The work of a former government accountant again exposes financial confusion and crime on a grand scale
While February’s London Conference on Somalia sought ways out of the military and political quagmire, a former civil servant in the Transitional Federal Government was documenting ...
Privately, diplomats in Mogadishu agree that the reports by Abdirizak Jama ‘Fartaag’ are the best source of financial information about the Mogadishu government.
Vol 53 No 5 |
- SOMALIA
- BRITAIN
Whispers of possible negotiations with Al Shabaab were drowned out by the drums of war
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) may have been hosting the London Conference on Somalia but there was no doubting that Downing Street was in the driving seat.
Vol 53 No 4 |
- SOMALIA
- BRITAIN
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s grand conference will bring together many parties but no one is forecasting a breakthrough
After two decades of political mayhem, Somalis and more perspicacious foreign diplomats are intensely sceptical about high-level conferences. Many approach the London Conference on...
In Africa Confidential Vol 53 No 1, we wrote that Al Qaida commander Fazul Abdullah Mohamed had been killed by a United States drone in June 2011 (‘The war goes regional’). In fact...
Intervention by Kenya and Ethiopia will drive Al Shabaab from its strongholds but won’t produce a viable government
Military successes by African forces against the Islamist militia Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen have changed the dynamics of the conflict. However, they are far from tackling ...
Somaliland has launched an aggressive effort to attract oil companies. At the African Oil Week conference in Cape Town last month, the Minister of Mining, Energy and Water Resource...
Vol 52 No 24 |
- KENYA
- SOMALIA
The war in Somalia gives President Mwai Kibaki’s government a leading role for which it looks ill-prepared
Six weeks into the fighting, unintended consequences haunt Kenya’s invasion of Somalia: rising xenophobia, terrorist attacks in Nairobi and other local insecurity, and changes in E...
Vol 52 No 24 |
- ETHIOPIA
- SOMALIA
Ethiopian troops have gone into Somalia to support the Kenyan deployment, although Prime Minister Meles Zenawi remains sceptical about the operation. Ethiopia wants to maintain its...
Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia is less than a month old but is already the subject of contradictory statements by the government and its Western allies. Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen is under threat from the Kenya Armed Forces and their allies’ Special Forces and air power but the invasion also offers opportunities. Al Shabaab may be able to recoup some recent losses if Lower and Middle Juba end up controlled by Kenyan surrogate forces that alienate local people. The offensive shows, however, that the United States and its allies have faith in a military solution to the Somali problem. Kenyan forces are pushing towards Kismayo in a land assault that will combine with attacks by French and US forces from the sea to spell possible defeat for Al Shabaab in the key port. Yet with no political solution on offer, Al Shabaab could revive.
Kenya’s intervention in Somalia was first announced on 15 October by Minister of Internal Security George Kinuthia Saitoti and Minister of Defence Mohamed Yusuf Haji, and it was o...
