Barclays Bank has been criticised by the UK’s leading think tank on international development for its decision to close its 250 money-transfer businesses in Somalia.

The decision was described by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) as “unwarranted, unnecessary and a threat” to people in need.

The ODI has said it is possible to maintain cash transfers to Somalia while monitoring them to avoid a diversion of funds. Its president Kevin Watkins cited new research showing that a transfer scheme worth £57m, set up in response to the 2011 famine, went through to help almost 1million people without falling into the wrong hands.

Barclays took the decision to cut its money service businesses (MSBs) from the end of September to avoid the risk of falling victim of money-laundering regulations and “unwittingly be facilitating […] terrorist financing”.

About £800m in remittances – a significant part of the country’s GDP – is channelled to the country by the 1.5m Somalis living overseas thanks to the hawala, or small money-transfer businesses. An estimated £320m is sent to Somalia by the UK’s Somali diaspora alone, which far exceeds international aid.

British MP Rushanara Ali, who campaigned to keep the money flowing, said banks “are scared of the impact if they fall foul of the regulators”. The case often cited is the UK’s HSBC bank that was fined £1.2bn for “blatant failure” to implement anti-money laundering controls.

However, Watkins said that the HSBC case “is a weak analogue for Barclays engagement in Somalia”. The British bank, indeed, was charged with allowing £429bn in wired transfers from Mexico, of which at least £564m were associated with drug trafficking. But such activities “are hardly comparable to the operations of the hawala system and money transfer agencies,” Watkins wrote in his letter to Antony Jenkins, group chief executive for Barclays Bank.

“There is a world of difference between providing aid banking services to drug barons in Mexico and delivering a service that pays for health, education, food, housing materials and small enterprises in Somalia,” he wrote. “If aid agencies can find a way to operate efficiently in Somalia then surly it’s not beyond the capability of Barclays.”

The campaign against Barclays shutdown included Olympic gold winner Mo Farah, who came to the UK at the age of eight from war-torn Mogadishu. The runner urged his 800,000-plus Twitter followers to support “vital” money flows to families in Somalia.

 “It is so important that the government and the banks realise the incredibly serious threat this poses, and work with the remittance industry to find a solution,” he told the BBC.

“Millions of Somalis as well as people across the developing world depend on it.”

Dahabshiil, the largest money transfer business providing services to Somalia, has said Barclays’ decision could see money transfers pushed into the hands of “unregulated and illegal providers”.

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail:g.mezzofiore@ibtimes.co.uk 
To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.co.uk

Source: IB TIMES

The Twitter account of Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents was suspended Friday, the second time this year the Islamists have been pushed off the site.

A message from Twitter on the English-language @HSMPress1 account read that the account was suspended, without elaborating.

In a statement sent to AFP, the group denounced the suspension as “futile”.

“Our account has been closed in another futile attempt to silence the truth and the factual coverage of events in Somalia,” the group said.

Earlier this week the group used the site to claim they had ambushed the convoy of war-torn Somalia’s internationally backed President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Somalia’s presidency played down the incident, describing it as as IED explosion far from the convoy.

“Next time, you won’t be as lucky,” the Islamists tweeted after their attack, which the president escaped unharmed.

Twitter warns that accounts can be suspended if users publish “direct, specific threats of violence against others”.

Users are also blocked if they use Twitter “for any unlawful purposes or in furtherance of illegal activities”.

The Shebab’s previous account, @HSMPress, was suspended in January after the group posted photographs of a French commando they killed and threatened to execute Kenyan hostages.

The Shebab statement said the group presently had no other active Twitter feeds and warned users to beware of “parody accounts”.

MOGADISHU – Somalia said on Friday that international investigators commissioned by its government had cleared it of corruption accusations leveled by United Nations monitors.

The Horn of Africa country is striving to shake off the tag of one of the world’s most corrupt nations as it emerges from two decades of conflict and lawlessness.

In July, the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea said Mogadishu’s central bank had become a “slush fund” for political leaders and that the current governor played a central role in irregularities surrounding unaccountable disbursements of cash.

“What is crystal clear is that the Monitoring Group’s allegations have no basis in fact,” the Somali government said in its formal response to the U.N. report dated August 30 but released on Friday.

There was no immediate comment from the U.N. monitors.

The Mogadishu government said it had commissioned FTI Consulting, whose chairman for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region is British peer Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, and a U.S. law firm to investigate the findings.

Central Bank of Somalia Governor Abdusalam Omer has denied the allegations against him, branding them malicious.

“The Monitoring Group’s obsessive and unrelenting attacks on Central Bank Governor Omer that he was complicit in pervasive corrupt activities are contrary to all of the evidence uncovered by the investigative team,” the government statement said.

It accused the U.N. monitoring team of failing to make contact with key officials and gather a complete body of evidence before making its accusations.

Somalia is persistently ranked the world’s most corrupt country on Transparency International’s index of perceived graft.

Cleaning up management of public finances is a top priority of the Mogadishu government, although leading Western donors say it is too early to provide direct budgetary assistance.

Instead, nearly all aid is channeled through the United Nations and charities.

Asked if his government trusted the government, one senior diplomat dealing with Somalia told Reuters: “Politically we trust them, yes. Do we trust them with taxpayer money? Not yet. But our risk appetite is going up.”

Source:Reuters

African Refugees Try to Warm Up to Bandy, a Cousin of Hockey

By NICLAS ROLANDER

BORLÄNGE, Sweden—Sports fans whose heartstrings were tugged by the Jamaican bobsled team back in the 1980s may have a new underdog to pull for as a group of Somali men living in Sweden look to master the fast-paced and ice-cold game of bandy.

It is a form of larger-scale ice hockey popular in the Nordic countries and Russia that is played by 11-man teams on soccer-size ice fields, usually outdoors. Unlike hockey, bandy isn’t a body-checking contact sport, but skaters move at furiously high speeds and the hard plastic ball used instead of a puck can whiz very fast past a player’s face.

Team Somalia’s coach, Per Fosshaug, a fiery Swedish bandy legend, once held the unofficial bandy record and was able to fire shots at more than 100 miles an hour into the top corners of the bandy goal.

The objectives of the game are the same as in ice hockey; the main differences are the larger surface, more players and a ball instead of a puck.

About two dozen young Somali hopefuls don’t have a lot of time to master the game. Living in central Sweden, the players are hoping to be the first team from Africa to compete in the world championships.

“It’s an amazing thing to get a chance to represent your country,” said Najib Farhan, a 16-year-old Somali.

The 2014 World Bandy Championships are to start in late January in the Eastern Siberian city of Irkutsk, which boasts record low temperatures of 57.5 degrees below zero. Some bandy leagues abide by temperature rules that allow games to be called on account of cold, but in the World Championships, temperatures have to drop to at least 22 below before a postponement is even considered. It helps to dress in layers, with some Gore-Tex to protect players racing about at 30 mph from the wind.

Players on Team Somalia have no illusions about their chances. “We will probably lose by a hundred goals,” said Mr. Farhan, after one of the team’s first practices. “But we will do our best.”

Mr. Fosshaug’s attempt to quickly whip a team into shape is proving that the task isn’t going to be easy. Most of his charges have never skated and some haven’t been in Sweden for more than six months. At their first training in June in Sweden’s picturesque Dalarna region, aspiring players struggled just to stay upright on roller blades, which were being used as training wheels to prepare them for ice skates.

As Mr. Fosshaug gave instructions to pupils about flexibility of limbs and the importance of using the gluteus maximus for leverage, his players were clinging to one another, trying not to fall.

In an impromptu 40-meter race, or about 44 yards, there were lots of flailing arms as beginners tried to maintain their balance. Almost half the field ended up on the ground, some having to crawl to make it past the finish line. As the Somali trainees strained to learn, Swedish children who shared the course were gliding around, completely at ease on their roller blades and bemused by their fellow skaters.

The Somali bandy experiment originated when a business consultant named Patrik Andersson was out drinking with friends one night and talking about the challenge immigrants face in Sweden. Mr. Andersson’s hometown of Borlänge has 40,000 people, and 3,000 of them are from Somalia, most of them refugees who fled war and poverty in their home country. Many of them interact very little with the Swedes. Unemployment is high among the Somalis.

Bandy fan Magnus Ståhl is a proxy for the local bandy fanaticism. He has the sports club badge of Edsbyns IF tattooed on his arm and says the game means “everything” to his village, population 4,000, 75 miles north of Borlänge.

The team has won nine Swedish titles and at the height of its success had average attendance of 2,000 at home games. But it is very uncommon to see immigrants play bandy, Mr. Ståhl said, and audiences are pretty homogeneous, reminiscent of Swedish life in the 1950s, before a half century of immigration diversified the nation of 9.6 million people.

Looking to shake up the sport’s exclusivity, Mr. Andersson’s group took the idea to the Federation of International Bandy, which is eager to bring the game to new nations. It needs broader participation if it is to someday secure a slot for bandy in the Olympics. The federation’s secretary-general Bo Nyman said the idea seemed “a bit too fantastic” when it was first broached to him. But after several meetings, he became convinced it could work. He went to Montenegro in mid-July and got an official green light for the Somali effort at the Federation’s Executive Committee annual meeting.

Bandy evangelists face a challenge, however, given the dominance of soccer here in Sweden.

“I’ve coached a youth team, and I’ve only had one player who was an immigrant,” Mr. Ståhl said. And the player quit to play soccer. “He was good, but that was the first and only time I’ve seen an immigrant play bandy in Edsbyn.”

He has seen some of the sport’s international stragglers, though, and wasn’t impressed. The Netherlands had a training camp in the area and played a game in Edsbyn, but the Dutch players were ill-equipped for the match.

“They didn’t even have a full team. One of my colleagues, who used to play bandy, had to join them as a goalkeeper,” Mr. Ståhl said.

Bandy is merciless. A team with superior skating skills can run roughshod over lesser opponents. The last time the U.S. national bandy team played at the top level of the World Championship, they were beaten 15-0 by Sweden and 19-3 by Russia.

Still, the Somali pioneers in Borlänge are enthusiastic.

Mohammed Ahmed, 17, who was one of a small Somali delegation that traveled to Stockholm earlier this year to watch the national final, was impressed by the atmosphere at the game. One of five Somalis in a crowd of nearly 40,000, the novice spectator found bandy to be a bit hard to follow. It takes a trained eye to be able to follow the small pink ball or anticipate the pace of play.

Hassan Osman, one of the leaders of the local Somali football club who is now learning bandy, said about all he could make out was “a lot of players moving in all different directions.”

Mr. Ahmed, studying at an introduction program for immigrants, said that although the trip to Stockholm was a great experience, “it would have been even cooler if it were a soccer game.”

Mr. Fosshaug, the coach, is approaching this project with a healthy dose of patience. “I don’t have any expectations of them firing a shot into the top corner,” he said. “But there are other top corners to aim for, whether in the labor market, in family life or in the community.”

More than $215 million a year is sent to Somalia by relatives in the United States, with much of that originating in Minnesota.

The process, which involves sending cash through money-transfer operators, is known as remittance and has become the subject of controversy amid concerns that the money could be used to fund terrorist activities.

On Friday, several nongovernment organizations will be holding a briefing in Minneapolis to talk about a recently released report on the importance of opening up the markets for remittance, including recommending improvements on how the money is monitored.

The money sent from the United States is comparable to the amount the U.S. government sends in foreign aid to Somalia each year. Minnesota is home to the largest U.S. Somali community and the starting point for much of that flow. Those with family in Somalia have said their relatives would have trouble surviving without the money send to them.

U.S. Bank earlier this year agreed to open an account with one money-transfer operation that will allow Minnesotans to send money to Somalia. But it has yet to conduct a transaction, and other banks have grown hesitant to participate. Fearful of liability and uncertain that the money goes to where it is claimed, they’ve closed their accounts with the Somali-American-owned money-transfer operations. The British banking giant Barclays recently announced it was closing its accounts with Somali-connected remittance companies, citing inadequate controls for monitoring the money.

The report, “Keeping the Lifeline Open,” argues that the flow of cash, despite isolated problems, is vital to the stability of Somalia and that even a partial shutdown of the money-transfer operators threatens the country’s future.

“Sending money to Somalia presents risks to banks, but these risks are neither unique nor insurmountable,” the report concludes. The report will be discussed at Safari Restaurant, 3010 4th Av. S. in Minneapolis, from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday.

By Mark Brunswick

Source: StarTribune

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, warning that Somalia could slide back into being a failed state, called Tuesday on countries around the world to provide the African Union-led peacekeeping force there with attack helicopters and armored troop carriers to take the fight to Al-Shabab militants in the field.

The U.N. chief called on U.N. members, including African countries not yet involved, to provide the African Union-led peacekeeping force with attack helicopters, armored troop carries and other support to root out the al-Qaida-allied Al-Shabab.

“The political, security and development gains made so far in Somalia are still reversible,” Ban said in a report to the Security Council. The al-Qaida-allied terrorist group Al-Shabab “continues to undermine security throughout the country, including in Mogadishu.”

“Allowing Al-Shabab to continue its training and conduct terrorist activities from bases in Somalia will not only undermine peace in Somalia, but also that of the wider region,” he said.

The AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia — known as AMISOM — is endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and is meant to pave the way for an eventual U.N. peacekeeping force. It is led by Ugandan officers, and also has large Kenya and Burundi contingents. It has more than 17,000 troops.

The United Nations has especially been stung since Al-Shabab attacked the U.N. compound in Mogadishu on June 19, killing a U.N. Development Program staffer, thee U.N. contractors, four Somali guards and at least six Somali bystanders. It was the first direct attack on a U.N. building in Somalia since 2008.

Since then, the international aid group Doctors Without Borders has pulled out of Somalia, citing increasing dangers there.

Somalia has long been plagued by cyclical drought and famine and decades of armed conflict. But in recent years it has been seen as making strides in security and governance, particularly since August 2011, when al-Qaida-aligned militants were forced out of Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab militants still control much of the country’s south.

Source: AP

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) Chatting women sitting outside makeshift homes at night is a new scene in a once-dark refugee camp in the Somali capital. In a city where darkness brings the threat of attack, recently installed solar lights are helping to ward off sexual assault.

Women living in Mogadishu’s hundreds of refugee camps often stay and don’t use communal bathrooms at home at night because of the threat men armed with knives and guns pose to them. With the installation of 79 solar-powered lights by the Danish Refugee Council in a camp known as Zone K, life has returned to Mogadishu’s nights.

“It feels like we are starting a new life,” Sadiya Hussein, a mother of four, said while resting with other women on a sandy spot near their homes, which are made out of sheet metal or sticks and cloth. “Because of the lights we can come together to chat and get some fresh air. No rapist can sneak in now. It’s fully lit and better.”

Since a devastating famine struck Somalia in 2011, refugee camps in Mogadishu have held tens of thousands of people fleeing both hunger and violence. The number of rapes rose sharply, making the simple act of going to the bathroom a life-risking activity.

“They simply came and waited for women between their house and bathrooms,” said Fatima Nor, who said she was once attacked but escaped when her husband intervened. “We really feel a little bit safer than before. I think having light scares the predators.”

Mohamed Bundu, the Mogadishu director for the Danish Refugee Council, said that in addition to the extra security the May installation of the lights brought, they are also helping children study and businesses attract customers.

“All the criminal acts that were often committed because of the darkness have considerably gone down,” he said.

The 79 lights erected on tall poles in the Mogadishu camp cost about $2,000 each.

Heather Amstutz, the regional director for the Danish Refugee Council, said the group has also installed solar lights in northern Somalia. The projects ask for buy-in from the communities they serve, which reduces the threat of vandalism or theft. The projects are paid for by U.N. funds.

The lights “add five productive hours to these small settlements. Kids can study by the light, the vendors are selling their vegetables by the lights,” she said.

A U.N. monitoring group report on Somalia published last month said there are 530 camps in Mogadishu housing internally displaced people, 75 percent of whom are women and children who are particularly vulnerable to sexual attacks. The report said officials recorded 1,700 reported rapes between January and November 2012.

The report said there were probably more attacks that weren’t reported and that the number of reported rapes was higher than previous years.

Attackers frequently wear government police or military uniforms, though the government has consistently denied its forces are responsible.

Despite the positive impact of the solar lights, one past sexual violence victims says she still doesn’t feel safe.

“I see that the lights are helpful but they cannot, sadly, prevent the rapists from coming,” the veiled 30-year old woman said while standing at the door of her home. “We are still exposed to the rape attacks because no one protects us.”

Salad Ahmed, a 40-year old father of six, feels the lights are beneficial. Most camp residents can’t fight back against attackers who wield guns or knives during attacks. Ahmed, though, has an axe and sword to protect his wife.

“The more you can see your enemy the more you can plan how you should engage him,” he said.

Source: AP

MOGADISHU (AFP) – Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud escaped unhurt Tuesday from an ambush on his heavily armoured convoy claimed by Al-Qaeda linked Islamists, the latest attack targeting the internationally backed leader.

Shebab gunmen claimed to have ambushed the convoy as it travelled to the port of Merka south of the capital and boasted of destroying vehicles with rocket-propelled grenades.

But officials said that the attack had failed and all in the presidential entourage were safe.

“Gunmen tried to disrupt the president’s trip … but I can confirm the president and his delegation are well and reached their final destination Merka to have meetings with local community,” said Somali army official Mohamed Qorey, speaking by telephone from Merka.

The president was travelling in an armoured convoy from the 17,700-strong African Union force (AMISOM) that fights alongside the Somali army against Shebab gunmen.

“We ambushed a convoy that was escorting the self-appointed Somali president,” Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab told AFP.

The attack took place near the small settlement of Buffow, close to Merka, a former Shebab stronghold captured one year ago around 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the capital.

“The presidential convoy was attacked but they have continued after about 15 minutes of heavy gunfire,” said Ibrahim Adan, a resident of Buffow.

Diplomatic sources played down the attacks saying it had consisted of little more than a roadside bomb.

Residents in Merka said Mohamud appeared in the port, greeting officials and residents as he toured the town.

“He was fine and well, meeting the people who had come to see him,” said Nasir Abdirahmam, a resident of Merka.

Somalia’s weak central government, selected in a UN-backed process in August 2012, has made some progress in Mogadishu but has little concrete influence outside the capital.

The government was the first to be given global recognition since the collapse of Somalia’s hardline regime in 1991.

But the authorities have been dealt a number of setbacks in recent months, including a string of Shebab attacks, accusations of rape against the army and AU soldiers and a pull-out by aid workers because of a wave of kidnappings and killings.

Shebab fighters in May 2012 ambushed the convoy of Mohamud’s predecessor, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, but the president escaped unharmed.

More recently, Shebab fighters have carried out a series of bombings, attacks and killings aimed at overthrowing the government.

UN Monitoring Group reports in July estimated the Shebab are still some 5,000 strong, and said they remain the “principal threat to peace and security to Somalia”.

In June, Shebab suicide commandos carried out a brazen daylight attack on a fortified United Nations compound, and in July a suicide car bomber attacked a Turkish embassy complex in the city.

Last month Doctors Without Borders — an aid agency that has earned a reputation for working in the toughest of conditions — closed all its operations in the war-torn country, warning of growing insecurity.

Source: AFP

September 2nd, 2013 | by Jack Serle and Alice K Ross

One strike in Pakistan ends 34-day stretch without an attack.

Yemen sees more strikes in a month than any time since March 2012.

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières pulls out of Somalia.

Pakistan

August 2013 actions

All actions 2004 – August 31 2013

A Bureau investigation appears to confirm the CIA briefly revived its controversial tactic of deliberately targeting rescuers. The Bureau first exposed these so-called ‘double-tap‘ strikes in February 2012. The new study focussed mainly on strikes around a single village in early summer of 2012, aimed at one of the last remaining senior al Qaeda figures, Yahya al Libi.

US Secretary of State John Kerry started the month with a visit to Islamabad in which he said drone strikes in Pakistan would end ‘very, very soon’. This statement was quickly taken back by the Department of State. A spokesman said: ‘In no way would we ever deprive ourselves of a tool to fight a threat if it arises.’

On August 31 CIA drones killed four alleged militants from the Islamic Movement of Turkmenistan. Locals said they were foreigners affiliated with militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur. It was the only strike in the month.

The lull in strikes this month in Pakistan came as an international security alert centred on Yemen led to a reported shift in focus from Pakistan’s tribal areas to the Middle East. Yemeni officials claimed a Pakistani bomb-maker had been killed in the sudden surge of Yemen strikes aftercrossing into the country.

Also in August, the Pakistan government said there had been a tacit understanding between Washington and Islamabad over drone strikes, not a written agreement – although it did not say when the understanding had started, or whether it was still in place. This came in response to questions in the National Assembly. The Pakistan government also came under pressure in the Punjab assembly, which adopted a resolution condemning drone strikes.

Yemen

August 2013 actions

All actions 2002 – August 31 2013*

* All but one of these actions have taken place during Obama’s presidency. Reports of incidents in Yemen often conflate individual strikes. The range in the total strikes and total drone strikes we have recorded reflects this.

A terror alert centred on Yemen gripped the US in August leading to six confirmed drone strikes. The US closed 21 diplomatic missions in the Middle East and east Africa in a move that one counter-terrorism expert called ‘crazy pants‘.

August saw the highest number of confirmed drone strikes since March 2012 when the Sanaa-based government, with considerable US air support, drove al Qaeda out of its southern and central provinces.

Of the 22-43 people killed, three were said to be senior militants. Alleged commanders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Saleh al Tays al Waeli and Saleh Ali Guti (aka Saleh Jouti) reportedly died on August 6, while Qaid Ahmad Nasser al Dhahab, described as AQAP’s ‘spiritual leader’ was killed in a night-time precision attack that was likely to be a drone strike on August 30.

Six civilians were reportedly killed, three children among them: two were adolescents, Hussain, 16, and Hassan, 17. The name and age of the third child is not known.

The unusual intensity of the drone strikes appears to support reports suggesting that restrictive new targeting rules, introduced at the time of President Obama’s major speech on drones in May, were relaxed in the face of the ‘elevated threat‘. A senior US official told the New York Times the list of people who could be targeted was increased: ‘Before, we couldn’t necessarily go after a driver for the organization; it’d have to be an operations director. Now that driver becomes fair game because he’s providing direct support to the plot.’

The exact details of the plot – believed to be the work of AQAP – are unknown. However President Hadi told Yemeni police cadets that it involved two huge car bombs, one intended for an oil terminal and the other a target in the capital.

Somalia

August 2013 actions

All actions 2007 – August 31 2013

There were again no recorded US attacks in Somalia this month.

Médecins Sans Frontières announced it was ending all operations in the country after over 20 years of continuous work.

The medical charity said it was pulling out because of ‘extreme attacks on its staff in an environment where armed groups and civilian leaders increasingly support, tolerate, or condone the killing, assaulting, and abducting of humanitarian aid workers.’ Sixteen MSF workers have been killed in Somalia since 1991 and just last month two kidnapped MSF staff were released after 21 months in captivity.

It also emerged that six major British financial institutions are evaluating their investments with BT following allegations by legal charity Reprieve that the telecoms giant had supplied communications infrastructure that was used to target drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen. BT has the $23m (£15m) contract to provide telecommunications between RAF Croughton and Camp Lemonnier, the US base in Djibouti from which drone strikes in the countries are flown.

Follow Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

Source: Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Only spoilers win if Barclays shuts shop for remittances

There will be many losers if, at the end of this month, Barclays enforces its decision to close shop for the Somali money transfer agencies holding accounts with the bank. Barclays is the last of the UK banks to respond with such caution to stringent anti-money laundering regulation introduced since 9/11. Because it has been, until now, the only bank willing to continue risking sanction, the remittances it handles have become a vital lifeline for Somalis.

Diaspora Somalis send about $1.3bn back home every year, roughly $500m of which comes from the UK. This is the only source of income for many Somalis. In the absence of a functioning banking system, aid agencies depend on the transfer agencies to get cash to where it is needed. Moreover, cash transfers, according to research to be published this week by Britain’s Overseas Development Institute, have been more effective than food aid in saving lives during recent famines, and are less likely to be diverted. Yet Somali agencies, which use an innovative system of trust to transfer funds, are being punished for the tiny fraction of clients who use their services to finance terrorism and launder ill-gotten gains.

Barclays has extended its deadline for closing the Somali accounts to the end of September. It should extend again to allow time for governments, aid agencies and transfer agencies to work together to find an alternative. In the interim, the onus will be on the UK and other European governments to engage more effectively with the US to ensure that the application of the US Patriot and Bank Secrecy Acts, and the 2010 Executive Order on Somalia, do not have such dire, if unintended, consequences.

As things stand, hundreds of thousands of Somalis will lose their only source of income, remittances will be driven underground where benevolent funding will be even harder to distinguish from illicit flows, and Barclays’ reputation will take a hit. The aid agencies and western governments attempting to strengthen Somalia’s fragile recovery after 22 years of civil war will also be deprived of an essential tool for promoting stability. It is hard to imagine a greater victory for those in Somalia attempting to spoil the peace.

Source: Financial Times