping foray in 1994, remittances became the inhabitants’ lifeline. With no recognized private banking system, the remittance trade was dominated by a single firm (al-Barakat).” Crucially, the report added that, although the US authorities closed down al-Barakat in 2001, labeling it “the quartermasters of terror,” only four criminal prosecutions had been filed by 2003, “and none involved charges of aiding terrorists.”

Nevertheless, the authorities at Guantánamo — operating in a bubble of terror-related allegations that largely bore no relation to the realities of the outside world — had no time for Barre’s protestations of innocence. “I am convinced that your branch of the Dahabshiil company was used to transfer money for terrorism,” the presiding officer of his tribunal at Guantánamo told Barre in 2005. “What I am trying to find out is if you think maybe there were some people that were using your company and using your branch to transfer money, or whether you were just totally not paying attention.”

A year later, as the BBC reported in August 2006, al-Barakat had been removed from the US watchlist of terrorist organizations. The report explained that al-Barakat had been included on the watchlist because US intelligence analysts thought it had been used to finance the 9/11 hijackers, but the 9/11 Commission had investigated the claim and had found it baseless. In February 2009, in a report for the Washington Post, Peter Finn noted that, in the allegations against Barre at Guantánamo, Dahabshiil’s alleged ties to al-Barakat had been dropped by 2006, although even then the taint of the allegation was not entirely removed.

In a letter to the Post, an attorney for Dahabshiil was obliged to point out that the firm has “never been the subject of any investigation in relation to alleged terrorist funding” and that it “has no involvement whatsoever with money laundering or the funding or of terrorist organizations and … places the highest importance on money laundering compliance.” As the Post noted ruefully, “Dahabshiil should have been given an opportunity to comment for the article.”

Shorn of this central allegation, it is no wonder that, as Barre’s lawyers explained in a court filing in connection with his habeas corpus petition, the allegations against him have “varied dramatically.” In 2006, for example, presumably through a false allegation coerced from some other prisoner, the authorities claimed that he was not in Pakistan in 1994 and 1995 — despite the existence of UN papers documenting his meetings in Pakistan in those years — but was actually working in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Khartoum, Sudan, an allegation so worthless that his lawyers described it as “implausible and unsubstantiated.”

According to Emi MacLean of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Barre, most of his problems at Guantánamo stemmed from his opposition to the regime at prison, and his involvement in several hunger strikes. “If you were detained for seven years without charge and any fair process, you might be engaged in activities that would be considered disciplinary violations that are really protests for your detention,” she said.

The truth, as Barre himself noted at his tribunal in 2005, was that “A lot of interrogators said to me that … a lot of mistakes were made and they must be corrected. They told me many times that I am here by mistake.” Sadly, this was not enough to prevent him from suffering in Guantánamo, and also in US custody in Bagram before his transfer to Guantánamo in 2002, when, as he explained in his tribunal:

They interrogated me and one of the interrogators told me I was from al-Wafa [a Saudi charity that was also regarded with suspicion by the US authorities] and I needed to confess to that. You have no choice. I told them it wasn’t true. They pressured me. They whispered something then spoke to the guard. The guard came in, grabbed me by my neck and threw me. He took me in a bad way to isolation. All my blankets, except one, were taken from me. It was freezing cold. They didn’t feed me lunch and sometimes they didn’t feed me twice. At night it is very cold and if you don’t eat dinner it gets colder. This torture lasted fifteen to twenty days. My feet and hands were swollen. I wasn’t able to stand because I was in so much pain. I asked for treatment and an interrogator brought a nurse and asked if I wanted treatment. They told me they could cut my legs to stop the pain. They did this so I would confess to the accusations that I didn’t do. Nothing happened. After the torture ended, I met another interrogator who told me injustice was done to me and I didn’t have anything to do with this. He said he would do a report so I could go home. He told me I would be released. Suddenly, I was taken back to Kandahar and then to Cuba.

Seized in Djibouti: Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad

Unlike Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad was one of the last prisoners to arrive at Guantánamo, one of just six men flown to the prison after the arrival of 14 “high-value detainees” in September 2006. Identified by the Pentagon as Abdullahi Sudi Arale, he arrived with little fanfare in June 2007, and, as I explained in an article in September 2007:

Possibly … his arrival was little trumpeted because it involved the deliberately under-reported “War on al-Qaeda” in the Horn of Africa, and because the administration had very little information to offer about him. In almost questioning terms, Arale was described as a “suspected” member of “the al-Qaeda terrorist network in East Africa,” who served as “a courier between East Africa al-Qaeda (EAAQ) and al-Qaeda in Pakistan.”

In a press release, the DoD added that, after returning to Somalia from Pakistan in September 2006, he “held a leadership role in the EAAQ-affiliated Somali Council of Islamic Courts (CIC),” and noted, with distressing vagueness, that there was “significant information available” to indicate that Arale had been “assisting various EAAQ-affiliated extremists in acquiring weapons and explosives,” that he had “facilitated terrorist travel by providing false documents for AQ and EAAQ-affiliates and foreign fighters traveling into Somalia,” and that he had “played a significant role in the re-emergence of the CIC in Mogadishu.” Unmentioned, of course, was the subtext of the situation in Somalia: the role of the CIC in returning some semblance of order to one of the world’s least-governed countries, and the US government’s use of Ethiopia as a proxy army in yet another secret, dirty war.

It took some time for the truth about the Pentagon’s “distressing vagueness” to be explained, in part because the US authorities released no further information about him, and, in two and a half years, do not appear to have conducted a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, to ascertain whether he was correctly designated as an “enemy combatant.” However, when Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent dozens of Guantánamo prisoners, became involved, another narrative emerged, in which Muhammad not only had no connection to al-Qaeda, but was, in fact, “an English teacher and centrist political activist.”

Born in Mogadishu in 1970, Muhammad had remained in the capital throughout the civil war of the 1990s until the security situation deteriorated to such an extent that he moved north to Somaliland, establishing the first English school in the new country, and working as a journalist. In 1998, he traveled to Pakistan, where he studied English Literature at the International Islamic University, and became, as Reprieve described it, “a respected leader of the Somali community in the country.”

When his father died, he moved back to Mogadishu, “where the rule of the Union of Islamic Courts had brought relative stability to the war-torn capital,” but at the end of 2006, when, backed by the US, the Ethiopian Army invaded, he moved north one more. Opposed to the Ethiopian invasion, he was asked, “as a respected member of the community … to attend a conference in Eritrea aimed at organizing a political campaign” to ensure that the Ethiopians left.

It was while he was on his way to this conference that he was seized by local police in Djibouti, “apparently at the behest of the Americans.” Handed over to the US military, he was taken to Camp Lemonier, the US military base that played a key role in American interference in the Horn of Africa, where other prisoners have been held, possibly including an unknown number of “ghost prisoners.” There, as Reprieve explained, “he was held in a shipping container and interrogated by Americans.”

Compared to Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, Ismael Mahmoud Muhammad was fortunate that his wrongful imprisonment lasted for only two and a half years, but as the eighth anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo approaches, the release of these two men — neither of whom was cleared until the Obama administration’s inter-agency Task Force began its deliberations this year — demonstrates, yet again, that, when it comes to undoing the shameful legacy of Guantánamo, much work still remains to be done.

By Andy Worthington
Source: Axis Of Logic

African Union Envoy Says Al-Qa'idah Training Fighters In Somalia

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December 22, 2009

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MOGADISHU, 22 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – The insecurity in Somalia is fast turning into a global issue as Al-Qa’idah support transforms the once disorganized Al-Shabab insurgents into a “super terrorist group,” the African Union Mission in Somalia has warned.

“The situation is getting out of hand. It is going to affect everybody in this region, not only Somalia. But it looks like neighbouring countries are waiting for Al-Shabab attacks before they treat the situation as very serious,” said Wafula Wamunyinyi, deputy African Union representative to Somalia. He said Al-Qa’idah is increasingly turning to Somalia as NATO troops intensify pressure on its bases in Afghanistan.

Already, Al-Shabab has issued threats to bomb Kampala and Bujumbura, the only two countries with a peacekeeping force in Mogadishu. Sources close to Amisom [African Union Mission in Somalia] said that, with Al-Qa’idah logistical support at their disposal, the attacks could happen at the least expected time. Unlike previous and current militia factions in Somalia, Al-Shabab is not based on clans.

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A radical faction that emerged from the remnants of the Union of Islamic Courts routed by the Ethiopian forces that invaded Somalia in 2006, the group has with Al-Qa’idah’s help acquired the financial muscle to recruit globally. Amisom peacekeepers in the country say many Somali Americans, Somali Canadians, American nationals, Pakistani nationals, Afghan, Ugandan and Kenyan youths have been recruited into Al-Shabab and are receiving training from Al-Qa’idah commanders in suicide bombing, remote control roadside bombings and bomb manufacturing.

USA and Canadian intelligence, investigating a spate of recent disappearances of their Somali nationals, are concerned that these individuals, who hold genuine passports, will return home to spread terror after having received training from Al-Shabab. Reports show that already three American nationals have been killed fighting alongside Al-Shabab.

Pledges

In a recent confidence-building workshop for peacekeepers held in Kampala, Amisom called on AU members to fulfil their pledges made in 2007 to deploy their troops immediately. The countries had pledge to raise up to 8,000 troops but only Uganda and Burundi came through with 5,000 troops, leaving a shortfall of 3,000 troops.

“If we had 8,000 troops on the ground, the situation would have been quite different, because we are still in the first, Mogadishu phase. We are supposed to graduate from Mogadishu to Kismayo, and proceed to other areas in the north, but we are constrained by lack of troops; the solution to this problem lies in building local capacity,” said Amisom Force Commander Maj-Gen Nathan Mugisha.

Troops

Maj-Gen Mugisha said it will require at least 20,000 troops to maintain peace in a country where Al-Qa’idah has found a safe haven and Al-Shabab controls most of the 3,000-km long coastlines.

“They are now putting in training camps managed by Al-Qa’idah leaders. Till recently, they were an undisciplined lot, untrained, inexperienced. But now, they are being trained by experienced fighters, they are being trained in combat; they are being trained in terrorism – kidnappings and suicide bombings”. Mr Wamunyinyi said.

At the meeting, it was announced that Djibouti, a country with less than a million people, is ready to deploy troops while Uganda will add more men. If Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone also deploy quickly, it could make a crucial difference.

“The work that can be done by 20,000 now, if you leave it for two years, it will require 100,000,” Maj-Gen Nathan Mugisha said. As countries continue to delay deployment, the insurgents are becoming more organized on the ground and on the water as piracy increases by the day.

Said Maj-Gen Mugisha, “Unless we get stability on the land, a government that is fully in control, we cannot fight piracy effectively – the coastline of Somali is over 3000km, so where are you going to start from? You need the co-operation of local people who know who is who, who can tell us who is on the water, because they have to come back to land,” he said.

He said Amisom’s limited achievements so far include making internal entry ports safer, with commercial flights now landing; securing over 440 ships and dhows from pirates; and facilitating peace talks.

Indeed, he said, being in Mogadishu itself is an achievement – should the Amisom troops pull out, it will be extremely difficult for any other force to deploy in Mogadishu.

Source: The EastAfrican standard

The Outrageous Mooryaan: Mr. Togane.

Opinions

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December 21, 2009

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Dear Naima Adan,
I read your article entitled, “Response to Portrait of the Canadian As Warya by Mohamud S. Togane” published on wardheernews website.

While I encourage you to write more, giving you constructive criticism and feedback will only transform you into a powerful writer. And it is these invaluable inputs which will reshape your thinking and perhaps influence your next paper which I look forward to reading.

With that in mind, I must say Mohamud Siad Togane or the educated Mooryaan (anachronistic) is outrageous. He is offensive, daring, provocative, and audacious. He is also hilarious, creative, intelligent, and thoughtful. Furthermore, he is a devoted religious man yet so devilish. Never have I heard before someone so outrageous yet as righteous as Mr. Togane.

However, his article entitled, “Portrait of the Canadian As Warya” was far from offensive. If anything, it in fact showed how people could succeed despite the nightmares they went through. It was an inspiring piece for those of us who want to succeed. A case in point: the success story of Isaac, Mr. Togone’s buddy, was impressive.

Surprisingly, Mr. Togane didn’t mention the mindless Mooryaans wrecking havoc in Canada and U.S. Let me give you an example: 20 years ago when you see a young Somali man you would approach him and say: “Warya”. Today when you see one, you would duck in as if you were dodging a silver bullet inscribed with your name.

Canada gives these Somali men an opportunity to better themselves. And what do they do instead? Act like gangsters and shoot one another. A month doesn’t pass that you don’t hear: “Another young Somali man is shot dead”. Guess who is killing them: it is not the H1N1; it is not the KKK; and it is not the Aryan Nation or the Neo Nazis either. It is none other than other Somali men who are murdering these young Somali men.

Now, some cash-hungry social workers, community leaders, and animal rights groups might say: “These are just young men who have been brought up in a single-mother home. They never have had a male role model in their life”. That is baloney! Why? The truth is: this missing male role model is not in Somalia. He sits in the Tim Horton coffee shops in Canada for endless hours as Mr. Togane himself pointed out in his article.

Additionally, some Somali fathers—politician wannabes—who spend most of their time at the Tim Horton coffee shops may argue that the system doesn’t offer their sons an equal opportunity and these young men are marginalised. Well, what goes around comes around, doesn’t it?

In all the Somali regions of East Africa, we marginalize and discriminate our own Somalis because of their tribes; so why would I feel sorry for any Somali that the white man discriminates. Perhaps, we Somalis are having a test of our bitter medicine. As Somalis say, “Dacar ninkii walaaqaa layidhaahdaa dha dhami; or you ask the person who stirs the liquid from poisonous wild plants (Dacar) to have a test of the poison.” So for any Somali person in the Diaspora who whines about discrimination—I shed no tears for you. Xejiso waa markaagiiye; or it is your turn to face discrimination, so stay strong.

That is, to a certain degree facing discrimination and marginalization are true. But if they [young Somali men] feel alienated what incentives do they get from bludgeoning one another to death? The challenges they face supposed to give them the extra energy to push harder.

Let’s not blame the system; but, ourselves. For example, today I am not a millionaire. It is not because the system has been holding me back, but it is because I chose not be a millionaire; I don’t have a PHD either because I chose not have it. I settle for jobs that don’t pay well because I chose to do so. I don’t worry about discrimination because I discriminate my own people based on their tribal lineage. If I could chose my destiny and my evil acts so could everybody else. Life is all about choices.

Just as my success associate with me—not with the system—so too my failure stay with me. The system will only fail me if I allow it to do so.

Also, the Somali young men back home have never seen peace. On the other hand, the ones in Canada who have never witnessed a war murder one another at will. Some of them are over 30 years old. In fact, a 36 years old Somali man shot dead a 21 years old Somali man in Edmonton because a drug deal went wrong.

Also, in 2006 I met a group of Mooryaans acting like gangsters in Toronto. To my surprises, one of the Mooryaans used be a captain in the Somali National Army. He was around 40 years old; yet he was acting like a gangster and hanging around with 17 years old boys. Wonder what the excuse would be for this middle-age man to become a menace to himself and to society! For reasons that baffle the sane people, the 40-year-old man was trapped in a 17 year-old boy’s mentality.

Just watch this video clip which demonstrates how mindless Mooryaans act when they get an opportunity to better themselves. The video will appear after the advertisement is finished.
http://www.lasanod.com/details.php?num=3112

Coming back to the drawing board, I am disappointed with Mr. Togane that he has not addressed these mindless raccoons that are turning the streets of Canadian cities into a warzone. Shame on you: Mr. Togane!

Also, associating the Mogadishu terrorists and warlords’ savage behaviours to anachronism and cannibalism is an underestimation. Why? I have more respect for those who practice cannibalism than mindless Mooryaans in Mogadishu. To portray Mooryaans’ shameless destructive role as cannibalism is outrageous and a total disrespect to those who practice cannibalism around the world. Mr. Togane owes an apology to the communities around the globe that still practice cannibalism. How dare you compare the reckless Mooryaans’s behaviour to cannibalism

On a positive note: I salute the countless hard-working young Somali men—the ambassadors of our society and their devoted parents who won’t take their eyes off their kids. Equally, the courageous Somali women—the breadwinners of our society back home—and the jewels of our Diaspora communities deserve standing ovation.

Luckily, Somali girls in Diaspora remain successful. Somehow the “system” does not discriminate them; nor do they bludgeon one another to death. While they enrol in Universities, their male counterparts spend time in the notorious prisons in North America.

By the way, see some of my articles and my opposition to the terrorists and Mooryaans of Muqdisho or Muuqdisho.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/4458

Thank you,

Dalmar Kaahin
dalmar_k@yahoo.com

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Views expressed in the opinion articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the editorial

SOMALIA: Radio station and TV satellite destroyed; one dead.

World

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December 21, 2009

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New York, December 21, 2009—Mortar shells destroyed the Radio Voice of Democracy building this morning in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing Amal Abukar, 22, the wife of the director of the station, Abdirahman Yasin. Abukar died instantly after three mortar shells landed on the station’s building in northern Mogadishu at 10:30 a.m., local journalists told CPJ. Yasin and a producer, Adam Hussein, were injured in the attack.

Yasin was hit by shrapnel in his right leg and Hussein sustained a kidney injury; both journalists received treatment at a local hospital and are recovering, local journalists said. No one claimed responsibility for the shelling. Local journalists told CPJ they believe the station was caught in crossfire between insurgents, government soldiers, and African Union peacekeepers after insurgents fired mortars near the parliament building, according to local news reports.

On Sunday, mortar shells hit the newly constructed satellite dish and antenna for Shabelle Television, a new station, the management of Shabelle Media Network reported. It is unclear whether the shelling was a targeted attack, local journalists said. The station has remained off the air since.
“We send our deepest condolences to the director of Radio Voice of Democracy, Abdirahman Yasin, and to all the staff of both media outlets,” CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes said today. “CPJ calls on all sides of the conflict to be aware of the presence of journalists and to ensure their safety.”
In the northeast semi-autonomous region of Puntland, the Puntland Intelligence Service arrested Voice of America correspondent Mohamed Yasin and took him to the capital city, Garowe, according to local journalists. Roughly 30 security agents visited Yasin’s home in Galkayo Sunday evening, local journalists said. He is now being held at the Puntland Intelligence Service offices, they told CPJ. The reason for the arrest is still unknown although local journalists said they suspect it may be due to Yasin’s report on displaced Somali citizens who complained of mistreatment in Puntland. A police officer fired at Yasin’s car on November 17 at a checkpoint in front of the regional governor’s office, according to the Media Association of Puntland.
CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.

Guantanamo 'hell on Earth', says Somali detainee

World

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December 21, 2009

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HARGEISA, Somaliland — A Somali just home from eight years in the US jail at Guantanamo Bay told AFP Monday the prison was “hell on Earth”, and alleged torture there had scarred some of his fellow inmates.

Mohamed Saleban Bare, who arrived in his hometown of Hargeisa on Saturday, said he was innocent of any charges that would have caused security forces to arrest him in Pakistan in 2001 and transfer him to the US jail via Afghanistan.

“Guantanamo Bay is like hell on Earth,” he told AFP in the town, capital of the breakaway state of Somaliland.

“I don’t feel normal yet but I thank Allah for keeping me alive and free from the physical and mental sufferings of some of my friends,” he said.