Somali

Somali forces press offensive in central region, claim dozens of al-Shabaab fighters killed MOGADISHU — Somali National Army units, backed by international partners, said they killed a number of al-Shabaab militants over the weekend in a pitched battle in central Somalia’s Galgaduud region as government forces step up efforts to wrest control of towns and villages from the insurgents. Fighting in Nooleye In a statement, the Somali defence ministry said the operation in and around Nooleye village lasted several hours and…

Kenya’s Somali Vote Emerges as 2027 Kingmaker — and a Test of the Country’s Coalitions On a blustery afternoon in Mandera, near the triple border where Kenya meets Ethiopia and Somalia, the political message was as direct as the dusty road to the venue: the Somali community will count, perhaps more than ever, in the 2027 election. Suna East MP Junet Mohamed, a seasoned operative known for his sharp tongue and long-time loyalty to opposition leader Raila Odinga, stood alongside President William Ruto and said the quiet part…

Somalia’s president heads to UN with security gains and a moral case on Gaza Mogadishu’s message to New York MOGADISHU — As world leaders converge on the United Nations General Assembly this week, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud departs for New York carrying two intertwined narratives: a plea for continued international backing for Somalia’s fragile state-building and a sharp moral rebuke over the war in Gaza that echoes across the Global South. For Mogadishu, the UNGA trip is part diplomacy, part scoreboard.…

Somalia’s Deputy Foreign Minister meets Sen. Ted Cruz as North Western State of Somalia recognition debate intensifies On a quiet Saturday in Washington, a meeting that might have passed as routine diplomacy was anything but. Somalia’s deputy foreign minister, Ali Omar Ali—widely known by his nickname, Balcad—sat down with Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and has emerged as one of the most vocal advocates in Washington for recognizing North Western State of…

Somalia’s identity shake-up: a bid to reclaim control sparks questions about reach and rights MOGADISHU — In a forceful televised address that mixed alarm at security risks with the blunt tools of statecraft, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced a sweeping overhaul of how Somalis are identified: passports, he said, will no longer be the primary credential for accessing government or private services. Instead, the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) card must be used — and those who refuse to…

Somalia’s push for direct vote exposes fault lines between Mogadishu and the regions When Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre insists Somalia is moving away from "lawmakers appointed by clan elders or regional administrations" toward a system in which "representatives elected directly by the Somali people," he is sketching a future that is both aspirational and deeply contested. The proposal — to replace a decades-old, clan-based indirect model with universal suffrage and to shift governance toward a presidential system — has…

Somali Woman Sentenced Over $1.2 Million Transfers: A Case That Raises Hard Questions About Remittances, Terror Finance and Justice Mogadishu — A rare court ruling and the broader stakes A Mogadishu court on Monday handed a 15-year prison sentence to Nadiifo Hassan Abdulkadir Abdulle after prosecutors said she routed $1,237,010 through her bank account to finance Al-Shabaab, launder money and support terrorist activities. The Banaadir Regional Court also fined her $20,000, ordered the closure of the account and ordered…

Somalia’s Public Embrace of Qatar Signals Shifting Alignments in the Gulf–Horn of Africa Nexus DOHA — When Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud stepped into the Amiri Diwan in Doha on Monday, he did more than pay a diplomatic courtesy call. In a terse, unequivocal statement — “The Somali government and its people stand in full solidarity with our Qatari brothers. We will not accept any violation of the sovereignty or stability of the State of Qatar” — Mohamud signalled a wider intent: to knit Somalia closer to a Gulf…

Somali premier’s public vow of loyalty to president rekindles debate over power and principle From a town hall in Mogadishu, a simple line set off a storm MOGADISHU — When Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre told a packed town hall that he “respects the president and will not act in a way that contradicts his leadership,” the words landed as both balm and warning. To some in the room they were a sign of cohesion at a fraught moment; to others they echoed a deeper question about the balance of power in Somalia’s fragile state.…

How a U.S. child‑nutrition fraud stretched from Minnesota to Nairobi — and what it reveals about pandemic-era crimes The U.S. Department of Justice’s recent indictment of two Kenyan brothers accused of laundering millions tied to a multimillion‑dollar scheme to steal federal child‑nutrition money reads like a study in how local corruption can quickly become transnational. At stake were dollars intended to feed children in American schools; according to prosecutors, some of that money ended up in apartments near Nairobi…