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Security agents killed in central Somalia roadside bomb attack

Al Jazeera | Police say Abdirashid Abdunur, intelligence chief for Dhusamareeb town, was killed in the blast claimed by al-Shabab. A roadside bomb went off just outside the central Somalia town of Dhusamareeb on Sunday, killing 12 agents working for the National Intelligence and Security Agency, police said. Those killed included Abdirashid Abdunur, the head […]

Somalia’s opposition cease recognising president as election row escalates

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – An alliance of Somali opposition parties proposed the creation of a national council of lawmakers, opposition leaders and civil society to govern the Horn of Africa nation after the president’s term expired on Monday with no clear succession plan. The power vacuum and divisions between political leaders was a boost to the […]

Finnish EU envoy to investigate ‘dire’ Ethiopia war

EU Observer | The security situation in Ethiopia was “dire”, as Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto prepared to travel to the region on an EU fact-finding mission. “Nearly three months after the start of the conflict … the security situation in Tigray [a region of Ethiopia] remains dire, with reports of localised fighting especially in […]

Militants Storm Hotel in Somali Capital and Blasts Rock Area

NYT | The authorities said there were reports of at least two dead and 11 injured at the Afrik Hotel. A militant group, the Shabab, was believed to be behind the attack. NAIROBI, Kenya — Militants with the extremist group al-Shabab stormed a major hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday evening, the authorities said, […]

UAE: The scramble for the Horn of Africa

MEMO | The United Arab Emirates is waging a war for influence over the Horn of Africa. Since the 2011 Arab Spring the United Arab Emirates has been taking an active role in a number of hotspots from Egypt, Libya to Yemen. The Gulf nation has spent $26 billion annually on its defence budget since […]

Biden Administration Faces Mounting Pressure to Act in Ethiopian Conflict

The Washington Free Bacon | Millions in peril of starvation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the State Department Thursday to demand the Biden administration take immediate action in Ethiopia to combat a humanitarian crisis that has left thousands dead. The protesters called on newly confirmed secretary of state Antony Blinken to […]

Somali men ‘forced into Eritrean army’ under impression they were signing up for security jobs in Qatar

The Telegraph | The men are thought to be being sent to Tigray to fight in Ethiopia’s civil war. Anger is mounting in Somalia over allegations young men are being secretly recruited and sent to Eritrea to fight in Ethiopia’s civil war. Three families told Reuters their young sons had officially been recruited by Somalia’s […]

Anger in Somalia as sons secretly sent to serve in Eritrea military force

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping prepare for next year’s soccer World Cup. Then one day last April, officials from Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency arrived with $10,000 in cash. They told him his son had died – not in Qatar, but in Eritrea, […]

Parents of Somali soldiers fear sons fighting in Ethiopia

Mogadishu (AFP) | Somalia is under growing pressure to explain the fate of soldiers whose families fear they were secretly deployed from training camps in neighbouring Eritrea to fight in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. The government has strenuously denied allegations that Somali troops were sent to battlefields in Tigray, where Ethiopian federal troops have been fighting […]

The Three-Country Alliance Against Tigray Might Jeopardize Ethiopia’s Future – Analysis

Eurasia Review | Martin Plaut The Tigray war has turned into an all-out conflict, pitting Tigrayan forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation front (TPLF) against Ethiopian federal troops, the Eritrean army, Amhara militia and – as revealed last week – Somali soldiers. Despite what would seem to be overwhelming odds against them, the Tigrayans appear to […]