Eye on Africa

MOGADISHU, Somalia - UN Chief Envoy to Somalia James Swan held a closed-door meeting on Sunday with Security Chief General Abdi Hassan on the agenda of the long-awaited election, which would begin in November 2020. Secretary-General Hassan is police commissioner and is tasked with providing homeland security in the Horn of Africa, which has struggled with insecurity for decades due to growing al-Shabaab attacks and conflicts between clans that have tracked efforts to restore normalcy in the country. Sources familiar…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Newly nominated Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble met with federal lawmakers on Sunday, just three days after President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo unveiled him pending approval from the lower house, which has a constitutional mandate to cultivate him before taking office. Although it is not clear what he told MPs, Roble was pictured with dozens of those who will formally approve his appointment in the coming weeks. The name will be presented to the House in the coming weeks by the relevant…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire held a closed door meeting on Sunday with Senate Spokesman Abdi Hashi in Mogadishu, just days after stakeholders signed an agreement to see the country go to the polls after days of internal war. Several sources told Axadlethat the two leaders discussed the transition period witnessed by Somalia and the journey towards the expected new government, which is expected to be constituted by 2021, when the country elects a new president through a…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The United Nations has promised to work closely with Somalia, a country that has fought conflicts between the clans and the Al-Shabaab threat, just as the global agency is celebrating its 75th anniversary and when Somalia is eager to hold credible elections that unite all stakeholders. For the past 60 years, Somalia has been a member of the United Nations and remains one of the largest recipients of disaster management and many disasters that have badly affected the nation. Somalia plunged into…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was partly responsible for the failure of the election of a one-man vote in Somalia, a top position has sensationally claimed and argued that his administration failed to exploit and reform the electoral system. In a gibberish against Farmajo, Wadajir party leader Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame insisted the country was plundering the possibility of electing leaders in the vote as in many countries, adding that Villa Somalia "failed the people at the most…

ADDIS ABABA - Ethiopia has filed terrorism charges against a prominent media mogul and opposition politician from the Oromo ethnic group, Jawar Mohammed, the Attorney General's Office said on Saturday. Jawar, the founder of the Oromiya Media Network and a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress party, was arrested in June amid widespread unrest following the assassination of popular Oromo musician Haacaaluu Hundeessaa. Jawar and 22 other activists, including Oromo opposition leader Bekele Garba, face charges of…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The Somali National Army Troops have been warned about the misuse of firearms across the country, following new reports of increasing cases of violence by military men, which have raised questions about the relationship between civilians and security forces. Chief of the Military Court Colonel Hassan Ali Nor fired warning against SNA troops as he visited the contingent serving in Balad-Hawo in the Gedo region just inside the Kenya-Somalia border. The troops have been guarding the city since…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militants have for the first time released photos allegedly of a U.S. drone that crashed into their stronghold while on a surveillance mission, sending a stern warning to the military about the operations being carried out against them in the country. For several months, soldiers have been attached to the Somali National Army , the troops of the African Union mission and the US African Command have conducted operations against the militants, especially in the Shebelle…

KISMAYO, Somalia - A top Kenya defense force Commander-in-Chief on Thursday held a closed door meeting with a section of the Somali National Army management serving in the unstable Gedo region just months after reported differences between the two security teams. Earlier this year, SNA troops accused the KDF team of supporting Jubaland forces, leading to an altercation in the town of Balad-Hawo on the common border between Kenya and Somalia. Hundreds of residents were displaced during clashes. But African Union…

NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya police arrested 12 Somali nationals in the northeastern city of Garissa on Saturday, a senior police chief confirmed, and they will be arrested in court for explaining the motive behind their trip to the East African country without proper documentation. The 12 foreigners are said to have sneaked across the porous border without valid documentation, the official said in an incident that raises questions about the country's effectiveness in managing the borders, which has been an elephant in…