Category: Internal Affairs

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Saturday that U.S. airstrikes targeting al-Shabab in Somalia over the past few days were undertaken because Somali forces are intensifying their offensive against the al-Qaida-affiliated terror group.

“Most recently what’s happened is our partner forces have increased their op[erational] tempo, and they have been pushing back on al-Shabab in a more significant way,” Austin told reporters traveling with him to Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

“The result of that is some engagements that were fairly intense, and we conducted those strikes to support our partner forces,” he added.

U.S. Africa Command targeted al-Shabab with two airstrikes on July 20 and July 23, following a nearly six-month hiatus that began when President Joe Biden took office.

The Somali military has been embroiled in a fierce struggle on the ground with al-Shabab in Galmudug state, the region targeted in both U.S. strikes.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told VOA and other reporters traveling aboard a U.S. military aircraft Friday that U.S. troops were not on the ground with Somali forces during the strikes but were conducting a remote advise-and-assist mission.

Further information was not provided because of “operational security.”

The U.S. military carried out 63 airstrikes against al-Shabab in 2019 and 53 airstrikes last year.

Another seven airstrikes were launched in the first 2½ weeks of 2021, before former U.S. President Donald Trump left office.

U.S. officials explained the slowdown by citing a Biden administration review of the military’s airstrike policy. Senior Somali officials concerned with the lack of strikes had warned it would allow al-Shabab “to come out of hiding.”

Late last month, Africa Command’s commander, General Stephen Townsend, told a virtual defense forum that the spread of terrorism across Africa “has continued relatively unabated,” singling out al-Shabab as a major concern.

“We see threats in Somalia to regional stability,” he said. “We even see threats there to the U.S. homeland.”

Source: Voice of America

Africa became the region hardest hit by terrorism in the first half of 2021 as the Islamic State and al-Qaida extremist groups and their affiliates spread their influence, boasting gains in supporters and territory and inflicting the greatest casualties, U.N. experts said in a new report.

The panel of experts said in a report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Friday that this is “especially true” in parts of West and East Africa where affiliates of both groups can also boast growing capabilities in fundraising and weapons, including the use of drones.

Several of the most successful affiliates of the Islamic State are in its central and west Africa province, and several of al-Qaida’s are in Somalia and the Sahel region, they said.

The experts said it’s “concerning” that these terrorist affiliates are spreading their influence and activities including across borders from Mali into Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger and Senegal as well as incursions from Nigeria into Cameroon, Chad and Niger in West Africa. In the east, the affiliates’ activities have spread from Somalia into Kenya and from Mozambique into Tanzania, they said.

One of “the most troubling events” of early 2021 was the local Islamic State affiliate’s storming and brief holding of Mozambique’s strategic port of Mocimboa da Praia in Cabo Delgado province near the border with Tanzania “before withdrawing with spoils, positioning it for future raids in the area,” the panel said.

Overall, the experts said, COVID-19 continued to affect terrorist activity and both the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, and al-Qaida “continued to gloat over the harm done by the coronavirus disease pandemic to their enemies, but were unable to develop a more persuasive narrative.”

“While ISIL contemplated weaponizing the virus, member states detected no concrete plans to implement the idea,” the panel said.

In Europe and other non-conflict zones, lockdowns and border closures brought on by COVID-19 slowed the movement and gathering of people “while increasing the risk of online radicalization,” it said.

The experts warned that attacks “may have been planned in various locations” during the pandemic “that will be executed when restrictions ease.”

The panel said that in Iraq and Syria, “the core conflict zone for ISIL,” the extremist group’s activities have evolved into “an entrenched insurgency, exploiting weaknesses in local security to find safe havens, and targeting forces engaged in counter-ISIL operations.”

Despite heavy counter-terrorism pressures from Iraqi forces, the experts said Islamic State attacks in Baghdad in January and April “underscored the group’s resilience.”

In Syria’s rebel-held northwest Idlib province, the experts said groups aligned with al-Qaida continue to dominate the area, with “terrorist fighters” numbering more than 10,000.

“Although there has been only limited relocation of foreign fighters from the region to other conflict zones, member states are concerned about the possibility of such movement, in particular to Afghanistan, should the environment there become more hospitable to ISIL or groups aligned with al-Qaida,” the panel said.

In central, south and southeast Asia, the experts said Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates continue to operate “notwithstanding key leadership losses in some cases and sustained pressure from security forces.”

The experts said the status of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri “is unknown,” and if he is alive several unnamed member states “assess that he is ailing, leading to an acute leadership challenge for al-Qaida.”

Source: Voice of America

Standing before a looted mall and surrounded by soldiers, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed Friday to restore order to the country after a week of violence set off by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.

Visiting the port city of Durban in hard-hit KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma’s home area, Ramaphosa said the chaos and violence in which more than 200 people died had been “planned and coordinated” and that the instigators will be prosecuted.

“We have identified a good number of them, and we will not allow anarchy and mayhem to just unfold in our country,” he said. One person has been arrested for instigating the violence and 11 others are under surveillance, officials said.

As army tanks rolled by the trashed Bridge City mall, Ramaphosa said the deployment of 25,000 troops would end the violence and rampant theft that have hit KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces.

South Africa’s unrest erupted after Zuma began serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court for refusing to comply with a court order to testify at a state-backed inquiry investigating allegations of corruption while he was president from 2009-18.

Protests quickly escalated into theft in township areas. In Durban, rioters attacked retail areas and industrial centers where they emptied warehouses and set them alight. The burned-out shells still smoldered Friday.

More than 2,500 people have been arrested for theft and vandalism and 212 people have died, Ramaphosa told the nation later Friday. Many who died were trampled to death when shops were looted, said police.

“The events of the past week were nothing less than a deliberate, coordinated and well-planned attack on our democracy,” said a solemn Ramaphosa. “These actions are intended to cripple the economy, cause social instability and severely weaken – or even dislodge – the democratic state. Using the pretext of a political grievance, those behind these acts have sought to provoke a popular insurrection.”

Ramaphosa reiterated that those who instigated the unrest will be arrested and prosecuted.

“Those responsible for organizing this campaign of violence and destruction have not yet been apprehended and their networks have not yet been dismantled,” said Ramaphosa. “(But) we know who they are and they will be brought to justice.”

He assured South Africans that the country has adequate food and it will be distributed to areas where supplies have been disrupted. He said disruptions to the COVID-19 vaccination drive will be quickly addressed.

Ramaphosa said that the cost of the rioting to South Africa’s economy will be “billions and billions of rands (dollars).” Extensive damage has been caused to 161 malls and shopping centers, 11 warehouses, 8 factories and 161 liquor stores and distributors, he said.

The army rollout in KwaZulu-Natal is expected to restore order in the coastal province within a few days. An uneasy calm has been secured in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and industrial hub.

Two strategic highways linking Durban port to Johannesburg and Cape Town reopened Friday after being closed for a week. The military will patrol the highways, but drivers were warned to use the roads with care.

“It is vitally important to proceed with extreme caution and to stay alert at all times,” the highway authority said in a tweet Friday.

The highways are vital transport routes carrying fuel, food and other goods. Authorities were working to reopen the rail line to the strategic Indian Ocean ports of Durban and Richard’s Bay.

One of the country’s biggest food manufacturers, Tiger Brands, said it has stopped food production operations at its most affected sites in KwaZulu-Natal. The company said it had lost stock worth close to 150 million rand (about $10 million) in the violence.

With order restored in Gauteng, authorities have begun holding residents accountable. Police in Johannesburg have started recovering stolen property and arresting suspects.

There has been an increase in people trying to spend cash stained with green dye, evidence that the money was stolen from the hundreds of ATMs broken into during the riots, according to the South African Banking Risk Information Center, which warned that the notes won’t be honored.

To restore respect for law, the South African Council of Churches has proposed that the government declare a limited amnesty of two weeks when people can return stolen property to the police and will not be charged.

“We need leaders of all faiths everywhere, civic and community leaders, traditional leaders in rural communities, and business and trade unions in the workplace, all of us to pull together and chart a path of restoration,” Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, general secretary of the ecumenical group, wrote in an open letter.

Swift action must be taken against those who plotted the strategic attacks, said Ronnie Kasrils, veteran anti-apartheid leader and former Cabinet intelligence minister.

“This unrest is coming to be seen by government and intelligence services and the president as an actual plot by a group in support of Jacob Zuma … to unleash civil disorder and really to bring the country to its knees,” said Kasrils. “There is the need to root out the plotters and bring forward the allegations, the evidence.”

Source: Voice of America

The conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region appears to be escalating, with reports that Tigrayan and Amhara forces are recruiting more youths to fight in the country’s north. Aid agencies are warning that a drawn-out war in Ethiopia would cost thousands more lives and worsen food insecurity.

Local media reports forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara, Oromia and Sidama region are mobilizing to attack Tigrayan forces, a few weeks after Ethiopia’s government declared a unilateral cease-fire in the country’s north.

Many now fear the fighting in Tigray may turn into an ethnic conflict.

“In the last three-four days, the fighting is over there. The TPLF wants to go back and take some of those lands which belonged to the Amhara, which were taken in the last 27 years. So it seems the Amhara are resisting and fighting back there. So things are not really that great in terms of talking about the suffering of the people there,” Obang Metho who heads the Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia, an organization fighting for social justice told VOA. Metho says the fighting is concentrated at the Tigray-Amhara border.

The disputed territories are the Welkait, Tegede, Humera, Telemte and Raya districts. The Amhara claim the land was taken from them when the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front took control of the national government in 1991.

Amhara, the second biggest ethnic group in Ethiopia, took over some disputed areas between the two federal states in the north of the country last year.

This week, the government in Addis Ababa, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, threatened to end its cease-fire, blaming Tigray rebel forces for provocation.

Ethiopian political commentator Befekadu Hailu says the conflict between the Amhara and Tigray needs a political solution.

“Since Ethiopian politics is shaped by ethnicity and regions are named after ethnic groups, it sounds like the ethnic groups are fighting,” Hailu told VOA. “So very distinct, the Tigray regional state has its own militia force and Amhara regional state has its own militia. So these militias are receiving instructions from their regional governments and they are fighting because they are instructed by their political leaders. So it’s not some random and communal driven conflict but it’s a politically driven one.”

Fisseha Tekle, an Ethiopian researcher for rights group Amnesty International, says civilians are caught in the latest fighting in the north and security forces are carrying out discriminatory arrests.

“The situation remains dire and the conflict seems to escalate this week. But what follows is that since the withdrawal of the Ethiopian national defense force in parts of Tigray, there has been a wave of arrests and detention targeting Tigrayans in Addis and out of Addis. So we have spoken to family members, lawyers and friends of those people who are affected. So it shows that Tigrayans are being targeted by Ethiopian security forces,” Tekle said.

The Tigray conflict has driven some 50,000 people into neighboring Sudan and caused a hunger crisis affecting millions. The region is largely cut off from the rest of the country and aid agencies are struggling to access the area to provide needed humanitarian and medical assistance.

Source: Voice of America

Sudan’s vice president visited South Sudan’s capital on Wednesday to reiterate Khartoum’s support for its neighbor and to urge the government and armed groups to fully implement the 2018 peace agreement.

After meeting with President Salva Kiir, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, vice president of Sudan’s transitional government, said Sudan will continue to offer its support to the peace partners in South Sudan so they can carry out security arrangements and other parts of the deal that have yet to be implemented.

Dagalo commended South Sudan’s leaders for progress made in reconstituting the National Legislative Assembly, the council of states and establishing state governments. He said they need to move more quickly on implementing agreed-to security arrangements, especially the training of government and former rebel forces into a unified army.

“We have been assured that the joint forces are going to be graduated [from training], and this is positive news. And we hope that their graduation should not delay any more because we want to see the second batch go for training as well,” said Dagalo. He said Sudan would be monitoring “this development more closely through the different joint committees,” as a guarantor of the peace deal.

Chapter two of the revitalized peace agreement requires the parties to form a unified army. The first group of forces registered at training centers across the country have remained at the camps for nearly two years.

Dagalo said implementing the peace deal is the only means to guarantee stability in the country.

He added that “a stable South Sudan will mean a stable Sudan.”

Sudan and Uganda are guarantors of South Sudan’s peace deal signed by the parties in September 2018 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The agreement calls for a 36- month transitional period to be followed directly by a national election but several of the document’s key provisions have yet to be carried out.

South Sudanese officials have repeatedly stated that the government lacks the funds needed to implement the deal.

Kiir has complained that sanctions and the arms embargo imposed on the country by the United Nations Security Council have slowed implementation of the peace agreement. Kiir has also insisted that the country is unable to train thousands of joint forces to form a unified army due to a lack of weapons, an assertion that western diplomats and United Nations officials have questioned.

Tut Galuak, Kiir’s security advisor who also heads the country’s peace implementation committee, announced Wednesday that the joint forces will graduate shortly after the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha.

Despite the challenges that lie ahead such as chronic underfunding for training centers, Galuak told reporters the parties are fully committed to implementing the peace deal.

“We are certain in our stance that the peace implementation is going on well. All parties are optimistic about lasting peace in the country,” said Galuak.

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution Tuesday calling for the swift pullout of Eritrean troops from Ethiopia’s embattled northern Tigray region.

The eight-month war between Ethiopian federal forces and Tigray’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, has killed thousands of people, forced some 2 million others to flee their homes and driven about 400,000 into famine.

The council said Eritrean troops were “exacerbating the conflict” that continued Tuesday with the TPLF’s capture of Alamata, the main town in southern Tigray, according to AFP. The town’s reported capture came two weeks after the federal government declared a unilateral cease-fire, following rebel advances.

“What is happening in the Tigray region in Ethiopia is appalling,” said Ambassador Lotte Knudsen, head of the EU delegation to the U.N., which presented the resolution. It is imperative for the Human Rights Council to be able to address this situation.”

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in a statement that “The violence and intimidation of Eritrean refugees must stop. Refugees are civilians in need of and with the right to international protection.”

Eritrea voted against the U.N. resolution to immediately withdraw its troops from the region, which is also a key TPLF demand in cease-fire negotiations.

Fighting between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF broke out in November. Troops from Eritrea, Ethiopia’s neighbor to the north, and Amhara, a neighboring region to the south of Tigray, also entered the conflict in support of the Ethiopian government.

Source: Voice of America

Ten years after gaining independence, some South Sudanese say their struggle for liberation has been supplanted by an autocratic system of government led by the nation’s ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Many of them complain about a lack of freedom to exercise their rights. They accuse the SPLM and President Salva Kiir of doing very little to protect open political space. They and some analysts also blame the SPLM party for a power struggle that turned into a five-and-a-half year civil war.

Deng Mading, the acting SPLM information secretary, admits some in the party’s leadership helped plunge the country into conflict but does not think the SPLM as a whole is to blame for South Sudan’s current rash of problems.

“I will argue that the individuals’ behavior within the SPLM brought a problem into SPLM as an institution,” he told “South Sudan in Focus,” “but the SPLM as an institution on the other side of the argument, it is still like it was in 1983.”

As the SPLM came into power, according to analyst Bobova James at the Juba-based Institute for Social Policy and Research, it knew little about how to establish functioning government structures.

“Then individuals who are actually the leaders within the SPLM took that as an advantage to begin doing things in South Sudan the way they would like,” James told VOA’s “South Sudan in Focus.” He asserts that “If we have leaders who do not understand the democratic rule of law and governance processes, such leaders cannot even be able to introduce some of those processes within a government.”

James decried the level of politicization that has gripped not only the national government in Juba, but also has filtered down through the system.

“At the state level, we have these SPLM structures that once you become a governor of a state and then therefore you become the chairperson of the SPLM; once you become a commissioner of a county, you become the chairperson of the SPLM [there]. There is a lot of ambiguity. There is a lot of illegality within the SPLM itself.”

Freedom of expression is enshrined in the 2012 Political Parties Act and the country’s transitional constitution. Despite those declarations, the government’s various security organizations do not allow opposition politicians to speak openly, said Albino Akol Atak, a senior member of the African National Congress (ANC).

For example, he said, parties are not allowed to hold political rallies.

“If I am trying to conduct, let’s say, a public rally,” Atak told VOA, “the authorities will come in, everybody will want me to get permission from him and this permission is even restricted. I will be asked, ‘What are you going to present in this public rally?’ If this topic is contrary to what they believe, then I will not be given that permission to conduct a public rally.”

In a report released earlier this year, Human Rights Watch documented a number of incidents carried out by National Security Service officers that included the detention of Moses Monday, director of the Organization for Non-Violence. Monday was detained because his organization erected billboards that demanded financial transparency in government spending.

The report also said security officers detained a political activist identified as Kanybil Noon and held him without charge for 117 days. It said Noon was released on condition that he stop criticizing the government.

While defending his party, SPLM’s Mading said that, to ensure good governance, SPLM has committed itself to implementing the 2018 revitalized peace agreement. He said free and open elections are critical to achieving that goal.

“After the elections, people of South Sudan will judge because we need to give people of South Sudan a voice and make your government to be legitimate,” he said.

South Sudanese youth rights activist Wani Stephen Elias also wants people to be able to safely express their opinions.

“Much space should be given for citizens,” he said, “to express their interest in terms of the governance, how they want corruption to be tackled, how education should be, how the health system is they want it to be, then how road infrastructure, leadership and transparency in terms of decision-making process.”

South Sudanese singer Okuta Ciza Malish, 34, popularly known by his stage name Silva X, said that as his country marks a decade of freedom, it is time for its leaders and their government to renew their commitment to the values that drove their struggle for freedom.

“May this 10th anniversary bring us peace, love, unity and freedom and really good security,” he said. “Let’s hope it becomes a restarting point for us to reflect on everything that we did in the past — good or bad — and put a possible way forward that will help every citizen in this country.”

Source: Voice of America