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MOGADISHU — Yemen’s Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi warned Monday that any Israeli presence in North Western State of Somalia would be treated as a military target, escalating tensions days after Israel announced it would recognize the self-declared republic in the Horn of Africa. “We consider any Israeli presence in North Western State of Somalia a military target for our armed forces, as it constitutes aggression against Somalia and Yemen, and a threat to the security of the region,” al-Houthi said, according to a…

Somalia begins counting votes after Mogadishu’s landmark one-person, one-vote poll Mogadishu — Somalia’s National Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission on Thursday night said ballot counting is underway after polls closed across the capital for the Banadir Regional Council elections, the city’s first one-person, one-vote ballot in more than five decades. Commission Chairperson Abdikarim Ahmed Hassan told national media that voting ran from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time and proceeded calmly and in an orderly manner…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday it has uncovered more than a million additional documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case, delaying a congressionally mandated release of records under the Epstein Files Transparency Act as officials review the material for legally required redactions. In a social media post, the department said the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI informed Justice officials of the trove, prompting DOJ lawyers to “work around the clock”…

Mogadishu’s municipal elections are more than a local contest; they are a stress test for Somalia’s long-promised transition from elite bargaining to citizen-driven governance. If they hold, they could become the clearest step yet toward the country’s first direct national elections in more than half a century. For decades, Somalia’s political order has been defined by indirect electoral arrangements and power-sharing formulas negotiated among clans and political elites. Those frameworks helped stabilize a state battered by…

Somalia’s latest political confrontation is more than a quarrel over election dates. It is a stress test of the country’s post-debt-relief political order—and, by extension, of the international state-building model that has underwritten Mogadishu’s progress for more than a decade. At the center is the National Consultation Conference, an opposition-aligned gathering that closed this week in Kismayo with a stark indictment of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government. Its communiqué accuses the presidency of…

Somalia’s 2026 choice: avoid a legitimacy crisis by fixing the election model, not the scoreboard Somalia is entering another high-stakes transition with too little time, too much polarization, and a volatile security map. The federal government’s drive to centralize authority while invoking universal suffrage risks breaking the very political settlement that has held the country together — imperfectly but functionally — for a quarter century. A safer way through 2026 is available: an improved, time-bound indirect election…

Analysis: Somalia’s ‘one person, one vote’ push risks crisis without consensus and constitutional safeguards Somalia’s federal government is advancing a “one person, one vote” election model it says will anchor the country’s democratic transition. But the process, as described by Puntland State State Minister of the Presidency Abdifatah Abdinur, suffers from deep constitutional, legal and practical flaws that threaten to compound — not resolve — Somalia’s political fragility. The concerns revolve around three pillars of any…

MINNEAPOLIS — The takedown happened in seconds: masked federal agents sprinting toward a 20-year-old Somali American as he stepped from a restaurant, forcing him through a doorway and pinning him against a metal gate. “Why are you running?” one demanded in the bystander video, despite footage showing he had stopped. Moments later, as snow gathered on his jacket, an arm slid around his neck and he was shoved into an unmarked gray SUV while neighbors shouted that he is a citizen. The man, who asked to be identified as Mubashir…

Opinion: Trump’s “garbage” slur against Somali Americans shows how fascist politics take root President Donald Trump’s latest attack on Somali Americans — calling a small, visible community “garbage” during a Cabinet meeting, with Vice President J.D. Vance pounding the table in approval — is not a gaffe. It is a governing philosophy made plain: divide the country into “real” Americans and internal enemies, cast cruelty as strength, and test how far institutions will bend to accommodate it. This is not a semantic debate about…

Spain paved the way on Friday for a solution to a dispute over Western Sahara, which has been claimed by Morocco for almost 50 years, suggesting that making the region operate autonomously under Rabat's rule is "the most serious, realistic and credible" initiative. . This marked a huge departure from Spain's previous position to regard Morocco's grip on Western Sahara as an occupation. The shift followed months of frosty diplomatic relations and led to the announcement of a flurry of visits by Spanish…