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Hundreds of US forces conduct secret operations in Somalia: report
Hundreds of US forces conduct secret operations in Somalia: report
American troops carry out secret operations in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, according to local sources.
Sun Jun 24, 2012 12:34PM GMT
Hundreds of the US military troops have been deployed in Somalia for secret operations in the capital Mogadishu, Press TV reports.
At least 390 American troops have been training local soldiers secretly in Somali training bases over the past two months, Somali military sources said on Sunday.
Somali military officer Abdiwahab Mohamed Ali told Press TV that at least 390 American forces, including 38 officers have secretly reached the Mogadishu international airport.
The American troops have also set up secret jails in the country and inject dangerous drugs to Somali soldiers, according to sources.
The report came following two Friday US assassination drone attacks on al-Shabab fighters’ Harweyne training base in Elasha Biyaha on the outskirts of the capital, which claimed the lives of at least 39 people.
Earlier in January, the White House officially admitted in a report that it is launching concerted deadly attacks in Somalia as part of its campaign against the war on terror and the al-Qaeda militant group.
Washington has been using assassination drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia and claims that it is targeting terrorists in the operations, but civilians have often been killed in the strikes.
Friday, May 18, 2012
In Loving Memory of Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar By Nur Bahal May 17, 2012
By Nur BahalMay 17, 2012
It is with an exceptionally heavy heart and sadness that I am writing this tribute about my very close friend Dr. Abdishakur Sheikh Ali Jowhar – May Allah, the Almighty, rest his soul in peace and open the doors of Paradise for him.
Dr. Jawhar
There is so much to say about him that I feel bewildered at the thought of even writing this. He was a thinker, an intellectual, a daring pioneer, a conscientious humanist, an uncompromising advocate of peace and above all a miracle-giving healer.
His training in Psychiatry seemed to have prepared him for the unbearable sore sports of the Somali political landscape. Like a hawk, he watched the unending traumatic episodes of mass killings and aggression committed against human beings in the name of tribal politics masquerading as nation building. And like sage he always found ways to address it and call it to the attention of the sane. And as if his words were a palliative that may ease the pain and suffering of the aggressed, he never spared to find ways to describe them, ways to soothe the pain of the aggressed, unyielding souls. Time and again, he repeated his prescription for Somalia and despite vehement disagreements from Somalis and non-Somalis alike, the path of the unfolding events continue to give overwhelming credence to the doctor’s theory that “No person of sound mind will dare to predict or prescribe a solution for the Somali crisis. This much is clear however. The solution to the Somali crisis will not be more war, more hatred or more vengeance. Nor will it be about a strong man massacring his way to a Machiavellian peace based on fear and intimidation and corrupted “reconciliation conferences”. The African soil is littered with the carnage caused by strong men whose main weapon was the creation of inter-tribal death squads and hatred in search of personal power and personal glory. The solution to the crisis will not cost money. Indeed money poured from foreign sources will only fuel the crisis as combatants engage in deadly manoeuvres to guarantee their share on the basis of established reality on the ground.”1 His conscientious concerns stretched to all humanity with special attention to the Somalis and the rest of Africa whose leadership seems to be plagued by the same demonic behaviour.
Dr. Abdishakur dared to blatantly confront, and in no uncertain terms, corruption and clannism when the perceived aggressor comes from his tribal backyard. The Gadabursi Manifesto earned him the wrath of his fellow kinsmen and women but it contained the ultimate truth of the contemporary politics of the Somalis and these are the pitfalls that he dared to tackle. “The Gadabuursi tribe enters into a covenant with the nation that it will not allow this President (the son of the tribe) to appeal overtly or covertly to the primitive irrational tribal instinct to hijack national justice, to cover up corrupt practices or to curb the freedom of the citizens of the nation. …The Gadabuursi have no desire for national suicide; no appetite for the rule of a despot and the death of a nation.
Let there be peace for every citizen, justice for every citizen, prosperity for every citizen”2
In this instant, the nation that Abdishakur referred to is Somaliland but it will equally hold true if any other tribe is substituted for Gadabursi and any nation is substituted for Somaliland. Abdishakur was a passionate believer in the secession of Somaliland and I, on the other hand, ardently believe in the unity of Somalia. Yet, we always seemed to be at ease with each other. We always sought each others council and we bounced ideas off each other. That can only be true when people believe in the art of communication; we both believed in that problems can become sticking issues when the channels of communication break down; we both believed that what cannot be settled through dialogue cannot be settled by war.
As the ultimate humanist and an unyielding advocate for peace, Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar lamented the wars on every corner of Somalia and even challenged his own tribe to physically and emotionally harness the powers of restraint when the four travelers where killed in Gabiley on their way to Borama: “…And I must now address those in my tribe who has become possessed by the demons of vengeance, who dream of basking in its blooded glory, I say to you give me few moments of your precious time, for I too belong to the tribe and I too feel the pain”.3
And in the direst hopes that his words would bring back the sense of the murders he wrote: “… to these hate mongering tribal fringe I say: if your heart is already taken, and your soul is a prisoner to the master of darkness (Shaitan), if he has already locked up your ears and my words feel remote, inaudible, naïve, simpleminded and cowardly, in this case pray with me the two Rak’at of Salaat al Al-Istakhara (the prayers and supplication for guidance and counsel). Allah (SWT) is the most strong, the most wise and the most powerful, He will deliver you from the clutches of the demon. He will open your ears to me and soften your heart to my words”.4
The Sudden death of Dr. Abdishakur was a great loss to the Somali community everywhere. But there is no place where he will be missed more than in Toronto. As a practicing psychiatrist, Dr. Jowhar came to Toronto at a time when the rate of mental disease in the Somali community was at a peak. When there was not one Somali who did not know at least two or three people suffering from some kind of mental disorder. This is common for a society ravaged by conflict for such a long time. Yet, most of these victims of mental issues did not find the optimum care and medications they deserved even in a country as advanced as Canada. And the reason was very simple: language barriers on the part of the ailing persons and their interpreters, in most cases, conspired to the detriment of the sick individuals who then were prescribed the wrong medications according to the symptoms they or their interpreters gave to the doctor. After one of the many conferences that the Late Dr. Abdishakur organized for the Somali community, he said that language makes all the difference. “Habeen iyo maalin waxbaa ila hadla, waa la iga dhex guuxaya, madaxaa la igaga jiraa”. These are some of the terms that he understood very well whose extrapolations or interpretation into English could have far different meanings; very simple understanding with life-changing results. According to the late Dr. Abdishakur, simply changing the medications produced an amazing improvement for the overwhelming majority of the Somali patients. In a very short time, he became a household name for the Toronto community.
He recently moved back home to do his part in heeling the mentally ailing individuals society in Somaliland and Somalia. Patients were brought to him in from far and wide as far away as Merka and Kisamayo. To all his patients and friends, I would like to ask them to recite one ayah of the Glorious Qur’an for him. That vacuum that he left cannot be filled. But we can try to honour his role and instead of Let us fill that vacuum with the joy of the good memories we shared with him. May Allah bless his soul and open the doors of paradise for him. Aamiin.
Nur Bahal
Toronto Canada
Email: hildiid@gmail.com
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Government offers humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in country's future energy industry
Government offers humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in country's future energy industry.
Engineers and visitors explore an exploratory well near Dharoor town in Puntland
Engineers and visitors tour an exploratory well in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. Photograph: Reuters
The Observer home
Mark Townsend and Tariq Abdinasir
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Britain is involved in a secret high-stakes dash for oil in Somalia, with the government offering humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in the beleaguered country's future energy industry.
Riven by two decades of conflict that have seen the emergence of a dangerous Islamic insurgency, Somalia is routinely described as the world's most comprehensively "failed" state, as well as one of its poorest. Its coastline has become a haven for pirates preying on international shipping in the Indian Ocean.
David Cameron last week hosted an international conference on Somalia, pledging more aid, financial help and measures to tackle terrorism. The summit followed a surprise visit by the foreign secretary, William Hague, to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, where he talked about "the beginnings of an opportunity'' to rebuild the country.
The Observer can reveal that, away from the public focus of last week's summit, talks are going on between British officials and Somali counterparts over exploiting oil reserves that have been explored in the arid north-eastern region of the country. Abdulkadir Abdi Hashi, minister for international cooperation in Puntland, north-east Somalia – where the first oil is expected to be extracted next month – said: "We have spoken to a number of UK officials, some have offered to help us with the future management of oil revenues. They will help us build our capacity to maximise future earnings from the oil industry."
British involvement in the future Somali oil industry would be a boon for the UK economy and comes at a time when the world is increasingly concerned about the actions of Iran, the second-biggest oil producer in Opec.
Hashi, in charge of brokering deals for the region's oil reserves, also said Somalia was looking to BP as the partner they wanted to "help us explore and build our oil capacity". He added: "We need those with the necessary technical knowhow, we plan to talk to BP at the right time."
Somali prime minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said his government had little choice but to entice western companies to Somalia by offering a slice of the country's natural resources, which include oil, gas and large reserves of uranium. "The only way we can pay [western companies] is to pay them in kind, we can pay with natural resources at the fair market value."
Britain is not the only country looking to develop Somalia's vast natural resources. Last month oil exploration began in Puntland by the Canadian company Africa Oil, the first drilling in Somalia for 21 years. Hashi, who sealed the Africa Oil deal, said the first oil was expected to be extracted within the next "20 to 30 days".
The company estimates there could be up to 4bn barrels (about $500bn worth at today's prices) in its two drilling plots. Other surveys indicate that Puntland province alone has the potential to yield 10bn barrels, placing it among the top 20 countries holding oil. Chinese and US firms are among those understood to have also voiced interest about the potential for oil now that, for the first time in 20 years, the country is safe enough to drill.
Yet it is the extent of oil deposits beneath the Indian Ocean that is most exciting Somali officials. One said the potential was comparable to that of Kuwait, which has more than 100bn barrels of proven oil reserves. If true, the deposits would eclipse Nigeria's reserves – 37.2bn barrels – and make Somalia the seventh largest oil-rich nation.
The state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation has tried to acquire an interest in Somalia's reserves. Senior officials from the Somali transitional government are adamant that the imminent extraction of oil in Puntland next month would kickstart a scramble from the multinationals.
On Thursday, the last day of the London conference, BP and Shell unveiled an initiative to support job-creation projects in the coastal regions of Somalia. A subsidiary of Shell was thought to have acquired exploration concessions in Puntland before the descent into lawlessness in 1991.
A BP spokesman said there were "no plans" to work in Somalia and no official had recently visited the country.
Source: The Observer
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Your Brain May Be "Wired" For Addiction (But You Don't Have To Surrender)
Your Brain May Be "Wired" For Addiction (But You Don't Have To Surrender)
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Image by Getty Images via @daylife
The problem with studying behaviors (and also what makes them so cool) is that there are both psychological and biological components to them. After all, you can’t have a behavior without some cellular activity to go along with it. But even mapping out the biology behind behaviors doesn’t explain everything, since there’s always the lingering question of which came first, the chick or the egg: or here, whether differences in the brain lead to a given behavior, or whether it’s the other way around.
Researchers at Cambridge setup a wonderfully simple study to address some of these issues. We know that there’s a strong family component to addiction – but it’s not been clear whether it’s the brain changes that are handed down through the generations or the family environment in which one grows up that’s conducive to developing addictions (the old nature/nurture question). It’s also known that people who are addicts seem to have deficits in self-control, which is even seen in differences in certain areas of the brain that govern it. But whether it’s brain changes that are actually handed down from parent to child, and make some families more prone to addiction, had yet to be shown.
To figure out the answer to this question, the researchers studied pairs of siblings, one of whom was a drug addict and the other of whom was not. The pairs took a “stop-signal test,” in which one has to stop a particular action whenever one gets a cue to do so. Earlier studies have shown that because the test challenges your self-control – or your capacity to inhibit your own behavior – the test correlates well with addiction risk. Unrelated pairs of people did the same task, serving as controls.
The siblings – regardless of whether they were addicts or non-addicts – took significantly longer to halt their behavior than the control group. This could suggest that self-control runs in families, and the level of self-control between siblings is similar, regardless of whether they are addicts or not (more on this in a sec).
But do these behavioral differences correspond to brain changes? They seem to. Another part of the study looked at some of the brain’s white matter tracks, which serve as the lines of communication between brain cells in different areas. In the sibling pairs, there were deficiencies in the tracks that connected the emotion areas of the brain to the ones that govern self-control. So in other words, both addicted and non-addicted siblings had deficits in the connections involved in telling one to stop the behavior that one is engaged in.
The sibling pairs also had enlargements in the gray matter (brain cells) in regions that are known to be involved in addiction. All of these changes, in white and gray matter, could have “predisposed” the [siblings] to drug-taking,” the researchers conclude.
If you find this depressing because you have a relative who’s an addict (or come from a long line of addicts), don’t despair. Remember, one of each pair did not take drugs. Even with their “predisposed” brains, one sibling did not succumb to their brain morphology and become drug-addicted. It’s not totally clear why, but among the many reasons, it could have to do with minor differences in upbringing, and/or other variations in the brains of the un-addicted siblings, like some yet undiscovered “resilience factors that counteract the familial vulnerability.” Put another way, there are probably things going on in the unaddicted siblings’ brains/personalities that could help protect them and explain why they didn’t “succumb” to addiction.
The research also has implications for other disorders, like ADHD and OCD, in which people have problems in regulating their behavior. In fact the authors say that “like addiction, OCD is characterized by dysfunctional habits and ‘out-of-control’ behavior.” And in ADHD, people cannot ignore the stimuli that they should, which could be due in part to a faulty control center in the brain. Drug addiction involves a similar (albeit perhaps more severe) lapse in control: “Pathological habits in drug addiction typically result in compulsive drug-taking behaviors when prefrontal control fails to regulate behavior,” the authors say.
More research will be needed to understand how drug addiction is passed on, but the new study gives some nice clues into how “predisposition” may be transmitted. Just remember, your brain may be set up to lean in one direction, but you don’t have to follow it.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
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